As the King's vessel began to cruise home, the eight challengers found themselves adrift off the coast of a small island. They had no choice but to begin swimming.

Levinia Vesper recognized their location first. She had been paddling desperately, trying to find her bearings, when she first spotted the landmass. Fifteen miles wide and covered with deep, rich hues of dark green vegetation, this lush refuge from the ocean beckoned to them.

“It’s J’Eskew!” she sputtered in the water, frowning in concern.

Near her, Gorman Scudd was paddling in a most undignified manner. When he heard the name, he nearly forgot to stop swimming, which immediately made his chubby body begin to sink. “The island of the elves?” he complained angrily. “It’s overrun by monsters now!”

“That’s good,” Balor laughed, swimming ahead of the others. “Maybe some of ‘em will be edible!”

Resigned, Gorman began thrusting himself towards the island with shallow, short paddles. “Never would have signed my name if I knew I was going to J’Eskew,” he growled.

J’Eskew Island was once populated by a sprawling community of elves, but most of them had departed for other lands seventy years earlier. Thick forests, dense vegetation and dangerous wildlife had long since swept away most traces of the elven civilization. If it weren’t for the dangerous creatures or the whispers of an ancient evil, others might have tried to colonize the island following the elves departure.

Balor and Terrance reached the shores first, and immediately set about the task of finding precious food to fill their complaining stomachs. Oira emerged from the ocean next, rising like an angry beast. Terrance immediately turned his head, keeping his gaze focused on the wide ocean and the others approaching.

“A damned medusa?” he hissed quietly, angrily wishing that his sword hadn’t been confiscated. But then he noticed that the barbarian was staring directly at the monster, smiling, and definitely unaffected.

“She’s a gorgon,” Balor corrected the young rogue. “Not a medusa. Medusa was the name of the first gorgon, years and years ago. She’s safe to look at.”

For the first time since the goblins attacked, Oira found herself smiling slightly.

“For a human, you’re more well informed on gorgon history than I would have guessed,” she said, almost admiringly, as she squeezed the excess ocean water from her saturated leather rags.

“Gorgons have always fascinated me,” Balor admitted.

The snakes surrounding her head smoothly curled and waved peacefully, a clear display of a lack of animosity. “You hold a high regard for my noble people?”

To this, Balor just chuckled deeply while thrusting his hips. “I’m not sure. Is a lifelong desire to hump one of you snake-heads considered high regard?”

Oira’s snakes lashed out suddenly, snapping in Balor’s direction angrily. Any admiration she might have harbored suddenly dissolved. “A pleasure you’ll never experience, savage,” she promised.

Their heads turned sharply towards the shoreline at that moment, as a violent turmoil in the water could be heard. At first, they thought it might have been some sort of sea monster rising from the water. On closer inspection, it turned out to be the centaur woman, kicking desperately with her powerful legs to keep from drowning. By the time she had all four legs on dry land, she was completely out of breath. It was Terrance who approached her first.

“I didn’t think centaurs could swim,” he chuckled politely, who had a difficult time looking away from her wet, exposed breasts.

“Of course we do,” she replied breathlessly, squeezing the water from her mane. “We just don’t swim easily.” It wasn’t clear if she had noticed Terrance ogling her curves, or if she simply didn’t mind being the object of his lust. She was too busy trying to catch her breath in either case.

Gorman Scudd emerged from the sea next, shooting Terrance a withering look as he tried to catch his breath.

When Levinia crawled out of the ocean, she stared at Oira suspiciously while trying to fill her lungs with fresh air. “You can’t be a real gorgon,” she laughed accusingly. “We’d all be stone statues, yes? What is it then? Some fairy spell? A stolen glamour, perhaps? Are you simply trying to scare us before we get the tournament underway?”

Oira bit her lip angrily, knowing that if she attacked the other contenders and interfered with the sorceress’s ridiculous tournament, her daughter might pay the price. So she resisted the urge to strike back. But she saw no harm in scaring them. She scanned the grass line just before the trees, and found a small under fed squirrel scavenging for food.

She approached the small rodent until it looked in her direction, and the poor creature saw the snakes writhing and curling in a unified dance. She then reached down and picked up the animal, which had suddenly become unnaturally still.

Oira returned to the group, tossing what remained of the animal at Terrance. He caught it with one hand, regarding this object that was once a living creature. It was now nothing more than a heavy stone statue of the animal he had just seen.

“What do you think, human? Do you doubt my power?” she demanded. Terrance shook his head politely and smiled, hoping not to agitate the gorgon further.

“I don’t need to use my power to win this prize,” she promised. “My family controls our curse, it no longer controls us. But I advise one and all not to challenge my patience.”

Misha Red was the last to make it to shore, offering assistance to the elderly and crippled Cyrus Anziman. He pushed her away angrily as soon as his feet touched sand. “No food, thrown into the ocean like sacks of garbage, it’s outrageous! What sort of treatment is this?”

“Old man, I hope you aren’t planning to whine like that for the remainder of these games?” It was Balor who asked, whose hunger had made his temperament even more surly than usual.

“Show some compassion, you half-wit,” Misha barked at the barbarian. “Look at this poor man! He’s been hurt!”

“What’s happened to his head?” Khora said with a start, suddenly noticing the old man’s glaring deformity.

