Congratulations Targetball Tournament Champion!
Awarded For Victory in the Davied Spring Targetball Contest
Hmm… not here today, either.
Lyght had popped by the street in the market district where he usually encountered Tobi on the day before he and the others left on the mission to defend the farm. The young boy hadn’t been there then, and he wasn’t there on this day either. Lyght was beginning to wonder if something happened to him.
He frowned and walked up to the row of vendors lined up along the side of the street. Asking if anybody had seen the boy with messy black hair that liked to kick a ball at people’s heads, he didn’t receive any helpful information. Just looks of confusion mostly, with a few sales pitches for junk he didn’t want or need mixed in. Finally, the seventh vendor he asked knew whom he was talking about.
“Yeah, the lad knocked over one o’ muh vases w’that ball o’ ‘is a while back.” The man said. He spoke with a hasty accent that seemed to have been formed by a life of giving quick sales pitches to passersby.
“Told ‘im to buzz of t’some other street.” He continued. “I’m ‘uessin’ ‘e did since I hadn’t seen ‘im since. Now, it was a real nice vase t’be sure. But it wasn’t my nicest—no sir—that honor belongs to this’n right—”
“Do you know what street?” Lyght interrupted. He wasn’t interested in entertaining the vendor’s spiel.
The man scowled. “Don’t ‘lieve I do. Not like I gave ‘im directions for any specific stree—”
“Thanks.” Lyght stated plainly, dropping a single coin into one of the vases on display and walking away.
Ignoring the man’s shouts from behind, Lyght continued walking until he came to the end of the road where it opened more broadly into a plaza. He knew Geren didn’t approve when he did this, but it was much easier than traversing all the foot traffic on the streets. Hopping onto a nearby barrel, he jumped from it to a stack of boxes up against the wall before following up with a leap to the roof, grabbing the edge and pulling himself up. From here, he could travel much quicker and with fewer people. Well, no people, actually.
He hopped around from roof to roof of the buildings that made up the circular area of the plaza, looking down the street nearest each one. Nothing of interest on the first several, but he did come to one that appeared promising. A man was chasing a group of children about halfway down the street while waving his arms in a sporadic fashion like he was swatting at a pesky bug flying too near his face.
Lyght moved down the length of the shared roof of the interconnected buildings that ran along the left side of the street. Getting closer, he smiled as he spotted Tobi among the group of children that were causing mayhem. A box of trinkets that was spilled across the ground nearby appeared to be the source of the man’s distress.
The man walked back to the box, grumbling to himself as he began returning the items to their home within. The group of children had dispersed further down the street, but Tobi remained nearby. Some businesses hawked their goods from booths set alongside the sides of the streets while others simply had items on display within the walls of an indoor store. It was something in the window of one such store that seemed to have Tobi’s attention.
Descending deftly down from the roof onto a cart nearby, then the ground below, Lyght approached Tobi while maneuvering in and out of the other passersby in a manner that would block him from being seen in the window’s reflection. His stealthy approach successful, he stepped out from behind a woman carrying a basket of melons and appeared next to Tobi, startling the youth. Lyght took the Targetball trophy from his pack that he’d pilfered from the Street Crows and held it in the air above and in front of Tobi.
“Think fast!” He shouted, causing the already surprised boy to jump slightly before frantically waving his hands to try and catch the suddenly descending gift. Though he bobbled it, the item was safely in his hands a moment later.
“Wh-what is this?” Tobi asked, eyes wide as he stared at it.
Lyght shrugged. “A gift. Received it as a reward from someone the other day as part of a job I did. I’m not a fan of stuff like that cluttering up my room, so I figured it could clutter yours instead.”
Tobi looked up at him, squinting. After their previous exchange when Lyght had vexed the boy with wordplay, he couldn’t really blame him for thinking that he was being tricked somehow. He crossed his arms and tried to give an innocent grin, though he imagined it came across his face awkwardly.
Maybe it did, since Tobi laughed and looked back at the trophy. “This is cool! Never had a trophy or award or nothing before. Thanks!” He looked back up at Lyght and stuck a grubby hand out.
Lyght shook his hand, but sent a tiny pulse of electricity through his palm and into Tobi’s as he did so. The current flowed up through Tobi’s arm and into his body as the boy’s entire body gave a quick, involuntary shake like he had just seen a ghost in the middle of winter.
“W-what was that?!” Tobi shrieked.
“No idea, maybe it’s something in the trophy. Could be haunted for all I know. Your problem now though.”
Tobi glared at him. “Some gift! I oughtta throw this right at your head!”
