by Charles Dean
“Then why the face?”
“Well, just, I really want to explore it with you, but I don’t think that’s entirely possible given your condition.”
“Well, there is always the next city. Anyways, I couldn’t go with you if I wanted to. I need to go check some things out later, using my super-sneaky stealth arts. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Stealth,” Stephanie giggled as she jokingly hid under the blanket then moved around the room making swift, stealthy noises.
“You have things to check up on? How do you even get around? Do you wrap your whole head like a ninja?” he asked as she lowered the blanket.
“A lady must have a few secrets,” she giggled again and lifted the blanket up once more to say ‘whoosh’ and fell onto the bed. “But, don’t worry about me. Go have some fun out on the town.”
“Sure, sure, will do,” he said, grabbing his swords and spoons as he left the cabin. Since everyone was likely doing a mission or busy, he figured he might as well get something he hadn’t had in the last few days--a bit of alone time. It’s not that he minded the company, but he was definitely more used to being alone. Thirty years of gaming in solitude had made it into a bit of a need; and, since the trek started, from one dungeon all the way to this town, he hadn’t gotten more than a few moments of peace and quiet.
That said, even while the boat floated into its spot on the dock, he couldn’t help but look around for Kass. Doesn’t she always show up whenever I’m about to go somewhere? I wonder what she could be doing for so long that stops her from gaming? His biggest worry was that she had somehow, even as an adult, managed to get grounded from video games. He had already experienced that type of shock before when, just before facing an incredibly tough raid on Emerald Gardens, his star tank was grounded and prevented from playing video games for a week. He didn’t know the whole story of why the guy was punished, but it apparently involved superglue, syran wrap, and a lot of string.
Walking down the wooden plank to the dock below, he found his eyes wandering from person to person with confusion. Previously, everything had felt very much like a fantasy adventure from the European dark ages. With Minotaurs, Vampires, Satyrs and so forth, it stayed incredibly close to the Western mythos. In this place, however, only the odd, hairy, part-man/part-wolf could be mistaken for a creation of Western culture. As for the rest of the races, they all looked and felt as if they were out of an Eastern mythology book or an Asian cartoon. On every side, there were people with varying degrees of animal characteristics. Some barely had anything but a tuft of fur instead of hair while others were the full-on humanoid version of their animal counterparts. Every animal he could think of was represented. There was even bulgy-eyed Frog-Men and crocodile-looking Reptilians walking around.
By the time he got to the main street he had absolutely lost sense of where he was. The feel of merchants and vendors crowding the streets of the bazaar and shouting over each other at every passerby proved to be both noisy and interesting enough to make him forget which way he had even come from.
“You’re a swordsman, aren’t you?” a cat-like woman approached him from his side. Everything about the girl was very much human, except she had spotted ears and golden eyes that were undeniably those of a cat.
“I suppose? Though lately it’s been just me and these spoons,” he joked to himself, aware that she wouldn’t understand the context.
“I knew it!” the strange, red-kimono-wearing, five-foot-tall Feline shouted while throwing both hands in the air.
“You knew it?” Darwin looked at her puzzled.
“Of course I knew it! How could I not know it? I mean, the kimono--” the girl started off.
“The bathrobe . . .” Darwin tried to interrupt with a correction, but the woman kept talking.
“The two swords, the look in your eyes, and the bump!” She waved her hands around excitedly with each description as if she were talking more with her fingers than she was with her mouth.
“The bump?” Darwin said with a scrunched-up forehead. He felt even more lost now than he did before trying to find his way around the bazaar.
“You haven’t even noticed? That’s astounding man, astounding!”
“I haven’t noticed what?”
“I’ve tried to bump into you at least ten times. At first it was an accident. You were looking one way, and I was looking another, but, by the time I noticed you, it was almost BAM! But you shifted your step so quickly without even looking at me. Like I wasn’t there to you, but you dodged? It raised my interest, so I tried again, of course, but no go twice!”
“You tried to bump into me because you failed the first time?”
