Time passed slowly. I counted the tapping foot of the impatient gnome. I concluded that he tapped his foot a lot. I wondered what would win out: his impatience, or our desire to not be litigated to death. That probably had something to do with paper cuts; I didn’t care much for paper cuts.

I fiddled with the vial in my hand as I played with some of the foreign mana around the place. There seemed to be a lot of it, flowing out of the tunnel that led deep underground. My mind raced , thinking of any solution to get out of this predicament alive. A plan formed in my head. This lawyer had an ego, I had to play that to my advantage.

“We’ll come out as long as you sign a contract.” I shouted.

The lawyer snorted. This was like country school boys trying to outcast a Grandmagus.

“Very well. Come up with a reasonable contract and I will sign it. Seems fair enough.” Mr. Borbus said. He cracked his knuckles.

“What are you doing?! He’ll have us binded by laws if you keep this up!” Dren panicked.

“What else are we going to do? Starve?”

“Exactly. That's a much nobler and kinder fate than what you’re getting us into.”

“What’s the worst that he can do? Lock us up? Torture us?”

“There are far worse things than torture in this world, lawyers are one of them. Imagine being contractually obligated to bark every 3 minutes, or a lifetime ban on drinking Ale.”

“It’s risky, I know, but I want more out of life than to die starving. I’ve got a plan. If we can swindle the lawyer then we can get out of here in one piece.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

I didn’t.

“Bring some paper to me and a pen.” I demanded.

“Very well,” said the Gnome. He snapped his fingers and a runner boy ran off and minutes later came back with a pen and some paper. The gnome tossed it over the line.

I scrambled over to the paper and picked up the paper. Some say the pen is mightier than the sword. They’d be right, if the person wielding said pen wasn't a poor necromancer who could barely read, let alone write. So I took my time writing, making sure the words that I put to paper made sense. All six of them.

Rose wrinkled her brow.

“You’re sure you’re not trying to sell our souls away? Let us leave. We will comply. Does not scream cunning legal paper. You should probably reconsider this, Arthur. If we stay here, we can probably live out the last two days of our existence daydreaming about food.”

Food did sound good.

“No! This will work, trust me. How can you live without seeing your parents, your family? They’re alive, Rose! Imagine finding that out and just giving up.”

“She’s right. We were dead men the moment we stepped past the dangerous sign. I’m tired of hearing your infuriating positivity and dealing with your positively terrible ego. Just give it up.” Dren reasoned.

“I won’t. Not when I know that this letter is the only thing that stands between us and our freedom.”

“I won’t let you.” Said Dren.

“What?”

“I won’t let you throw our lives away. If you take one step towards that line, I’m stopping you. Write one more word, I’m stopping you.”

Very well. I had completed all the writing I needed with that antiquated writing device. Mana was hard to control, but I wanted to live. I needed to find a way to mold it. Dren looked satisfied as I concentrated on the paper, unmoving. He thought I was doing what he deemed rational. He was wrong.

Mana is a funny thing. You’d think that a substance that cannot be touched, that cannot be seen would be easy to package into a nice pretty little font like a time new gnomin or a fairy-L font. Yet I struggled to write even as well as a caveman.

It wasn’t pretty, but I had accomplished what I wanted. All three lines of words. They were enough.

I bolted towards the sign and the imaginary line that separates the gnome from us.

Thunk! Dren slammed into me. The air was knocked out of my lungs; the vial fell from my pocket and clinked across the stone floor. I reached for it, but my leg was already pinned.

“You dumb bastard!” Shouted Dren. He brought his fist down hitting my back. I grimaced and reached for the vial.

Dren pried the durable gnomish paper from my hands. And kicked my arm away from the vial. With one swift motion he pushed me away and snatched the vial.

“I can’t have you breaking a priceless artifact. Not when I’m gonna drink it.” Dren reasoned. He uncorked the vial and swallowed the vile liquid. The grayish slurry bubbled in his mouth. His eyes grew wide, a large grin covered face. He stood there staring at the wall.

“What is he doing?” asked the Gnome.

“His mind is clear. He drank something that clears the mind.” I reasoned.

“Ah, enlightenment.” The gnome incorrectly assumed.

“If you wouldn’t mind, could you bring that paper to that gnome, Dren.” I asked.

“That sounds like a good idea. I should do that.” he agreed. Almost skipping, he stepped over the line. He was promptly tackled by five guards.

“Why’d he do that?” Rose whispered to me.

“Beats me.” I lied.

The gnome narrowed his eyes and rubbed his chin. To become the best lawyer, it took more than honest dedication to make it to the top. Something was amiss, his gnomish senses were tingling.

“Get me that paper. They can’t pull the wool over my eyes.”

The executioner picked the parchment from the heap of bodies that were keeping Dren flattened like an old man-pancake.

“This can’t be right. Six words, their meaning clear.” The gnome paused. “Could it be that this enlightened Dren thinks that the greater good of the law comes before his self preservation? Possible. Only an idiot would only write six words… No spells… No witchcraft… No fontmantics…”

The Gnome pulled out his slightly larger pen, paused, unpaused, squinted at the words and signed the sheet of the parchment. Instantly he felt as though he had been slugged by a warrior, yet logic won out in the end. Law ran on logic. That was the gnomish motto.

