"Ja, Herr Brugheisen, ve have an excellent selection of Players zis season." Heimlich, the Game director's secretary, nodded vigorously, handing Brugheisen a cup of tea and taking his stick as he sat down in one of the big, squashy leather arm chairs that sat around the room. It was a television room, with an entire wall dedicated to huge screens. Some were showing a few Players, running down corridors or edging their way round ledges over tanks of boiling acid. It made for a colourful and motley array. "Ze courts are very heavy handed zis year. Lots of condemned, ja!"
"Names?" Brugheisen said curtly. He was an important old man in Government with a fat stomach and a bristling moustache. Although an infrequent visitor to the prison, he liked to keep tabs on who was alive and who wasn't and a visit from him was heralded with much attention and the very best of the Game.
"Err, ve have Stookem on screen tree, running troo ze tunnel." Heimlich pointed roughly through the various Players' names, "Smit' screen four, Pemburghly on seven, Coulthard two – stuck in ze meat grinder..." He chuckled dryly as the man's screams ran through the speakers. "Err, Johnson is on... I don't know vhere he- ah, screen five, zere he is. Thomas died in screen von zis morning and Lupez is also dead on screen siz, ze gun ha-ha..." Another chuckle.
Brugheisen snorted and took a sip of tea. "Hu iz on screen eight?"
"Um," Heimlich retreated to a table at the edge of the room and rooted through one of the drawers. He returned with a clipboard and frowned down at the paper. "No von, I tink... It vas McCormick but he died zis morning. I don't know..."
Looking about he spotted the remote and pressed the number eight. The screen turned on with a ping and revealed a man stepping tentatively through a veritable forest of vines.
"Ah, of course," Heimlich nodded, the remote hanging by his side as he gestured with the clipboard, "Iz Almasy. He iz not on ze list because ve are not allowed to kill him. But ve put him in ze Game anyvay."
"Almasy?" Brugheisen seemed instantly interested, handing his tea over to Heimlich – who balanced it precariously on his clipboard. "Seifer Almasy? Ze var criminal?"
"Ja, I tink he iz in ze green'ouse, viv ze Poison Jack. Iz a nasty plant, but he seems to be doing quite vell."
Indeed, Seifer was picking his way through the plants with the utmost of care. One might even have said he knew what would happen if he didn't.
"Vat are ze bets on him now?" Brugheisen asked, rapt with attention.
"Ve have no bets." Heimlich said after a check of his clipboard, "But if you vould like, I vill take a bet for you?"
"I bet you tree hundred Gil, Almasy vill not be dead before level 0!" Brugheisen said, waving a finger in the air and stomping a foot. "He vill be ze best entertainment in ze whole Game!"
"Err, ja, Herr Brugheisen!" Heimlich agreed quickly, hurrying to put the tea, clipboard and remote down so he could take a note. "Ve tink he vill be good, but he vill not make it passed 'Drink me'. No von ever haz. Iz impossible."
Brugheisen was shaking his head and waving a hand for his tea to be brought over as he watched Seifer inching under a squirming limb of vegetation, the distance between life and death becoming quite unreliable as the plant writhed. "No. He vill make it. He vas not a knight like zat for nothing. Mark my vords, Heimlich, ve vill see a Player on level 0 before zis Game iz over."
A/N: Sorry about the crap accents...