I collapse into a chair inside of the room as the passageway seals behind us. Sweat sticks out on my skin and I have difficulty slowing my heart, controlling my breathing. A glance at my vital energies confirms that my healing points have been reduced to zero, though the steadily climb back thanks to my high recovery. A weakness lingers in my chest from the battle fever, and despite my still having a good bit of stamina remaining, I feel utterly exhausted. Perhaps the energy of the black ball has something to do with that as well; I don’t know.
“That was a good match,” Jess says, leaning against the chair behind me and squeezing my shoulder. “Not that I really know what a poor match would look like. Winning five to zero has to be the best we can hope for.”
“Though I might like to touch the ball in the future,” Jasper says from near the stove. The man’s clothes still look as if he might have pressed them with an iron this morning.
“My apologies,” Jor’Mari says, slapping Jasper on the back so hard the man stumbles forward a step. “I got a bit carried away there.”
Jasper laughs a whinging and somewhat nervous laugh. “I was kidding. If you can win all of these matches on your own, then who am I to stop you? That is what is best for the group.”
“I didn’t win all on my own,” Jor’Mari says, pointing a thumb in my direction. “Ms. Devardem scored the first point. Kind of rude for that woman to ignore one of the first rules of the game by forcing a black ball to start with, but it turned out in our favor. We seized the momentum from that point, I just kept it up after that. Not that my play wasn’t spectacular and something to be studied for future players of the game.”
Jor’Mari’s antics manage to pull a genuine smile from Jasper. I catch sight of Clarice slipping around the corner, heading straight for the washtub in the back before any of us think to do so. That is when I notice the food set out on the table for us. Two baskets, one filled with bread and fruit, the other with smoked meats, set my mouth to watering just looking at them.
“For a successful game,” Jess reads off a note in front of the baskets. “It became a little dull near the end, but the beginning of the match was entertaining. Surprise me going forward.”
“A little critical,” I say, dabbing my forehead. I notice my hands are pale, bloodless, and the veins stand out in a stark blue. Maybe picking up the black ball is a bit more dangerous than I realized at first. I did hold onto it far longer than I should have been able to. I was fortunate that bouncing the thing off of a man’s skull counted as someone else taking possession.
“Let her be critical,” Jor’Mari says, kicking up his feet at the table, taking a loaf of bread from one of the baskets that glistens with oil and butter, steam rising off of it as Jor’Mari pulls it apart. “If she is going to make me do that, then I really can’t give a damn about her opinion. Despicable.”
I look at the man, confused by his comment. He sees the look in my eyes, and for a brief instant I see anger flash across his features. It is gone, buried behind his smirking eyes a moment later, his attention turned to the bread in his hand.
“The note says that our next match will be in six hours,” Jess says, waving the note between her fingers. “I suppose that we are back to waiting.”
“Will you cook me more of this while we wait?” I ask, placing five more paper wrapped bundles of sticker flesh on the table.
“We have plenty of smoked meat here in front of us,” Jess says, nodding to the baskets on the table. “Things other than meat too.”
“I know,” I say, “but I really want to eat more of this.”
She sets her hands on her hips, looking at me like I am some strange kind of bug. Eventually, she relents, taking the bundles of sticker meat to the counter near the stove and setting them out. “I guess humans really do like to eat monster.”
I open my mouth to protest but have to stop myself. She isn’t wrong. Even before I discovered that humans are able to increase the strength of our natural affinities by eating certain monsters, monster meat had always punctuated holidays and festivals back home. When an adventuring team ventured far into the swamps or the unexplored woad to slay a particularly large beast, often there was a celebration with the spoils of the kill. I wonder just how that became the way of things; it isn’t as if ordinary people know or care about magical affinities.
I just like the taste. Each monster is unique and has its own unique flavor.
The hours run away from me. After washing all of the sweat and ick off of myself and devouring the meat that Jess is so kind to prepare for me, I am left with little to do. Jess joins Samielle on one of the cots while Jasper returns to reading in a corner. My interminable boredom leads me to reveal the collection of books that I stole from Arabella to my team, offering them a read as I pluck off a thick tome covering some of the more theoretical aspects of enchanting.
During the images that they showed on the bottom of the tower, I noticed there had been scenes of me when I was on my own. No doubt, the Willian Guild knows already that I have the books, and if they know, then Arabella likely knows. Why they allow me to keep the shelf I don’t know, but I am not inclined to bring it up to them.
