Price of the Soil

Both Hisoki and Vic are arguing with the ticket salesman where the train is. “Look, fella. I explained this already. Your friend can’t get on the train with a mask. I don’t care if it’s a curse or not! Go get it cured. There’s plenty of clerics that will cure it for free.”

Vic reaches over the counter where the salesman stands and grips his tie. “Listen here, because he can’t get cured. Get it? There’s no cure for it. Ya idiot!” He releases his tie, not trying to threaten him. Just trying to get him to hear correctly.

“Oh! Well excuse me, let me just make a singular exception for the only example and then have twenty or so people complain that the whole entire reason behind this rule was to not have raids on our gorgeous capital!” he says with his outstretched arms to almost embody the very capital. “This great ring of Magen is the very cornerstone of civilization. If I didn’t uphold it, I’d be spitting in a God Knight’s face or even one of the King’s.”

Hisoki has been very quiet. Vic turns to him, seeing the uncomfortable look on his face and then back to the salesman. “You’re right. I’m sorry for arguing, we just got finished taking the Knight’s Gauntlet and hoped we can relax on the train on our way to the ninth ring.”

The man realizes who he’s talking to finally. “Wait a moment… You’re Vic! I’ve seen you from the Sight Sphere projections! I thought I recognized you! That means you must be Hisoki! Your fight with Maiyori was spectacular even though I couldn’t understand a notion of what was happening!” he thumbs through his book. “Okay, I can’t allow you on the train. However, there is something I can help with so it doesn’t take you a day to get to the ninth ring. I have a friend in the carriage business that I know will take you both for nothing if he knows you’re the knights from the recent challenge. You should get to the ninth ring in about twelve hours. How does that sound?”

Vic nods. “Sounds perfect.” The man hands Vic a piece of paper with an address and both of them leave for the carriage. Once they reach the carriage business and meet the owner, he’s more than excited to help both Vic and Hisoki, so they begin traveling. Both of them are inside the rather large carriage. Sitting across from one another. This trip will take roughly twelve hours according to both the carriage operator and the train ticket salesman. While they both sit, Vic is still taking in the fact that Hisoki has been relatively quiet since the ticket booth for the train. “Hey, you alright?”

Hisoki leans against the window with his elbow and rests his hand on his cheek. “Yeah…” he blinks slowly. “I’m just kinda used to it at this point.”

“Doesn’t sound like you are. Do you get that often?”

“Vic… I couldn’t go into a bar because I wear a mask when I was in the second ring the day before the challenges. Days before that, I couldn’t get into a magic show because they thought I would look too much like a performer in the audience.”

“That last one I can understand.”

Hisoki looks at him from the corner of his eye then back out the window. They pass by the first ring. “Normally I’m one for humor, especially at my expense. This just doesn’t feel very funny. I don’t understand what people have against masks. Years ago I used to see people wearing full masks into places.”

“It’s a different world from a few years ago. My family’s farm used to get by when I was ten with just a couple hundred gold coins. And then… Things got harder. Things got worse. People felt less safe. People began hoarding food. We made too much food for people. And things just went bad.”

Hisoki faces Vic honestly. “When I was traveling, do you know what I heard? ‘In Magen, you taste Paradise. In the Capital, you never have to wake up.’ Can you tell me how a paradise needs to recruit knights every year, children somehow ‘want for nothing’ and yet we can wear masks on trains and in bars.”

“My grandmother used to say ‘A village needs rules and fools.’ She said that because fools test those rules to try to see if they hold up.”

“Your grandmother seems like someone I’d agree with.” Hisoki watches another carriage roll by toward the Capital.

“Something else is bothering you. Is it because I got you talking about that picture in your bedroom?”

“It is, I’m not going to lie to you. It’s not your fault.” Hisoki touches the wall of the carriage and the inside lightly glows and fades. “There. Now our driver can’t hear us. I’ll be a bit more open to you, as my friend. I feel like I can trust you when I say, I have some very big plans.”

“Plans? What kind?” Vic looks at him with a little concern.