Lyght shrugged again. “We both know I’d dodge it anyway, so you may as well keep it instead of wasting the effort.”
He smiled and ruffled the youth’s hair. “Seriously though, set it on a shelf in your room or something. It’s a prize for all the times you’ve almost got me. Think of it as an award for your efforts.”
Tobi laughed. “Alright!” He said with a wide grin. “Why’re you here anyway? Just looking for me?”
“Yes and no.” Lyght replied. “I actually had business in the market today and figured I’d knock two birds out with one stone. Or one trophy and a handful of runes, in this case. C’mon, you can tag along with me.”
He looked at the item on display in the window that Tobi had been so fixated on, committing it to memory before walking away. It was a long stick with thick leather wrapped around one end of it and a wide, flat base that curved slightly on the other. The object—a Stickey cane—resembled a thin capital letter J.
So he enjoys Stickey, huh?
Stickey was a game that involved two teams each defending a marked line on the ground, spaced roughly 100 feet apart. A small object—most commonly a ball in professional play, but Street Stickey used anything that was small enough—would be hit back and forth across the ground by team members wielding the Stickey canes until the object passed over either team’s line and awarded a point. Multiple points could be awarded based on how many consecutive passes were made between teammates before the goal was scored, encouraging unselfish team play.
Some sports were more liked by certain demographics than others, like the game of Bloodball that was popular amongst Gmaas—particularly in the Daeinado region. Stickey, like Targetball, was a sport that was widely played across Venterias both professionally and for fun. It did tend to be played more by those who could afford the equipment, however, given the unique shape of the Stickey cane and recommended protective equipment.
They walked side-by-side further down the street, Tobi turning the trophy over in his hands and gazing at it as they did so. It was just a few buildings down that they came to a stop. Fortuitous that Tobi had been on the same street as Almond’s place.
“Don’t touch anything while we’re in here.” Lyght said to Tobi as he opened the door.
Tobi nodded and the pair entered the dusty studio, the strong scent of cinnamon overtaking their senses. The source of the smell came from numerous small bowls around the establishment. Each bowl was grated on the top with a small fire going inside of it and sticks of cinnamon sitting atop the grating. Lyght had asked Almond about the cinnamon once, and the strange Halvan claimed that the smell helped him concentrate.
Lyght sidled over to the counter near the door and tapped the small bell on its surface. A couple seconds passed with no response, so he tapped it again. And again, for a third time.
“Yes yes, coming!” a frantic voice said from another room behind the counter, hidden by a hanging purple curtain.
The curtain parted, but there was nobody to be seen. Sounds of physical exertion indicated there was someone there, however—just not visible at eye level. Lyght glanced over the counter to see Almond hoisting himself onto a wooden stool he used to properly communicate with his customers across the countertop.
The elderly Halvan’s gray hair still had specks of blonde sprinkled throughout from where it hadn’t entirely lost its color yet. The hair on his head was a mess that pointed upward as though Lyght had just struck the man with a jolt of lightning, but his thick mustache was refined and curved at the tips. Lyght guessed that Almond could look very refined when he wasn’t working. Why the mustache never became as disheveled as his head hair, he had no idea.
Almond was both an alchemist and an essence crafter. Mixing potions and poisons, creating explosives, and doing all manner of testing with various substances was one half of his job while creating new runes and identifying unknown magic in existing runes was the other half. Lyght visited him today looking for assistance with the latter.
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With a grunt, Almond appeared behind the taller-than-necessary counter and adjusted his round spectacles. “Afternoon boyo! What I help ya with?” He spoke extremely quickly.
Almond always sounded like he was in a rush to have the conversation over with. He had explained to Lyght and Cohn once that his hurried loquacity was simply because his brain was constantly moving at an extremely high speed and his mouth was doing its best to try and match his thinking pace. He even forgot some words entirely sometimes. Though it came across as rude to some people, Lyght found it entertaining. Tobi laughed, whether at Almond’s appearance or manner of speech Lyght wasn’t sure. Almond looked at the laughing youth questioningly.
“He’s just tagging along so he stays out of trouble outside.” Lyght answered to the unspoken question. “Here, the reason I stopped by today.” He pulled the handful of runes out of one of the pouches at his waist and placed them on the counter.
Almond’s eyes lit up and he picked one of the rune’s up, eying it like a jeweler would a fine gem. Lyght had tried imitating the man in the past but couldn’t see anything except plain rock when he did. Whether Almond really saw anything when he examined them in such a manner or if it was just a performance as part of his job was a mystery.