“Did you step on his skull, centaur?” asked Levinia accusingly.

“My head has been like this for years and years,” Cyrus assured them. “Your irritating voices make me wish my hearing had been affected instead of my memories! Now piss off, the lot of you!”

Between the lack of food and the harsh treatment, tempers were frayed and volatile. Now that it was clear that Cyrus only looked worse than he really was, Gorman approached Terrance and pointed at his rival angrily. “You’re behind this, aren’t you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“This whole contest is some elaborate practical joke you set up, isn’t it? You’re just trying to make me look foolish!”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Terrance replied impatiently. “I didn’t even know who you were when this contest was announced. We’re all in the same boat, Gormy.”

“Quit calling me that, you centaur’s ass!” Gorman screamed at the rogue.

“Quit calling him that, you ignorant human,” snapped Khora.

What followed was an escalating round of insults, finger pointing and rude gestures. They were all hungry, exhausted and confused, and they were about to come to blows. A loud rustling from the tree line, however, finally quieted them.

“Someone’s watching us,” Balor announced quietly. A creature had been examining them, and as he silently stood there in the shadow of the forest, the players stared back at it. They had never seen such a creature before, and at least two of them had actually seen dragons.

It was humanoid in shape, though hunched over like a gorilla, with its hairy knuckles pressed against the sand. It had dirty matted green fur all over its body, with a frog-like head atop its shoulders. Walking hunched over as it did, it was difficult to guess the creature’s full height, but most of them guessed that had to be near Balor’s size. After a moment of mutual silence, the creature began to approach the party.

“What the hell is that?” Levinia was the first to whisper.

“Is it dangerous?” Cyrus added.

“Is it edible?” Balor contributed, licking his lips.

Evidently, the green creature was entertaining similar thoughts. It opened its mouth, revealing a nasty, oozing mouth full of teeth resembling a lamprey.

As the group began to scramble in alarm, the creature started moving towards Terrance, who happened to be closest. Surprisingly, he refused to flee. Perhaps he wanted to show off to the women, or perhaps he was braver than he was wise. Whatever the reason, the rogue charged towards the creature, leaped into the air, and attempted to deliver a debilitating kick to the monster’s eye.

The creature chose not to cooperate. His arms were faster than they looked, and it grabbed Terrance by the calf before he could connect, tossing him several feet in the other direction. Gorman was laughing unapologetically before his rival even crashed painfully into the wet sand of the beach.

The creature twirled around, checking to see if anyone was sneaking up on him. Most of the others kept their distance, but the redheaded girl was close by. It dug its feet into the sand, howled a warning, and approached the appetizing temptation.

His advance was stopped short by the unfamiliar sensation of human hands grabbing it around the edges of its mouth. It was the tattooed barbarian, and before the creature could protect itself, Balor had ripped its mouth apart with a brutal, cracking explosion. The creature reeled and stumbled clumsily, it’s arms twitching uselessly from the shock. Balor then shoved his entire forearm into the monster’s throat, ignoring the small jagged teeth slicing into his muscles. The intrusion harmed the creature further, as the barbarian’s arm slid down its throat. Logically, his arm shouldn’t have fit, but Balor was never one for logic. With a squeeze of his fist from somewhere inside the monster’s chest, something wet and tender and vital exploded, and the monster collapsed.

The others remained safely distanced, nervous that Balor’s bloodlust would suddenly turn on them next. Instead, he peeled a chunk of meat from the motionless creature’s hide, and examined it cautiously. “Somebody start a fire then,” he commanded. “It’s time for us to quiet the angry voices in our bellies.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a gentle voice suggested from behind them all. They all turned around to see a new individual on the beach, one who had not made his presence known yet. He was a stranger with dark skin and long white hair, a melodious voice and piercing silver eyes—all of them recognized him as an elf. He was dressed in a flowing red robe with soft white fur trimming the edges, and he carried a scroll in his hands. Around his neck dangled a small gold amulet with a carving of an elfish eye surrounded by indecipherable letters. He wasn’t ejected from the Iconic with them, and he wasn’t there when the monster attacked. He just simply…appeared.

“Can you give me a good reason why we shouldn’t, elf?” the barbarian barked angrily. “We’ve been starved for days! This creature will reward us with much needed strength!”

“It will reward you with an early death,” the elf corrected. “It would be tragic for you to die from poisoning before the first challenge of the King’s Tournament has even begun!”

So, this was not a chance encounter, they realized. Balor dropped the chunk of meat on the ground, and approached the elf. “Poisonous, you say?”

“It’s a gulphib,” the elf continued. “They’ll eat almost anything, but even dragons would find them indigestible. They’re more dangerous in packs, but this youngster wandered too far from his nest.”

“This was a youngster?” Gorman choked, looking around the beach nervously for more of the monsters to come out of the tree line. “I’m sure you must all be very hungry, and I promise you that a meal is waiting for you at the Oak Fortress.”

Levinia stepped forward, looking the elf up and down with a thinly veiled suspicion. “Who are you? I thought elves no longer lived here?”

“I am called Shivo, and I am the eyes and ears of Sorceress Tamora. I am the gamekeeper of this competition. I will be choosing which of you will join the King’s Council.”