quote:

Timing either makes things inconvenient for players with school, or with work, or with juggling vacations for that matter. There is no pleasing everyone involved, and while I can be infinitely lenient with some form of advance warning, I am merciless in its absence.

spoiler:


The sigils denoting the descending entrance into the familiar domains of Cellar were simple, a pair of doors opening skyward with the impression of stairs. Despite this simple sigil, the storied tales of fights in Championships past that have been held within its domain are legend. Each year, new highlights are added to the great scrolling fresco engraved into the walls of the spiral staircase, welcoming competitors on the last stage of their journey to the fight. So too did a curious scroll greet them halfway down, the ancient warning to abandon the thought of healing within while hinting at the reflective nature of its walls. It had been moved, and the most adept of competitors might feel something decidedly eldritch happening as they crossed passed the invisible threshold which that scroll represented, their journey turning truly their own…

It was a curious thing, those depths of Cellar. By courting despair, it held tight the seeds of Hope within.

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Ancient gateways, relics of a bygone age pulled from the very bones of Lore, greeted each competitor as they moved past the last of the steps onto their own individual waiting areas. Tension nearly sang in the air as these imposing works of history-made-stone sat silently, until in perfect unison, they yawned open to reveal the Cellar beyond. A wave of humidity, heavy with the scent of fecundity, washes through those great doors. This is not the parched and dry Cellar all had come to expect! Creeper vines wove their way overhead through a forest of stalactites, ghostly white for the lack of sun so deep beneath the earth. They sweat dew, which lazily dripped from their rocky perches, creating puddles strewn across the smoothed stone floor. Luminous lichen cast its pale light from the four great support pillars, but the fungi was in full bloom, casting a sweet, alluring scent into the aerial mix.

This light, pale and ghostly, reflected off the smoothly curved mirrors which ringed Cellar’s walls and as the doors closed, so too were the gaps in this border. Spectators could safely watch on behind these ensorcelled walls, peering through the mirrors at the competitors, and no other arena could boast such a visceral thrill as watching a fireball coming at the face only to rebound like a master of pool to strike an unwary opponent’s back. They watched on, in rapt anticipation, as guides in each section took up the announcement in curious unison. “And we now stand witness to the challenge...of the Cellar Caverns.”