1          Soul Bound

1.2        Taking Control

1.2.4      An Artful Carnivale

1.2.4.19   Kayfabe

Bulgaria: “Come this way, gentle folk. You wouldn’t want to miss seeing a performance in the big ring.”

They skipped past various tents, stalls and games, including one where a leering clown balanced on a precarious stool above a tank “full of real slimes, see how disgusting they are”, insulting the audience while people paid to throw bean bags at him, trying to knock him in. As they approached the fenced off ring they caught the end of an astounding display of horsemanship, where five riders formed pyramids, turned somersaults and generally did things most people couldn’t do even if they were not standing on a cantering horse.

For the finale, a lean dark-haired man with pale skin put on a blindfold and caught a bow that was tossed up to him. He cantered clockwise around the edge of the ring while the others formed a pyramid with a pair of horses standing side by side, a rider standing on each horse, a third rider on their shoulders, his legs steadied by raised hands and, balanced with one foot on his head was a thin woman in a skin-tight costume. Her other leg she slowly raised above her head, an apple hanging from its stem held between her toes.

The tension mounted as the pyramid started moving counter-clockwise, and stagehands scattered around made rapid ululating sounds with their tongues, encouraging the audience to join in. 10 seconds, 20, faster and faster the horses went, the blindfolded man was standing now, rock steady on his horse as though he’d been born there, arrow nocked and bow fully drawn.

He loosed the arrow.

All noise stopped as it streaked towards the balancing women, narrowly missing her head and hitting the apple, splitting it in two. The audience erupted in cheers, and threw money into the caps held out by the pre-positioned stagehands. The archer tore off his blindfold, the pyramid disassembled itself into four riders on four horses, all five of them took a bow, still standing on the horses while they did a final circuit of the ring, then they sped out through a gap cleared in the ring and fence, and were gone.

Kafana cheered with everyone else and went forwards to contribute to the cap of the nearest stagehand. However, on meeting the man’s eyes she recognised him. His hair was different, as was his clothing, but she had no doubt this was the three card monte man she’d seen performing so skilfully on the arch.

Kafana: “You did well on the arch, earlier.”

System: [“Paltip earlierin con ilarchin, Broad-Tosser.”]

Casimir: “You understand the talk? Do we know you?”

System: [“Rocker Lovariszo? Peeperjig talyjosser.”]

Kafana: “Olga knows me. I have a deal for your boss.”

System: [“Mare-Dukker rockerme Jammer-Byor, ne smarkery. Wanjig micalku con Finsef.”]

Casimir: “I’ll take you backstage soon, after I’m done here.”

System: [“Jutonippy Retum-Edulo, dup gregerem.”]

They stood to the side and watched as the next act entered the ring: four wrestlers, an umpire and several ringside attendants. The umpire seemed like a sculpture that had been brought to life, with every muscle well defined by light and shadow upon his bronze oiled skin. Two meters tall, with a large head limned by curly beard and hair, he could have been anything from thirty to sixty years old, and his voice boomed out over the audience as he laid down the rules: “No head butts, no punches, no gouging, no drawing blood, no maiming, no lethal moves. You win when your opponent leaves the ring, says they quit or you keep the pain stick upon them for a count of ten.”

Tomsk: {That’s new. I think this might turn out to be closer to grappling or knife fighting than classical Greco-Roman.}

The wrestlers were introduced one by one. The Knight was an extremely good looking Burgundish man with fine features and quick movements. The ladies in the audience gave an appreciative cheer as he waved to them.

Tomsk: {He’s the face - the hero, the one who’ll be honourable and skilled.}

The Brute, on the other hand, had an aura of menace about him, and glared at the audience like he was considering murdering them in their beds, burning their houses down and feeding the remains to the dogs.

Tomsk: {He’s the heel - the bad guy, and rather good at it - look at the way he’s got the audience already hating him, and he’s not even said a word yet.}

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The Farmboy was young, very fit, and had intense brooding looks. Kafana couldn’t tell whether he was meant to be heroic or evil.

Tomsk: {He’s the baby - the underdog who tries hard, who the audience hopes will succeed but doesn’t expect it of him.}

The Kraken was a heavyset bald man with a neat goatee and long arms. From the anchor tattoo on one arm, she guessed he’d been a sailor.