“I just want people to stop believing in this lie that God Knights keep us safe. They are so powerful yet let people die and those people stay dead. God Knights don’t have to let people die unjustly. Age, natural cause, fine. But an accident? Murder? Why doesn’t a God Knight come down and raise the fallen? Mend what is broken and cure… What is cursed.”

“Do you think you oughta be the one that does it? That fixes everything?” There’s an accusing bite to that.

“It doesn’t have to be, but someone, anyone that is willing to actually correct the things that are wrong. The God Knights as they are will never do that. What do they even do?” Hisoki asks knowing full well Vic doesn’t know.

“Not sure. I don’t really know what you’re getting at though. Although, I think I agree with you. Why do we have to risk our lives for magic items when God Knights are our weapon against any invading forces?” He takes off his hat, scratches his head. “Ahh… I don’t like thinking about stuff like this. Augy was telling me something about your fight with Sadi.”

“Yeah?”

“You flashed light in front of you to force your shadow to appear behind you. Then you put dispel on your sword and stabbed her? How do you stab a shadow?”

“Oh! Dispel and the light spell do most of the work. When enough light is in front of something it causes a silhouette that cascades right behind someone. This is a sort of shadow that dispel itself can touch in a roundabout way. Forcing her out of my shadow.”

“How did you know she was in your shadow?”

“Honestly? It was a guess! Although, given what she did against Lyco, it was a very educated guess.”

“Man, hedging your bets like that? You must have been pushed into a corner.”

“She’s probably the strongest spellcaster.” Hisoki admits, “I only won because I kept stuff close to my chest.”

“Besides Maiyori?” Vic asks, trying to make the record plain.

“I can’t say for certain. I couldn’t let Maiyori touch me. If she touched me, I lost. She could put me to sleep or whatever. If Sadi was left with Maiyori? Sadi might have killed her. I had the ability to stay as far as I needed. Sadi from what we’ve seen does not.”

“That reminds me, why didn’t you use your illusion stuff on Sadi?”

“Using it would have been a huge gamble. If I failed, like she doesn’t give a reaction or I can’t see, hear, touch, or have some form of output from her reaction for some reason, then I just limited my spells.”

“Your best spell might have just been ignored?”

“I don’t know if ignored is the right word. Sadi may not have even acknowledged the question or action. I mean… I stabbed her. But, she didn’t really seem to give a real reaction to the pain, to her it was more like pleasure, which I didn’t expect. Not that it hurt. Unless I know I can get someone under the illusion, I don’t bother.”

“Would I have been affected?” Vic asks, and Hisoki gives him a look, raising his eyebrow behind his mask.

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

“Yeah, you know what? Forget I said anything about it.”

“I will say, Chizayon alone does a number on people. And it just affects only one of the five senses.”

“That’s the basic illusion spell?” Vic puts his feet up on the empty part of the seat beside Hisoki. “Then what do you use?”

“It’s called Chizakif. I made it myself due to my nightmares. I had to master my senses, all of them. Now my senses can’t be messed with by any means.”

“Unless it’s by your nightmares.” Vic corrects him.

“Actually, my nightmares have to keep it realistic, if you recall. No time manipulating, no random lava appearing below my feet, nothing like that. And that’s more like a byproduct of the curse already affecting me. Curses become a part of you once they are with you. Which is why normal healing spells can’t remove even the smallest curses like they would a poison. Anything foreign trying to affect or even read my mind can’t affect me.”

“Is that why the Command Rope didn’t affect you?”

“The wha-?”

“You got a Command Rope put on you when you fell asleep in the forest. With those two guys.”

“I did? Well, it doesn’t matter. I had a feeling it wouldn’t work. I did heed your warning because getting one around my arm still might have allowed just my arm to be puppeteered.”

“I’d rather fight a clown that controls himself than one controlled by others.”

“Let’s talk about you! I don’t know anything about your family!” Hisoki asks. Not just because he doesn’t want to quickly escape talking more about himself. He’s showing genuine interest. “You want me to come to your farm, so you gotta have more than a sister, right?”

“I was kinda hopin’ tah leave it a surprise. But, I’ll tell yah a couple things. I got a couple brothers. A good few aunts and uncles. We’re mostly close-knit. Twelve acres, though we are having problems.”

“Money?”

