Countdown to Rest

Vic has been up for a bit, he made coffee to see if that was acceptable under the curse, it seems like it is as he’s nearly finished the whole cup by the time Hisoki exits his room and looks at Vic. Wearing his uniform as though he never took it off. “You’re awake finally, guess that bath took it out of you, huh?”

“You could say that,” he yawns and pours himself some coffee.

“Your kobold friend does good work, my clothes don’t have that hay-twang smell caked into them. I’m sure you could get a good price if you-”

“Not selling him,” he says as he picks up his cup, sipping slowly.

“Guess you’ve heard that before-hey! What the hell are you doing!?” he points at the banana as Hisoki is peeling it.

“What are you talking about?” he takes a bite from it, Vic with his mouth agape as Hisoki swallows.

“Y-you… I-Why aren’t you paralyzed?!” he asks in a panic.

“Oh riiiight, whoops! My bad,” he puts down the banana.

“You said we were cursed like everyone in this forest! How are you eating that!?”

“Since I’m not hiding my weaknesses from you, especially since my curse effects you during this challenge, I’ll let you in on this. I can’t be cursed twice.”

“Damn, kid. Nearly gave me a heart attack…” He leans against the counter. “Wait, that means we have even more of a secret weapon. You can eat the food you have here and save on berries.”

“That is something I could do, that said. It’s not very fair to you.”

“Are you telling me, you’ve been eating these berries because you didn’t want to eat good food in front of me?”

He nods, “To be completely honest, I normally have a banana with my coffee when I wake up. I just kind of did it out of habit.”

“Hang on, you mean even if Augy bit you, you wouldn’t be a werewolf?”

“Nope…” He starts doing handstands, walking around the tent while doing it.

“The hell are you doing?”

“Nothing! Just Thinking!” he keeps doing it, looking up at Vic. “Your beard looks like the strangest hair style on the pointy head of a noble.”

Vic snorts with a chuckle and covers his mouth, trying not to give him the satisfaction of making him laugh. “Look here,” he says muffling his voice with his hand while pointing at him with the other. Hisoki is now hand standing with one hand and covering his mouth with the other, pointing at Vic with his foot.

“Look here!” he says mimicking his low muffled voice.

Vic tears up at how stupid this looks, as his laughter is bubbling up, his shoulders are shaking.

Maintaining that voice, he continues, “Is that laughter I hear? A knight! Laughing at a silly display! You should have some composure!” he hops back onto his feet. “Or maybe, other knights should laugh more?” he leans on the counter Vic is, trying his best to not lose his shit.

“Oh my god, clown… That was genuinely funny, I’ve never seen something so stupid.” He wipes the tears from his eyes. “You’re right. There are times for seriousness and times for laughter. If this is about all of the questions; I’m sorry. You have to understand, I’ve never seen a curse like this.”

“It’s fine. Although, besides werewolves; what other curses have you seen?”

“The main one is because I’m a farmer, we tend to run into Rough Rot, it’s pretty common among them in the line of work. It makes these brown vein-like patches on fruits and vegetables. If you eat it, you’re kinda just stuck eating only Rough Rot effected foods, you have to eat twice as much though in order to get full.”

“What’s the solution? Asking one of your spell casters to remove the curse?”

“Normally? Yeah, but if someone is infected by it, you have to burn the original source of the vegetation it came from. Which can be kinda hard if you’re gathering the stuff from multiple plants. Can’t remove the curse from their bodies with magic.”

“My guess is because of the simplicity of it.”

“Last question about yours for now, have you guessed the simple way to remove it? I gotta assume that’s why you know so much is you’re looking for it.”

“I did find it out, eventually. It’s pretty stupid too,” Hisoki sighs. “I have to say the phrase, ‘I give you my undying loyalty’ to the person that put it on me.”

“Guess that’s not going to happen, shouldn’t a shapeshifter do as a substitute?”

“Hey, you said that was the last question,” he points at him, looking a little annoyed. “I guess it doesn’t matter. I was dating this shapeshifting girl when I was younger, and her telepath friend was willing to help grasp a better picture. They got him absolutely perfect, it actually made me unable to stand up, or even speak from how scared I was. However, I did work out that phrase to ‘him’ eventually and… It didn’t work, as you can see.”

“If we become knights, I’m sure we can find a cure. Wrongs can be rights again.”

Hisoki laughs, “What kind of phrase is that? Now you’ve got me laughing!”

