Joy, Theo, and Lillian had gotten into their perfect rhythm. They would be assigned a mission by the prince. Next, they would spend a few days learning as much information about their target as possible, then they would take them for all they were worth.

After the Robin mission the entire team had to rethink how they accomplished missions. They had been far too lazy with that particular mission, and they had paid the price for it.

Well, Robin had paid the price too. But now they were a well-oiled gambling machine. Joy had even stopped picking out ridiculous outfits for them, instead he found clothes that were easy to run and move in. Just in case they were ambushed again, he didn’t want any limited mobility costing the team.

They had a few rough scrapes. Most notably, the three had tried to gamble someone’s life savings away from them. The person they had gambled against though, had an incredible gift from Speed, and would simply rearrange things into their favor. When Joy had inexplicably won a game that had been rigged against him, the speedster had tried to run through the group. Thankfully, it is incredibly difficult to control oneself while running on ice.

Joy had thanked Theo profusely for that save, which had made all parties involved quite uncomfortable.

However, during this revitalization of the team, they started seeing less and less of the prince. He would always be the one to assign the missions, but they would usually end up giving whatever they had stolen to Ian.

This latest mission had been simple, it was to take as much gold as possible from the casino AU. Joy had made an absolute killing, so much so that the casino had placed a lifetime ban on him.

Not the first time he had ever gotten one, but definitely the first he got from such a reputable establishment. It wasn’t his fault that no one else was as stupidly lucky as him.

“What do we even need this much money for?” Joy whined as he handed over a sum that could support a family of seven in excessive luxury until they all died of old age.

At this question Ian smiled. His wrinkles crinkled in a kindly way as he smacked Joy upside the head. “You will find out tonight.”

Joy felt the lump rising in his head at the same time as his rising excitement. So, there was a reason he was stealing fortunes. Joy would’ve been perfectly happy to do it for no reason as well, but what reason could it be?

It was a truly baffling amount of gold that Joy had procured at this point, and Joy had no idea what the prince could possibly be planning to do with it.

Once the group of three had left Ian, Joy voiced his concerns.

“What could the prince possibly need that amount of gold for? I think he’s planning an underground rebellion where he will steal the crown from the king. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Lillian snorted, “for sure. Or maybe he’s just melting them down to make a grand golden throne?”

These responses earned both Joy and Lillian, respectively, a smack upside the head and a heavy glare. The smack was solely for Theo’s own benefit, putting Joy back in his place always made him feel very refreshed. The glare was to keep Lillian from goading Joy on. Joy was like a puppy, the more you encouraged him the worse he became. And Theo was not a dog person.

Joy could actually feel a lump starting to rise on his head, but that could do nothing to curb his enthusiasm for this mystery.

“I propose a game!” Joy declared to his two companions. Theo glared menacingly, hoping to stop this annoyance before it grew any more. Lillian chuckled and waited for the proposal to be put before them. “It is a simple game, whoever discovers what the announcement that the prince will give tonight is about, wins.”

“What would they win?” Lillian asked.

“A favor from whoever does not discover the secret.” At this pronouncement, Theo glared silently at Lillian, begging her not to take this bet. Not that he wasn’t confident in being able to succeed, but because this would only encourage Joy to make more bets on stupid things.

“I’m in. I could always use a favor or two.” Lillian announced to Theo’s chagrin.

Without even a spare glance at Theo, Joy and Lillian took off in opposite directions. Going to solve this mystery.

Standing in the silent hallway Theo sighed and followed the direction that Lillian went in.

Joy was going to solve this mystery, but he couldn’t just solve it, he needed to solve it in style. So, he ran to his room to get properly dressed for this occasion.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

He had picked his comfortable, reliable, and amazing shoes, just in case he needed to chase down some leads. He had purposefully mismatched socks, a pair of trousers that were just a bit too short for his build, a shirt that had a few old stains on it, and a wonderfully long and voluminous trench coat. Joy looked like an investigator that was down on his luck and just trying to ‘solve one last case’ before he retired to the countryside.

Three final items sat on the table in front of Joy: a fedora, a pipe, and a monocle. He wanted to wear them, but they felt like they were too much. He was already pushing the limit with his trench coat, but he felt that these three would pull the entire look together into one of his best costumes of all time.

Joy snatched up the pipe and slipped it into his pocket. Hopefully he would find a proper time to use it for the full effect of his costume, but he had to go and start his investigation already.

