Prizes in the Stomach

The first round taught the rules by making everyone bleed for them. Ash understood the violence part immediately. He crossed the field fast, dropping goblins with fists and kicks while asking, more or less, if this was how the game was played. Victor followed with chromatic fire on his weapon and cut down more. Nick joined the opening sweep. Dhaz moved through the field with blade-arms ready, learning that the trees did not behave like normal cover so much as another strange arena boundary. Killing goblins was only step one. The prizes were inside them. That was where the game became crueler and stranger. Contestants had to cut into the bodies and search. Good checks produced pouches: gold, rings, scrolls. Bad checks triggered hidden explosions. Maine learned that immediately when one goblin detonated under his search, forcing him to twist away from the blast. Later Ash, Dhaz, Igor, and Maine's magic all had their own version of the same lesson: the arena rewarded scavenging but punished sloppy hands. The other contestants played too. Araspinn moved with quiet efficiency, killing and looting without explaining herself. Rifleton Rob treated the field like a professional job, cutting down goblins and collecting pouches as if this was an ugly but familiar revenue stream. Competition was not theoretical. Every body could become someone else's prize if they reached it first. The party adapted. Victor found a pouch with gold, then later a ring. Nick found gold and then a scroll. Jonah summoned Igor to help search, and Igor proudly handed over a pouch of thirty gold before learning that not every body was safe to open. Maine tried to get clever with Unseen Servant and Mage Hand, looking for ways to search bodies without putting flesh near the blast. The game pushed back on loopholes. Some tricks worked, some did not, and every workaround revealed another edge of the rules. Ash took issue with Rifleton Rob looting bodies the party had killed. Maine used the chaos to steal from a stunned Rob. Araspinn punished Nick's competitive gesture with a spider-bolt that restrained him, making it clear she was not only a quiet contestant but an active threat if crossed. The round was not just player versus goblin. It was player versus game, player versus trap, and sometimes player versus contestant. By the end of the opening scramble, the arena had established its language. Violence created opportunity. Opportunity required scavenging. Scavenging carried risk. Prizes were real, but so were punishments. And somewhere above them, those sealed containers still hung, waiting to reveal what the game was actually holding over each contestant.