As Kat hit the floor, she felt the disgusting feeling of Thyme's teleportation wrap her up and carry her away. As she travelled though, something strange happened the feeling of wrongness was worse this time, but as she travelled the sickly green distorted.
Kat only had another moment to ponder the strange distortion before she was thrown out somewhere and hit the ground face down.
"Ah, hmmm, well" said Thyme from somewhere "Can't have our winner face down in the dirt can we. Just one moment"
Kat felt something light touch her back, but no improvement in her condition. "Hmm, ooh" Thyme clicked their tongue. "Well, that certainly wasn't what I was hoping"
Thyme clicked their fingers and Kat felt something wrap around her. Vines wrapped around her pulling her up into a sitting position, and then secured her head to the back of the chair. As this was happening more vines positioned her legs, so they were crossed.
From a distance it looked more like Kat was a regal Queen sitting on a throne of brambles and vines rather than the half-conscious demon she was in reality. "That will have to do I'm afraid. I can't do much better" said Thyme
Kat wanted to nod in appreciation but that was beyond her at the moment. She could however see Thyme, and behind him the rest of the contestants except Grace. They were all in matching sets of chairs based on team.
The God Crushers had interactively carved stone chairs and while they were all smiling and in good condition as if they'd had a nice relaxing vacation instead of just coming from a death game.
The team of elves had chairs made out of leaves as if they were little fairies sitting on the edge of a tree. Each of their chairs did actually seem to come out of one of several branches that grew from the ground but there was no tree in sight.
Ryo had been cleaned up and there was no flour left on her… if Kat was in fact correct. Thyme seemed to have change their hairstyles and now they all had the same long free flowing hair that their defender had originally supported.
*Well, at least we know Thyme isn't above messing with us.* Despite the clean clothes though, they all seemed to be rather tired. Compared to the God Crushers who seemed perfectly rested, the elves all seemed to be happy, if slightly worn out.
Next was Boring, which had the widest variety of expressions if not in chairs. They all sat in chairs looking like cracked trophies where the front had been chipped and broken for them to sit and the back served as a backboard the lean against. The handles had been bent to provide armrest.
Skye herself looked rather accepting, if a bit demure. She could accept her loss gracefully but had wished for something else. Eva and Kutruph though looked ecstatic. Well, Eva had a large grin that she kept trying to lower and was failing, while Kutruph had a large shit eating grin on his face. Finally, Clive was fairly impassive, as if the results were to be expected.
Finally, was The Unfortunate Four and it seems that Thyme wanted to have a little bit of fun with them. Green was wrapped up in a bedroll and suspended from nothing. Kat was actually somewhat surprised she could sleep like that.
Gareth was seated on the hand of a large set of armour. Only the top half was visible but the hand itself was bent in an unnatural way to seat someone comfortably with the hand completely backwards and the fingers up as a backboard.
Nixilei's was a strange one. Her seat was a book propped up by a number of daggers. The book was half open, and it had large, if unreadable text across its surface. The sides that were supported by a number of daggers were supported by a truly staggering number, all bent and interlaced together to form a solid support.
And Kress… well Kress had an old rickety chair slightly too small for his frame. The back-left leg was a little too short, so the chair rocked if Kress tried to lean backwards. Which would have been fine, except that he was balanced on top of a podium that would sway dangerously even as Kress fidgeted slightly. Kat didn't want to know what would happen if he leaned back.
Kat herself couldn't turn herself, but her field of view was just barely enough to catch the edge of Grace beside her. She couldn't make out any details, but the elf seemed fine, and was standing under her own power unlike Kat.
As Kat completed this, Thyme started to move. First, Thyme violently flicked out their hand and a large set of stands appeared behind the contestants. Secondly Thyme then started to move their hands slowly starting from the edges.
Every millimetre Thyme's hands travelled, a new copy of them was created. In every shape and size, even a few that were squares. Young and old, male and female… one of them was even a bear. Thyme filled the stands and as it did so they all began to cheer.
Quickly the contestants picked up on this and clapped along with the brand new crowd. "What a show everyone" boomed a voice. Kat looked behind the grandstand and saw a giant version of Thyme. Easily twice the size of the stands. With a desk and some papers.
There were actually two giant versions of Thyme. The first had something approximating a lavish coat. It was black and embroidered with frills lining the centre seem and buttons held together with ropes as wide as Kat's full wingspan.
Sitting to the first giant's left was a much more feminine version of Thyme. This one had long flowing vines as hair and wore what seemed to be a dress to compliment the firsts coat, but it was hard to tell as the desk obscured the lower half of the figure.
"Indeed darlings. The end is upon us. We have our final winner. Kat. And what a show it has been" said Dress Thyme
"Quite, so. The finale was short but powerful if I do say so myself. Why, I even went to the trouble of removing Grace before that fire could interact with her. Nasty stuff that was. I'd likely have needed to remove the limbs it attacked and heal them up" said Coat Thyme
"Though darling, before we talk about the winners, we should cover the losers" said Dress Thyme
"Of course my dear" said Coat Thyme "Let us start with the God Crushers. All except John, got lost in the forest"
"Darling, perhaps you need a bit more of an explanation then that" said Dress Thyme
"Ah, of course. So, the first obstacle our teams encountered was the forest of misconception. The whole thing was designed to lead people slightly astray. This effect disappeared once the sun rose though so we had expected people would exit shortly after that" said Coat Thyme
"But sadly for the God Crushers, they weren't quite well equipped for the terrain. After struggling for two days and failing to progress, they forfeited at various points… which in hindsight might be our bad as we provided no monsters and no food within the forests. Sorry darlings" said Dress Thyme
The God Crushers mostly shrugged at this as if it wasn't a major concern. Coat Thyme coughed "Anyway, moving on from that we have Lynn. She managed to find one of our weapons caches just into the frozen tundra"
"Yes, but the poor girl managed to end her run there" said Dress Thyme
"STOP" yelled Lynn "Don't say it please"
The giant Thymes just raised an unconcerned eyebrow before Dress Thyme continued "This one was filled with a few single use weapons. Once Lynn dear cast her fire spell to see better she set the place alight and it exploded taking her out of the running"
Lynn hung her head and placed it in her hands. It was clear she had recovered mostly form the experience but was extremely embarrassed about it still.
"Next elimination was John, last of the God Crushers" said Coat Thyme "He was unable to find a partner to travel across the desert with… this may have something to do with the exceptionally large number of other God Crushers that ended up nearby and that nobody was actually around to partner with him"
"Indeed dears, that wasn't quite what we had intended. It was completely random who ended up with who, and we tried to shape the terrain in such a way that people would congregate around the sand skippers" said Dress Thyme
"Sadly this meant John could go no further alone, and he lacked the ability to cross the desert" said Coat Thyme
"After that though" said Dress Thyme with a smile "Everyone managed to make it to the resting area.. This was a great equaliser because some teams made it much faster than others. In fact, the combined team of Green, Estelle and Nixilei were first by quite a large margin"