Joy was in an atrocious mood. He had not gotten the beauty sleep that he so deserved. Instead, he had spent most of the night with some lady’s legs over his head, while Theo carried her arms. Then to make matters even worse, they had passed by where his fortune should be, and it was gone.

In retrospect, leaving nearly a thousand gold just lying in the middle of the street was a bad choice, but that didn’t mean he still couldn’t be pissed.

The group had dragged the baker into the dungeon area, and even put her into Joy’s old cell. Once the group was just about to leave, Sam the seer arrived. Joy felt it was super creepy how they just knew about the new prisoner. But apparently Sam “took care of these sorts of things.” So, the group of three left.

Afterwards, Theo and Lillian had to drag Joy to wake the prince up and give the report on the evening’s events.

Theo had been giving the long and arduous report on the events of the night and concluded by saying, “so, we failed. You hoped to use the ring as leverage to take away your sister’s support from the Red family. Since the owner of the ring is dead, the ring in large is useless to you now.”

“No, no, no. You all did a wonderful job. Capturing the baker that is in my dungeon seems to be enough to call this mission a success. And I feel that we can find some use for that old ring. But please, tell me more about these shadowy monsters.”

After this, the prince continued trying to squeeze every detail out of Lillian and Theo, who were happy to provide everything. By this point Joy was swaying on his feet, but no one seemed to notice or care.

Finally, the three had stopped blabbering and he was going to be free to sleep. The sun had fully risen, but Joy was dedicated to his sleep and no amount of mere sunlight was going to stop him.

That was when the prince suggested that they start training as a team. Since they were going to be working together so much in the future, it apparently wouldn’t be ideal if they all got in each other’s way again. Which was how the group of three had been roped into the prince’s daily training session with Ian.

Ian was a short man with a lithe build who seemed to be in his forties. His greying hair was in a high ponytail that just barely went to the nape of his neck, and he had a scar that ran from the corner of his eye all the way down to his jaw. Ian carried a sword at his hip that was bare of any decorations, it was not a ceremonial sword, it was purely meant for killing as efficiently as possible.

Ian’s every move exuded grace, and Theo, Lillian, and Joy watched the prince and Ian warm up with rapt attention. Ian was a monster; every movement was efficient and powerful. Every strike placed with perfect precision leading to the next and the next. But he never took a finishing blow, instead when the prince left himself too exposed Ian would tap him with two fingers before continuing his barrage of attacks.

The prince was no slouch either. He couldn’t keep up with Ian, but he certainly was talented. He parried and struck back; to no avail, but he still tried. The prince seemed to be absorbing everything he could from this quiet lesson with an absolute master of combat.

Eventually their dance came to an end when Ian gently pushed the prince over. Once the two men had shook hands and shown each other the respect that was proper, Ian said some of the evilest words ever spoken, “so who’s next.”

Theo got his ass kicked and Lillian got her ass kicked. Neither of them could ruffle a hair on Ian’s head. He was simply just that much better than them. When it was Joy’s turn he could feel his doom encroaching on him, there was no way he could win in this fight.

As Joy got into position, he weighed his few options. He could foolishly try to fight Ian in the same way that everyone else had, or he could cheat. Joy always felt that when life made you play an unfair game, it was just a gentle hint to cheat at that game.

Ian’s easy-going demeanor never shifted, and his placid smile remained on his face as he started closing the distance towards Joy. Unfortunately for Ian, Joy had turned around and ran.

Ian was dumbfounded, who ran away from training? This was an opportunity to see your flaws and improve upon them in a safe environment, why run away?

Joy was quick, but not quicker than Ian, who caught up and got ready to give Joy a lesson in respect. As the first punch was cocked and ready to release, a handful of dirt was thrown into Ian’s eyes.

Reflexively Ian closed his eyes, then Joy suddenly shifted directions. With a manic grin on his face, he prepared a devastating kick to Ian’s head. His leg lifted off the ground and released a beautiful arc that went directly towards Ian’s head, that Ian easily caught. Even with his eyes closed he could feel the air and could block the kick before it hit him.

The grin fell off Joy’s face while a smile rose on Ian’s.

Sporting a new black eye and an incessant ringing in his ears that seemed to follow him wherever he went, Joy sat in their sharing circle. At the request of the prince the group of three was going to share the details of their gifts with each other. So that they could become a more effective fighting unit and not step on each other’s toes.

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It was an incredibly awkward silence. Very few people shared the details of their gifts with others. It was a sensitive and personal subject, only their mutual respect for the prince kept Lillian and Theo there, while Joy stayed because he was threatened with another beating from Ian if he didn’t.

Joy decided that he would break the silence, “well we can start with the obvious. We know that Theo has those nasty ice eyes. They cannot be a natural blue.”

Theo instantly winced at that comment, “is it really that easy to tell?”

Both Joy and Lillian chorused, “yes.”

“Just to be thorough, I received my gift from Cold. It is pretty simple, if I look at something it will freeze. The longer I look, the more it freezes. However, the freezing will only ramp up if my eyes are open. So, if I blink it all resets.”