“Why not? You’re big. I’m small. No harm, right? But fail again did I! You’ve been staring at this shiny object and that shiny object and dodging me left and right. I’ve tried ten times, and you didn’t even notice me, but dodged each time? Madness! No one without training would have those instincts! I knew you must be a swordsman!” The Feline got more and more excited.
“Because you didn’t bump into me?”
“Well, I was right, wasn’t I? Anyways, this is great! Great news! Wait until I tell Kitchens!”
“Tell who? Wait, why is this go--” Darwin couldn’t get more than a few words out before he was interrupted again.
“Tell Kitchens! We’ve been searching for a swordsman all day. You are good, right? You have to be good! Dodged me you did, so excellent you must be!”
“Yoda, what are you talking about?” Darwin was beginning to lose his cool with the ADD rambling cat girl.
“The tournament, old man! The tournament! Did you just step off the boat?”
“Yes?”
“Oh. Well, in that case, come on. We have to go get Kitchens. I’ll explain on the way,” the short Feline girl said, grabbing his wrist and pulling him quickly through the crowd. Darwin didn’t even have time to think about why or how he should be protesting as she expertly pulled him between one group of people after another, moving at a speed that almost felt like a run.
Is she treating this as an obstacle course? he thought as he had to duck his head for the fifth time to avoid someone’s arms while sneaking between people. “You said you would explain, Miss Kitty,” he managed to yell at her from behind.
“Oh, yeah! There is a tournament, but you need three people to enter today’s. Sword’s the game; cash is the name . . . or is that backwards? Anyways, we need a third swordsman, but you don’t have to be good,” she yelled back without even turning her head as she yanked to the left to dodge a giant panda man chewing bamboo in the middle of the street. “Kitchens is a pro. He’ll cover your slack. Good good he is!”
“And who are you? Are you good good?”
“Great great. I’m Minx the Lynx, but I’m a dagger deep damsel and he’s the sword-wielding superhero, but even boards can enter the competition. It’s just swordsmen are the best, yes?” she said, letting go of his wrist to jump over a group of three people who had managed to form a wall on the sidewalk in front of him. Darwin, with little notice, attempted the same, but the breeze he felt as he landed on the other side clearly told him his bonus Flap Protection +10 was simply not sufficient in all scenarios to save onlookers. The second he landed, his wrist was grabbed, and he found himself being pulled once more by the rapidly dashing lynx in front of him.
“There there! He’s at the registration! I knew it!” she let go of his hand and threw both her fists in the air the same way she had when she found out he was a swordsman. “Right right, we made it! KITCHENS!” she yelled over everyone. “KITCHENS! I got one! I got one!”
As she yelled, a man with lynx ears like hers standing at a booth thirty feet in front of them turned around. While she was dressed in a solid, dark-red kimono that only made it to just above her knees, clearly trying to represent the Asian culture that matched the motif of the entire town, he was dressed on the entire opposite side of the spectrum, wearing a pair of full-length khakis and a tank top.
As
he looked at them approaching, he noted that she was holding his wrist and dragging him and sighed. “Minxy, that’s the fourth one. Did you get him to actually agree before you brought him?”
“He said he was a swordsman! This one is! I know. I can’t hit him! He’s um . . . he’s water! Like you said, right? Water water, be shapeless. Water water, move with the flow and don’t struggle against it. That’s how he moves. Watch!” she let go of his hand, pulled out a dagger with her right hand and swung it at Darwin’s head while simultaneously spinning her left leg to follow it up like a roundhouse kick if the dagger missed. Darwin didn’t have time to stop himself, seeing the blade coming at him and the foot following it, he gave up the idea of dodging and moved in instantly, striking her as hard as he could in the stomach and knocking her several feet backwards and onto the ground.
“Sorry,” he apologized. She had started it, but apologizing still felt like the right thing to do as he saw the poor child-like girl on the ground coughing from having the wind knocked out of her.
“See, he’s a fighter. This one’s a fighter,” she said as she spit up a little blood and climbed back onto her feet.
