Even though Deborah had told me to wait outside, I decided to follow the woman from earlier. I was curious about what that man had said when he called out to her. She had a show... today? I had to see what this was. Unfortunately, I'd lost sight of the two of them pretty much the moment they disappeared behind a group of people, so I was mostly traveling on instinct at this point.

The Old Man trailed behind me, staying at least 10 feet away. It seemed that he really didn't want to make small talk, which was fine with me; I needed to focus on finding that giant red tent( and the Elder's Hut) anyway. We made our way down winding streets made of cobblestone, with various houses on either side of us. People walked back and forth around us, and when I was feeling truly lost I stopped someone and asked them for directions.

They looked surprised to see me, which i assumed was because of my armor. Nevertheless, they simply pointed down the street and continued going about their business. I went in the direction that they had indicated, and eventually reached what I assumed to be Town Square.

There were many buildings that surrounded a large fountain on all sides, except the west end of the fountain which just had a long trail that led off toward a massive red circus tent. On the side of the fountain that was directly opposite from where I was standing, was a huge cabin made of wood. Numerous tarps were draped over the roof of the establishment, with an odd logo on the center of each of the fabrics. I assumed that was the Elder Hut, but at the time I wasn't entirely sure.

I made my way down the street, toward the giant circus tent. To the left and right of me were various booths selling stuff you might find at a carnival; popcorn, candy, hot dogs- and when I reached the far end of this street, I saw a couple booths that were handing out these little slips of paper.

"Tickets! Get your Tickets here! Tipsy the Terrific is performing today, and she's got a wonderful show in store for you folks; you don't wanna miss it!"

The man who was saying all of this looked in my direction, and his eyebrows raised. He stopped speaking for a moment, seemingly surprised to see me. But within seconds he was back to selling.. and that's when i decided to walk over and see what the issue was.

"Hey, can I get a couple tickets?" I asked, and immediately the guy's expression turned serious. "Ah... well.. I guess that shouldn't be a problem. It'll be 5 gold coins."

"Why do you need those? I have... like, 7 dollars on me, would that work? I doubt I have much change, aside from a few pennies..." I answered, rambling a little as I was kind of confused about his question.

"No Gold, no tickets. " He replied firmly, crossing his arms. Then, a futuristic ray gun appeared in my peripheral vision, aimed directly at the poor vendor.

"You wanna try again?" The Old Man With the Ray Gun had evidently broke his "10 feet away" rule, and whipped that thing out without any hesitation.

"Hey.. put that down." I whispered at him. "You don't want to attract to much a-"

"SILENCE" he screamed, and the people around us stopped to look in our direction. They started whispering amongst themselves- clearly, something about our presence here was unnerving.

Eventually, they resumed going about their business, and I returned my focus to the vendor. "Sorry about that. Is there any way we could-" I was trying to ask again about if there was a way to pay with the money I had, but he interrupted.

"No. Actually, I've changed my mind. Even if you had the coins, I wouldn't sell to you. Now please, get away from my shop before I yell for security."

I got out of there faster than a jackrabbit in the middle of sum- well, you get the picture.

I made my way over to the tent, the Old Man in tow. I was grateful that he probably didn't want to talk; because if he had said something, I might have actually punched him at this point.

I inspected the outer walls of the tent, trying to see if there was some way I could sneak in unnoticed. I closed my eyes, and willed my armor away- I thought that would probably help me blend in a little better. Genius, right? Yeah, Behemoth never let me hear the end of that one.

The tent was secured to the ground by various ropes, that were tied to these large metal objects. It looked as if they'd been hammered into the ground. There was a massive line of people leading into the tent, and a big burly man stood beside the line, checking people's tickets.

As I made my way to the back of the tent, I noticed some massive shipping containers, that looked like they were forming some kind of hallway leading up to the back of the tent. There were 6 in each row, split into stacks of 3. They seemed to contain... monkeys? I don't know. But it smelled awful, and I swore I could hear weird chattering noises coming from inside them.

The Old Man wasn't with me anymore, he'd gotten bored and left to bother some people that were standing in line. I decided to leave him to his own devices- better he got into trouble alone, than with me. The last thing I needed in the middle of all this was for him to get us thrown in jail- well, assuming there was a jail.

I walked around the shipping containers, which had been obstructing my view of the back of the tent, and I saw one person standing near a small opening to the back of the tent- they were wearing a black vest, similar to the guy in front of the tent, so I assumed this was also a security guard. I slowly made my way over to him, figuring maybe I could talk my way into the show.

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He held out his hand as he saw me approach, and said "Hold it.". He was wearing sunglasses, and had bright blonde hair in a military-style haircut. He had a weird metal spike coming out of each of his shoulders, as well as on either side of his head. He had army pants, combat boots, and wore nothing underneath the vest. Somehow, he seemed way more threatening than the guy standing in front.

"I can't let you through here, sorry. Go in through the front if you want to see the show. Just show my buddy your ticket and he'll let you through." He said, before folding his arms.

"Yeah, that's... um.. the thing. I don't have any tickets. But.. uh.. it's always been my dream to see this show, since I was a little kid. And... well, you'd make my day if you let me through." I said.