“I was being optimistic! Don’t laugh! You’re just infectious is all. You’ve been the most reliable person in these challenges. Even more than my sis…”

“…Do you, wanna talk about that?”

“No, it’s Saturday, and it’s nearly noon. We should get moving to collect more berries.”

“Already!?” Hisoki panics and sees that the calendar hasn’t been marked. “That kobold didn’t mark the calendar at all, I can’t believe I wasn’t paying attention.”

“I thought you knew,” Vic says strapping his weapon to his hip and tossing Hisoki his sword laying on the couch.

“I keep track normally, although sometimes my days bleed together depending on what I’m doing,” putting the sword on his hip, making sure he has everything.

Vic steps out and peeks back in, “You have to come see this… Now.”

“Coming!” Hisoki steps out and sees Vic kneeling a bit along the path, when he sees a black rope in the shape of a noose.

“Don’t try to touch it, this is a Command Rope ,” he uses a stick to pick it up. “If this ends up on your neck, you’ll do anything the owner commands, mentally or verbally.”

“I’ve never heard of a Command Rope before,” he stares at it.

“It’s sort of new, they are highly frowned on, there’s consideration to make them illegal.”

“Lets move camp, if they are setting these traps, I can only imagine they give a signal off if you step in one or if they can control a limb.”

“We have been active here more than anywhere else. Lets move up the stream, not down.”

Hisoki puts away the tent and they begin moving upstream, Vic stops the jester, seeing something in between two bushes, a thin string. Practically invisible, he pushes him back, tripping the wire with a stick as a Command Rope drops down from above, it’s not in a noose shape but more like a big loop. “This isn’t good,” he says. “They understand the paths people have been taking. They are trappers like me.”

“What’s the plan then?” Hisoki asks, “Normally I can see magic items, even enchanted ones, even if a magic on the item isn’t too obvious, touching it will let me know, but these things don’t give that off to me.”

“Are you saying it’s not the rope that’s magic?”

“I think the rope might just be a condition to a spell. People use ropes for spells all of the time, but these Command Ropes might just be one part of an ingredient for a spell.”

“…I can’t believe I never considered that…” Vic picks up the rope with his hand “I think the rope just signals the owner if it slips over them, this guy just likes the chase.”

“You wanna lay a trap for a trapper,” Hisoki says.

“Yep, but of course, I’m gonna need your help. We can’t sleep peacefully if these guys leave these ropes everywhere. Do you honestly think moving is the right idea?”

“Now that you mention it, moving is only part of the right idea. So what if we move, they can make this rope using the resources around us like the tree fibers.”

“Now you get me, here’s what we’re doing…”

It’s around nine at night. They have been preparing for hours, they both sit around a campfire. “I think everything is ready, we just have to wait a bit longer.”

“I just hope he shows up soon, we’ve got three hours until Sunday, I won’t be of any help to you if we can’t beat him and find someplace to camp.”

“Just trust me, the idiot will show…”

It’s another hour before Vic hears something, it’s messing with the bushes so he pulls a thin line and a snake is snared in razor wire from the bush. “The hell?”

“It’s just a snake…”

“No, a snake doesn’t make that much noise in a bush,” Vic says, seeing more snakes appear from the forest around them and they both stand close to the fire.

“Vic, I think there’s someone else with the Command Rope guy…”

“What gave it away? The fifty black reptiles around us?”

“I’ll get rid of them,” Hisoki reaches in his bag and reveals a scroll, magma erupts from the ground, covering all of the snakes and then solidifying over in a cool black glass as that scroll dissolves.

“Damn, so much for a trap-look out!” A snake shoots out toward the jester as Vic takes the reptile to the arm that isn’t armored as it sinks its fangs in.

“Shit!” Hisoki attempts to find an anti-venom in his bag.

“Don’t bother! Just look alive while I…” Throwing the snake far away, he takes out his knife, slashing the wound and letting the venom bleed out.

Hisoki watches for anything when he sees something glistening in the distance. “There’s someone wearing a magic item fifty meters away.”

“Sadly, even if I wanted to use my weapon… I can’t. My hand is fucked right now. Secondly, they are too far away for me to accurately hit them in this foliage. If you stop watching them to heal me, or even try to find something to heal me, they’ll attack again. They just saw what you’re capable of, you demonstrated it for them,” he wipes his brow, sweating from the blood loss and partially being affected by the venom. “They still don’t know what I can do. You need to not let them get you with that rope. If they do, they’ll make you give over everything you have. Shit… I almost lost consciousness,” he’s bandaging himself up now that he’s bled enough.