“Done. Now, fulfill your part of the bargain.”

“Not so fast. There’s words shaped from mana on those pages.”

“No, there are no spells on these pages. My handy artifact would’ve alerted me of such trickery.” The gnome pulled out a chained cube.

“Well, shaped mana isn’t spells.”

“If a gnomish bird eats the desert wyrm, and no flock is around to see it, who's to say the bird was even there in the first place. In other words, if the writing cannot be seen, then who's to say it's actually there.”

“I can see the words. Only a simpleton like a gnome wouldn’t be able to see mana.”

“Me? A simpleton? Very few people can do that wizardry bullshit. Are you saying you know something that all but the ArchBishop can do?”

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“Yes.”

The gnome furrowed his brow. Now this was a conundrum. No, not for a split second, did Rasctifus Borbus actually believe the idiot in front of him had mana sight. That was something for the big wigs, those who made the laws had. But his truth detector had not triggered…

But a fool could technically trick himself into thinking he had mana sight and the law could not discern that from the actual reality of the situation. It was one of the flaws with laws, or at the very least, a flaw that Rasctifus Borbus wanted to eventually amend: to create common law sense. He even trademarked the term! It would be a system that revolutionizes the anarchy of people and their terrible judgment and replace their terrible judgment with court adjourned guidance (from only the most prestigious judges of course). He’d just have to climb the ranks and become a judge first. He was one case away.

“I’ll call in a favor. Call the Grand Minister of Law and make sure he brings his Two piece Monocle of Seeing Everything.”

“The ones connected with wire sort of like glasses?”Asked the runner.

“Yes, that one.”

“The ones that let you see anything?”

“Not anything. Everything. You don’t get to choose not to see certain things. You’ll see it all, everything visible all at once, in all its hideous glory. It takes a great mind to decipher what he or she sees. Only the brightest can wield such power…” Monologued the Lawyer.

I stopped listening to the Lawyer’s monologue. It took a certain kind of magic to talk forever without seeming to take a single breath in between words. I found it tiresome.

“You shouldn’t have lied to his face.” Rose unhelpfully added as she snuck up behind me.

“Is this about my writing?”

“It’s about the bold claims and fake magic. You heard what that lawyer said. He seemed pretty reasonable when he concluded that you lied. Lying is about being subtle.”

“All lawyers sound reasonable. That’s their job. Kind of like how my job is to feel up dead corpses and make ‘em move. That doesn’t make lawyers right.”

“Believing in fake magic confirms that you’re a charlatan at best. They’ll prove that you’re wrong and we’ll be legally obligated to step past that sign.” Rose pointed at the sign, rather unhelpfully.

“Then do you have any better ideas?”

“We should’ve taken our time writing that letter. We had two days and you wrote that in ten minutes. Hell, six words in ten minutes. That’s like a word every two minutes. It’d take you a year to write a children's picture book at that pace.”

“Well, time was of the essence. I was getting hungry.”

“Hungry? You’d put a little hunger over our survival?!”

“No, I saved you from thinking about food without any food around to be eaten. That’s a fate worse than death.”

“Arthur, please take this seriously! If we appeal and ask for a contract revision, we might be able to get out alive. The Princess Guide Book states that revising a legal contract before court approval is a right that all citizens of the Kingdom have. Volume 2 Chapter 2 Paragraph 2.”

“And lose? You think that the both of us can out-talk a seasoned lawyer? That guy hasn’t even breathed, he talks so smoothly.”

“The Princess Guide Book states that Lawyers only win in court seventy percent of the time. Technically three percent, if you factor out Lawyers facing other Lawyers.”

“Only three percent?”

“Three percent is far greater than zero! You have no chance of winning a case by lying!”

“I didn’t lie.”

“I don’t know what you did to Dren, but you’re not going to convince me with whatever the hell this is.”

Loud drums rolled in like thunder, as a parade of dancers, singers, and strangely dressed beggars skipped their way towards the line. Sat upon an open carriage whose wheels were six poor men dressed fabulously, plopped a man whose tie dye robes matched the little tiny glasses that didn’t quite cover his dead eyes. His gray wispy hair covered his head, below that was the most stoic and grim expression to ever grace the face of a man. His misery stood out like the brightest of lights in darkness, juxtaposing his bright and cheery surroundings.

One might find that the Church's attempt at improving the judge’s image only made it more apparent how miserable the judge actually was. Two might gossip about how the misery of the man was caused by the tiny spectacles on his rather large unsightly noggin. Three would yelp as their untrue gossip was overheard by the local pastor and his burly holy hands would arrest them. Coincidentally, they’d find themselves sentenced harshly by The Grand Minister of Law, since he didn’t tolerate lies and deceit. He was happy. He was happy. He was happy, he often reminded himself. Like all great inventions, the glasses of seeing everything came with a drawback.

“Welcome, The Grand Minister of Law, formally known as Frederick. I hope your journey has been fruitful, and your happiness ever intact.”