He was thoroughly unamused. "Since you were a little kid, huh? You never got to see this show?" He said, his voice rising in tone a little. He definitely seemed suspicious- not that I could blame him, I was a terrible liar.

i opened my mouth to speak, but he just kept talking.

"Look, either get out or tell me why you're so insistent on getting in here. If I hear one more bullshit answer I'll take you out myself... Out front, I mean." He said. There was a brief pause before he said "out front", and I couldn't help wishing i was wearing my armor. My head buzzed as I talked to him, and I heard a weird popping noise as if some wiring shorted out somewhere... I'm still unsure if that was a coincidence or not.

"Okay, okay.. truthfully, one of the performers here said they wanted to come travelling with me. I.. got the sense that they were in some weird situation. I'm not sure why they asked me, but..."

"A woman dressed like a magician? Red hair?" he asked.

"Yeah, that's the one." I replied.

He stood quietly for a few moments, before speaking in a hushed tone. "Alright, you can go in. But make sure you get her out of here. And do it right after the show. Chances are, someone overheard what she told you.. and you don't to risk them finding you around here."

I was pretty surprised that he was helping me. He was giving off such a professional, no-nonsense vibe earlier that I figured I might actually have to fight him back here... which is something I was beyond grateful I didn't have to do. He was pretty intimidating.

He lifted the flap behind him, and I entered the tent. Just as soon as I entered the tent, I found myself in an enormous hallway that wrapped around some kind of inner structure. It seemed that the outer tent was just for show- this inner part was painted the same as the outer tent, but was clearly made of clay or concrete rather than fabric. There were numerous doors all along the walls of this inner structure, and a pair of double doors directly in front of me.

I proceeded forward, pushing the double doors open. And there I was- standing on the highest row of these massive bleachers, that wrapped around a deep pit in the center of them. The room was packed- every seat had someone sitting in it or in front of it. At the bottom of the pit, was the woman that had talked to me earlier- she was spitting fire into the sky, that took on various shapes. Elephants, dogs, bears... well, I'm guessing those were the shapes. Truth be told, when something is made entirely out of fire, it can be hard to differentiate multiple similar shapes. The bottom line is, this was all super impressive, and I had no idea she could do all that.

The show was definitely entertaining. She'd pull animals out of her hat; sometimes even exotic stuff that was way too big for it, like foxes and big lizards. She'd make their shadows dance, and fight- all while the animals were completely oblivious. Every time she'd do something, the audience would erupt into ear-splitting cheer and applause. It was abundantly clear that they loved her, and she seemed to really enjoy making them smile. She'd keep looking up at us with this big grin, as if seeking someone's approval.

Finally, a short man with a top hat came waddling onto the stage. Once he reached the center of the stage, he tipped his hat to the audience and spoke. He didn't have a microphone, but somehow his voice still resonated around the room as if he had massive speakers everywhere.

"Thank you, thank you everybody! I hope you enjoyed Our Little Tipsy's performance! Sadly, as we stated at the beginning of the show- this will be her last performance. But she'll move on to do bigger and better things within our little community, just you watch! She is so grateful for all of your support throughout the years. Now, if you'll please exit through the ba-" at that moment, he looked up and seemed to notice me standing in the doorway.

"Exit through the front, please. I know this is irregular- I apologize, but our Shining Star wishes for you to exit through that way, thank you. And would the young man standing in the back come to the center stage please? I'd like to have a word with you." I made my way down to the stage, as most of the audience filtered out of the room.

As I drew closer to the man and woman, I noticed that the woman seemed happy to see me. Her expression brightened up and she smiled a little. The short man on the other hand, did not look pleased in the slightest. A scowl had formed on his face, and in fact he seemed kind of angry.

"How did you get in through the back? I told Spencer not to let anyone in. Don't play dumb with me, I know you weren't just trying to find your seat. I greeted each and every audience member personally."

"I.. uh, he wasn't there. I think I saw him getting a hot dog." I said, lying through my teeth. At this, the man shouted angrily. "Bah! Of course you did. My apologies, he really should have been back there. Please exit through the front, like everyone else."

I nodded in response, and he exited through a pair of doors on the wall to the far right of where we were standing.

"Oh my god! I knew you'd come! Thank you so much." She was grinning from ear to ear.

"Yeah... no problem. Just... two things. One, why did you ask me to take you? and two, I don't have the money."

She rolled her eyes when I said that second thing. "Yeah... don't worry about that. I was just, you know. Trying to see how much I could get. And it's obvious that you're outsiders. We haven't had anyone from out of town in decades, and I've been looking to leave for a long, long time.. so yeah."

This seemed alright to me, but one question still lingered in the back of my mind. "Nice... well, I'm happy to take you with us. But how could you recognize me without my armor?"

"Oh... that.. um.. isn't important right now." She looked off to the side. "Can we go?"

I nodded at her. "Sure. Let me just find the people I was-"

"HOLD IT!" A voice shouted at us from behind. I whirled around, and saw the short man from earlier. He was now brandishing a long stick, and pointing the butt of it at us.

"You're not getting out of here without a fight, young man. Our Tipsy belongs to the town."

I don't know why I expected this to be easy, but here we were. I closed my eyes, willing my armor into existence and preparing to fight.