Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → The Way of Moderation has ended (page 566)
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Round 8: The Round of 8
How many months had it been since the beginning of it all? One fine Spring morning, the paper rains came, heralding an era of opportunity, of competition, of glory and accolades. Who would have known the chaos and destruction it would bring? After all the preparations, the trials, the bruises and scrapes, the gender changes, the hospital stints, the interviews and hospital stints, the agonizing, now, on the cusp of Winter the following year, had the many hopeful dozens had finally been whittled down to the final eight. These eight carried with them great plans, expectations, and in some cases great mystery. Nobody had known that it would come to this point, and nobody could really say where it was to go.
Now the final eight stood on the stage of the Amphitheatre, and in front of them was Strop and Cenere, flanked by Moe and Flipski. Behind them, however, was the mind-boggling thing, for the semi-circular shelves of the Amphitheatre were packed with people. That ravening bloodthirsty mob who had flocked to the event upon hearing that this marked the beginning of the elimination rounds. Some of the victestants gulped and furtively glanced at each other. Together they had weathered the grualling challenge, but now, who among them was going to stay, and who would go?
It was up to them to shape their destiny from here on.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Strop blared through the soopahdoopahawesometasticmegamegafone. "These, are your final eight!" and the crowd roared, the waves of noise buffeting them back. "And now we shall see them face off against each other!"
In the background, Moe grated: "How barbaric. I hope you won't make them actually fight."
"However!" Strop held up his hand, "You must understand this is the Way of Moderation. There is a code, a code of conduct we must swear by, and it is this code that will determine the rules of the round! As moderators, one must be prepared to resolve conflict and confront villany without resorting to villany themselves! These eliminations will test these candidates' ability to do exactly that."
The victestants frowned to themselves. So what would it come down to then?
Strop pointed to Flipski, and from his headlight, Flipski projected an image of a list onto the curtain that covered the backstage. Carefully, slowly, Strop read the rules.
"The Rules!
1) The matches are one-on-one, and will happen one at a time, in random order.
2) There is no time limit.
3) The winner of the match is the one who makes the other competitor admit, verbally, that they have lost.
4) If a competitor cannot admit that they have lost because they have died, the other competitor is disqualified.
5) Any other rules of the match must also be agreed upon prior to commencement of the match. If a rule is not mentioned in this period, it is not a rule of the match.
6) No rules can be changed by either party once the match has commenced.
7) The final judges of the round will be Cenere and I. We will decide if the match has finished, and who the winner is.
Strop paused a moment to let that all sink in. Then he resumed with a flourish.
"And now, the moment you have all been waiting for... THE MATCHUPS!"
This image is just the sketch. The real image will be posted as soon as it is complete.
And so it was decided. Who would win and progress to the next stage, and who would admit defeat? Motive, will, ability and diligence. All these things were now as instrumental to the Way of Moderation as they had always been.
Followed by Cen, Strop leapt behind a table situated onstage, and clapped his hands. "Alright, let's get cracking!"
In anticipation, the crowd went wild.
That's right, this round is now declared OPEN. The round rules are VERY IMPORTANT, so make sure you read them:
1) All the rules listed above apply to the match. No exceptions.
2) This is part group assignment, part individual task. I will break it down into two sections for you:
a) First, you must work with your opponent to decide the parameters of the match. Sort out how you will contact each other, then negotiate the terms.
b) Once you have done this, work on your own to write how you think the round should go.
I will know if the pairs haven't done this because the parameters of your individual entries will differ!
3) I will accept the entry that is more convincing of the pair. The winner in that entry will move onto the next round of the tournament. The loser, who says "I have lost", is knocked out.
4) Standard rules of the AG forum (as translated ingame) still apply. Dirty tricks are frowned upon. Excessive violence, use of 'flames' etc. may result in disqualification on the grounds of needing to be banned.
There is one very important announcement I need to make: One of the matches, randomly selected, will be affected by a 'hiccup', that will result in the changing of the judging. I will announce which match and exactly what hiccup it is in a couple of days, i.e. during this time you should concentrate on the group portion of the task. Your entry will not be affected directly. Deadline for this round will be announced along with this, but anticipate a round length of approximately one week.