“Money. Hence the mostly part I mentioned. Momma thinks hard work on the farm is all that is needed. She knows I’m hard working. When I told her I’m gonna be a knight and pay off the farm-” he stops the moment he realized he said too much.

“Pay off? You said it was your family farm.”

“Man…” he takes off his hat and scratches his head. “What a pain, you got me. My Pa is gone. Died four years ago. You know what he left us with? Debt. He couldn’t keep the money flowing either, so he took out loans and never told anyone. Kept it really quiet until he died, so yeah. The reason why your ringmaster was an idiot is the same reason why my dad is.”

“And your mother?”

“She says ‘There’s not much we can do ‘cept pick up where he left off. Even if he burned us down, we have to rebuild it all up after.’ That’s momma for ya. She doesn’t think being a knight is honest work because you don’t break your back every single day.”

“Then what about your sister?”

“My sister was supposed to help us, she hasn’t sent a single thing. So, that’s fair I guess.”

Hisoki jumps up a little in his seat. “Wait, how is that fair? She went to become a knight to help the family, right?”

“Yep, and then she became a knight in order to help herself. To me? That’s the same as taking care of family. She got out of the hole our Pa dug. I don’t hate her for it all.” Vic looks out his window. “This is gonna be a long trip…”

“I’m just glad you’re consistent in what you believe.”

“I try to be. Got anything to pass the time? I normally just take the train so this is kinda feeling cramped.” Vic says, shuffling, boots shuffling when he plants one on top of the other.

“I got books? I got… Puzzles? What do you normally do when you’re bored?”

“Work, play with the dogs, play my guitar, hunt, whittling wood.”

“You can play a guitar?” Hisoki leans back, practically accusing Vic with a smirk.

“It’s my grandpa’s guitar, I normally play it every day, taught me how when I was a lot younger. You play any?”

“I play a couple! Being in the circus meant we had to learn a number of instruments.”

“Since we are going to be traveling for a while, it would be alright to have something to do.” he sighs, putting his cattleman’s hat over his face.

“Hmm…” Hisoki moves Vic’s legs off of the seat beside him and onto the floor, making Vic lunge upward.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Hisoki answers by reaching in his bag and dropping a small brown ball on the floor, then it uncomfortably unfurls into a wooden table with a bowl of fruit, a pitcher of water and playing cards. The table is kind of large too. “There!” Hisoki begins shuffling the playing cards. “Think you can handle a little poker for a few hours?”

Vic leans forward, elbows on the table. “That sounds like something I can do for a few hours. Do you want to lose some real money?”

“Funny, but all of my money is in my tent.”

They spend the next few hours playing poker when the carriage stops. Vic and Hisoki look at the door to the carriage and then back at each other. Hisoki turns the cards and the table back into the tiny ball while Vic opens the door and hops out of the carriage. Hisoki follows right after and upon exiting he sees a small group of individuals holding up the carriage driver with crossbows, masks, and cloaks. “Safe to say these aren’t my family. By the looks of it, we aren’t close to the ninth ring.”

“Shut it! We want your gold and valuables! First, you, funny-looking fellow. Your bag!” the smaller one says, the two behind them pointing their crossbows at Hisoki and Vic, while two more point at the carriage driver.

“Vic, I think they are talking to you.” Hisoki says out loud.

“Hardy har…” Vic says, keeping his eyes on the thieves, then addresses them directly. “I understand you fellas are on hard times, though Magen is full of knights. What happens if they show up while you’re robbing us?”

“Knights never come out here.” One of the bigger thieves says. “Magen is so big that knights don’t even notice what happens this far out. Most of them take the damn train anyway.”

“Uh huh, so, do you have a way of dealing with knights? If they ever do show up.” Vic puts his hand on his hip.

“Shut the hell up! We want your-” A bang rings out. The masked thief that was talking falls over, smoke coming from under the cloth over Vic’s arm.

“Man, I hate when I ask a damn question and don’t get an answer…”

“I think you might have killed him.” Hisoki says. The man isn’t moving either.

Vic hauntingly says to the others. “I did aim for his mouth. I needed it to stop running.”

Every one of the remaining thieves steps back. “You… You’re a knight!”

“Officially, yeah. I am. You could say I just graduated.”