“If I can’t take my eyes off of them, I won’t, but I’m gonna need your weapon.”

“Look, you can’t take your eyes off of them, they are waiting for that moment.”

“I’m not, I swear, just hand me one of your munitions from it.”

Vic musters the strength to hand him one of them, and without looking away from the target, he touches the tip and begins muttering an enchantment. “Hurry up, I can barely hold onto this thing as it is with my good hand.”

“Alright, take it and load it in, then take aim,” Hisoki says confidently.

Vic loads it in, then takes aim, his hands quiver when Hisoki grips under the base. “The hell are you doing? You do realize this thing explodes right? You might lose a finger.”

“I’ll be fine, I’m pointing you to where he is, my eyes won’t leave him. Now, when you’re about to open fire, say ‘instantous’,” Hisoki explains.

Vic looks on, his vision a bit blurry, Hisoki’s grip on his gun should help with the recoil on his bad hand. When he sees the glint of something, it’s a piece of jewelry, sitting on a clothed chest. “I’ve got you… Instantous!” he pulls the trigger and the bang rings out, the explosion exiting the sides of the gun, injuring Hisoki’s hand as the projectile doesn’t just travel at its normal speed, it travels instantly to its destination.

Hisoki tears up a little as he sees his burnt glove with shrapnel inside, taking his eyes off of the target when suddenly a loud, shrill scream could be heard. “Instant Thrust as a projectile, I’ll call it Instant End.”

“You’re one crazy fool, Hisoki.” Vic leans against a tree. “Shit, I’m dizzy.”

Reaching in his bag, Hisoki finds two wands and hits Vic with one. “Cure All,” he then puts that wand away and helps him up on his feet, letting him lean on him as they walk toward the person Vic shot while Hisoki carries the other wand in his hand.

“What are you doing?”

As they approach the tree the target was hiding behind, the body is gone, but there’s a lot of blood. “It’s not over, we’ve got more work to do, Vic. Can you stand at all?”

“I’m still dealing with the blood loss… But I’ll manage.” Vic stands on his own, but his knees are shaking. “That idiot has to be way worse off than us.”

The jesters eyes droop and he shakes his head as Vic looks at the time. “Shit.. It’s already eleven-thirty. And we still got both of those guys to worry about.”

Hisoki aims the other wand at himself. “Insomnia, Insomnia, Insomnia…” He wakes up fully. “I’ve bought myself some time. We have to deal with this, now, while he’s making his way back to his partner.”

“And if it’s a trap? I don’t think I can take another.”

“I’ve only got another two hours; max, before you’re on your own. Do you really want them chasing you with me as dead weight?”

“You’re right, you’re right, it’s just the blood loss talking. Lets go,”

Vic can track the blood and foot prints now with ease, even if the guy had patched himself; the wound is far too deep to completely stop it. “Where do you think you hit him?” Hisoki asks him.

“Chest. I wanted something in the center,” the trail stops for a moment. “He’s cupping his wound, blood is pooling in his hand which means…” He moves toward a massive rock where a massive splatter is found. “He’d spill it eventually.”

“How is he alive?” Hisoki yawns after he asks this.

“Likely eating those berries, acting like an instant IV drip for him,” Vic huffs a bit, “I’d do the same if we had the time,” as they search, they find more and more random splatters. They are lagging behind due to how tired they both are. Its been over an hour and a half, time is running out.

They find themselves in a clearing, Vic looks for the next splatter of blood. “Vic, where’s the next trail?”

“I don’t know. I’m looking, I’m looking,” From the tree at the edge of the clearing he sees a rabbit, hung from a Command Rope with a hole in its side. “Wait a second… Does that mean most of what we saw wasn’t human blood? Hisoki, we’ve been baited.”

“I know. Look,” he points to the two figures waiting on them. One of which is a very handsome guy, slicked-back hair, looks gelled regularly. Though the other guy is ugly, very erratic movements, even if he wasn’t holding his collar bone where he was shot.

“So, it seems we’ve got someone who’s actually stronger than us,” the handsome guy says, straightening his jacket and twirling those ropes around his arm. “I think we can make some room for the team.”

The other guy points at Hisoki, “He’s the one who burned away my snakes! And that guy shot me with something!”

