After the chaos with the crab, both alliances had gone quiet, too scared to make a move, just to survive, to wait out the rest of the tournament.
But peace could never last. Not in this tournament. Not with Headmaster Valerius's rules. The whole point of the tournament was to force them to adapt, to learn to survive on their own, not to rely on the gods to hand them everything.
And when the second year of the tournament ended, the resources stopped. No more supply crates. No more free food. Nothing.
The third year, the final year, had begun.
And the famine hit. Hard.
The followers who'd thrown away perfectly good bread just because it didn't have jam, who'd wasted grain, who'd burned food for fun? They were now digging through the fields, trying to find roots to eat. They'd wasted so much, and now they had nothing. Valerius had cut off all the resources, even the fish in the sea were gone, killed off by the growing monster hordes.
Famine swept the entire continent.
In the Conquest Legion's war room, the leaders sat around the table, their faces pale.
Lex frowned. They'd tried to stockpile food, they really had. But it was impossible. Once you got used to wasting food, it was hard to stop. Most of their followers didn't know how to farm. The few who'd brought auto-farms had lost them to the monsters.
They had two months of food left. That was it. And if they didn't do something, their followers would starve to death. And dying of starvation? That cost three times the points of dying in battle.
She leaned forward, her voice sharp. "We all know what's happening. We have two months of food left. There's only one option. We attack the Tide Pact. We take their food. We thin out our numbers. Only the strongest survive. That's the only way we make it to the end."
The room went quiet, then one of the leaders nodded. "I agree. I thought the monsters would be the problem. But it's food. The academy did this on purpose. There's no way to just sit back and survive. We have to fight."
Everyone else nodded. Then Seraphina Voss spoke up, frowning. "Wait. What about the moles? If we fight the Tide Pact, and we wear each other out, won't they just pick us off? Won't they take everything?"
The first leader snorted, rolling his eyes. "The moles? Please. They've been hiding underground for months. They don't have any farms. They stole a bunch of supplies a while back, but that's it. They must have run out of food weeks ago. They're starving. They can't even fight. They're nothing to worry about."
Everyone else nodded. Lex and Seraphina frowned, though. They weren't so sure. The moles had done too much, been too smart, to just run out of food. But… they had been underground for so long. Maybe they really had eaten everything. Maybe they were right to worry.
Well. Whatever. They didn't have a choice. They had to fight the Tide Pact. Better to die in battle than starve to death.
They voted, and the attack on the Tide Pact passed unanimously.
On the coast, Finn Marrick was staring at his own food stores, and he was having the exact same thought.
His hood was gone. The fish were gone. He had nothing left. He had to attack the Conquest Legion. Take their food. Thin out his numbers. Survive.
He knew the Conquest Legion would be coming for him. Fine. Let them come. They'd fight it out. Only one of them could win. Only one of them could survive.
In the underground fortress, the three clan leaders were staring at the piles of grain, the piles of meat, the piles of crab meat, and they were staring at the empty storage bags, and they were stressed.
Their underground farms had grown too big. They'd harvested too much high-yield grain. Too much food. They had way more than they could eat. And they'd run out of storage bags.
Lirael stared at the piles of food, his face tight. "What do we do? We can't eat all this. We can't store it. And we can't waste it. I'll never forgive myself if I waste food."
Gromm nodded, crossing his arms. "Right. So we need more storage bags. Those other guys? The rich gods' followers? They've got tons of high-level storage bags. Tons of them. They just waste them, too."
Korg grinned. "Oh right! They're all fighting each other! They're all moving their armies around! We can hit them! Take their storage bags! Then we can store all this food! Then we can take it home with us!"
Lirael's eyes lit up. "Yes! Exactly! All those guys are about to start a big war! Perfect! We can move in, take all their storage bags, store all our food! We can't let this food go to waste!"
The whole fortress erupted into cheers. They'd fought a war over bread before, to stop waste. Now they were going to fight another war, to stop wasting their own food. To get enough storage bags to keep all their grain. To uphold the clean plate club.
They grabbed their weapons, their tools, their cooking pots, and cheered. They were ready. This time, they were fighting for the right to not waste food.
Laia Hayes sat in her viewing box, watching the two alliances mobilize, and clapped her hands. "Wow! They're finally fighting! That's perfect! If they're busy fighting each other, they won't come after me and my followers! We can just sit here, wait for them to beat each other up, and then win! That's exactly what I wanted!"
She took a bite of her cream puff, grinning. This was perfect. Everything was going to work out. She was going to win the prize money, open her sandwich shop, and everything was going to be fine.
She had no idea. Her followers were also mobilizing. They were going to war too. But not to pick up the pieces. They were going to war to steal everyone's storage bags. Because they had too much food.
In the monitoring spire, Valerius stared at the map, watching all the armies moving, watching the moles mobilizing too, and he sighed.
He smiled. "Looks like the tournament's almost over."
He'd known this would happen. He'd known the moles would be the only ones who'd figured out the food thing. The only ones who'd survived. The only ones who'd thrived.
Now it was just a matter of time. Before the whole thing was over. And before Laia opened her sandwich shop. And probably ate half the empire.