The Deal

Hisoki, staring at the building where he will be signing up. More than a thousand people have gone into this one building. “It must be a mad house in there by now,” he whispers to himself. He takes a couple breaths, “Just… stick to the plan,” he opens one of the two giant doors, the room he walks into is very small, no one in site except one person. He’s very tall, very thin legs. He resembles someone on stilts. Elderly, wearing white gloves, full tuxedo, and a top hat. He pulls spectacles from his pocket, placing them on his face delicately and bending his knees to get to eye-level with Hisoki. He sports a very toothy grin.

He begins to speak. “Excuse me,” his low voice echoes in the dark room. The only light coming from the window behind him. “I had to take a small break and had to remove my specs, are you a contestant?”

Hisoki, very troubled by this man’s awkward appearance. Barely working up the courage to walk in this building, speaks. “Yes, yes I am.”

“Excellent,” He lifts his long arm and snaps his fingers, a book appears in his hand, it opens and flips to a completely blank page, where a quill lay. “Please, sign your name here,” He says eagerly, Hisoki takes the quill that is already inked and writes his name down in the book. The quill vanishes and the book does too, the wall next to them forms an archway, with a white barrier covering the entrance. “Make your way through there where the other contestants are. Feel free to talk, and eat; you have some time before it begins.”

Hisoki stands in front of the archway, taking some breaths and stepping through. The last room was nearly silent, this room filled with chattering, bustling, and so many people. It’s more like two thousand people have entered it seems. All of these people from different walks, different lands, Hisoki sees one guy sharpening a blade, they eye-ball the jester and watch him as he walks by along their little group snickering at him. One guy is lifting two girls directly on his biceps. Letting them sit there while they giggle. Hisoki hears a small whistle sound for attention. His head turns to some guy in a Cattleman’s hat. He’s… waving him over while he leans against the wall.

The jester has no clue who he is. But, not knowing anyone here; he decides it would be in his best interest to make some kind of ally here and walks over too him. He’s pretty tall, about 180cm, he has a pauldron over his right shoulder and several patches of armor on his chest and stomach wrapped in leather like makeshift arrow protection. His left arm covered by a long draping cloth. He’s hiding something under it. Something on his waist.

“Well, well, I thought I saw everything. You’re a first,” The man says gesturing to Hisoki’s appearance.

“I could say the same about you, that hat especially!” Hisoki says.

“This old thing?” he gives it a flick with his right hand, tilting it backwards. “Something my pops gave me,” He wraps an arm around Hisoki’s shoulder. “Names Vic, this’ll be my third time trying to become a knight.”

“Really?” the question just blurts out, as now he’s faced with someone who’s had to retake this challenge several times.

“Oh yeah, its been tough every year, who knows, you might make it,” Vic explains, there’s a smell of ash on his breath from smoking.

Right after he says that Hisoki notices something, and crosses his arms, “I would like to continue this conversation, but first, I’d like back what you just took from my bag of holding,” Hisoki confronts him.

Vic laughs and pats the jesters back, “Holy shit, you felt that?” He reveals the item he stole in his off-hand. “Mind telling me what it is I even grabbed?” he rolls the little box between his fingers in front of him.

Hisoki takes it back and puts it back in the bag of holding on his hip. “I’ll tell you, if you tell me why you need to steal magic items to win, is The Gauntlet that hard?”

Vic takes his hand off of the jesters shoulder, takes a cigarette from a little round container and lights it, taking a long breath of it. “Well… let me ask this; besides those magic items, can you cast spells too?”

“Oh, yeah I can, why do you ask?”

Vic looks directly at Hisoki, “Can you cast Counterspell?”

“I can, yes…” Hisoki says, raising an eyebrow.

“How many times?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Alright, is it more than once?”

Hisoki pauses for a second, thinking about lying to him. But, decides not to. “Yes, it’s more than once.”

Vic takes another puff, “I think we can help each other out, these challenges need partners, doing this solo with any kind of handicap is asking for trouble, I can’t use magic. You seem to be able to just from what you are telling me. My goal was to sneak a magic item from someone who looks like they may have one or two.”

Hisoki looks around and sees what Vic is talking about, there are no actual ’loners’ in this room so far. There are people trying to find potential partners, friends, or have came here with friends. Now he realizes why Nozomi needed a partner which makes him feel bad for leaving her hanging in her time of need.

Vic nudges him, noticing his expression, “Hey, what’s got you down?”

“Nothing!” He says in a small panic, correcting his expression before asking him, “If I’m bringing magic to this, what are you bringing?”

