Despite the many contracts the remaining assassins had to fulfill for their international customers, we had managed to schedule the final showdown between them for Sunday, 4th March. The duel took place in Harvey Court gardens.
The duelists were Morag "Lina Inverse" Gray", Jamie "Lloyd" Douglass and Jeremy "The Shadow" Young, also known as Macavity. The Shadow reports:
There was a tense, wary start to the duel. I was cautious of moving at all, unsure where my opponents were, and suspecting that Morag might have taken up position as a sniper somewhere. As the standoff lengthened, I realised we weren't going to be getting through our ammunition that quickly, and discarded my second gun by hiding it in some bushes, thus improving my mobility. After five or ten minutes of nervous waiting, Morag emerged on the edge of the clearing. I shifted towards her slightly, creeping through the undergrowth with what I fondly imagined to be undetectable stealth. Almost immediately she saw me, waving and calling out in an attempt to goad me closer. I moved back into the bushes, where her crossbow would be almost useless, and she vanished from sight. Next I heard Jamie coming towards me. I crept up behind a mound and lobbed a grenade over, but he dodged it and we had an inconclusive exchange of fire. I could hear the spectators talking excitedly, and suddenly I sighted the gleam of a crossbow on the other side of the clearing, where Morag had taken up position in a tree! The three of us then circled each other nervously around the clearing. I called out to Morag trying to get her to help me attack Jamie, but she said she didn't trust me. Jamie wanted my help in going for her, but I still felt that without the same sophisticated weaponry Morag was the lesser threat. Yet she continued to refuse to help, and so we went for her together. As she retreated in disarray, her arm was half-blasted off by a stray shot, rendering it useless. She could still operate her crossbow, however, and there was another lull in the battle. As the standoff continued, I started to worry about running low on ammunition, so retreated into the bushes to retrieve my second gun and leave the others to fight it out. I emerged just in time to see Jamie lunge at Morag, chasing after her as she fled. I ran round the back to try to cut them off, but they went the other way. As they vanished from view, a gasp went up from the crowd, and I arrived to find Morag slumped lifeless on the ground. There seemed no point in hiding, so I came out into the clearing to face Jamie. Again we circled around the open space, dodging from tree to tree and exchanging throwing daggers, grenades and insults. It sounded like his ammunition was getting low, and I tried to provoke him into using it. This was a nervous time, for I knew that Jamie was reckless with life, and could at any time make a sudden, wild dash which might kill us both. Several times I let off a hail of bullets, but on each occasion he somehow dodged out of the way. The ending came suddenly. Jamie stopped, smiled, and shouted something about being out of bullets. I waited: he was not going to bluff me so easily. But then, with a desperate lunge, he charged straight at me, to be cut down mid-stride in a shower of gunfire. There was no doubt this time, and he crumpled limply on the grass. He died well, with bravery and no fuss, as I hope one day I will myself. It was over. I paused to take in the significance of the moment, in the eerie silence of that deserted clearing. And then, with an unearthly wail, it seemed to me that the garden was suddenly filled by the restless souls of dead assassins. Their troubled ghosts rushed forth from all corners, shrieking and howling, charging frantically around the woods, and discharging all manner of weapons at each other. It was a chaotic, hellish vision, a chilling glimpse of the terrible toll of the assassin's craft. An involuntary shudder ran through my body, and, not even pausing to pick up my gun, I hurried from the scene, back to the street, back to some uneasy semblance of normality.
Hence Jeremy Young is the winner of the Lent 2001 Assassins' game.