The first thing Penbrooke did after taking over was spit his mouthful of running nettles onto the nearest flowerbed. “Ugh, what the hell was that?” Only after thoroughly clearing out the contents of his mouth did he look around to determine his location.

When he saw the shocked expressions cast his way by passersby, he took several paces away from the flowerbed, and proceeded to act as though the green gunk coating the previously vibrant petals had nothing to do with him.

He summoned Rudy’s lightning mask like a magician conjuring something out of their sleeve, and put it on, after which he shifted his attention to the phantom terminal. “Huh, it says I completed the main quest to get here, but I didn’t level up from it. Why’s that?”

“Oi, what the hell are you doing just standing there?” came a yell from a wagoner behind him, who apparently was not best pleased the knight had decided to stop in the middle of a tight road. “Get out the way first if you’re going to have shit for brains.”

It didn’t help that Penbrooke appeared oblivious to their complaints as well, treating them like a gnat buzzing in the air that he could swipe away. “Oh, I see: it’s a multiple-part quest, so I don’t get much xp from completing each individual part, especially if they’re simple tasks like to travel somewhere. So what’s next in the quest chain?”

“How about getting off the road, you looney!”

Just then, Penbrooke’s musings were interrupted by a guard who, having heard the commotion from afar, had rushed over. “Hey, you!”

Oh no…

“Hmm?” Penbrooke looked up to see an angry face dominated by a ruddy, bulbous nose. They wore a bobby hat, and held up a wooden baton. “Do I know you?”

Who responds like that to an officer?!

The wagoner behind him cheered on the guard. “Get that troublemaker, officer! He’s refusing to move, and I can’t get through until he’s out of the way.”

There were many onlookers around: clumps of people on the street staring at the spectacle, as well as those watching from within nearby restaurants and stores. A general hum of agreement and cheer spread amongst them at the wagoner’s perceptive comments: they could tell they were in for a show, about to see a buffoon get a bollocking.

Some of them even wanted to do their part in pillorying the hapless fool.

“Yeah, I saw him spit green onto that flowerbed there,” came a whiny voice from the background, no doubt belonging to a busybody. “It was probably poison or something.”

The crowd responded with affirming grunts to the attentive comment, nods abound.

“Yeah, I saw him put on that quirky eyemask just a second ago; I reckon he’s planning to do real shady stuff now that his identity’s concealed,” joined in a second clipped voice, certainly that of a posh person who was all too eager to judge based on appearance.

The crowd responded with claps and cheers to the perceptive, if prejudiced, comment.

“Yeah, he took out loans in my name and put my credit score in a shambles. And now, no one will lend to me,” followed a third hoarse voice.

The crowd responded with whoops and loud finger whistles to the… dubious comment? Wait, hold on.

…

The crowd took a moment to properly consider what’d been said, glancing at each other with puzzled expressions and wrinkled brows; it wasn’t that they wanted to engage in victim blaming or anything, but rather the accusation just sounded too specific and elaborate.

“No, he didn’t,” finally rebutted a voice, which no one was surprised to hear was the whiny busybody’s voice. “Give it up, Gambler Gillis. You won’t trick us into lending you a penny more, you dodgy codger. Not when it’s always double or nothing with you.”

Many Ahs and Oohs followed from the crowd at the grand reveal.

“Ah, so it was that Gillis fella, trying to pull a fast one on us, eh?”

“Ooh, that gambling geezer. He almost got me too, which would have been a real travesty seeing as he still hasn’t paid me back for that candy bar from a decade ago.”

Gambling Gillis could only sigh now that his ploy had failed and his identity was exposed. “And here I thought I had pretty good odds this time.”

The guard, who’d been patiently listening until now, concluded that the whole crowd was ribbiting nonsense, and so ignored the rest of their kerfuffle. He went straight for the troublemaker...

...walking on past Penbrooke. “Get down, you. On your feet in front of me, right now!”

“What? Me?!” Wearing an expression closer to hurt than indignation, the wagoner followed the orders. “I was just bringing in the extra flour the baker ordered for today.”

The guard glared at the wagoner, his voice lowering to a menacing growl. “Save your excuses, scum. I heard what you said.”

At this, the cogs rotated in the wagoner’s head, until realisation finally struck. He raised his arms in front of him in a panic, defending himself. “I didn’t mean to. I just misspo—”

The guard struck him in the forearm with the baton, and again. “A mistake, was it? Good thing you’re going to the re-education building, then. They’ll sort you out there and make sure you never make this mistake again.” He coughed into his fist, glancing aside. “But since I’m busy right now, I’ll let the others take care of the rest – take him away, boys.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Several locals came out of the crowd, each grabbing a side of the dejected wagoner’s clothes and hauling him towards the re-education building. One of them – who had the trappings of a baker – took control of the abandoned wagon and had it go another way to the rest of the procession.

“What the hell…” mumbled Penbrooke. “Did they just set that miller up to scam him of his flour? Maybe I’ve received a quest from witnessing it.”

For real. Who’d have expected the guard to support you over the wagoner when you were clearly in the wrong? Something’s off here.

The guard that’d led the demonstration eased the air with a casual hand, and ordered the onlookers to disperse. He then turned to Penbrooke with a welcoming smile, a smile so natural it made you question if he’d ever been angry to begin with.

“I’m awfully sorry you had to put up with that verbal abuse, visitor. We don’t put up with bullying behaviour here in Fragrant Grove, but alas, some people refuse to respect our local ways, so we’re forced to teach them how to behave themselves.” He paused and gave Penbrooke a once-over. “Now, am I right in guessing—”

Cal got a sense this was the real reason the guard had stuck up for Penbrooke, but apparently the oddball knight didn’t care for the guard’s true intentions as he rudely interrupted the man.

