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The Only Game In Town [Adventure]
Chapter 66 - Snakeskin Shoes

Chapter 66 - Snakeskin Shoes

Joy had never felt so well rested. After the entire night’s debacle, he had somehow wandered back to his room in the prince’s castle and slept like the dead. The pain and the effort that had gone into apprehending the two villains had taken every smidgen of effort contained in his soul.

But after a good night’s sleep and a good deed done, he now felt readier than ever for a day in the knight’s tournament.

He had slipped Lillian’s new coin under her door last night with a halfhearted apology written on it. He didn’t describe the events, but he mentioned that he regretted taking her coin from her.

It wouldn’t do him any good, but a man had to try.

He fingered his own coin and saw that it now read:

Today.

Midday.

Round Two.

And on the backside, it read:

Trent.

The name seemed vaguely familiar, but Joy wasn’t going to spend his precious time thinking. He had much more important things to do, like let Fate decide his wardrobe for the day.

He threw the coin into his wardrobe. The coin spun in the air, round, and round. It landed silently in the pocket of one of his silk suits. The suit itself was a creamy white with accents of sandy brown.

The suit was lightweight and had very few frills. The suit was meant for the discerning gentleman who had no scruples towards doing some less than legal for a price. Joy felt that the suit gave him a dangerous, debonaire look.

With the suit, Joy found a matching pair of glasses that protected his eyes from the sun. They matched the sandy brown color of his suit and almost completed the look.

Fortunately, no outfit is complete without shoes; even a barbarian knows to put a nice pair of shoes on when he’s trying to impress. Joy rooted through his shoe closet and found the vilest pair of shoes he owned. It was an unfortunate purchase he had made when he had more money than style. But they worked perfectly for the character he had built within this outfit.

The shoes were a dark snakeskin, and they gleamed in the beams of sunlight that made their way into Joy’s room.

With the new outfit on, Joy went on a little walk towards the arena. He tilted his glasses down at anyone that he liked, and he put his nose up in the air at anyone that he didn’t like. Life was truly simple and beautiful once he put on this suit.

He walked through the food carts that had sprung up during this time of celebration. The tournament changed everyone’s lives in such an all-encompassing way. It was truly humbling to remember that it wasn’t just his life that had been totally changed by this tournament. Every vendor and stand owner had seemingly teleported into the section of the city with the arena overnight. They kept their stalls perfectly well stocked, and they price gouged all their customers.

These people didn’t have to fight every day, they didn’t have to show their might. Instead, they had to show their cleverness and business acumen every day, or else they would go bankrupt overnight.

Not only were new knights crowned with laurels during this time, but new merchant kings also rose from the ashes of their predecessors.

But none of that really mattered to Joy. It was an exciting thought, but he just wanted his meat skewer and fresh pressed juice.

With juice being daintily dabbed off his chin by his wonderful pocket handkerchief he stepped into the arena. The air smelled different than before, there was much more tension in the air, it was like people could smell that the chaff had been removed from the competitors and only the truly powerful were left to fight now.

As per the tradition that Joy had started yesterday, Joy entered the arena from the spectators’ entrance and walked around to get a feel for the audience.

There was a general discontent in the air. Joy chatted with other people - only the wealthy spectators since no self-respecting man who earned their food for the day would ever speak to a man with snakeskin shoes. But he heard a sentiment that people were more horrified than impressed with a lot of the exhibition matches yesterday.

Of course, Joy’s own match was included in them. There was something distinctly terrifying about watching some of the most powerful people on the continent become blundering buffoons because of a gift. It reminded everyone that with the right gifts they could be at anyone’s mercy.

But Joy was welcomed with a surprise. He saw an entire section of the stands were filled with people with red skin and horns. They all looked severe, as well as a bit terrifying, but he was excited to see these people up and about. They had been miserable, their lives had been as torturous as Joy could imagine, but now they seemed to be trying to readjust to a normal life.

Joy had shifted back into his normal self the night before. So, the process wasn’t permanent. However, if Joy had to guess, he would say that it had to do with the amount of time someone spent under the gift, they needed to spend an equal amount of time without the gift being reapplied before they would truly be free of the horns and skin.

Joy wandered the stands. He shook hands with the people who recognized him from the day before. He lent his shades to an elderly man sitting in the corner of the arena; sunlight shone directly onto his eyes, and it seemed like a kindly thing to do. Joy didn’t really need the glasses, now, did he?

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Joy wandered to the bottom layer after spending enough time with the normal people in the world. He wandered into the rich people’s section. Everyone here had villas in the second layer of Vena Cava and went on wonderful trips to luxurious corners of their continent every chance they got. Joy didn’t hold it against them, it was the way that they lived, but it did make them a little hard to relate to at times.

Joy noticed that the king was missing. There was nothing abnormal about this. The king usually showed up to the finals, but nothing else. He was an incredibly busy man and did not have the time to spare on the poor fighting knights.

But the prince and the princess were both in attendance. They may seem to have normal faces, but they were masks, hiding their real motives in this horrifying game they were playing.

Joy was kind of bored and had talked with the prince yesterday. He was certain that the prince would be unhappy to chat with Joy again, so he decided to try his luck against the famous princess Dahlia.

