Rion

"What in the hells am I doing here?" Rion muttered as he pressed open the door to his office and set down the pile of fifteen Skythe Tactics books he'd collected so far. Nearly six dozen of them sat sprawling across the room, some open to passages that referenced specific parts of the Codex, while others made vague imaginings towards what the sport could be or what it should have been and made broad stroke attempts to paint it as such.

The thing that really confused Rion though was its similarity to-

There was a gentle knocking at the door. Rion breathed a sigh of annoyance and stepped toward the door, yanked it open, and looked out at... nothing.

He heard the shuffling of pages and tactics forms behind him in the office and turned back. A tall, lanky, ghost-like figure was standing in the center of the room making several pages and books float about in no particular order. They seemed to be investigating the process that Rion was going through, and finding it woefully inadequate. 

"No, this won't do. Have you figured it out yet?" The Ghost creature said. Its voice sounded far more solid than its ethereal form presented.

"I'm sorry, but who... or rather what are you?"

"I'm a ghost, dear child." The ghost said. 

"Oh." Was all Rion could manage. "Like a real-"

"Yes a real ghost. I float, can go through walls, the whole works. I don't really feel like thats your issue right now though, do you?"

Rion shook his head, weighing the crazy against the reality. Ghosts weren't common, and they were so rare in fact that most didn't believe they existed. Here was one now, blatantly disobeying the theory that they didn't exist, one that Rion had held for some time, and shoving it in his face. Aside from the general disbelief though, they'd said something that connected. 

"No." Rion said "No the issue is that I have no idea how we're going to win the next game." 

"There he is!" The ghost snapped, twirling around the room in a joyous manner. "Thats the reality that I was hoping would set in."

"You knew?" Rion asked. He didn't really know what he was asking in all honesty, he didn't really know what a ghost could know or not know, or if "knowing" was even possible. 

"Of course I knew. I've been watching you sulk around this stadium the past week with your nose in a book the entire time and having no concern for the team that you're meant to lead. Not to mention you've failed to find the similarity that will make it all click for you." 

"Similarity? What are you talking about." 

"Oh hush," The ghost said. It floated its form across the room and levitated another few books that had been opened, then floated over to the Codex Enchantia, the league registered guidelines for magical use on the pitch, and nodded. "Well you're at least headed in the right direction. Tell me, what were you thinking about before I came in here." 

"What was I...? What?"

"Come now dear boy, you've a lot of work to do and I can't be spending the entire time teaching you everything and back paddling through conversations. Speak, what were you thinking of when I came in here." 

"I... Well, I was considering the similarities between Skythe and..."

"And...?" The ghost motioned for him to continue. "What else."

"Well, it just seems to me that the game shares a lot of tactics with early skirmish techniques, particularly ones used during the early wars of the Expansion to the south. Small teams, mainly built of specialists and experts, each with a goal and battle plan. Enough seperation between the captain and the lower players to allow for individual thought, and though I can't be sure I'd say that likely have combination plays that work well."

"Combination plays? How do you mean?" The ghost asked, a smile perking across its lips. 

"Well, say this player here." Rion pointed to one of the midfielders on the board of possible team lineups, "Say they work the ball through the area, and are talented at the whole 'dribbling' aspect of the game, but they're a terrible striker. However you have a player on your bench who just is no good at the whole 'dribbling' but is an excellent receiver and striker. You'd imagine that they'd team up and work better for the team." 

"Ideally." The ghost said. 

"But it doesn't seem like its working that way with this team at all. Take Coren for instance. He was the only person to come up and talk to me after the initial greeting, and all he did was tell me that I might as well quit."

"Did he now?" 

"Well," Rion shuffled slightly "Well, not really. He did tell me that they weren't going to listen to me if I wasn't going to understand the game." 

"So you set out to learn about the game?" The ghost asked.

"Well, I'm the Head Coach now, no reason I shouldn't know a little bit about what I'm doing." 

"What about Coren?"

"Coren? What about Coren?"

"He was the only one who..." The ghost motioned for Rion to continue. 

"Oh, well aside from the being the only person to talk to me, he's also not the captain. But he should be. From what I've seen over the past week it looks like everyone respects and looks up to him, event he older players, but they've left Taberny as the Captain for the past few seasons and he... just doesn't seem cut out for the job. Maybe he was at one point, but not anymore." 

"Interesting, and you've decided this after watching, what, three practices and seeing things work behind the scenes? Now you think you have an idea and want to put it into practice on the team? Kick Taberny aside and replace him with the No-magic-maniac?"

"No-Magic-Maniac? What, Coren?" 

"One of the very few players in the league that doesn't use any magic from the Codex Enchantia, because of that he serves a very different role."

"Those players are called 'Activators', right? Ones that don't use magic but can amplify the effects of others?" 

"There are other names for them, some less flattering, some more so, but yes. Coren is an Activator and a damned good one at that."

"I don't get it, how are they allowed to even play? Don't they just pose a risk to the team?"

"You've really never spent any time around the sport have you?" The ghost asked.

"No, I haven't." Rion replied, shrinking slightly.

"Well the whole process is pretty simple, I can explain it to you if you'd like." 

"Who are you?" Rion said, raising a hand. "I mean, who were you?" 

"I thought that would be obvious, I'm Leopold Blourg. I used to be on the staff here some couple hundred years ago."

"How would... In what universe, known or otherwise, would that have been obvious?" 

"Have you read the letter from the King yet?" When Rion failed to answer the Ghost, Leopold, gave a little tsk noise and shook its head. "And they said you were the smart one." 

"Who? What?" 

"Look, I'll paraphrase the letter for you. Okay? You'll be getting a staff of people who are going to be here to help you organize and instruct the team. I'm the first of them to arrive it seems."

