Nebbie was pleased to find that along with increased physical abilities he only needed a few hours of sleep before reaching a fully rested state, adding in his ability to stave off exhaustion for a near full day and he felt confident he wouldn't have to worry about slipping into slumber during the second part of the first round.
As he stretched and got to his feet he found that others such as Hellanor and her sister Elemental Demons, along with the Goblins ,excluding the very exhausted Lars, all seemed just as rested as he was.
Most all the not sleeping monsters seemed to be keeping their distance from the sleeping groups and Nebbie took care to be silent as he joined the group of early birds and heard their conversation as he approached.
"-but I make it with Magic," Hellanor said as she showed off her Flaming Greatsword, one of the other Elemental Demons pulled out a spear that looked to be made of clouds that sparked with electricity.
"I know," Ginger told Hellanor in an exhausted tone, "But we'll need Nebbie's verdict on if they are allowed or not,"
"Is it a skill?" Nebbie inquired, making Ginger jump at the sound of his voice.
"What woke you?" Hellanor asked as she looked out to see if she might have raised her voice too loud.
"Direwolves don't sleep that long," Nebbie replied, "I can easily go nearly two days with only a few hours of sleep, gives me more time to catch prey lacking.
"Goblins work the same," Ginger called back excitedly, "How cool is that, we have the same sleep schedule, how…how interesting right?"
"Try less girl," Hellanor told Ginger with a shake of her head.
"Less of what?" Nebbie asked curiously, Hellanor looked him dead in the eye for a solid moment before looking back to Ginger.
"I retract my statement, maybe try harder," Not entirely sure what Ginger needed to try harder at, Nebbie inspected the sword, it was different from the one Hellanor had shown him during their first meeting. That had been an iron great sword, while this one was made entirely of flames.
"Does it remain a sword if you throw it?" Nebbie asked as he examined it, "Or does it turn into a Fireball,"
"Throw it you say?" Hellanor seemed to find the idea fascinating, "I've never thought to try,"
"Well look at that there's a nice fine Bolder on the opposite shore," Nebbie noted after a moment of looking for a solid target, "I won't ban magically made weapons but no weapons may be thrown in the event they start a forest fire or hit the crowd, so if someone else can't redirect it without getting stabbed It's tournament banned, same for any other magical weapons,"
"Very well," Hellanor and her sister elemental walked to the shore and took turns throwing their weapons, Hellanor's sword lost all shape and failed to make it to the rock, her sisters spear however cut deep into the rock and held its shape, so much so that she had to dispel it to make it dissipate.
"No worries Gale," Hellanor told her sister, "Try doing it without your magic clouds, the lightning itself should dissipate before it hits the rock," Gale, outside of being a smaller version of Hellanor without the tail, had a white exoskeleton and yellow electric looking eyes, she gave her sister a thumbs up and set to work attempting to craft a weapon using her magic that fell within the rules.
"Your sword is legal," Ginger informed Hellanor with a clap, "We'll have to make sure someone can handle burns though,"
"I know a guy," Hellanor assured Ginger, "He's already acting as one of the Medics, name is Dug, he's that Mole Man-beast, burrowed into my old lair and almost cooked himself, he's taken care to make sure no one suffers as he has, he was the one that convinced me to move to the top of the mountain, good winds to fuel my flames and a nice view to boot.
"Alright, I'll make sure he's made aware to be ready to deal with burns," As they talked a few contestants were stirred from their slumbers by Hellanor, luckily it was mostly those who had already competed in the first round, the few awoken who were still on the docket decided to go back to sleep as a small crowd formed around Nebbie, the new rule of magical weapons having to not be throwable did cause some interest.
"I can grow metal spikes," Gron the Troll called out as he grew a few on his knuckles, they were crude but looked like they could do some damage on his massive arm.
"So long as you don't shoot them out they're legal," Nebbie decided after inspecting them, Gron demonstrated that he could retract them back into his arm and they were cleared.
"So if those are good to go, these babies are legal right?" Carl, the Gator man who had started the chant during Jo-Ro's fight, showed off his ability to grow spikes along the end of his tail.
"Legal," Nebbie confirmed, "So long as they don't shoot out,"
"Their more like tail claws I guess," Carl noted as he inspected them, "least I've never been able to shoot 'em out before,"
"Good enough," Nebbie noted, "But do keep in mind any illegal use of Tournament banned moves will disqualify you immediately from your match,"
"And earn you a beating for messing up the show," Gron added in a low grumble.
"I can only deal with enrolled contestants, they are unenrolled at that point so that's the people's choice not mine,"
"Good," Gron smiled at the news before looking around. Similar feelings of liking the notion that Cheaters were not protected by the rules were going around.