The gift wasn’t exactly a surprise to Joy, but it did put Theo’s vicious glares into context. He was just building up his icy power, not fed up with Joy’s bullshit.

Joy was touched by Theo’s openness in this sharing circle and decided that he should share his gift with the group as well. It had nothing to do with the way Ian was eyeing him like a juicy cut of meat. Nothing at all.

“I can challenge anyone to a game, then a unique game is chosen for all the players. Anyone can choose to play or not play the game as they see fit. They get certain advantages and disadvantages depending on how successful they are in the game. Usually it’s fun, but you both know what can happen when your opponent takes advantage of the game for themselves. Robin had an unfair advantage with his ability to make the arms appear.”

The other two stared at Joy. The looks on their faces made it clear that they assumed that his power was more of a liability than anything else.

That’s just the way sore losers were. They weren’t even thinking about ways to combat Robin if they ever had to play freeze tag against him again. Maybe it was a little overkill since the man had already been killed, but that was no excuse for laziness.

Finally, after a long and arduous pause, filled with glares and judgement from everyone involved, Lillian decided to share her gift as well.

“My gift is from Dream. Every night when I go to sleep, I get the opportunity to take one thing from my dreams into the real world. It persists until I go to sleep again, or it is destroyed.”

“Do you dream about fire breathing rats a lot?” Joy really was curious if the elemental rats would be a persistent theme. But since he hadn’t seen Lillian carrying lots of rats, he didn’t have high hopes.

“No. But, if I bring a living thing out of the dream it still acts like it would in the dream. A monster coming to murder me in my dreams will still be trying to murder me once I bring it into the real world. That’s why I need Theo to watch me when I wake up, so that we don’t have any accidents.”

“Why would you ever bring out a monster? Are you stupid?” Joy questioned.

With an icy and judgmental look Theo replied, “everything has a purpose. Even monsters.”

Now that wasn’t a foreboding statement or anything.

The silence regrew around the group as they sat and tried to think about the others’ powers. Theo and Lillian had been working for the prince together for a while now, so they already knew the other’s gift, but Joy’s certainly was chaotic and weird to wrap their heads around.

Joy on the other hand, was thinking of games that the other two would be good at. Not for any sort of tactical advantage, but so that he knew which games to not try and swindle them at. Theo’s gift was easy to figure out the bounds and limits of, but Lillian’s randomness made it difficult to know what games she would be skilled at, but her ability was limited by her imagination and luck. And when it came to luck Joy was king.

Joy did not receive a gift from Luck. He was just a lucky man.

As the prince and Ian were finishing up their match, they slowly wandered over to the group who were sitting in silence.

“Now that you all have shared have you discovered your weaknesses as a group?” the prince asked as he sat down in the sharing circle. At the same time Ian stood behind him in an imposing fashion.

Lillian replied, “my gift and Joy’s gift are too similar. Both are extremely unpredictable, meaning that with some bad luck we can be beaten by any bozo with a mediocre gift from Strength.” Her face was scrunched up in disappointment.

“That is a good analysis, but don’t sell yourselves short. Even if there are situations where bozos can beat you, there are other situations where you could defeat anyone.” With this statement Lillian’s face rose again and she seemed hopeful. “Take Ian for example, nine times out of ten he will beat you, but on that tenth round he wouldn’t even be able to touch you all. As a team you do not need endless training like I do, you need the ability to improvise and think quickly on your feet.”

Joy smiled after the prince’s speech. Maybe he was being told to do more work for the prince, but what Joy heard was that Lillian and Theo were going to be forced to play games with him. He was so excited that he almost forgot about his sleep deprivation and the scary monsters that he saw the night before.

“Thank you for humoring me. I was hoping to show you what I expect of you as a team, and to humble you at the same time. Now you can sleep.” The prince finally released the group to sleep.

Joy stumbled back to his room in a groggy daze before passing out immediately. While Lillian and Theo retired to their own room. Where Theo took his shift of sleeping, during which time Lillian desperately tried to stay awake herself. Theo couldn’t risk dosing off while Lillian slept and being tired was no reason for ineptitude at their tasks.

After the group of three was solidly away from the training ground with the prince, Sam walked up to him and Ian. They had a massive grin on their face as they placed a checkered ring into the prince’s hand.

“Your fools were so tired they forgot to give you the artifact you wanted.” Sam said.

“They certainly are fun, aren’t they? You must love them, Sam.” The prince replied while handing the ring to Ian who took off to deliver it somewhere.

“You’ll never get me to admit it, David.” Sam said with a grin.

“What’s gotten you so excited today?” The prince questioned with a matching grin starting to splay over his lips.

“There’s a new player entering the board,”

“Will they be an ally to my cause?”

“Certainly not.”

“Why should I care then?”

“They’re searching for the Kingmaker.”

“Then I guess it’s a race.” The prince’s smile spread from ear to ear as he started planning on how to use this new enemy to his greatest benefit.