I quickly come to understand that the ideas and concepts inside of the enchanting tome are far too advanced for me to understand. At the core, it is the mathematics that the book takes for granted that I will know that catches me up. I am not so much frustrated with myself for not understanding the terms and equations bandied about as I am at the book for not speaking plainly and explaining everything. If I ever write an enchanting book of my own, I will make certain that every detail is explained.
Groaning, I return to the shelf, picking through the books, looking for anything that might teach me about the mathematical principles I am ignorant of. A good half an hour of thumbing through weathered pages brings me to finally settle on a book about economic relations between three kingdoms in a realm called Goradoos. The book is clearly aimed at aspiring merchants looking to move material between those three specific kingdoms, and a good deal of the specifics go over my head. However, the book goes into great depth about the principles behind its claims, how to calculate things like compounding interest, how to track and project costs against potential earnings, how to track multiple unknown figures in a single array as to maximize profit. It suffices to say, the book captures my interest. A quick glance at my inventory confirms again that learning how to manage and grow wealth will be something I need to turn my attention to in the near future.
I garner some odd looks from my fellows when they walk past me writing figures and mathematical expressions of sheets of paper to make certain that I can reproduce what I am learning from the book. I am so engrossed in my plotting of figures that I hardly notice as the archway in the wall begins to sizzle once more, burning away to reveal the Stoneball field beyond. I leave my papers as they are; if the last match was any indication, we won’t be away that long.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
A different air suffuses the Stoneball field as we march our way toward the center; a cold humidity lingers in the air and the petrichor of fresh mowed grass after a rainstorm stirs long forgotten memories. Arabella sits atop the Dispatch, looking down at the two assembling teams with a faint smile that can easily be misconstrued as genuine. From the opposite side of the illusionary chamber, a passageway explodes out from thin air, revealing a group of four marching to meet us. I recognize some of the people and names of the four that line up across from me, but one stands out in particular.
“So, you have managed to make it this far as well, Little Sister,” Lionel Coolidge says, waving to me. The huge, tan man wears his easy relief on his sleeve. “There had been rumors. I did not believe them of course.”
“You know our opponents?” Jor’Mari asks me.
“They are from Dovik’s camp,” I say, nodding to Jess as she calls out to a woman standing across from us that she recognizes.
“They look like they might be able to take a beating,” Jor’Mari says, looking Lionel up and down.
“You will find that this one does not break so easily,” Lionel replies, thumping his chest.
“That is what they all say,” Jor’Mari says, smirking.
“These teams are uneven,” Arabella Willian calls from the top of the Dispatch, pulling all of our attentions upward. “While it may be interesting to watch such a match that is so uneven, I believe that would grow boring rather quickly. Team Mari, select one of your members to sit out this match.”
Jasper is quick to nominate himself for sitting out the match, claiming that he is the least useful in our group in the game of Stoneball. Having no idea what the man is really capable of, I find it difficult to refute him.
With four each on our respective lines, the game begins, a green flash of light being thrown down from the black cube floating over the center of the field. It is not so surprising to find Jor’Mari dashing ahead of me at the first sign of the ball hitting the ground, but it is shocking when he is not the first one to reach the center. A woman from the enemy team appears in front of the ball in the blink of an eye, kicking it backward just before Jor’Mari can swipe down and snatch it. Lionel ends up catching the kicked ball between his hands, racing forward like a mad beast, knocking Jor’Mari and Jess to the side as he barrels straight through them both. One of Lionel’s teammates snags my legs out from under me as I try to collapse on the man. The enemy team scores the first point while my entire team lays on the ground, Clarice trapped further up the field beneath a large man.
“Alright,” Jor’Mari says, wiping wet grass off his face as he stands. “If you want punishment, then I can give that to you.”
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The room of stone is painted in the contrasting colors of red and green by the two lights blazing on either end of the room. Torches, their heads ending in magically created balls of brilliance bleed the color into the room, neither color touching or mixing with one another; the contrast left to linger and throw dark shadows. The smell of baked fish suffuses the small space, much to the irritation of Adrius, who lays within one of the corner cots, trying to gain some rest from the trying day. In the melancholy of the twin lights, Dovik moves his hand toward the board of green and red squares, his own flesh and clothing bathed in the light of red. Across the short table from him, his opponents lays back in his own chair, feet kicked up on the table, watching Dovik move his hand over the board with indecision, his own form seemingly made of green flesh and fabric.