“Hmm, I had a side quest pop up from that titled [Uncover the Secret of Fragrant Grove]. It says clues discovered: 0/3, and nothing else.” The knight raised a quizzical brow towards the guard. “You wouldn’t happen to know the secret, would you? Or a clue about it?”

“Ha, we’re an honest village, visitor – we don’t have any secrets or dark histories.” The guard said it firmly, yet Cal couldn’t help but notice his anxious eyes and the dribble of sweat down his brow, little remaining of the authoritative figure, nor the friendly, welcoming one he had cut moments before.

How very curious: he’s changing expressions like he’s trying on masks. Were they all fake, or was there truth to some of them?

“Alright, alright, I’ll play your game for now,” Penbrooke said, conspiratorially tapping his nose; to which the guard eased and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Just give me a second to check if there’s any other side quests I can do here. Hmm… what, no way! It says I’m too low a level to receive any of the nearby sidequests. What a load of tosh! [Quest Locator]’s useless, man.”

Realisation then dawned on the delusional knight. “Ah, unless it meant for me to have done stuff on the way here. Well, whatever. I’ll just proceed with the main quest and level up that way instead.”

Finally done mumbling to himself, Penbrooke addressed the (admittedly rather confused) guard again. “Anyway, my main quest says I need to join the tournament now. Surely you can help me with doing that, right?”

The guard’s face lit up. “Aha, just like I thought; I knew there was more to you than meets the eye…”

His voice petered off as he reconsidered his words, staring in turn between Penbrooke’s lightning eyemask and the weird hand gestures the knight kept motioning in the air as though having a cramp. “Sorry, what I meant to say was that I knew there was exactly as much to you as meets the eye.”

Satisfied with his new wording, the guard continued. “Now please follow me, visitor. There’s no need to wait in the queue to get in if you’re here to participate in the tournament; rather, we need to get you signed up quickly as it starts soon.”

“Brilliant. Let’s be off, then.”

At the checkpoint, there stood appointed guards making cursory probes on outsider identities, reasons for visiting, and what the visitor thought of Fragrant Grove.

Penbrooke and his chaperone were waved through without any fuss once it was disclosed that he was here for the competition, though the checkpoint guards joked towards their colleague guiding Penbrooke that his search had finally borne fruit and that he better do his job as a competitor chaperone right and not just use it as an opportunity to attend the tournament.

Ohh, so that’s why he rushed towards the commotion: it was Penbrooke he was after right from the start, not to quieten the unrest. I mean, I guess the mask does make Penbrooke look like someone intending to compete.

The inner village beyond the checkpoint turned out to be no different from the outer parts: clean and recently re-done, with every street corner and front garden packed with flowers. The houses looked somewhat nicer but not to the extent to warrant the heavy security detail currently out on the streets, which meant that the heightened security really was just for the tournament.

Unless the guards are being built up into a paramilitary force or something, as otherwise it doesn’t make sense to have this many in their ranks.

Penbrooke’s chaperone broke the silence between them. “I realised I forgot to introduce myself in the hurry. I’m Lucas. How about yourself, visitor?”

“Ser Penbrooke of Twirdly Castle, my boy,” answered the knight, uncaring to the fact his counterpart looked a good half-decade older than his current possessed body.

Fortunately, the guard didn’t seem to take offence. “Another knight, huh. To think we’d have two knights come and participate in our first-ever tournament. It would’ve been previously unthinkable.”

“Did you say it’s your first time holding this contest?” At Lucas’s confirmation, Penbrooke continued, “Aha, that’s one clue down! So, what prompted you to hold this tournament?”

“What prompted it, um, well…” Lucas looked away, his uneasiness from earlier coming back. He seemed to be questioning what he could say without giving anything else away, eventually answering: “Simply to liven up Fragrant Grove, that’s all. We don’t want to be known as a dull, boring village anymore, so we thought we’d hold a tournament to spread awareness of our new image.”

Of all the things I’ve heard said about your village, dull and boring has never been one of them.

Despite this, Cal could tell Lucas wasn’t lying about the ‘spreading awareness of their new image’ part as the guard’s behaviour had been consistent, or at least his authoritative side had been, in pushing people away from Fragrant Grove’s old image, so he was likely following orders from the top in doing so.

Given all this, Cal expected Penbrooke to exclaim he’d gotten another clue from what Lucas had just said, and was confused when that didn’t happen.

Could it be he’s learnt to keep his mouth shut? Nah, there’s no chance of that happening. So that can only mean that Lucas’s answer isn’t considered a clue – but by who? By Penbrooke himself? By some pixie trapped in his phantom terminal?

Cal didn’t know, but he did know that their judgement as to what counted as a clue was clearly arbitrary – almost as if there were set items that’d been classified as clues, meanwhile other items which gave the same information wouldn’t count simply because they weren’t part of this pre-determined set. It was a stiff and artificial way of viewing how one went about solving a mystery.

To draw a parallel, it was akin to demanding that the guards policing the villages from now on show credible proof backing their suspicion before taking someone in, as opposed to directly going to beating the confession out of someone who they had good reason to believe guilty, for why else would the suspect be so obnoxious and unlikeable if not for latent culpability seeping out of their skin; even if they weren’t the culprit of this crime, they would undoubtedly commit one in the future, so it was only prudent to get them early before they struck.

Whilst Cal was lost in his frightening thoughts of an alternate world with proper criminal and judicial procedures, Penbrooke and Lucas continued through the village. They engaged in chit chat but the knight failed to get much out of Lucas’s guarded answers, and before long they’d reached a wooden amphitheatre that looked recently built. Although the tournament was yet to start, there were plenty of people already at the grounds and a palpable sense of excitement in the air.