The Pinnacle Duel Ring
"Chits on the line, nobody in a box. Down you go, back up you come, lighter or heavier depending. Care to be matched?" — the Pinnacle duel attendant
On the Commons' outer edge, facing the outskirts, Pinnacle Beverages runs the only sanctioned fight in the Bazaar. A duel never kills. It is the first place in the run where you can swing at another runner and both of you walk away.
How it works
Talk to the attendant. Pick anyone standing in the Commons — they have to say yes; "we do not do ambushes at the Pinnacle." Pick a stake: 5, 25 or 100 chits, and only what you're carrying. Your bank is never on the table.
If they accept, both stakes are taken at once and the two of you drop into a private ring. Nothing is held while a challenge is merely pending, so a declined or ignored challenge costs nobody anything. The fight then runs on the ordinary combat engine — your techniques, your consumables, your build.
Companions do not come in with you. In this first release the ring is two runners and nothing else.
Winning, losing, and leaving
The first combatant driven to the floor yields. At that instant both of you are restored to exactly the health and conditions you walked in with, the winner takes the pot, and you're both back in the Commons.
| Stake | Pot | The house keeps | Winner takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 10 | 1 | 9 |
| 25 | 50 | 3 | 47 |
| 100 | 200 | 10 | 190 |
The rake is 5% rounded up, so the house always takes at least one chit. It is not paid to anyone; it leaves circulation. On a refund there is no rake at all.
There is a forfeit door in the ring. Step through it in the first few seconds, before anyone has landed damage, and the bout is called off clean — both stakes come back. Step through it after that and you have conceded: your opponent is paid exactly as if they'd won. A draw, a disconnect or both of you idling out refunds both sides.
After any duel, that same pair cannot re-challenge each other for about a minute.
What a duel does and doesn't do
| Loot, corpses, true death | None. The yield never touches the death pipeline at all |
| Combat XP | Quarter rate. Duelling is not the way to level |
| Faction standing | Pinnacle only — +3 to the winner, +1 to whoever stepped up. Refunds and forfeits pay nothing |
| Everything else | Unchanged. No audience favour, no death record, no rep hit |
| Consumables and techniques | Allowed. Drink, throw, use whatever you brought |
Why it doesn't break the town
The Commons stays safe ground. You cannot fight at the booth — a swing there is refused like every other swing in town. The ring itself is a separate room that isn't safe ground, which is the entire trick: consensual combat inside a space built for it, with the town's protection completely untouched.
Pinnacle sells it as aspirational exhibition content. Reach Yours.
Next → What's Out There — past the line, where none of this applies.
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