Confrontation

That morning, both Vic and Hisoki wake up, and get to work by collecting lots of berries farther from the tent, it takes a while to find more, all of the way until noon because of the foot traffic within the area. It’s next to impossible to tell how many, but the snares that Vic had left were tripped and not by rabbits or other small creatures. Not only was there foot traffic, there were burn marks on bushes and trees, the temperature so hot it looked as though the bushes and trees were cut with the fire rather than just burned like with a torch. Vic waves over Hisoki to take a look at the damage on the tree that sits behind the burnt bush. “What do you make of this?” He asks, touching it slowly. Hisoki touches the trees’ burn mark and then focuses on the bush.

“How does a source of fire catch a bush halfway then then a tree only on the left hand side?” He asks Vic

“Magic?” Vic asks, staring at Hisoki. “How come we didn’t hear it?”

“We are pretty far out right now from our tent, and we were very tired last night. But it does seem rather fresh from the immense heat alone.”

“Is there any chance they could still be here?” Vic looks around. Almost paranoid.

“I doubt it… There would be no reason if they got into a fight and finished it quick.”

Just as he stands; Vic grabs the jester by his puffy outfit and tackles him as a large ball of fire flies past them both. “Look alive, seems like you were wrong.”

They both recompose, looking around, thinking that the person who through the fireball is hiding. They couldn’t be more wrong. A figure cuts in the light from the trees, its a woman. She’s wearing a very deep red dress, ebony skin, well done hair, Vic can’t believe he didn’t notice this woman walk through the portal. “Excuse me boys, I was using detect life when I saw you both. I was looking for someone else… However, I do believe you two will satiate my boredom. My name is Sadi Valer Vise, you may call me Sadi, and I will be your reaper.”

“Boredom?” Vic asks, hand gripping the Peacekeeper at his hip.

“It seems the contestants this year have offered no challenge, I’ve nearly got enough berries to complete this thing.” She says, turning her back even.

Hisoki reaches in his bag slowly. “And setting us on fire would be your entertainment?”

She laughs like she’s enjoying a meal, “No, no, the entertaining part would be watching you squirm to defend yourself,” as she slings another fireball with one hand at them both, it melts the ground as it approaches and then vanishes just as soon as it arrived, Vic can’t believe what he just saw. In Hisoki’s hand that was previously in his bag is a scroll that fades into nothing. “A counter spell from a scroll? Darling, you’ll need to do so much better than that!” they both dodge as another comes burning through, splitting them both up and burning straight through a tree.

Vic sees the intensity of the heat, “She’s turning up the damage…” He pulls out his weapon, and clicks back the hammer taking aim at her.

“Oh? That doesn’t look like anything I’m familiar with, very well! Entertain me!” She opens her arms.

“Sure thing…” As three loud bangs echo out, her head goes back and arms drop down.

She pulls her head back up slowly, there’s three pieces of squashed metal, two against her forehead, one in her chest. “Almost had me, honey,” she peels them off with her fingernails and drops them to the forest floor.

“How!?” Vic exclaims in complete disbelief.

She rubs her body, “Simple, every vital area of my body is shielded by several enchantments I cast every morning, nothing can pierce them physically,” her arms pool the back of her hair, exposing her vitals by pushing out her test, completely unguarded. “Now I do believe it’s my turn…”

Before she can start, the sound of metal be drawn can be heard, she turns to see the jester is pointing his sword at her, holding it with both hands, taking aim. “Vic, this woman will be beaten by your weapon, in fact, it’s the only realistic way we can beat her.”

“So much bravado! It would be so nice if you can back up such words,” She prepares a massive spell in both hands, she plans on blowing Vic and Hisoki away.

Vic has no clue what he can do, but he makes a quick reload for whatever the clown has planned. Hisoki keeps that sword pointed and whispers a word. A spell, and he instantly moves from where he was, forward. There is no travel time, there is no sound. Just destination. His saber has pierced the shoulder of this woman. As she looks down at it, he grabs her other shoulder, “Dispel!” He shouts as the enchantments on her body visibly shatter! Her expression is one of not fear but joy, as she grips the sword with one hand and charging magic with the other.

“God job… Hisoki,” He takes aim and she looks dead at Vic. “It’s not the cleanest shot, but I’ll make due,” As three more shots ring out, she moved her head, so only two hit her ribs, and the third flies in between her and Hisoki’s face, she frees her shoulder from the blade and knocks away his hand on her shoulder, while the jester feels a familiar sensation, looking down to see her hand has stolen the container full of berries from his bag! As she falls he reaches out to grab her and she vanishes.