“I’m a knight too!” Hisoki waves as though they forgot he’s even there.

“Run!” They all disperse in different directions, leaving their fallen ally behind.

“Damn, I wanted to catch one before they ran off!” Hisoki crosses his arms and walks over to the body, while Vic makes sure the carriage driver is fine. “Vic? He’s still alive.”

“I know, I shot him to the right of his stomach. Did you get any more potions?”

“No… I was meaning to? But I do have this.” Hisoki reaches in his bag for a scroll and reads it off, which undoes the damage. Then Hisoki removes the mask. The man is very scruffy, mid-thirties looking, beard, and his eyes open slowly. “There, he’s awake.”

“Alright, leave him.” Vic says, already climbing back into the carriage.

“You’re not gonna arrest him?” Hisoki asks.

“Look, I don’t even know where to take him yet. I don’t want to waste any more time on this and I want to get home.”

The thief sits up. Looking up at Hisoki, while the jester himself looks at the defeated man. Hisoki reaches in his bag and pulls out a small bag of rations, setting it down at the man’s feet. Then he heads back to the carriage with Vic, and it begins moving the second the door closes. Vic is lying on his back along his seat to attempt to sleep for a while.

“If you’re awake by the time we get there, wake me up.” Vic sighs and even grumbles on his way to sleep. Hisoki takes a couple naps on their way. The carriage driver has to stop to let the horses rest and eat twice, however, by eight o’clock in the evening they arrive outside of the ninth ring where lots of farmland can be seen. Fireflies are everywhere. Frogs can be heard. It’s a completely different feeling from inside Magen. Hisoki has to spend ten minutes trying to wake Vic up with shakes and even taking his hat. “Alright, alright, I’m up.” He yanks back his hat from the jester and steps out of the carriage, tipping the driver with Hisoki following.

The walk isn’t too far. It takes a bit to get to the homestead. Vic begins pointing out things as they pass them by. “Over there are the blueberries we grow. Potatoes are that way. Pigs are over there near the barn, cows are not too far that way. We have a few horses but those are for herding the sheep. We got dogs but don’t mess with them in the morning, they are on duty watching the sheep and think you might be trying to hurt them. After noon though? Go for it. We have apple trees too that way. They are older than me. Help yourself. We have a lot and no one is buying. We have cabbage, lettuce, carrots, wheat, more types of berries.” When they get up to the fairly large, two-floor house that looks like it has a lot of rooms in it and has gone through extensions on the sides, it looks as though it’s hand-built without any magic. “So, before we head in, what do you think?”

“I think you and your family have a great setup! I saw the stream nearby too. Is that made or natural? I can’t tell.”

“My grandfather made that stream himself, shoveled it from here to the river for six months. It moves fast so it’s always cold. Never once had a drought either.”

“I can’t believe this farm has problems with money…” Hisoki mutters a little too loudly.

“It wouldn’t be if people bought stuff from us. We just don’t have the ability to grow stuff people want with our soil. Golden apples or varying types of apples or melons. We grow the things needed for stews. We carve cows and pigs for steaks, chops, and cuts. The debt itself doesn’t help.”

“How do you feed the animals?”

“We grow our food. What we don’t sell, we feed to the pigs and sheep. Cows eat grass.”

“Right, okay. Is this not self-sustaining?”

“We need to boil our water for drinking. We have to hire magic experts to check for cursed crops. We need oils. Just one of our pigs eating a cursed crop means that pig has to die. Finding the crop would be near impossible in order to cure it. We have two thousand gold coins left from reserves.”

“How much do you need to pay for the debt?”

“Five hundred a week.” Vic confirms and leans against the door. “Not to be rude. I’d really like to head inside. I like to sleep in my bed if that’s alright. I got work to do on the farm tomorrow.”

“Sure! Where am I sleeping?”

“We got a guest room for the magic experts we hire. You can bunk in there.”

That morning, at four o’clock, before even the roosters are awake, Vic knocks on the guest room door. “Get up, we got work to do.”

A groggy, disheveled, un-jestered Hisoki opens the door, no makeup, no cap, practically drooling from being woken up so early. “It’s four…”

“Sure is, gotta get cracking. You got ten minutes to get ready.”

