As the choir reached a peak the smaller Thymes all jumped into a ball together. As they merged it continued to spin around and around until a giant wheel dropped down to the ground. "Welcome to the return of the wheel, please keep your hands and feet inside the carriage at all time"
The wheel itself was similar to the previous instances, but it was now at least three times the size and where before it stood level with Thyme, it now dwarfed Thyme, every Thyme. Thyme jumped to the wheel and spun it hard. The shapes on it blurred even for someone with great vision like Kat. "So, you guys got anything interesting to talk about while we wait?" asked Thyme.
Everyone just stared at Thyme's seeming inability to read the mood. "Don't be so boring, come on, we have a good what…?" Thyme pulled out a massive sundial from seemingly nowhere and placed it in front of him.
Thyme crouched down and examined the sundial closely as if inspecting it for the correct time. Of course, the fact that the wheel was blocking any sunlight that might have reached it was being blocked by the giant wheel behind him. "Hmm, I don't seem to be able to figure this out…"
"You've blocked the sunlight with the wheel so this was never going to work" said Skye.
"But this is a moondial, it operates on moonlight instead" said Thyme the picture of innocence.
"Well in that case you're to early by a few hours, and haven't taken into account we have 3 moons" said Ryo, the lookalike with twin swords.
"Damn, I knew I was overcharged for this bespoke moondial. That crazy old homeless man certainly got me good. Then again, he might have also been my cousin trying to get back at me for the time I filled his birthday cake with fertiliser…" said Thyme as it stroked it's chin, growing a beard to accommodate the action, before swiftly removing it.
After Thyme's shenanigans the wheel had slowed down considerably and looked to be stopping soon. Just as the wheel was about to stop on the scout Icon for the third time, Thyme reached over and spun the wheel slightly more making it end on wizard instead.
"Hey wait a minute, you can't do that" said Skye
"Why not?" asked Thyme
"Well… you can't just spin the wheel again?"
"Why not? I don't remember making a rule about it" said Thyme
"Didn't you say it would be wherever the wheel stops?" asked Skye
"Yes, and I didn't stop it, I continued it. Besides, do we really want a third scout challenge? Seems a bit unfair to me" said Thyme
Skye looked like she wanted to argue but stopped perhaps thinking better of it. I mean, he has a pretty good point. *There were no rules broken, and Green certainly has no interest in whatever challenge.*
It was a moment later Kat realised that she was the wizard. *Oh wait, now I have to do these. Well I guess that's fine? But the challenges so far have really played to the rolls skillset, and didn't Nixilei say that wizards are supposed to know a lot of spells for different situations? *
*Then again, the team also said I didn't need to do anything, which is fair considering how thoroughly Green won the first two events.*
Thyme did that weird scratching bark thing that looks like someone clearing there throat. "If the mages would be so kind as to join us on stage. And scouts, while I do appreciate your presence, you don't need to stand here still, Kat your fine"
It was then that most of the groups realised that they might have gotten distracted by Thyme's ridiculous shenanigans and stopped paying attention to proper procedure. Whatever jokes Thyme might perform, at the end of the day this was a serious tournament that was considered to be extremely prestigious. On top of that, it was likely that Thyme was the most powerful being any of them had ever encountered.
*Well, actually… is Thyme? Does the system count as a being? And how powerful was Kraks really? Sure he looked mostly harmless behind a desk but he said he was retired and I haven't even heard of that as an option.*
The contestants scrambled to get into places, Grace at least made some effort to maintain an air of dignity and Dusk did his whole creepy figure in a dark cloak shtick but that didn't stop people looking somewhat concerned by their behaviour. Except Dusk, his mask did a pretty good job of hiding that.
"You know, I really do take no offence. Sometimes you tell a bad joke, and I quite literally have all day. I'll outlive you all just by accident if we are honest with ourselves… Well maybe not Kat, but she won't be in this realm, so it isn't super relevant" said Thyme
"No, it is only right we respond to you with at least some curtesy. Even if you weren't so powerful you have gone out of your way to oversee this section of the competition" said Gareth. Of course his formal attitude and recommendation of respect was undercut by his sleeping girlfriend in his arms, but everyone ignored that part.
"Oh, don't worry your pretty little head noble boy. I do this for the love of the craft" said Thyme as he summoned a miniature boat underneath "See? Just look at the workmanship on this. Surely, I should spread this lovely image as far and wide as possible"
"Anyway" said Thyme "Gather round, gather round, we got everyone? Lynn?"
"Here"
"Jack?"
"Um? Here?"
"Dusk?"
"Present Sir
"Ooh really fancy, and Kat?"
"Here"
"Great now that rollcall's done we can finally describe the next game" said Thyme
"Do we not need some strange and convoluted way of picking what game is next?" asked Dusk.
"Well, now that you mention it I believe we do" said Thyme pulling out a bag similar to the ones from the previous round except it had a copy of a male and female version of Thyme waving on it.
"Please Dusk, if you would, reach into this bag" said Thyme.
Dusk looked calm but Kat could see his hands shake slightly. Clearly, he wasn't prepared to be the one called on for actually choosing the next game. As Dusk reached in he seemed to find something, but he didn't pull it out. After a moment of hesitation he pushed his other hand into the bag and brought out one of the orbs from the maze competition.
"So what is this?" asked Dusk
"The Orb"
"Right, but what does it mean?"
"It means it's The Orb"
"Well, what does it do?"
"Whatever The Orb wants"
"Ok, I hate to interrupt your gag, but can we here the rules?" asked Lynn
Thyme pouted, which didn't look so endearing on the larger version "You wound me my dear Lynn, how could I miss the chance for a great joke? But alas, I suppose I can explain.
"So, I somewhat wasn't lying with my answers. This is in fact The Orb, though it's just an orb really. Your goal for this next round is to stand a few metres apart, lets say ten-ish? And prevent your orb from touching the ground
"This will be complicated by the fact that every so often the orb will do something, perhaps it will start spinning, maybe it will get hotter, heck, it could explode for all I know. Everyone's will change at the same time, and everyone will have the same change. Now that might look fair, but it sort of isn't, though I don't really care.
"Finally, no interfering with other contestants. If I think you might be I'll move you further apart, and if I know you are then I'll disqualify you with extreme prejudice.
"How extreme" asked Kat
"Depends on how deadly the interference was" replied Thyme. "Any other questions?"
The mages shook their heads. "Well, in that case let's see the arena"
*Wait why does there need to be an arena?*
The ground rumbled beneath Kat's feet as stone walls sprung forth separating the mages from the contestants with Thyme in the middle. The wheel was stretched until it lined the circular walls enclosing the contestants with the symbols redrawn and shining.
A moment later the groups were raised up high in separate private booths for their viewing pleasure. The God Crushers box was a farmhouse, with hay bails as seating and a water trough filled with water, though everything looked quite clean.
Not Related at All's box seemed to be made out of something similar to glass. Whatever it had reflected them perfectly, and it had a bunch of randomly placed walls to further increase the confusion. All they needed was a little distortion on the mirrors and it'd look like a carnival funhouse.
Boring got two rows of plain wooden chairs with old looking cushions on them. They had water to the side in a jug with the rest of the enclosure looking clean but lived in.
As for The Unfortunate Four…
Author's note
Oh what a cliffhanger. I think this is the biggest cliffhanger to date actually. The only other one really was the conclusion of the first book, but the last two were released together so it's fine. Anyway this chapter was a lot of fun to write.. I hope I didn't make Thyme too silly, but the again, he kind of is just here for the fun of it.