“Easy… Easy… We’ll just get the clown to kill him,” In the moment of distraction, Vic hammer fires three shots at the one with the ropes. Due to the pain in his wrist he misses two and grazes his trousers on the third. “Huh? You’re that desperate to die?” The guy pulls out a throwing knife.

Hisoki gets his attention, “Hey! Hey Hey! Yooooooo Whooooooo!” he makes a loud whistle using his fingers. “Ay! Ay! Mister! Ay! Why are you worrying about some cattleman when you’ve got a strong spell caster right here!” as he points at himself with his thumbs.

They are taken aback by how this person is acting, but they can’t take their eyes off him, “What do you think Deppa? Kill the farmer or take the clown?”

The handsome one by the name of Deppa thinks this out, if he tries killing the cattleman, this clown might just defend him. But, if they put their all into catching the clown, the cattleman may land a shot. “You know what? We will take the clown,” he steps toward him with his ugly friend following. Deppa waves that command rope like a lasso as Hisoki grips his sword and winces, forgetting he had just had Vic’s weapon explode against his fingers. He can’t grip it.

“I guess there’s only one choice,” Hisoki puts his bad palm to the sky, there’s no scroll, no tricks, but a white energy begins pooling above everyone. Vic and the two men stare in horror. “I don’t like to make light of a grim situation. You’re both going to die. Meg-” Hisoki loses consciousness, while standing, eyes half open. The mass of light disappears, and his arms drops.

The two men, still recovering from the fear in that moment. Vic is swearing in his own mind, he had a time. What happened? Was he overexerting himself? The guys realize what has happened and Deppa pushes his buddy. “Go check him!” and he does, being very careful to lean in, hearing his breathing.

“He’s asleep!” he yells back to him.

Deppa laughs, “Stupid clown had me going!” he walks over to him with confidence. “And now look at him,” he slaps him a few times which makes him fall over.

“Don’t touch him!” Vic yells. “If you put another hand on him… What he was going to do to you would have been a mercy compared to what I’ll do!”

Ignoring him, Deppa picks up the rope he dropped out of fear. “With this guy on our side, we won’t lose now!” he places it around his neck, and stands. “Up, slave.” Nothing happens. “Up! Rise!” Nothing, again.

“I think they have to be awake…” his buddy says.

“No they don’t. I took over dead bodies before, so long as their brain is still intact.”

“R-right…”

“Up damn you!” he kicks his body. “Get the hell up and kill that guy!” he points to Vic.

Vic starts to laugh once he realizes, “Holy shit, I can’t believe it. Seems like that curse also makes him immune to anyone’s commands. Bad news for you both is… I’m starting to feel better after my blood loss. I’m gonna tell you both something. I’ve got six shots in this thing. I’ve used up four. One shooting your friend, and three missing you. The question is. Which one of you feels lucky enough to not get hit by both.” He holsters the weapon as they both look on. Waiting for the chance to attack. “What’s wrong? Where’s your snakes at? Come on already, you’re both starting to bore me.”

“Hang on a sec, six shots? There’s no way. Nothing without magic is that fa-” before the ugly friend could make another sound; a bang rings out, smoke is coming from the barrel of the weapon Vic has removed from his holster. Touching his forehead to feel blood as he looks at Deppa.

“J-Juta? Are you?” he doesn’t even get a chance to catch him as their body just falls.

“At fifty meters, hitting him in the head would be next to impossible. At this range? It was inevitable. Now… I’ve got one shot. What do you wanna do now, friend?”

Deppa is shaking, as he leans down to his fallen friend. “I guess I’ll have to…” Scoops up his buddy’s body, “Get you with my rope!” he runs at Vic using his friend’s body as a shield.

“Shit! This guy’s insane!” he rolls out of the way, Deppa throws his friend’s body at him and a rope in the same motion, looping Vic’s hat but not his neck as now Vic is next to Hisoki and Deppa is behind a tree.

“I need to reload,” he reaches to reload as two ropes fly out from above the tree line, causing Vic to whip out his knife and slash and bat them to the ground. “If I reload, he gets me. I don’t have the time. I just need one good shot,” as he’s trying to figure out a way around this guy hiding and throwing his ropes. He hears a whistling. A tune being sung.

It’s a light tune, and it’s getting close. Before turning into a hum, he recognizes it as a woman’s voice. And sure enough into the clearing comes a new figure, the red dress, the striking figure. She was here. “Oh my! It seems I’ve caught up to you two again! Without that massive display I doubt I would have ever found you both!” she says playfully.