“It takes me at least twenty…”

“Well ya get fifteen, I’m not unkind.” Vic leaves Hisoki to head down to the kitchen where the breakfast table has pancakes, some bacon, and his mother sitting at the edge of the table, reading glasses, slightly gray hair. She looks up at her son from reading a book. “Mornin’ Momma.”

“Mornin’ son. I hear you became a knight finally.” She takes off her reading glasses.

“You heard?”

“I did. Not because I watched you from those fancy sight things.” She slides over a letter.

Vic picks it up and opens the letter. He reads it and slams it on the table. “Bullshit! I just became a knight! They can’t do this!”

“I told you, son, shortcuts aren’t going to cut it. We need hard work and honesty.”

“Momma, you don’t get it. This isn’t right.”

“Neither was what you are doing.”

“This is different. I don’t want to argue about this.”

“Dogs need to go out, will you be doing that or will I?” she asks, putting her hands in her lap.

“I’ve got it… And Momma, I brought a friend over. He’ll be helping me on the farm.”

She ignores Vic and goes back to her book. Hisoki comes down the stairs. “Wow, something smells good!” Vic grabs the jester by his collar and pulls him away from entering the kitchen.

“No breakfast today. Sorry.” Vic says. “You don’t want to go in the kitchen right now.”

“But, food!” Hisoki is practically begging for it as Vic pulls him outside.

They get to work, Hisoki tired and waiting on Vic to get the dogs with the sheep. Then they work on the cows. Hisoki milks one while Vic moves the buckets. Feeding the pigs is all Vic while Hisoki pulls berries. And notices something odd. “Vic? These berries have a curse…”

Vic drops the empty bucket of slop and runs over. “Where?”

Hisoki lifts a part of the bush and shows these brown-like veins on the berries. “I’m seeing something weird though.” Hisoki stands and follows something. Vic follows him. “These two apple trees are cursed too.”

“How do you see that?”

“It’s not a normal curse. There’s a trail of something.” Hisoki follows it and finds a little spot of dirt that is glowing bright. “Vic, can you get a shovel? I need you to dig right here.” Hisoki points.

Vic runs to the barn and grabs a shovel. He comes back and begins digging. It’s a good few minutes of digging before he hits something with the shovel. “I think I found it.”

“Don’t touch it! Just get out of the hole.” Hisoki steps into it and Vic climbs out. Hisoki reaches down and pulls out a wooden totem with tons of carvings and it glows bright when Hisoki focuses on it. “This is a magic item.”

“Why is a magic item out here buried on our property?”

“Maybe it was your dad’s?”

“Don’t you know from touching it? My dad never had anything like that.”

“I would know if I met the person it belonged to. I can say that this thing is supposed to increase fertility but has a possibility of affecting the fertile crops with the curse.”

“Are you telling me someone purposely sabotaged the farm?”

“That or your dad was so desperate he attempted to use magic items to grow his crops faster.”

“How long has it been attuned to someone?”

“At least a year. Hard to say. I’m working on an empty stomach so cut me a little slack?” Hisoki smiles nervously, climbing out of the hole. Vic begins covering it. “Let’s show your mom.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.” Vic taps the dirt down once the hole is covered and they begin walking back to the trees that were cursed. Hisoki pulls out a wand from his bag, keeping the weird magic item in his other hand and he removes the curses from the trees, then the berry bush.

“Why not? She needs to know why the curse kept happening.”

“She’s upset with me right now.”

“Why? Because you became a knight.”

“It’s the collectors. They found out that I became a knight and they already knew my sister was one. So, they quadrupled payment and then said they want another two-thousand on top.”

Hisoki stops. “No, they can’t do that!”

“I know, they are coming today.”

“What’s your plan?” Hisoki raises an eyebrow.

“Oh, I was thinking I’d put a couple rounds in them and feed them to the pigs. If they send more, repeat until they stop.”

“Vic!” Hisoki says, shocked at Vic’s honesty, shaking his head.

“You got a better idea?”

“I think I do. I’d like your mother’s blessing though.”

“Now I’m confused. What are you trying to do?”

“Let me talk to her.”