The plan began taking shape that same afternoon, but Damon quickly discovered that manipulating an entire tournament without alerting the participants was more complicated than setting an ambush inside a mine. Celina had organized one hundred and forty-three registrations, divided among individual fighters, academy representatives, hired guards, and adventurers. Altering the brackets without creating an obvious pattern required changing schedules, training arenas, and administrative justifications as well.
Celina did all of that in less than two hours.
Damon remained in front of the registration table while she moved names between groups, replaced numbers, and created a special evaluation category for participants who had refused affinity examinations. Aria followed every modification, marking the seventeen suspects with nearly invisible symbols in the corners of their forms.
"You are placing all of them against the Open Door?" Elizabeth asked.