“Five of ‘em eh? Know what any ‘em do?”
“Maybe. I got three of them from a man who used one—presumably—that contained invisibility magic of some sort. Not sure if any of these may have been extras or if they were different. The other two were from someone who used some kind of explosion magic like Jrue’s. He was the leader of the one I took the three from, so it’s possible those three contain magic similar to his. Lastly…”
He trailed off, hesitant. “There’s a chance some of them may be raw. The man I took them from used one against me. Turns out the rumors were true, I guess.”
Almond paused his inspection of the one he held, moving it aside and staring wide-eyed at Lyght. He then nodded hurriedly, and spoke just as quickly. “Oh yes yes. Always guessed rumors true. Logic made sense at least. Just never any samples to test.”
He arranged the runes in a row along the countertop and picked one up. Holding it like he was about to activate it, Lyght knew from watching the Halvan before that Almond had begun channeling essence into the rune. As an essence crafter, however, he knew just how to flow his own essence through the rune to connect with it and identify its contents without actually activating it. It was a craft that took many years of practice. Lyght was thankful for Almond and his steady hand. He often wondered if the man realized just how incredible of a mind he was or how valuable his skills really were.
Tobi had begun to walk around the main lobby of the studio, examining the long names Lyght was sure were too advanced for the boy to read along the spines of the books on the shelves. He was following the no touching rule so far, so that was good. Wandering over to one of the grated bowls, Tobi wafted in the cinnamon smell, smiling to himself. After the initial shock from first walking in and having their senses assailed, one could easily grow to like the aroma after mingling in it for a bit.
Lyght turned his attention back to Almond, who was just setting down the last of the five runes and making notes on a pad. The Halvan man nodded and looked up at him.
“Sadly none raw—all good runes. You sure one you saw was?”
“That’s a shame. Not surprising though. And yeah, I’m sure. The guy did say that it ‘was the most powerful rune’... singular. So it must have been the only one he had.”
Almond shook his head. “Pity pity but what can ya do. Any case, what we here are…” he tapped his notepad with one hand while pointing to the runes with the other. “This’n here’s some type of invisibility as you said. Could possibly be used externally as well. Activate, then make something else invisible. Definitely able to make self invisible.”
Moving down the line, he continued. In total, the set was the one invisibility rune, one that contained some kind of spell to summon forth a torrent of water, one that held magic similar to Barsh’s, and two basic fire runes that were commonly used in place of flint or other means of creating a flame. Though usually used in cooking, camping, or smithing, Lyght bit his lip as he thought about what Barsh had used such runes for. Even just the small flame the runes produced could be enough to do some real damage in the wrong hands. Perhaps it had just been for utility around his fort. That’s what Lyght told himself, at least.
“Thank you. Sorry that I didn’t have anything more interesting.” Lyght pocketed the runes and put some coins on the counter where they had been.
“Oh no no thank you. Always enjoy you folks coming by. Some of my best customers!” Almond grinned while putting the coins away. “Bring raw next time maybe?” He gave a slight, hopeful chuckle and scuttled back through the curtain to his other work area.
“C’mon kid!” Lyght shouted at Tobi, who had taken a seat and resumed turning the trophy over in his hands, inspecting it from multiple angles.
The boy stood up and jogged over. “He was funny. I like the way he talked. Old people usually talk slow, but he was the opposite.”
Lyght smirked as he held the door open. “He’s not that old. Just looks it. Probably all the crazy experiments he’s done over the years making him age faster. He told me once about when he got a block of wood stuck to his foot while testing out some kind of really sticky substance. Had to walk around with it for weeks while he worked on a fluid that would melt it away without burning his skin off in the process.”
Tobi found the story particularly hilarious apparently as he burst into a fit of laughter. Though it sounded normal at first, strangely, the laughter began to fade away after a short bit. It seemed… distant, for some reason. Lyght looked over at the boy walking next to him along the street. He was right there. So why did he sound so far away?
As he was watching Tobi toss the trophy up in the air and catch it, the trophy’s shape began to warp into something else. Tobi was now holding… something. Lyght couldn’t tell what it was because it was like a small black void was surrounding the object. Tobi then changed as well. He was still a small boy, but he was not one that Lyght recognized. Strangely, it almost looked like a younger version of—
It hit him then. A sharp pain that began at the front of his head like he’d just been stabbed, the pain then dispersing across his entire consciousness until everything was black. No sense of sound, no sight, no smell or taste… the only thing was his sense of touch being wracked with that stabbing agony.
