In the 0 to 5 win category there was not any structure, there was a pool of candidates… pick anyone and fight… You were unable to refuse a challenge from someone in your cohort.
Maro gave the task of betting the house on him and his swordsmen up to the 20 win mark at least. They had no desire to be arena champs, they were here for the easy money… they all remembered their main goal… scouting out the arena to find out a way to break out the prisoners.
The announcer tried to calm down the roaring crowd, Maro had beheaded his fifth Orc in less than an hour. The morning crowd wasn't having it, they rarely saw real excitement… Tickets to the morning show were extremely cheap… Tickets to primetime shows were more than a regular person would make in a lifetime.
The betting pool in the morning wasn't large so their winnings for each fight weren't extreme. But Gnarlo's Gnome side came out, he had borderline gone crazy after betting and winning 25 fights in a row in one morning.
He couldn't continue as they had to re-register him for the 5-10 bracket. His next set of fights still would not be scheduled. However this time, people with 9 wins challenged first, then the 8s etc and you could not refuse a challenge.
They had tripled the silver they came here with. Gnarlo took his portion and went big city shopping, bought the finest tailored gnomish clothes, bought gaudy jewelry, and threw money wherever he went…
Not that Maro could judge, as soon as his men were done fighting, he went right away to another brothel and stayed right up until it was time to fight… not that he had any other motives, but a fighter going to a brothel definitely allowed him to blend into the city.
The 5 to 10 win cohort went by just as fast… 5 absolutely spectacular beheadings against 2 orcs and 3 beastmen of the Owl, Coyote and Hawk tribes.
His men also won all of their fights in a seamless fashion… The betting pool was a lot larger for the early afternoon fights. After spending as much money as possible they still ended up quadrupling what they had yesterday.
Gnarlo absolutely lost his mind, he started a commission with a jeweler for a Gnomish crown to symbolize his kinghood, he bought a walking stick scepter with a giant figure on top in the shape of a Troll and he commissioned a leather worker to make a new harness for Rolf that protected him from the elements and provided a lot more comfort.
Maro wasn't aware of this at the time, but Gnarlo was actually putting in work… He had been shmoozing all night with rich nobles… he had found out where the prisoners were held as well.
Fights 10 - 20 were spread out over the course of a couple days, there weren't enough people around to challenge them and when they went to challenge people.. For some reason the officials gave them a pass on refusing, on grounds that they were doing work for the Arena…
The only people available were some prisoners, but Maro refused to fight them, he needed as many of them on his side as possible for when the time came.
By the end of it, they lost access to a full cart… They came with one medium sized chest of silver. In fight 20, his swordsmen drew straws on who would lose and the losers would throw the fight…
Their one medium sized chest of silver became multiple chests of silver stacked on top of each other… They bought new carts and horses to go with them for a total of 10 transport wagons. The human swordsmen bowed out of the rest of the fights, the real risk of death started after 20 wins, winning the arena wasn't the goal here. They made enough money to field a ten thousand man mercenary army…
On fight 21, it got hard…er…ish
He was challenged by a large orc who dual wielded axes and actually wore full leather armour. Dual swords vs Dual Axes… it drew a large crowd.
The Orc warrior threw 100% blows with both of his axes non stop. He even used multiple warrior based abilities like [Leap] where he would jump and land with a bang destroying the ground and blowing everything away.
The Orc even had [Axe Throw] which he only used once, thankfully. When the Orc threw his axe it blew out a portion of the granite wall…
But now he only had one weapon, Maro slipped the aggressive swing of the other axe and sliced his head off with one smooth movement… and in a very cool manner walked off without looking back. The crowd went bananas at the showmanship. It had been a while since a human had made it past 20… there were currently 2 other humans in his cohort. Some random warrior of renown and an Ice mage… both people he didn't care about since he assumed they were race traitors.
The combatants in his cohort were fearless, he was challenged right away and with no other high tier fights scheduled that day, it was allowed.
Maro gulped at who he was looking at…
A bearman, 2 and half meters tall, wielding a 2 handed maul… He stared at the maul and all he could think was 'instant death'... Maybe the deity would reincarnate him a third time…
When the match started it was almost over just as quick. All the bearman did was one swing of the maul when Maro dodged and did [Vanguard charge] from point blank range. His swords impaled the bearman to the hilt and the momentum kept going. He launched the bear onto the spikes of the Arena wall unintentionally.
Boom the crowd Roared, this was new, they were tired of Orc and Beastmen fights… no strategy just bashing each other to see who lasted the longest. Rumours of Maro were spreading, his reputation was growing not only in the Arena… every night he would wear out multiple brothel workers… they wouldn't be able to work for a couple days after the workout he put them through but he paid extremely well so all the brothel owners were happy when he visited.
People started inquiring about him…
Betting the house on Maro for the last two high tier fights was almost 50% of the earnings they received from the last 20 fights across 5 fighters each.
Maro loitered in the arena a little bit to see if someone else would challenge him… but no one did. He started to walk off when an official approached him…
"Sir Maro, as a high tier combatant we have special quarters and a lounge for you prepared"
"Not interested, if there's no women there, I'm going to a brothel" and started to walk away again
"We have contracts with the a lot of the high end brothels in town, name it and it will be delivered to the privacy of your quarters" the young official beamed
"Lead the way" Maro smirked