The next few hours passed in a blur. Yang gushed about the new changes to the Kitchen, Loran shared some of his new ideas for spells, and they all had a good laugh at Zed’s inability to land a punch on Alexx. Eventually, night began to fall and The Pit slowly started to fill up as people gathered for any announcements.

Aside from a request from the Kitchen for players to do more hunting now that everyone had returned from Ziege Basin, the first real announcement was Soze describing the events of the expedition.

He made sure to cover as much as possible, covering every major encounter they had along the way to help drive home just how many Iron Ants there were now. There was concern from everyone when they heard how far the ants were expanding their territory, but hearing how each battle was an overall victory helped to calm them down.

The description of the raid itself was very well received. After hearing that the Monsterous Helm wasn’t as effective as they had hoped many expected that the players would have less of an effect on the battle overall, so finding out that they were still able to completely reshape the course of the battle did a lot to change everyone’s perception of the Iron Ants. While they were certainly an oppressive force, hearing about how they were handled through tactics and a key item made them seem much more manageable.

"I bet we could handle an attack from them right now!" someone shouted, a sentiment that drew a lot of sarcastic remarks along with some genuine agreement.

Soze finished his report by bringing up the sole player fatality of the expedition. Even if it was only a single death, by this point most people in the village had gotten to know everyone else. The loss caused the mood in The Pit to turn somber, especially when someone made the mistake of asking how they died.

Soze deeply apologized to the crowd, still taking responsibility even after his friends told him that he wasn’t at fault. He promised that such a thing wouldn’t happen again, but that he understood if anyone wanted to avoid participating in the next raid.

Once Soze sat down the next person to go up was Demeter. At first, everyone expected her to simply give an update on the state of her fields, which she did mention was progressing nicely, but that wasn’t the reason she was here today.

“I wasn’t planning to speak up tonight, but after hearing about how you guys came up with a new spell so quickly during the raid I wanted to ask if it would be possible for the casters to make a spell to help plants grow?”

The suggestion sent murmurs through the crowd. The only ones not speaking were the casters who were now thinking intensely about the idea of a spell for accelerating plant growth. The question to them was not ‘is a plant growth spell possible,’ but rather ‘is a crop growth spell possible.’ The discovery of idea manipulation meant that any spell was possible as long as they could properly conceptualize it, but the problem here was a matter of scale.

To say there was a difference between their usual attack magic and Demeter’s request was a massive understatement. The sheer size of Demeter’s field introduced questions of spell casting range, mana costs, and most of all just simple time efficiency. Even if they could technically take the time to cast the spell on different segments of the field over time, would that result in more food for the village than if those players just went out hunting? And even if it was less efficient, would the improved sustainability be worth it?

Several players turned to look at Loran, the sudden attention pulling him out of his thoughts. Plenty of them had heard about his new Unique Skill over the past week, and they assumed that if anyone had the stats necessary to make this idea work it would be him. He knew this as well, but even that was limited by the nature of this hypothetical plant growth spell.

“Loran? What do you think?” Demeter asked with a smile.

“Uh… assuming the spell can only hit a single target then that means I can hit only twenty plants at a time, although that would be without using Extreme Perception continuously… honestly without seeing the spell first it’s impossible to give a clear answer.” Demeter’s shoulders sagged at his answer, making him feel the need to offer a follow-up. “I guess there would be a few workarounds. If nothing else we can probably enchant some farming tools with-”

“Enchant?”

“What did he say?”

Loran froze as everyone in The Pit suddenly turned to look at him questioningly. His eyes widened at the unwanted attention, as well as the realization of what had just happened.

“...Did I forget to mention enchanting?”

Loran rushed to cover his ears as everyone practically shouted their responses. The wave of voices was indecipherable, save for a few scattered words, but Loran understood the meaning behind it all. It took him a few minutes to explain what happened and answer everyone’s questions, but by the time everyone stopped pestering him the atmosphere in The Pit had completely changed. Everyone began excitedly chatting about how they wanted to enhance their items, while the casters were busy theorizing on what kind of enchantments were even possible at their current level.

Once the excitement started to die down, a pair of players moved up to make the next announcement. As they got closer to the bonfire, a few people recognized these players from the fight over the huts earlier.

“So…I’m pretty sure by this point most of you have seen people fighting over the remaining huts,” one of them said, receiving a handful of nods and groans from the audience. “At first, there wasn’t any real rhyme or reason to it, and honestly, we were probably just going to keep fighting for the hell of it.”

“But then we were reminded that as much as we want to have our fun, there’s other shit that needs to be done, and we can’t go and wreck our armor with the next raid in a few weeks,” the next one said, briefly glancing at Soze as he said this. “With that in mind, we managed to get pretty much everyone to agree on settling this with a little contest.”

“Are you seriously starting a tournament over this?” someone shouted incredulously.

The first speaker shook their head. “I mean I kinda wanted to, but honestly we don’t have the time, and it would be a little confusing to hand out this many huts with a normal bracket structure.”

“So instead we decided to do this king of the hill style,” the other player said with a wide smile. “In three days, we’re going to mark off twenty-eight circles out in the training field, one for each available hut. The fight will start when the sun starts to set behind the western mountains and ends when it’s completely hidden. Anyone standing alone in a circle gets a hut.”

Murmurs spread through The Pit. It was a little pointless, but it was certainly an improvement compared to the chaotic brawling they did earlier. Not only would the fighting be settled in just a few days, but while most of the village didn’t care much about the outcome of this fight it would at least be entertaining to watch. This was essentially the first PvP(1) event of New Eden Online, which almost made it feel like it was a normal MMO instead of a death trap.

The two players went on to explain a few ground rules for the event. For starters, weapons and shields were the only equipment allowed, no armor or potions. Second, a larger circle would be marked off to designate the borders of the fighting arena. If you are knocked out of the arena or not inside it when the competition starts, you will be disqualified. Lastly, if you fall below 30% of your HP, you will also be disqualified.

It was all fairly basic, but it didn’t need to be overly complicated. A few players still had questions, but after a while when everyone dispersed for the night they were all eagerly awaiting the event.

~~~~~

As Loran stood up to leave, he couldn’t help but notice Yang unmoving, deep in thought until he nudged her with his foot.

“Wha- oh. I guess that’s it?” she asked, apparently not noticing that the announcements were over.

“What’s got you so distracted?” Loran asked. “You’re joining the competition too right?”

“Yeah, but they said no armor. I’ve got enough HP that it doesn’t really matter, but half the reason I can swing my War Pick around is because I’ve got my armor to weigh me down.”

“You say that like you can’t just use a normal weapon,” said Zed.

“I guess, but even with a normal weapon, I’m too slow to deal with guys like you. The intimidation factor will help keep the speedy bastards away.”

Zed shrugged. “I mean it only matters if you get hit.”

“Yeah, but most people aren’t so sure that they can dodge the thirty-pound boulder on a stick.”

“Hang on.” Alexx turned to Loran. “You said you were going to compete too?”

Loran nodded.

“But why?” Yang asked. “Didn’t you already claim a hut?”

“Yeah, but honestly I want to do some live combat training with Extreme Perception, and this whole thing sounds like fun, so why not?”

Yang shook her head. “Aren’t you the one who complains about being tired the most? Why give up a perfectly good bed?”

“You say that like I plan on losing.”

“I don’t know man, there will be a lot of people aiming for those huts.” Zed smirked. “Besides, you’re probably going to be one of the more fun people to fight. You think you can keep me away along with everyone else?”

Loran smiled back. “Easily.”

(1) PvP is short hand for Player versus Player