"I can manipulate water," Nelson noted as he created a water gauntlet, "are these legal,"
"Hmm," Nebbie looked at the water constructs for a moment before deciding, "They look fine, do they extend or something?"
Nelson punched out and while the water stayed attached a massive water fist shot out and slammed against the boulder.
"That's a tricky one," Nebbie muttered as he scratched his chin, "I'm gonna need a second opinion on this one, Ginger come over here and look at this," Ginger came at her call and inspected the water first before Nebbie got down to her level.
"He's technically following the rules but It seems a tad much, I'd certainly hate to lose just because a giant hand grabbed me and put me out of bounds,"
"Yeah," Ginger agreed as Nelson held the fist in place for inspection, "It's too big," Ginger decided with Nebbie agreeing.
"And it's fast," Nebbie added, "No offence to you Nelson but I don't think people would be to happy if someone like Jo-Ro lost to a big hand pushing him unceremoniously out of bounds,"
"It would probably do me in to," Hellanor added, "Something that big hitting you without time to prepare, it would be easy to dodge normally but within the confines of the ring one wrong step and you're out,"
"So the real question is do we make this move illegal, or make the ring larger?" Nebbie pondered as he inspected the fist from the front, it was almost twice his size, he put his hand on it and due to it being held together by magic found it more solid than water usually was, "I'd definitely get pushed out by this," he decided, "Do any of the challengers yet to go have this kind of ability?"
"Probably not with water," Nelson replied, "But maybe with another ability,"
"I'll have to ask each of them when they wake up," Nebbie sighed, "The matches should hopefully end noonish tomorrow, then we'll call it and start round two the day after, that should be enough time to expand the ring, but for this to be legal I'll have to make it really big, it's only about twenty five paces long, and for this to work I'd need to increase the surface area a hundred paces in each direction from the already existing ring, maybe make part of the mountain face legal to climb on?"
Nebbie sat down and started drawing in the dirt as he muttered about squares and rectangles.
"I can just not use it," Nelson said as he made the fist dissipate.
"But it's within the rules," Hellanor replied bluntly, "It would be unfair to hinder you just because it's more convenient to do so, we're all here to fight, rules are in place to even the playing field and avoid someone from winning with cheap tactics, I'll provide my aid in extending the ring. It only took a few hours last time.
"We'd have to basically make that one ring nine times over for this to work, plus some more of them on a wall," Nebbie called back to Hellanor, "Even if we start immediately when the first round ends, assuming it doesn't run long and ends around noon, we still might not finish by noon the next day if we work through the night, much less by the morning, and that could leave you and I both exhausted,"
"Then the answer is simple," Nebbie jumped a little when Rocko suddenly spoke up, "It took several hours with only the two of you and two Goblins correct, therefore if more monsters lend their aid it should go faster right?"
"Faster isn't always better," Nebbie replied with a shrug, "The Entire ring has to be level, one flat surface, too high or too low in one spot and someone could mess up their leg during a match, and sure if someone makes it too high it's an easy fix, but too low and then we'd have to lower the entire ring to compensate for the error,"
"Goblins are the finest crafters under the mountain," Ginger said with pride, "We'll make absolutely sure any who aid in filling up the ring are assigned a Goblin to keep their section level with the rest,"
"Alright," Nebbie got up, "Lets just hope no one has an ace like Nelsons who hasn't already won a match," Nebbie looked up above and saw the moon still had a fair bit of sky before the Sun broke through the darkness.
"Well we've got a few hours, guess I'll look into upgrading the seating for the spectators, I should be able to make a few areas like my little tree bridge, help the smaller creatures get a good view of the festivities, maybe get some tables or something going," Nebbie started heading out to the spot where the ring as, and quickly took note of the large number of Goblins trying to come with him.
"Hey wait wait, some of you guys need to make sure everyone here gets back to the ring well rested, hydrated and with some food in their bellies, no more than like ten Goblins please," Ginger tightly grabbed onto Nebbie's arm and looked back at her brethren, most of the Goblins pulled back.
Despite the gender ratio looking about even Nebbie noted that it seemed only Female Goblins managed to stick around, all of them glaring at the males to back off before pulling rank, seven high ranking crafters followed after Nebbie and Ginger, along with an additional two who lagged behind as they carted a large barrel behind the group.
"So," One of them said as they matched Nebbie's stride, "How do you wash your fur?"
"I'm curious as to why I keep getting asked that," Nebbie replied, having technically never washed his fur and therefore not having a proper answer to their question.
"Oh, it's just such a lovely coat," Ginger held Nebbie's hand firmly, who got the odd feeling she and the other Goblin were having a silent stare down, but anytime he looked at them they were only looking at him.
"Weird," He decided as they made it to the monster made clearing around his ring, "Alright time to get to work,"