“The silence in the dank changing room 30ft beneath the Pit's inhospitable Blood Bowl pitch continued into it's eighth hour. The wizards responsible for the summoning and control of the elementals of the Aethyric Humours sat awkwardly around the periphery of the room, a lone wizard stood nervously at its centre. Without exception all had their pointy wizard hats removed and balanced in their laps. All glowered menacingly at the brown robed Earth wizard they surrounded, the embroidery on the hat held awkwardly in front of his crotch designating him as the caster in charge of "Sgiriya".

Head Coach SW cleared his throat, loudly. The brown robed wizard noticeably tensed.

"What EXACTLY did you cast?"

The brown robed wizard's face was trying its best to turn crimson but blood supplies had been magically diverted elsewhere and his face remained deathly pale.

"Well..." he began and immediately tailing off as his conscious mind grasped desperately at the last eight hours of excuses which had immediately fled and scattered into the darkest hidden recesses of his brain. "Sgiriya, it kept getting hit, and, you know, falling down and well.. I wanted, for the team obviously, to keep it on its feet, unmoving. You know, marking up the flesh golems like a solid wall like we said..."

"What EXACTLY did you cast?"

The question was repeated and he knew it would be repeated over and over again until he answered it, probably in excruciating detail. One drop of blood finally battled to his face, it had no perceptible affect on his pallor but it gained a real sense of satisfaction from making it that far against all odds.

"Well, it was meant to be stand firm"

"WHAT DID YOU CAST YOU IMBECILE?"

"...stay firm." It came out as a barely audible squeak.

"AND?

"stay up"

"AND?"

"stay stiff, stay hard, stand erect, stand up all night and never go down, and..." he paused barely able to admit it to himself "...maximum hardness." This last came out in the ultrasonic frequencies setting off howls from the werewolves in the Necromatic team next door. "I panicked, I just couldn't remember the correct combination of words and so I just said anything that came into my head."

The wizards flinched at this last phrase, before realising the magic wording wasn't quite correct and the spell had not been cast, relaxed and shifted awkwardly in their seats, hats firmly in laps.

"How exactly did you manage to cast all 7 versions of the spell of tumescence during a game of Blood Bowl?" head coach SW inquired icily. "And not only did you cast all 7 of them, you cast the group version of all 7 of them which I am very ashamed to find out you even know! I thought we'd all agreed to wipe those versions from the records after that incident with the serving maids at the Christmas party four years ago. Who taught you?"

The question was interrupted as the door to the room swung open and a flame robed wizard strutted in, preceded by a bulge in his robes that anyone would have been proud to follow.

"Autographs all done, coach"

Coach SW stopped glowering at the earth wizard and turned to look at the fire mage, remembering too late to make a conscious effort to direct his gaze upwards before panning across. Was that wet ink all over the front of his flame coloured robes? Why would there be wet ink on the front of his robes. The questioning look on Coach SW's face was answered by the cheeky grin on the fire mages.

"Like I said, autographs all done Coach."

The fire mage held up his hands, not even the slightest trace of ink could be detected anywhere on them that would have indicated a quill had been held recently. Coach SW groaned. The fire mage winked at the rest of the wizards and waddled off towards the toilet, sweeping the space in front of him for obstructions like one of the blind beggars in the poorer parts of town. A yard from the toilet he acrobatically flipped into a handstand, his robes falling away and a jet of urine was directed with impressive accuracy directly into the bowl.

This couldn't be happening. They'd finally managed to get a CIBBL franchise and now this. They'd be lucky not to be expelled for gross indecency. Coach SW placed his head in his hands and sighed. He leant forward at the waist trying to make himself as small as possible. He felt a sharp prod to his stomach. He started to sob. A 2-1 loss was the least of his worries.”