Chapter 1338 Chapter 1338 Kress-Prep ?--- Kress --- Moments before the next round Kress and Stan were relaxed as they made their way towards the stands for the next round. Kress wasn't planning to win at all, so his stress was completely gone. Well, that and one other thing... Stan was just as relaxed. He didn't even know if the boats would WORK for someone with demonic energy instead of mana. Sure he could trade it off for some extra money, but that also seemed like a waste. Really, the only reason he was even attempting to win was so because it meant a chance to work with Kress. "So you remember the plan?" "Plan?" asked Kress, some fake annoyance leaking into his voice. "We barely have a plan! We spent the whole time making out instead of planning," "Hey, you kissed me first," said Stan, trying to excuse himself of the responsibility. "I was just being a good boyfriend. Even if we're not there just yet that IS the goal after all. It just makes sense I'd kiss you before getting into the reason I was there. No sense in getting to the heavy stuff first," explained Kress. "Yes indeed... but as the good boyfriend I am, I had to kiss back thoroughly," answered Stan. The now giant sized pipe in Thyme's mouth was shaken out over the contestants as a smaller Thyme fell out. This one was dressed in a matching outfit to the one above, just a much more reasonable size. "Once again, I give ya an honest ahoy. Yee have yar own boat ta be winning so I best be going over da rules! Hehehe, best be droppin the funny talk as well,"
Thyme shook their whole body out from head to toe, water leaking out... somehow as they did it. Eventually Thyme nodded, satisfied with the lack of water and began speaking again, "Right so it's all going to be very simple here. This is a straight up race to the end, where interference will be met with a time penalty proportional to how much, and how intentionally you were messing with your competition.
"The only other rule is to stay inside of the boundary for the race, and the first person to finish will win. Of course, there are quite a few smaller details worth mentioning. The first section will be a swim. You'll be dropped off a relatively short distance before your jet-skis and your best bet is to swim towards them as fast as possible. Everything is allowed, magic, strength, whatever as long as it doesn't interfere with your competition. "Once you get on the jet-skis, follow the marked path as far as you can until you find a rock formation. At that point you'll need to ditch the jet-ski and dive into the water to finish the race. You can try to keep them with you if you want, but I'm telling you now, it's probably not worth the effort. "From there, you'll need to swim underwater, ducking in and out of the air pockets that I've set up for you to ensure nobody drowns. There will be a giant air pocket at the bottom of the cave, so if you ever NEED air desperately remember to swim towards it. Just know that if you fall completely out of the water, you'll be outside the course, and that may be considered a forfeit on your part. Ducking down there for a bit of air is fine, but the current means you'll want to stay away from it if you can. "This will eventually lead you up and out of the tunnels to a short stretch of open air, and the finish line. It will be rather obvious. A big checkered flag stretched out in front of a floating dock with this boat parked behind it. Yes, everyone not participating in the round will be moved over there to watch the race. "Now, there will be some traps and roadblocks along your way. They should be easy to spot and you can avoid or remove them however you like as long as you stay in bounds, and once again, don't overly interfere with your competition. A little pushing and shoving will be allowed as long as your just trying to make your way forward, but if it gets too much you'll start getting seconds added to your final time. "Of course... just to add a bit of extra incentive to ignore my previous warnings, the person who makes it to the finish line first will have all of their penalty time HALVED. So you'll want to either keep it real clean, or make sure that you really are the first person past the line. Do you have any questions?" Kress felt himself relaxing backwards into the wood. The rules, mostly, favoured their plan. If someone else got 'first place' it could give them the win even with Kress' disruption, but when his own penalty score didn't matter... well that seemed like quite the edge.