“Sadi?! Shit… Just what I need.”

“I certainly am what you need! Now who made that massive spell-Oh! Is that your little friend behind you?” she bends down.

“H-hey! Look alive! You might be targeted too!”

“Targeted? By what?” she looks around.

“Command Ropes!” he points up, she sees them fly toward her, the very second one touches her hair they are incinerated!

“A sad attempt to borrow power. Vic, is it? Tell me, was your little friend there the one who was casting that spell earlier?”

“Yeah,” he says tipping his hat forward. “If you wanna fight him, you can’t right now.”

“Such a shame, I must ask. Did it look something like this?” she puts her palm to the air, same as Hisoki did, the white energy pools.

Deppa panics behind the tree. “Shit, her too?!” he attempts to run.

“It’s too late, little crumb! Megido,” as a wave of destructive energy erupts and takes over the forest. Vic covers his eyes and shields Hisoki with his body.

When Vic opens his eyes, the small clearing has turned into a massive barren crater with no grass baring the eye of the explosion, where he, Hisoki, Sadi, and the corpse of Juta reside. “This is what he was going to do to this forest and those guys?” He’s awestruck. “I had no idea…”

Sadi is going through the corpse of Juta, checking his belongings. Before finding about seven hundred berries. “You two, are really cleaver, you know?” she strides over to Vic before he points his gun at her.

“Look, if you still wanna go, we can. I may only have one in the chamber. But I’ll do my best with it. Just leave the clown alone until he wakes up at least.”

“I’ll do you one better,” she leans down, the barrel pressing to her forehead, tossing the bag of berries at Vic. “Take them. I want to see you two in the next challenge.”

“What? What are you saying? You’ve gotta need these way more,” she shows her new bag, over a thousand berries rest inside.

“I’ve got it covered. I’ll be leaving the challenge now. You two are on your own, I expect you to defend him until he wakes up, because I need to see what that little tease is made of,” she says while walking away with a wave.

“You’d think she’s your neighbor or something,” he nudges Hisoki’s leg like he’d have a response. “Lets get you in some place safe–shit…” He realizes it as he picks him up. “He never gave me access to the tent. Even if I pulled it from his bag I can’t use it. Welp, guess we’re roughing it for the next twenty-two hours.”

He found another area by a different stream after carrying Hisoki for a while to get there. “If I can make a small campfire; I can warm up, eat a few berries, and hopefully sleep. That tent of his was a blessing, I’d let that damn kobold keep my hat if I can use that tent…” He complains while weakly trying to start the campfire. “I don’t even know where my lighter went in all of this chaos,” he finally gets an ember. “Finally,” dumps it into the kindling and blows on it. Feeding it some sticks he found, sitting on a log, looking over at Hisoki leaning against a tree. “I know you’ve probably got it worse than me right now, but you look peaceful as hell over there.”

He checks Hisoki’s hand after removing the glove, the pieces of the metal from the casing and powder did hurt his hand. He begins aiding it, removing the metal pieces he can see with tweezers, rinsing it with some sterile boiled water using his small aluminum cup after letting it cool. Then a bandage and puts the glove back on. Before he sits down, he tries to tug on the mask. Nothing. Not even give. “The hell?” He uses two hands on the tip at the corner, the corner snaps off! “W-what the!?” The piece in his melts into nothingness and then the mask grows a new one where it snapped off. “Disgusting… That is one nasty curse, sorry. Just thought I’d try.” He pokes the fire with a stick.

Vic rolls a berry between his fingers and eat it. “You know, I said you’re dependable. Thankfully you can’t hear me right now, but, I meant it. You’re the most dependable person I’ve ever had. You trusted me even after I tried to steal from you. My sister was my partner last year, but I didn’t just quit on her. She quit on me. I did everything I could. You know the old saying, push came and she shoved me. She went with someone else to be her teammate, and I didn’t have any backup so, I quit.”

“Uh huh…” Hisoki mutters in his sleep.

“What? Can you hear me in there?” he kneels, “Come on, can you?”

“Chicken,” he says.

“What did you call me-”

“Roasted Chicken…”

“Little shit is yammering about food,” he reaches in Hisoki’s bag, pulling out the one thing he knows he can use; the tube for the berries. He puts the ones he got from Sadi in there except for six berries so he can use some of them as food. He puts out the fire and makes sure it’s out before laying down. “It’s going to be a long day…”