“That’s . . . fire, not water.” Kitchens tilted his head and then turned to the girl on the ground. “But I didn’t ask if he could fight; I asked if he agreed.”
“Um . . . He will! You will, right, mister? Right right, mister?”
Kitchens turned back to face Darwin. “Look, you don’t have to agree, but we only have around twenty minutes left to register. They only accept a team of three, and you’d be doing us both a huge favor if you signed up.”
“Please, mister,” Minx said with obviously-fake puppy dog eyes while covering her mouth with two fists in a clear ploy to try and look cute.
“Is she always like that?” Darwin asked, looking over at Kitchens.
“Minxy? Yeah. Something like that,” he laughed.
“Well . . .”
“Pleeeease . . .” she maintained her pose.
“Fine, fine, but no more swinging daggers at me,” Darwin finally broke down and agreed. Part of it was because of how pitiful she looked begging, but the rest of it was simply because it sounded fun. It just made sense that facing off against the toughest swordsmen in the city was definitely more interesting than shopping around and seeing the sights, and it wasn’t like he was going to make it back to the boat to grab two of Alex’s men in time to register with faction members only.
“Marvelous. Let’s give them your John Hancock and make it official then,” Kitchens said as he started walking towards the line.
You have been invited to Kitchens’ Party. Would you like to Accept or Reject?
Yes. Accept.
“It’s kind of odd, don’t you think?” Minx asked, pushing in between the two of them as they sat in line. “We’re in an advanced VRMMO with the best technology, but the way they enter us in a tournament is through simple pen and paper.”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that is a bit odd,” Darwin agreed. “But I think it’s more for realism. It wouldn’t be too immersive if everything was done through Tiqpa command prompts, now would it?”
“No, nope nope,” she put a finger over her lips as she thought for a moment, “It wouldn’t.”
“Indeed,” Kitchens also agreed.
When they got to the end of the line, they put their names down on the paper and walked over to the waiting area with the rest of the teams. The waiting area was nothing more than a giant, empty room with a garden and stone benches circling stone tables and gazebo-style covers. The three of them picked the first empty one they could find and sat down, causing another group of contestants--weird, Rhino humanoids--that looked like it was trying to take the same table scoff and walk away. As they waited, a young Chinese girl in a white robe came by and poured the three of them some tea.
While they sat there sipping the tea, he could feel their beady eyes on him from time to time, even though every time he looked up they would look away. Their movements were too obvious. This was a game he was used to. It was a game that had defined many of the lunch periods from his old days at school. A simple game where every now and then he’d see if he could catch one of them looking and make awkward eye contact.
“You’re the first Human, you know. It’s why they can’t help but look,” Kitchens said, noticing Darwin’s little eye-contact game.
“Ha, if only I were Human,” Darwin laughed too softly for the others to hear.
The three of them continued sipping their tea quietly--or as quietly as they could with Minx yammering on about everything she saw and observed--when they were finally approached by one of the other groups, who came over to the other side of the table and stood in front of the remaining seats.
“Nya, I see you have new companion, traitor,” the one in front spoke in a heavy Japanese accent. She was a cute, five-foot-six, black-haired cat lady, one modeled more after a common domestic cat than a feral species like the lynx, but only having ears and a cat tail and dressed in full ninja garb from neck to toe.
“Nya, he looks so poor? Is he a beggar? His kimono is very cheap, ne. Nya, it’s like bathrobe, ne,” another Asian girl dressed like a ninja, also modeled after a domestic cat but with whiskers and a cat nose as well as the ears and a tail, laughed from behind the lead girl.
“Kitchens, are they okay?” Darwin asked, ignoring the girl’s mockery. “Why do they keep saying ‘nya’?”
Kitchens let out a hearty laugh. “You’ve never encountered a neko girl?”
“No, not that I can recall.” Darwin scratched his head.
“Nya, why are you ignoring us?” the male of the group butted in.