"Ghosts then? All of you?" 

"We prefer to call ourselves the 'Recently Unalived', but no I believe I might be the only openly deceased member of your staff." 

"Openly deceased? So Zombies and Vampires too?" 

"Who can say, what I do know is that you're on the right track to find the information that you need. And from now on I'll be here to aid in your queries. And you're right about the similarities between Skythe and the old skirmish teams. They're very similar, so similar that it's hard to determine which actually came first."

"How does that help me though?" 

"Come now Rion, they said you had a mind for tactics. Work this out like a problem. If they won't listen, then show them why they should. It looks like you've already got Coren on your side. Or at least he's willing to work with you. That should be a start." 

"But-"

"Ugh, this is going to be harder than I thought." Leopold groaned and floated through the wall. 

Rion

It wasn't just that there was some similarities between early attack teams and Skythe squads, the resemblance was downright uncanny. Of course they were doing very different things, and deaths were very, very rare on the pitch as opposed to the battlefield.... Still, when Rion truly sat down and considered it, it all seemed to be the same. Small squads, specialists, tactics devised to bring out the best in the various positions. If you considered the ball to be nothing more than an object needing delivery, then there was almost no difference whatsoever. 

Rion scratched at the shadow of a beard that was attempting to grow on his face. He'd been in the office for nearly a week straight. Slept on the roughshod couch, showered in the locker room showers, and had all his meals delivered. He'd even had clothes and his toothbrush brought to him. The only thing he'd forgotten was a razor, but that was the least of his worries at the moment.  Leopold floated in with a stack of papers in hand that were incorporeal in his grasp but materialized as he set them down. 

"The days results from training." He said, then made to drop onto the couch, before noticing the state and choosing instead to float. 

"I'll never understand how that works. The incorporeal matter thing, not the training results."

"Ah, yes well, a ghost must have it's mysteries in life."

"Or death, as the case may be." Rion said, chuckling to himself as he pulled the pages to him. 

Leopold smiled coldly. "A comedian, are we?" 

"I must be a good one, because these numbers are a joke. We're down in every field. Pace, control, points scored. These are training matches right?"

"From the past few days, yes." 

Rion sighed and pinched his brow. "At least we have that much of luck, because if these had been the players results during an actual match..."

"It's your first week here, the last thing you need to do is put yourself into a spiral from failing results. Wait until you lose a few games to burn yourself at the stake, fair?" 

Though he nodded agreement, Rion didn't feel the acceptance. He knew what this was, he knew what all of this was. The team was going to fail, and therefore Rion would fail. His Father would use this for the rest of his life to keep him down and managed. "If you can't handle a simple Skythe Team, then how can you handle anything more important?" and "Don't you think I wanted you to succeed, but alas mediocrity is far interwoven into your work, isn't it?" Rion crumpled the papers absently, the anger bubbling up in his chest. He could just hear that nauseating tone that his father used whenever he was lording over him. 

"Easy there Coach. You look like you're about to tear up the only copy of those sheets that we have."

Rion froze. "What? Oh, right. Sorry." He set the pages, crumpled and ripped at the top, back onto the desk and leaned back in the reclining chair. Leopold found a tall stack of books that matched about the height one would want for a proper "looking down" position and settled themselves atop it. 

"This is really getting to you, isn't it?" They asked eventually. 

It took Rion a long moment to determine his answer, one that told the truth without giving away too much of the turbulence underneath. In the end it was the truth that beat the lies to his lips. 

"King Deyros is my father."

"Yes, and?" When Rion had a surprised look on his face, Leopold continued. "I'm not stupid, you're a prince. I could tell that, hells likely the janitors could tell that. You told the team as much. Told everyone basically. What, do you and he not get along or something?" 

Rion scoffed. "Not getting along would be an understatement. But that about sums it up. He's always trying to test me, to challenge me, to fight me in some field or another. This is just another attempt at getting me to fail."

"You believe that, do you?" 

"Why shouldn't I? It's what he's proved to me. He's come out and said about as much to me before!" 

"Uh-huh." Leopold folded a leg over other and stared down at Rion as he got up and began to pace the room.

"He wants me to fail. He's doing everything in his power to make me fail. He's given me a team that won't listen, he dropped me into a sport I don't know anything about, with a community that I feel almost ostracized by without ever having even stepped out onto the pitch. I mean, we're not even at the first game of the season and I've already appeared in three different papers talking about what a lousy season we're going to have!"

"So what's the plan?" 

"The plan is to turn things around. To get this place on track, to start winning some trophies. If we can really swing it, we'll win the league, but honestly right now I'm just hoping to avoid relegation." He tapped the crumpled pages on the desk "And these are not the numbers that are going to get us out of that danger zone." 

"Don't you think you're being a bit to technical about all this?" 

"Data sheets and reports are important to the process. I can't assess their skills without them." Rion said. 

"Sure you can." 

"I can?"

"Sure," Leopold said "Just get them to play a team."

"They're already playing against themselves, and our first game is in four weeks. I don't see how getting them to play a team now is going to help." 

"It might not help them much, but it'll be a help to you. I mean, what good is statistics and reports if you can't see how they perform in the field. This, all this, is just training. We control the whole thing, there's no variation in the difficulty. But out there, on the pitch, well there's no predicting that."

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy." Rion said quietly "Okay, okay. I think I see the point. But even if I agree, which is a possibility, who would play us? I mean, who would be willing to give up their strategies before the season began for some relegation-riding team to train on? We can't just force teams to play us. Worse yet, we can't pay them either."

"Why not ask Coren? He used to play for the Manchet Lions, before he transferred over here. He talks about their training every now and then and I believe he's mentioned them being interested in playing the team in a friendly. We've always had a good relationship with the Lions after all."