“No!” Hisoki falls on his knees.

“What happened? Where did she go? I got her right?” He stays armed, looking around.

He hits the ground, “I can’t believe I wasn’t paying attention…” Hisoki admits.

“What? What is it?”

“She got the tube with our berries,” he says, looking down.

“I figured that’s what she was doing,” Vic puts away his weapon and helps Hisoki up, pointing to her bag on the ground “See, I didn’t just shoot her in the ribs, I shot through her bags strap.”

“You’re kidding!” He picks it up and looks through it, finding a pouch with a thousand berries inside.

“Shame we won’t be able to keep them fresh until we get a thousand more,” Vic says.

“Not necessarily,” he clasps his hands, whispers a mantra for moment, and the same tube she had stolen appears and hits the dirt in front of him.

“I’ll be, then why were you worried about the tube? You just got the berries back.”

“Not exactly, I can return the magic items to me, but not the items inside, the berries that were in it were just now destroyed.”

“Now I see, seems stealing magic items from you really isn’t worth it.”

“Not unless you want to inconvenience me,” he begins dumping the berries in there, a few had already spoiled due to heat. “We have nine-hundred fifty-seven berries.”

“Lets get a few more and-” Vic stumbles a bit, “Actually… I need a rest. This day has got me messed up.”

“But it’s,” He reaches in his bag, pulling out a pocket watch, “Oh, it’s after 4pm already.”

“Can we head back? We could both use a bath after all of this,” he steadies himself.

“That sounds good right now,” putting away the sword, he flinches a little. He realizes his arm is actually hurt. While heading back, he pulls up his sleeve and sees the massive bruise, trying to not let Vic see for the moment but he realizes he’s keeping things from his teammate. He turns to him before they go in the tent. “Vic, you should know, when she slapped my arm away she did injure me.”

“Is that gonna be a problem?” He asks.

“Just that I’m gonna need you to get me something from my room.”

“You trust me with that?”

“I trust you enough to tell you that I’m hurt…”

“Good point. Alright, what am I getting?”

“There’s a dresser with potions in it, I need one of them.”

He says as he heads into the bathroom. As Vic makes his way to the bedroom, he sees the kobold run to the bathroom. Vic steps in the bedroom, noticing lots of oddities, a gold dragon statue sitting on a table. The bed is huge, and circular, not square at all. Vic can’t help but touch it. It’s extremely plush. He sees the closet door open, inside is lots of different versions of his cap and clothes, but the mask he wears isn’t found. He finds the drawer and reveals rows of potions. He takes one, shuts it, and sees a picture of circus tent, an older man, and two little boys. One has a mask on and the other doesn’t.

Vic only looked at for a moment before leave for the bathroom, where he nearly runs into the kobold holding Hisoki’s clothing. “Excuse me…” the kobold says slipping past Vic. He enters the bathroom, full of steam and sees Hisoki sitting in the tub, his face paint gone and cap gone, but his mask remains. He has blonde hair which was normally completely hidden by the cap.

Vic hands Hisoki the bottle as he gets undressed and gets in the massive tub, the kobold comes back in, taking his hat and clothes before leaving. “So… That mask is part of the curse isn’t it?” He hisses a bit as he sits in the bathtub.

“Right, I guess I should explain a bit more,” he sits back and Vic takes notice of a clear jewel, shaped like a drop, worn around his neck by a simple silver chain. “It’s like this, when I was really young, a necromancer visited my village. He didn’t just raise the dead, he was able to turn the living into the dead.”

Vic looks struck with something incomprehensible, “A necromancer that didn’t have to kill people to make them undead?” he almost gives a visible shiver. “That’s actually horrifying.”

“Although, there has to be some kind of criteria to effect people to turn them into undead, I think after years I figured it out. They had to be over a specific age.”

“Shit…” he crosses his arms and listens carefully.

“Sadly for me, I happened to be attacked by my own parents. I was seven. Now, don’t take this part as tragic, I’m no different than the other kids that had that happened to them except they got worse, most if not all were eaten. I was just lucky.”

“And the curse?”

“Don’t worry, that’s coming, I escaped my own home and ran directly into the necromancer. As you can see, he didn’t kill me, he admired my fearlessness and decided he needed a general for his army. A black blindfold was cast around my eyes before it formed into this mask.”

“So, I’m left wondering something then, who beat him?” Vic can’t help but cut in hearing this story, “In order to beat something like that, you’d have to be something extremely powerful. I don’t know much about the knights in the kingdom, but I’m not sure they can’t beat someone that strong.”