“It’s ‘cause he is too shameful to know how to respect his betters,” the lead one said. The other two, the girl behind her and the male who matched the ninja theme and could have been the lead one’s twin, did their ‘nya’ thing again and nodded in agreement.
“I take it you all have some history?”
“You could say that,” Kitchens nodded, “They were my teammates.”
“Nya, don’t remind me!” The back one opened her mouth and put one finger in while making a disgusting face. “You’re so not cool, ne. It was charity letting you join us, nya, but you had to try to pick up that ugly, retarded lynx.”
“I still don’t get the ‘nya’ thing. What is that?”
“They’re trying to be kawaii. It’s a thing. Trust me,” Kitchens said before sipping his tea again. His face was calm and unaffected, but Minx’s was visibly tearing up.
Darwin had to admire his patience. Just listening to them talk bad about someone he only knew for a few minutes made him really want to stab them both. If it weren’t for the tournament rules and the fact they were in the middle of a city that probably frowned on PvP killing, he would have done it there and showed them what real charity looked like.
“Nya, so rude!” the lead said abruptly. “Let’s go!” she turned and walked off.
“That was . . . interesting? You put up with them for how long?”
“Only a few days. I probably would still be in their group, but they kept picking on Minxy here because she is, well, Minx,” Kitchens said as he put a hand on the top of Minx’s head, “and I figured we’d be better off without them. I don’t pay for this game to watch the people close to me get bullied.”
Minx nuzzled her head into Kitchens’ hand happily, her smile returning as she let out a mini purr.
-----------
“Blue Contestants! Please make your way to the tournament square two and sit in the fighters’ section!” the lady who had brought them tea yelled, somehow louder than a megaphone, with both hands cupped around her mouth to amplify the sound.
“That’s us,” Kitchens said as he stood up.
Darwin followed Kitchens to the arena with Minx trailing behind him quietly. By the time they got there, the first two rows were filled up, but they were able to scale the stairs and steal some spots on the third row before
it filled up too. Looking around, Darwin saw that between the four arenas there were almost a hundred contestants. Each arena was a simple dirt floor with bleachers eight rows deep on each side of it. The contestants entering were only populating the first five rows on one side. The rest seemed to be just citizens eating popcorn and other snacks while they waited for the show to begin.
“The rules are simple,” the announcer began to shout from the center of the dirt square, “Six people enter; only three people leave. Anything you can think of is allowed. Anything you can do to hurt your opponent is encouraged.”
Thunder Dome much? Darwin thought until he realized what that meant. If I don’t win . . .
“Hey, relax. It’s just a game. What’s the worst that can happen? We lose?” Kitchens said, noticing Darwin’s paling face.
“Yeah, it’s just a game . . .” He found himself saying for the second time today.
“By the way, I never got your name.”
“Darwin.”
“Darwin, I’m Kitchens. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said, extending his hand.
“Likewise.”
“I’d wish you luck in the tournament, but that would be too self-serving, wouldn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t complain,” Darwin said, looking over at Minx, who was still sitting there quietly. Apparently the neko ninjas had shaken her up a bit. She was acting completely different from when he first met her. It was like she had been a kid hopped up on sugar when they met, and now she was post-crash.
They sat quietly in the stands, Darwin painfully aware of the look on Minx’s face, until the first group was called down to the floor. It was the a group of staff-wielding monkey-men of a Simian Race with the team name ‘Sun Wukong’s Children’ versus a team of three lizard-men of the Reptilian Race with the standard sword-and-board approach called ‘Unmade Boots.’ The fight wasn’t anything noteworthy. The three pairs of unmade snakeskin boots hugged each other shoulder to shoulder with shields raised, and the Simians danced over them and used their mobility to completely shatter the formation. The only noteworthy part of the whole fight was when one of the monkey-men wrapped his tail around the eyes of his opponent as he pole vaulted over his foe and yanked the lizard onto his back, only to be swept off his feet by one of the other Reptilians turning as he battled the monkey-man’s comrade. It was entirely accidental, but it at least gave the fight some semblance of not being entirely one-sided.