Sounds began to slowly creep back into his consciousness as his hearing started working again. And he heard… screaming. He remembered the last headache he’d had—there was screaming then as well. Why could he remember past headaches during current ones but no other time? It made no sense.
This time, however, the screaming wasn’t all-encompassing around him like it had been previously. It wasn’t from multiple sources. No, it was just one scream. A girl’s scream. But… what was she screaming? And why?
Giving himself over to the pain, he focused. The more he let the pain writhe through his body, the better he could hear that voice. Yes, it was a girl’s voice, but not a young girl’s voice. A woman’s voice.
“—ive… back! —on’t… him! —mine!”
She seemed to be pleading. Begging. Screams of pain not from her being wounded, but rather agony at something being taken from her. He repeated the words to himself, what little he could hear anyway. Over and over he repeated to himself what the woman was screaming, though he wasn’t sure why. The blackness was beginning to fade, thankfully along with the searing pain.
Opening his eyes, his vision slowly began returning to him in equal pace with the pain dissipating. As things came into focus, he pulled his hands away from holding his head. He was surprised to see that they were clean and not covered in blood. Wait—why? Why was that surprising? He didn’t bleed during these episodes. But… he fully expected to see blood on his hands despite that, and the surprise felt as genuine as any emotion he’d ever felt.
He sat slumped against the wall outside near Almond’s shop. Tobi stood nearby, clutching the trophy like a small child would a stuffed bear, wiping away tears. A rough voice cut through the chatter of the other goings-on of the street that were still happening around them.
“You done?” The voice growled.
Lyght looked to his left and saw Feros. Great. His friend had already bothered him about the headaches on multiple occasions and Lyght had skirted the issue. He doubted he’d be able to do that now.
“Y-yeah.” He replied groggily. Standing up, he shook his head as if to clear the last vestiges of the pain he’d been experiencing.
He looked at Feros, who was standing arms crossed with a scowl that had his fangs showing slightly through parted lips. “What are you doing here anyway?”
Feros growled audibly. “None of your business. I just happened by and saw you having one of those episodes of yours. You can explain the details to me later. Right now, I think you freaked the kid out.”
Lyght looked over at Tobi who was still clutching the trophy. He frowned, feeling guilty. “Hey, sorry about that. It… happens sometimes.”
Tobi nodded but didn’t reply immediately. After several seconds of silence, he spoke up. “You kept saying something. I thought you were talking to me at first, but then you sat down and started holding your head and kept saying it. I guessed you were going crazy or dying or something. Maybe too much cinnamon smell melted your brain is what I was thinking.”
This should have concerned Lyght but it instead made him perk up slightly. “Wait really? What was I saying?”
Tobi shook his head. “I dunno really. Was kind of jumbled up and didn’t make sense. Something like, uh, ‘ive… ack? Then somethin’ I didn't understand. After that, you yelled ‘him!’ before saying something that sounded like ‘mine’ or ‘mind’, I dunno for sure. You kept saying each word real strong one at a time, though.”
Lyght imagined the look of joy on his face must have come as a great shock to Tobi, who looked very confused. It was a hint though. He must have successfully pulled some piece of whatever was happening during the headache and spoke it into existence. With Tobi here, he’d heard the words and could repeat them back to Lyght. This would be the first time he’d ever gleaned any kind of information, which excited him.
How had he not thought to try that before? He wanted to avoid anybody else knowing about what assailed him, so that played a part. Also, it wasn’t predictable when they would happen so he may not have someone with him all the time. But Feros was now privy to his struggles. Tobi too, though by complete accident. If he were to ever come under attack again while in their company… he could try doing that again. Chanting to himself what was happening, and maybe his real body would do so as well.
He rested his face back to normal, realizing he probably looked crazy to be happy about having spoken nonsense. “Gotcha. Thank you, Tobi. You earned that trophy for sure. I’m fine though, don’t worry.”
Tobi nodded again. “Right. Gotta be tough! Um… I do have to be getting home now, though. Don’t go dying before we get to play again!” He shouted and started running off down the street towards the plaza before Lyght could object.
“So who’s the kid?” Feros asked, his voice softer now than it was earlier.
“Tobi—Tobias, rather. He made a habit out of bothering me when I visited the market so I took a liking to him. He tagged along with me to visit Almond today.”
Feros didn’t respond to what Lyght had said, instead walking down the street the opposite way Tobi had. “C’mon, you can tell me about what just happened while we walk back home.”
Lyght sighed but followed. He knew there was no point arguing with Feros.