“Almost like it would take a God Knight to beat them, huh?” Hisoki asks him in a very matter-of-fact way.

“I see,” he says “A God Knight saved you, yet you don’t live in The Capital.”

“Saved me?” Hisoki laughs aloud, making waves in the water. “No, no, no. The God Knight killed the Necromancer sure, without a second thought. The man was erased from existence. And the undead? Not cured but they were erased too.”

“What?!” Vic grips his thigh, “You mean they could have easily turned those people back to normal but didn’t? Hisoki, this scandal is huge. The other God Kni-”

“Can’t do a thing,” he says confidently. “God Knights are equal to one another. There isn’t a single ability the other doesn’t have.”

“Wait, so, even though they all look different in one way or another, they are all actually the same in strength?”

“And speed, and abilities in general.”

“How does that work?”

“Think of it like this, every knight has their worth right? You could argue certain knights have more worth than another. Don’t take this the wrong way, but if we compare our abilities right now Vic, I’d likely be a ten to your seven.”

“Alright, little offended you think so highly of yourself but, I get it. You can use magic and I can’t. Go on.”

“These are quantitative distinctions of power and ability. I have more abilities than you, you have less than me. But not by much honestly. You use an item you created, I use magic items I find plus the magic I know.”

“Fair, but where’s this going?”

“God Knights aren’t just quantitatively superior to us. They are qualitatively superior. Vic even if your bullet was as instant as my instant thrust spell, you would still be slower than any God Knight.”

“I somehow already kinda knew that deep down,” Vic admits. “I can’t put it to words, but seeing those God Knights just appear, it’s like I was looking directly at something more than a person.”

“God Knights can change reality, they aren’t limited to the layers of reality we all exist in. They stand outside of those laws. Maybe they can even alter, dismantle, and create new ones.”

“I don’t mean to sound like I’m defending them, clearly they just killed a bunch of people they could’ve saved. Do you have any proof of this?”

“Do you know about the God Knights ability to grant wishes?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. Though I assumed it was something like a request.”

“I have a friend who lost an arm to a necrosis type of spell. She told me herself that a God Knight fixed instantly what would have taken weeks to months to fix even from the best healers.”

“You make a fair point.”

“And to be fair, I didn’t know about that until the day I met you.”

“I’d say that confirms it then, personally.” Vic reaches and turns on the hot water to refresh the bath. “You don’t mind right?”

“Not at all! I like it hotter, just wasn’t sure if you did.”

“If it can’t melt my calluses off from a hard days work then its not hot enough.”

The take in the fresh heat while Vic stares at the necklace. “You curious about this?” Hisoki asks him lifting it up off of his lithe chest.

“Honestly, yeah, it’s gotta be important if you don’t let your kobold take it, nor do you carry it in your bag.”

“Sorta. It doesn’t have a use right now. It’s a magic item of my own making.”

“What’s it do?”

He gives a smirk pressing his index fingers against his cheeks, “It’s a secret! Ooooooo!”

“Ugh, is this a trust thing or?”

“Nope! Not at all! I’m just not confident enough that it’ll work.”

“Huh?”

“I will tell you something important though,” he pauses for a second, the only sound is the drops of water hitting the surface from their hair. “Do you know what the most powerful spell is?”

“No, I’m not into that kind of thing. I feel like my invention is just a match for any spell caster.”

“In my opinion? The most simple spells are the most terrifying.”

“Oh yeah? Like Lightning Strike.”

“Sure, sure, but even simpler than that. How about the spell Mending.”

“Mending… Right, the farmers I work with use that to fix their barns after storms. I’m not entirely sure how it works. I think you need equal material right?”

“That’s all that is required. If a tree falls on your house, you can use mending to turn that tree into the material that automatically fixes your house.”

“Alright, but how is that scary?”

“Ever heard of it being tried on a living person? Or someone who’s dead?”

“Are you saying Mending can bring someone back to life if someone is willing to give up their life?”

“Just a thought, half of the spells in existence have never been tested fully.”

“That’s not unnerving at all.”

Hisoki stands in the tub and gets out, wrapping a towel around himself. “I’m going to get some sleep, you enjoy the rest of the bath.”

Vic can see the injury on his arm has healed, the potion bottle is empty, when did he do that? He watches the jester leave. “This guy may be strange, but he’s proven more reliable than anyone else. He’s got trust issues, but who can blame him, especially when I tried to steal from him,” he rubs the back of his head. “I got a bad feeling though, this kid wants something.”