He leaves the cigarette in his mouth before uncovering what’s attached to his hip, a leather holster and something metal inside. “This, is a device of my own makin’, I call it the peacemaker. It fires slabs of metal at incredible speeds using a new black powder mix I’ve created.” He then reaches in a bag behind him and pulls out something small and metal. “It fires these cartridges, devilvering death in a mere moment.” He shows the very small metalic cartridge right to the jester, rotating it, almost flaunting his creation.

Scratching the side of his face with just a finger, giving it some thought. “Wait… if you have this amazing weapon, why haven’t you won this thing yet?”

Vic sighs, putting away his ammunition. “I carry twelve rounds of these ‘bullets’ at a time. It takes me at least six hours to make twelve more. The metals for them are hard to come by and a little pricey.”

“So… You run out and have to quit early?”

Vic glares at him not wanting to say it so directly, but just nods while looking away from him.

“Hmm…” Hisoki thinks for a bit then asks, “The metals, are they gold or silver?”

“Uh, no. It’s lead, copper, brass, and… That’s it.” Vic explains.

The jester grins and pulls from his bag another bag. “This should fix that issue!” He says with the biggest smile.

“The hell’s a bag of holding going to fix?”

“No, no, it’s not a bag of holding! Take those munitions out of your bag and put it in this one.”

“Alright, I’ll bite,” he does so putting all twelve bullets in the jesters bag.

“Set!” Hisoki says, tying off the bag. “Allow me to demonstrate,” He opens the bag and takes out one bullet, then he casts ‘destroy item’ which annihilates that bullet. Before Vic can say anything the jester taps the bag and says “refresh,” showing the contents of the bag to Vic, all twelve bullets are back inside the bag.

“H-How did… I don’t understand.”

“I’ve never had a use for this bag, it only has the ability to clone up to the same number of items placed inside of and set in it when one or more of those objects are destroyed and only once every hour using a command word, and as you can see… it’s small. Very small. So, I couldn’t use it for arrows or bolts. It can’t clone precious metals or items like gold, silver, platinum, gems.”

“So, you’re telling me you’ve fixed my ammunition problem?”

“Mostly!” Hisoki puts the bag in Vic hands and begins whispering some kind of incantation to transfer the ownership and attunement to Vic. “And now it’s yours. No one can steal it from you without you noticing it and no one can use it except you!” The little jester ecstatic that he actually helped someone with his ability.

“Damn, kid, this is really really helpful. I might even be able to do this solo now,” he looks down at him. “But, I won’t need to, so long you got my back with those spells of yours and whatever else you’ve got in your little bag of tricks.”

Things progress a little while Vic and Hisoki talk, but someone takes notice of the two of them together. This hooded, tall figure walks straight toward them both with someone about Hisoki’s height in tow. As they approach Vic, they unveil their hood and it’s a werewolf. Staring down at Vic.

Vic instantly looks at the werewolf as it speaks. “Vic! You came back this year. Crazy, really.” The werewolf says, looking down at him. Vic seems to not understand at all, what or who this is. The beast pats his shoulder. “Oh right! You wouldn’t know. I got bit not too long ago, man. It’s me, Augustus!”

Vic almost has to recompose himself. “Holy hell, Augy! What happened?”

“Keep up, Vic. I said I got bit.”

“Yeah but… Why do you look like that right now? Why not… You know man. In a few weeks.”

“Ah, right… well, It seems I got bit the same time I killed the werewolf that bit me. So… I’m kinda just stuck like this.”

Hisoki, immediately interested by this. Can’t help but ask. “So you’re stuck with a curse no one can cure?”

Just then the person beside the werewolf pipes up.“Correct, my brother will never know his mortal flesh. Save for a miracle.” She is dressed in a clerics nun-outfit. Constantly keeping her gloved hands together.she reaches out to the jester and places her gloved hand on his face. Over his mask. “Oh my… Something seems to have taken you too…”

Hisoki immediately pulls back, almost like he’s afraid of anyone touching the mask. The girl pulls her hands together. “I am sorry… I just wished to know the origin of your curse.”

The Jester, rightly short of breath from his panic. “I…” He take a breath and recompose himself. “It’s fine, it’s just not something I’d like to talk about.” He smiles nervously, kind of clutching his chest.

The Nun bows her head. “Maiyori is my name… I’m going to become a knight along with my brother here.”

The werewolf pats Hisoki’s shoulder. “Relax. If we take the first challenge together, we’ll be siding with you and Vic here. What’s your name anyway?” He asks releasing his grip.

“Hisoki, I specialize in… " But the moment he’s about to say it he looks around. “Actually… I shouldn’t say here. There’s a lot of people.”

Vic waves his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I already know and they’ll find out if we can team up.”

“Alright, well what have you-” as Augy asks this trumpets begin to sound. “Nevermind! It’s starting.”