“Yes, yes, forgo the pleasantries. Forgo the rambling chit chat that you always do. The faster I complete my favor, the faster all of your ugly imperfections can leave my sight. There is no beauty among any of you.”

“Well, the Gnomish ladies do say I’m the talk of the city.” said Mr. Borbus.

“With that unsightly nose? And that giant mole you hide just behind your lower back?”

The lawyer staggered back as if he’d been punched in the face. The birthmark was a sore point. He had initially left his gnomish homeland because of his mothers gripes about his birthmark and how ugly it was. The gnome fiddled with his button. It was a nervous tick, a habit had yet to break entirely. Although Rasctifus Borbus was a professional and composed himself swiftly.

“No. That’s a birthmark.” he retorted.

“What it is,I care not. I’m just telling you how it is. As much as I wish to lock all of you unsightly gremlins up so that my eyes may finally rest, it is not against the law to be hideous.”

“Well, ahem, should we get on with the trial.”

“What exactly is it I was called for? The runner boy only said that this matter was urgent and that it would satisfy what I owe you in full.”

“Prove that this parchment doesn’t have mana shaped into words, so that I can have those unsightly liars behind the sign legally obligated to turn themselves in.”

The Grand Minister of Law looked over at Rose and I.

“They are rather unsightly aren’t they, especially the dirty man.”

“Yes. Now can you end this farce.”

The lawyer handed the minister his parchment. The Minister squinted at the paper, his eyes scrunching as he read six words. It took awfully long to read six words, Rasctifus Borbus thought. He tapped his foot impatiently, his worries and doubts grew by the minute.

“Cosmic Sands.” spat the Minister of Law. He spat again at the vile parchment and the hidden words weaved into it.

“Pardon, Frederick. There are no sands nor cosmics sands here. Perhaps, you’re reminiscing about your vacation to the Museum of the Endless Desert.” The lawyer hoped.

“Nah. I’m talking about the font named after the Cosmic Sands. What a desecration of good paper.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Those words, they’re written in chicken scratch at best.”

“Not those words. The ones written in Mana. I’m afraid you’re in a bit of a pinch, Borbus. It will not end well for you to side with criminals.”

“I’m not siding with criminals. In fact, I’ve made it my mission to arrest and detain these evil-doers.” The lawyer gestured towards Rose and I, his hand outstretched. I looked backwards, as if there was someone else he was gesturing at. The evil-doers must’ve been invisible, I concluded.

“That’s not what this contract says. The one that you unknowingly signed.”

“Well, I’m sure that I can weasel my way out of it. This isn’t the first time.”

The Grand Minister of Law, also known as Frederick, raised an eyebrow.

“Are you so sure? Would you like to know exactly what was written on these pages?”

“Absolutely.”

“The individual who signs this very page must provide legal representation of the highest standard, the standard of someone like Rascitifus Borbus if he were fully invested in defending his client. No underhand scheming or underhanded weaseling out of said contract. Also, nothing written in non mana ink is legally binding, in fact, visible ink on this parchment is ruled by opposite day.”

“Brilliant.” Mr. Borbus exhaled. “Just brilliant.”

It would be tough and take time but he was sure he could break out of the contract. For now, though, he had to follow his part of the bargain.

“I suggest you leave, Minister. I’ve taken enough of your time as it is.”

“Hardly, if anyone was doing anyone a favor, you gave me a favor. As much as the abhorrent people cause me grief, law must be abided. Thanks again for leading me to these criminals.”

“Oh, contrar. You must be tired from your trip from across the city. I will take care of these criminals, who’ll face swift punishment.”

The Grand Minister of Law paused.

“I don’t trust you, Rascitfus. You’re the type of lawyer who’d rather follow a contract than the law. I’m afraid I’ll have to take over this case. ”

“I’m afraid that I'll have to comply. It’s all yours.”

The Grand Minister of Law narrowed his eyes. It took more than mere minutes to worm your way out of a contract. Something was amiss.

“Where’d you put them?”

“Put them? These are people. I didn’t put them anywhere. They ran off.”

“Plausible deniability, I see. We’ll squeeze the information on how you did it once we drag them back.”

“You’ll have trouble with that. You’re so caught up in using your glasses to see everything, that you fail to see anything. You should’ve let me track them down, but my hands are tied.”

“How quickly do you think you can discover a loophole?”

“I have some ideas. Give me a day, I’ll be free to continue the hunt.”

“Fine. But I want them caught. The Church needs to show that they have complete control of the city. Use Charles as a last resort.”

“Charles is barbaric and old fashioned.”

“I know, but the High Priest doesn’t like the corruptor's spawn running around. It’s a bad look for him. It reminds the city folks that the Church didn’t create this city, that they just run the show. There weren’t Lawyers before the Church took over, remember that.”

A lawless world was a world that Rascitfus Borbus could not quite fathom. The horror that must’ve existed before order was brought to these lands made him shudder. It reminded him of why he took up the pen and paper, why he wielded the legal tongue. True freedom was chaos. It was something that Rascitfus yearned to eliminate. One more job, he thought. Then he’d make his mark on the world.