As the sun rose on a grey and slightly cooler Friday morning, movement could be heard from the previously quiet balcony.
Slowly but surely, Skynet began to wake. The lights were raised, the music turned up, and the admins set about waking the venue — and, more importantly, themselves — with some much-needed caffeine.
There was work to do, as the day's tournaments were about to kick off with Unreal Tournament 2004.
The shiny new Skynet website was put through its paces, assigning teams to their Discord voice channels and allowing them to check in as ready. There were a few minor teething problems to begin with, but thankfully, they weren't caused by DNS.
That came later.
Once everything was ready, the teams launched into a series of action-packed games, battling it out for the flags and the glory.
Unfortunately, a small DNS issue decided to make an appearance, delaying the tournament slightly. Thankfully, our elite team of highly trained technicians was deployed. After extensive investigation, standing around looking confused, and turning a switch off and on again, the problem was resolved.
With the tournament pushed further into the afternoon, the enthusiasm certainly wasn't diminished. The final rounds eventually came to an end, with Degenerate Den Upper Management (D.D.U.M), Team Laser Explosion, Fairy Tail and The Rogue Troopers making it through to the semi-finals, which would be held later in the weekend.
But, as is traditional at any LAN worth its salt, we couldn't possibly make it through the weekend without having some sort of problem with the Internet.
Now, we do try to foresee every eventuality — from missing Ethernet cables to broken network ports. But this year, we can honestly say we encountered one of the most amusing and unique causes of an Internet outage in Skynet history.
The microwave dish dish fell off the building.
Yes.
Really.
Heavy rain had apparently decided that our Internet connection had enjoyed enough freedom, and gravity did the rest.
This unfortunate incident had a rather significant knock-on effect on the schedule, but once again, our elite team of technicians was called into action. This time, however, rather than simply turning a switch off and on again, they were required to scale an actual wall.
While our brave technicians battled the elements, we needed something to distract our now lost and confused friends who had been cruelly separated from the Internet.
Fortunately, help arrived in the form of pizza from La Bell in Brecon, where Mark and Mary worked tirelessly to produce an obscene amount of delicious, doughy goodness.
With pizza consumed, technicians deployed and the Internet finally restored, the natural order of the world was restored once again.
The schedule had taken a bit of a beating, so Quake was pushed back to later in the weekend, allowing us to move on to the next challenge: the mystery game.
This year's mystery game was revealed as SuperTuxKart.
The teams lined up and prepared to race in a Grand Prix-style competition, battling it out across the tracks to discover who had the skills, determination and questionable driving ability required to take the victory.
Once the teams had raced their way through to the finals, the atmosphere finally began to settle.
The lights were dimmed, the computers quietened down and everyone gathered together for the evening's movie: The Mummy.
And so, Day 2 of Skynet came to an end.
The venue slowly fell quiet, with only the gentle hum of computers, power supplies and processors filling the darkness.
Another day of gaming, competition, technical disasters, pizza and questionable engineering had come to a close.
And somehow, despite everything, the Internet was still working.
