The Golarion Gazette

This year’s Golarion Gladiator Games ended yesterday with fanfare, and the surprising results of the marksmanship event are on everyone’s mind. In the event, the Geb Gunslingers edged out an upset victory over their longtime rivals, the Irrisen Investigators. The victory was unexpected, as in previous events the Investigators have managed to win every single round, hitting the bullseye on virtually every shot. But this year, the Investigators were unable to achieve their consistent performance, giving the Gunslingers a chance to beat them. Although there were some minor rule changes from last year to this one, such as one that requires competitors to fire immediately when a signal is given rather than wait until a time of their choosing, it is unclear the cause of the Investigators’ apparent underperformance.

Many observers speculate that Investigators must have been cheating somehow in previous years, since there is no other way they could have hit the bullseye every time. “They must have devised some sort of illicit stratagem that made their bullets always hit,” said sports analyst Chris Goodberry, speculating that they used rigged homing bullets or magic spells to guide their aim. “Something must have changed this year that made that stratagem not work.” If it is proven that the Investigators did in fact cheat, their names could go down in the annals of history next to the Magaambya Maguses, who were disqualified from competition after they used illegal performance-enhancing True Strikes.

At the bottom of the ranking tables, as usual, were the perennial laughingstock of the league, the Alkenstar Alchemists. “I don’t know why they even bother coming anymore, given that they’re less accurate than just about any other martial class,” said Goodberry. The Alchemists themselves said that they had “a plan” to come back from their losing streak next year, but wouldn’t reveal anything about it except to say that it involved waffles.