Tomsk: {He looks like he’s meant to get local sympathy. From his age, though, I guess he’s a carpenter - put in to allow the baby to gain reputation by beating him.}

Bungo: {It’s fixed? It isn’t real combat like on the Bridge of Fists?}

Tomsk: {Generally? Yes, it’s part storytelling and part athletics display. Remember, these guys are doing it as a business, maybe two or three times a day for several weeks. Injuries cut into their profit margins. Even with magic healing, the performers are still having to put a lot of trust in each other. Jumping down from a hay bale to land an elbow across the other person’s throat could break their neck and kill them instantly, as could several other holds.}

Wellington and Bulgaria were nodding, but Kafana felt let down.

Kafana: {So they don’t actually know how to fight?}

Tomsk: {Oh, I didn’t say that. Like doing a stunt in a movie, sometimes selling a faked punch takes more skill than actually punching the person for real would have done. And I think you’re about to see one of the exceptions - some real combat.}

The umpire, having finished introducing Knight, Brute, Farmboy and Kraken, was now inviting anyone from the audience to step forwards if they wanted to challenge the wrestlers, and win two gold florins if they could avoid losing within the first two minutes.

An adventurer stepped up, waving her arms and bouncing with anticipation, a wild grin on her cute face. She had long pink braided hair, and gave a Bao Quan Li kowtow before rapidly stripping off her weapons and armour. The wrestlers picked The Knight to face her and both were equipped with a blunt dagger-like weapon wrapped in padding.

Tomsk: {From how she’s standing, I’d bet on her being trained in shuai jiao. She’s not seen them fight and she’s overconfident, unless her qinna is really good.}

Twenty seconds later, the girl was lying on her front screaming, her foot twisted at a nasty angle behind her, and the pain stick held firmly against the backs of her thighs by The Knight, who had her totally pinned. He didn’t relent until she managed to gasp out the words “I quit.”

Tomsk said, rather smugly: {When I was doing mocap for XperiSense, one of the tasks Xu Kaixiang had me doing was testing various western martial arts styles against the ones most common among the players of Divine Mountain, so he could balance them. I think some of the grapplers are going to be surprised by Wigan-style catch-as-catch-can.}

The girl had to be helped out of the ring but, far from being put off, she looked like she wanted to have a go another day, chatting amicably with the Kraken as he carried her.

Tomsk sounded thoughtful. {Good spirit, though. I’ll send her a friend request. Maybe Char or ChocolateTrain will be able to give her a few pointers.}

Alderney: {I’m still working on ChocolateTrain’s armour, so they’ve kept me informed of their plans. They’re ahead of the other guilds on total number of boss monsters killed and they want to keep their lead. I don’t think they’re going to be back in Torello for a while - they’ve arranged rendezvous with the Messengers Guild for resupply and taking things away to sell.}

Wellington: {That sounds like Nastya’s thinking. It’s a good idea. We could organise something similar via the Adventurers Guild, for questing areas that several parties are staying in.}

Bungo: {We talked about the guild and The Burrow helping players organise into groups, and a central clearing house for quests. If you’re extending that, how about arranging social meetups such as dojos for sharing martial arts, or even player generated crafting quests such as “I want high defence armour needing no more than STR 173, will pay in advance on best stats offered.”}

Alderney: {I think CraftySquId would be interested in running that last part, and maybe one of the social guilds the meetup bit? But what we could do is make sure the API we suggest is flexible enough to handle that sort of usage, and put in place a Burrow framework that lets any clan with enough reputation hire space in the Adventurers Guild buildings and set up events, markets and other applications.}

Bulgaria: {Give XperiSense and the locals a veto. We don’t really want to directly compete with an existing exchange that will send assassins after us for poaching their business.}

Wellington nodded: {Sounds workable. I should have a suggestion ready to send to them tomorrow evening. I’ve already done the low-level stuff of making sure there are no issues with security or latency when it gets used by the distributed version of The Burrow. If anything, this will help with stego, because we can hide it in the redundancy used to protect against third party attacks.}

Bungo: {I didn’t understand a word of that.}

Kafana: {Me neither, but that doesn’t mean his saying it is a bad idea. Sometimes just putting things into words helps you organise your thoughts, even if you’re just talking to a cat.}

Alderney started brushing her cheeks with the back of her hands, as though she were licking them: {Meeeeeow.}

Tomsk chuckled and scritched Alderney under the chin, who responded by batting at a tassel dangling from his sword belt.

The umpire announced the first matchup would be between the Brute and the Farmboy, but before it could start, Casimir reappeared and led them out of the Tiltyard, through a nondescript gateway behind the ring.