Eddie Grim’s bar, the Grim Galleon, could best be described as a violent, rundown hellhole. He had bought the place after retiring from the navy, hoping to settle down and spend his autumn years selling beers to customers looking to slake their thirst after a hard day’s work. Unfortunately for Eddie, when he took over the bar he inherited its old customers – most of whom believed that the floor was the proper place for vomit, and that it wasn’t a real night out unless they got to kick the hay out of someone.
Day after day the bar would be trashed, the furniture smashed by brawling drunkards, and the floor left covered with hay spilled from gaping wounds. So much hay ended up there that Eddie Grim stopped asking his staff to sweep it up. Instead he just kept a cage full of guinea pigs in a back room, and set them loose each morning to devour it. Then one day, while he was piling up some damaged chairs in the basement, he had an idea. He thought of a way to please his customers and put a stop to the nightly wrecking of his bar at the same time.
That evening, when the bar was packed and tensions were simmering, and it seemed as if a fight would break out at any moment, Eddie Grim unveiled the Grim Galleon Arena. He had turned his basement into a fighting pit, where patrons could settle their differences without damaging his establishment. To make the idea more appealing, he had placed various traps and weapons down there. Spikes and blades were fixed to the walls and floor, for example – so that fighters could impale or eviscerate their opponents more easily. That night a number of brawls took place, but all of them within the confines of the Grim Galleon Arena. Eddie Grim was pleased. And so were his customers.
Over the coming weeks word spread of the fighting pit, and people began to offer Eddie money if he would let them head into the basement and watch some of the fights. Eddie happily obliged, and fight fans flocked to the Grim Galleon. One night a group of dark-suited businessmen decided to check the place out, after hearing about it from some of their associates. After they saw their first fight, they were hooked. They saw the brutality, the cheering spectators, and the money changing hands, and decided that they wanted part of the action.
They told Eddie Grim that he could make a lot more money from the fighting if he had proper backers, ones who could take it out of the grimy little basement and turn it into something big. They explained that they knew the owners of the local football stadium, and could arrange for the fights to be held there instead. Eddie agreed. He sold his bar, and entered into partnership with them. Their new fight promotion, known as Grim Arena, began to hold events each month at the stadium, and soon attracted quite the following.
The battles at the stadium led to many complaints from the groundskeepers, who grew tired of cleaning away the spilled hay and repairing the turf before the next football match. But the stadium’s owners had seen the packed crowds, and more importantly the figures for ticket sales, and they were keen to keep playing host to what had turned from a simple brawl into an upcoming new sport.
Each month Grim Arena attracted more and more competitors, and new legions of fans. They all clamoured for extra events, sick of waiting a whole month for another chance to prove themselves in battle or watch the action. The sport’s executives resisted them at first, worried that overexposure might make the public’s enthusiasm for the arena burn out. But eventually they gave in, and found to their delight that Grim Arena’s popularity only increased with the introduction of weekly fight cards.
Unfortunately for the stadium owners, many of Grim Arena’s fans were a few straws short of a bale. So when an event was cancelled because the home football team was to play a championship game there, the stadium got burned to the ground. That was a dark day for football, but a great day for Grim Arena. Every news channel and newspaper in the world covered the raging inferno, and explained why the blaze was started. Everyone heard about this new combat sport which had filled its fans with such insane enthusiasm.
Riding the wave of publicity, Grim Arena’s executive body announced that a new facility would be constructed for their events – an actual Grim Arena. Instead of using a football stadium they would have their own purpose-built fighting pits, offering a new range of environments for grimmies to battle in. The fans were delighted, and on opening night all the stands in all the arenas were full to bursting.
Grim Arena became so popular that weekly fights just weren’t enough. The crowds screamed for more, and new legions of gladiators came to share in the glory. Fights soon took place every day, round the clock. Barracks and hotels started springing up around the arenas to house the fighters and spectators, and keep them close to the action. This settlement attracted enterprising merchants, who set up shop there and began to sell weapons and performance enhancers to the fighters, and memorabilia to the fans. It wasn’t long before a full-fledged city surrounded the Grim Arena, to cater to the devotees of the new mega-sport.
. Really nice art work guys 
. Good story too 
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