Joy slowly sidled up to the booth where she was sitting. Beside the princess was a woman with a vaguely familiar face. Her eyes were a deep rich brown, but her hair was a blinding shade of golden. It looked a little incongruous, but who was Joy to judge?

The princess sat regally - that was the only way to describe it. Her posture seemed more akin to a woman on the throne rather than a spectator in a sporting arena. She had beautiful hair that was luscious and long. Joy would have bet his life savings that someone with a Hair gift was involved. But he wasn’t judgmental, he just wanted her stylist’s name and information.

Her eyes were different than the prince’s. He had a burning intensity behind his eyes, a power that was unfathomable lay beyond the depths of his piercing eyes. Dahlia’s eyes oozed a sense of apathy. She seemed kind and had a winning smile as she chatted with her friend; but there was no fire in her belly, she just seemed a little boring.

Joy sidled up to her booth and confidently approached her and her friend’s chairs. Joy loved going places he wasn’t supposed to go, it was a dirty passion of his. Through his experience in the thieving world, he found that only two things were important. The presentation and the confidence.

These were doubly true for the rich and powerful.

The problem with being rich and powerful is that they must start delegating. A poor person doesn’t need a secretary to take care of their every little need, so they are able to take personal care of every part of their life.

The secretaries and functionaries all hold pieces of their liege’s power, but not enough of the whole thing to truly feel like one of the rich and powerful themselves. So, they approach the process as a bystander, rather than someone who truly knows what is happening.

These functionaries are great when nothing important is happening or when no improvisation is needed, but they crumble as soon as something new or unheard of occurs.

All this leads back to confidence and presentation. Joy found that if he presented himself as someone who belonged and had the confidence that he belonged, that almost no one would even question that he belonged.

With his snakeskin shoes tip tapping on the solid stone of the arena he approached the princess was the swagger of a rich, pompous ass. Which in some sense, he really was.

The princess and her friends turned to look at their new visitor and any mirth that had been hanging around the corners of their mouths immediately fell off. Their eyes narrowed and their mouths pursed.

Princess Dahlia looked at her guards as if noting which ones had let this man enter her sanctum. After memorizing their faces and assigning them the appropriate punishments in her head she turned to face the man who had disturbed one of the small joys of her life.

“What does one of my brother’s lackies want?” Her voice dripped with derision and her eyes callously looked over every blemish and fault in Joy’s face.

“He wants to be happy and enjoy his life!” Joy put on one of his best winning smiles and made a short bow to the princess and her friend. “And I thought the most fun thing I could do was talk with the famous princess Dahlia.” The women were sitting down and yet somehow Joy felt as though he were the one being looked down on. Their eyes made him feel like a small animal caught in a trap.

“So, he’s a hedonist?” The princess’ friend chimed in, with a smirk spreading across her lips. The princess had not regained any of her previous mirth, but her friend seemed to be warming up to Joy.

“That is a wonderful way to describe it. Life is about having fun and giving the fun to others.” Joy knew these games; it was the game of saying things beyond the words. Not just the meaning, but the soul of his sentences were being evaluated by these women.

The princess smiled, “now, that doesn’t seem like hedonism. That implies some communal aspects to you; you want to encourage the community around you to be as happy as you are.”

“But, my dear princess, what if my reason for building up the community is to enrich my own life? What if it is all for my own personal enjoyment?”

“So, we come full circle and he’s a hedonist again.” The princess’ friend piped in again. “So, hedonist, what is your name?”

Joy didn’t do a mock bow, nor did he serve these women platitudes. Instead, he said, “my name is Joy. And what is your reason for living?”

Joy made his eyes as piercing as possible, trying to use the force of his will to make the princess answer.

With an almost surprised expression on her face the princess answered, “duty and obligation. To be born and to live is to take obligations to your fellow man and community. These obligations vary, but everyone is born to serve their purpose.”

Her eyes stayed impassive even as she spoke of her reason for existence. Truly Joy found that he could not like her, which was unfortunate. She was a beautiful, powerful, and intelligent woman that he would have delighted to be in the company of.

He turned his gaze onto the second woman, the one that looked so familiar. He looked deeply into her eyes and asked the same question without ever opening his mouth.

She stuttered a moment then gave her own answer, “to help. We exist to help the people around us.”

Joy looked at the two women then made a giant bow. He walked away from them, his snakeskin shoes tip tapping away from a tense moment.

Joy liked to think that his presence brought happiness to everyone around him, but that interaction had been distinctly uncomfortable. He was glad that he was in the prince’s employ instead of the princess’.

He left the stands and walked to the competitor’s waiting area. He saw the same young man there attending to him. There was more awe in the boy’s eyes now instead of the derision and mirth that had been there last time, and Joy was unhappy with that.

Joy was not meant to be worshipped or put on some pedestal. Joy was a being that caused everyone to groan or laugh, not bow down. He enjoyed the notoriety of this entire debacle, but he did worry about it getting to his head.

Time passed slowly as Joy sipped on some water and played go-fish with his attendant. Finally, it was time for him to go and play for the crowd.

His attendant wished him good luck and said that he was planning on putting lots of gold on Joy winning his bout. Even the thought of a good bet didn’t bring Joy up to his normal level of enthusiasm. He felt sad for some unknowable reason.

But the crowd never cared - the limelight never cared, and it was time to perform.