A tear trickled down his face as he left his room. Joy had already wasted an hour of precious time creating this masterpiece and could waste no more on deliberations. Joy had created a piece of art out of old clothes and random food stains, now it was time to put his creation on exhibition.

The first stop he had to make was to see Sam. Sam knew everything, and even if it would be a tad anticlimactic if Sam just told Joy the answer, he still had to try.

Joy ventured down deeper into the castle, reaching a point where no sunlight ever touched. Sam liked their workspace to be dark and damp. Joy reached the door to Sam’s room, and it was slightly ajar, so he let himself in.

Sam’s room was drab, to fit the dark and damp area around it. The stone was a boring shade of grey, the table had been painted a boring shade of grey, the carpet on the floor was a boring shade of grey. Everything about the room was as boring as Sam was in Joy’s opinion. Everything except the centerpiece.

In the center of the room was a deep pit with many arcane symbols drawn around the edges and many vermin corpses stacked in the deepest section of the pit. Sam sat at the edge of the deep pit with their flute placed on their lips, then they started to play.

It was a mournful piece. The notes swam through the air together, melding into a melody of loss and regret. The music was enthralling, and even Joy knew to be silent during this moment.

As the piece continued, the pile of corpses in the center of the pit suddenly seemed to shift. The effect was like a magic trick, suddenly the pile of corpses unfurled itself, showing that it was now a large snake. Sam continued playing their mournful piece and the snake seemed to dance to it. Curling and whirling in time with the notes, until Sam stopped.

The snake shuddered, then started slithering around its pit, unable to escape. While the snake thrashed in its futile escape attempt, Sam pulled out a few sheets of paper and a pen, then started taking notes.

Whatever was happening was far beyond Joy, but he knew that seers had unique rituals to use their gifts, and he was not going to interrupt the prince’s personal seer in the middle of their ritual.

Seer rituals did not always used to be this weird. By all accounts, back in the first and second age Prophecy, Vision, and Future, used to give normal gifts that created seers. A man would close his eyes and see flashes of the future, or a woman would stare into a crystal ball and see cryptic imagery. But, by the third age all three gods had gotten quite bored and started a bet. The bet was to see who could create the most outlandish and odd gift to give to some poor unsuspecting sop down in the world.

The story says that Vision gave a man the gift to see across the world if his head was freezing while his feet were on fire. This impressed the other two gods, but it was just a weird trigger for the gift, nothing too outlandish about it.

Prophecy gave a woman a pen where anything that she wrote with it came true no matter what. The other two gods felt it was an incredible gift, since it gave the woman existential dread beyond any sort of physical pain. She did not know if she was making the future, or if she was only allowed to write things that will occur. Eventually she wrote, “this pen will work no more” and the pen exploded killing her and several other people in her general vicinity.

But Future was the one who won the bet between the three gods. Future gave a man the gift to see the rest of his life. He could see any and every event from his life, but they all occurred at the same time and never stopped, so he was never sure where he was in the stream of time. He had no way to tell what was going on around him, and he became a gibbering madman in the span of a few days. Wandering around aimlessly, spitting out conversations out of time.

This story had some sort of moral relating to the entertainment of the gods and how human life existed simply to please them, but Joy didn’t really care about that. What he did know is this was now a tradition of the three gods. To make their gifts as unique as possible without driving the new generation of seers crazy anymore, and Joy assumed whatever was happening here in this pit was part of Sam’s personal seer ritual.

As Sam finished taking the notes, they looked over their shoulder and smiled at Joy. Joy nervously smiled back. Watching a pile of corpses suddenly turn into a snake put a damper on even the most dapper of gentlemen.

“No.” Sam said, then turned back to the pit. They had a snake to take care of.

“I hate seers they know my questions before I even ask them.” Joy responded despondently as he stared at the writhing snake.

“But I wouldn’t dilly dally if I was you. Lillian and Theo are already done, who knows what they might make you do for their favor.” A small smirk formed on Sam’s face as they said that.

Joy took off running, he couldn’t let the pompous jerk hold anything over him. He might be okay with Lillian having a favor, she was at least fun. But Theo would probably make him stay silent for the rest of his life as a “favor.”

Sam hummed to themselves once Joy had taken off. It was the same notes as in the mournful piece, but a little happier and with more pizzazz added to them. Today had proven to be quite a fun day for Sam. Being a seer had its advantages, no one questioned why they knew anything.

The only reason that Sam knew that both Lillian and Theo were already done, was because Sam had been the person who told them what the announcement tonight was going to be. How could Sam not rig this little contest? It was going to be chaotic and oh so fun for them.