“Do we need to add a timer?” Macille asks, smiling at the dour growl Dovik lets out at his words. “If you cannot understand these kinds of strategies, then perhaps you might be a poor choice to lead our little band.”
“This game is for the weak-minded,” Dovik says, moving a piece on the board and biting off a groan a second later when Macille captures another one of his pieces. He glares at Macille over the board, moving another piece. “There is no skill involved here. Pieces can only move in one direction and in one way. It is not a sport for true gamesman.”
“If that was the case, you might imagine that you would have won one of these last five matches,” Macille quips as he captures another piece. “You’re down to three, care to concede?”
Dovik sighs, pushing his chair back onto its hind legs and leaning it against the countertop near the washing basin. “I imagine that I would have,” he concedes. “This is just not my game. I prefer games where intelligence and tactics are involved.”
“Such as Stoneball?” Macille asks, dropping his feet off the table so that he might rearrange the board again to its start.
“Hardly,” Dovik says, nabbing a piece of fruit off the countertop. In the harsh red light on his side of the room, he has difficulty discerning what it might be, everything looks like an apple in the light. A sweet bite later, he determines it to be a pear. “In that game, I will fully admit that I am lucky.”
He doesn’t lie. Dovik has not only the benefit of playing the game hundreds of times in the high fields of Grim, but also the rules benefit him greatly. Normally, when it is only magicians playing the game, the free use of abilities is permitted, given that there is an adequately skilled healer on hand to deal with any issues that might arise from such a game. In these rules, where no one can harm him directly, his ability to teleport about the field promises an incredible leg up on the competition. Not that his opponent’s magical abilities might offer him any danger had they been permitted. As far as he could tell, no one in this competition possessed a magical potency capable of overcoming his defenses.
“Our next match will be soon,” Macille says, moving the pieces. In the two-toned light, it is impossible to tell which pieces are natively green or red. “Shall we do the same thing as we did in the last match?”
“Unless our new pals decide that they want to really participate,” Dovik says, nodding to the two looming in the corner of the room, speaking in animated and hushed tones with one another. There were five in their group, Macille, Dovik, Adrius, and the two strangers, a man and a woman.
The man, a slight figure, human, and whose cascading auburn hair fell over his face, refuses to speak with them. Dovik guessed that he might be a mage of some sort by the lack of weapons in his possession or by the loose clothing he wore, but Dovik knew better than most that judging someone by their clothing led to mistakes.
The woman was kind when she spoke with him before. She has a bubbly demeanor, blonde hair, bright eyes, and a constant smile that belied the wicked blade held to her back by two loops of fraying rope. She gave him a fake name, Sister Bella, and at all times seemed to hold a golden symbol of Exeter, three winged eyes affixed to a cross, in her hands. He had seen her use the blade when they had been inundated by the monsters on the floor below, the blade a rusted piece of iron with hideous serrated teeth, looking as if someone had elongated a butcher’s cleaver. It was the woman’s eyes, some unfathomable mania lurking deep in their depths, and the way that she laughed with glee as she cut monsters to ribbons that bothered him. He and Macille slept in shifts in the small room just to be safe.
“Not the sharing kind,” Macille says, offering Dovik the first move of their next match. “Do you think that we will win the next two matches?”
Dovik waves off the board, giving up on beating his friend at this strange game for now. “As long as we do not run into whatever group that Lady Forendous is in.”
“She is that powerful then,” Macille says. Macille’s eyes flick to the archway carved into the wall, his fingers testily scratching at his wrist.
Dovik does not fail to notice his friend’s irritation. Macille tried to hide it from him, but the man is ravenous to climb up the tower as soon as possible. Dovik couldn’t blame him for that either, it must be difficult to be separated from the woman he is so obviously infatuated with, especially after finding out that she is not dead as he had thought.
“We will continue to win,” Dovik says. “As these games go on, I think the benefit of having both you and Adrius in our group will begin to show its value. Having two members of our party capable of healing is quite the boon.”
“I hope so,” Macille sighs, kicking his feet back up onto the table.
The forlorn look in Macille’s face forces Dovik to move. It can’t help but feel sorry for the big man; it is like watching an upset puppy forced to stand still when all it wants to do is run free. Dovik grabs a piece from the board, starting the game again as he moves it. He searches Macille’s face again for any sign of grief, any hint that the man saw the same scene playing out that Dovik had when those images had been shown to them before. He wonders if Macille knows of his brother’s deception and what he had done. He wonders what Macille might do if he did know.