Arsenal vs Chelsea predictions and odds: FA Cup final ...

Well here it is. What happened in Rome happened, as Rafa would say, and he's now in his 13th Roland Garros final. Will he go 13 for 13 against his most challenging opponent in Novak? I think he will but there's some things I've noticed in the Rafole matchup (mostly off of clay I must admit but I think these things will be pertinent on Sunday) that may bother the super Spaniard. I'm picking Rafa in five but here's how things may go down that might see Nole lift his 18th. Keep in mind I'll be posting a lot of clips of their matches at the 2014 (final which Rafa won) and 2015 French Open (Quarterfinal which Djoko won) as those matches are the closest for perspective.
1 - Serve-Return Battle
Off of clay, Djokovic for the past few years has typically dominated the serve-return battle. His improved serve and lethal returns helped him edge Nadal in their 2018 Wimbledon (Nadal edged Djokovic in the baseline battle), his serve was very helpful in their ATP Cup meeting where he served 12 aces and won 85% of his first serve points, and in general on faster courts, Djokovic reads Nadal's lefty swing serve like a book, and makes the most of his own serve.
On clay, that advantage for Djokovic mostly disappears, at least with the serve. Rafa's going to make a lot of returns by how he perches near the backfence and unloads topspin and weight on the ball to reach the server's feet. This will force a lot of baseline exchanges of a neutral nature until someone can take charge of the point. As far as returns go, check out how easily Nadal redirects Novak's quite solid returns here, here, here and even on two crucial points here and here. The consistent depth and time-negating ability of Djokovic's returns just don't have much success on clay where Nadal's timing and feel of the ball somehow jumps up a level due to extra time, and so that's why you may have noticed Djokovic experimenting with stepping back for second serve returns on the deuce court a lot this year's RG. It's experimentation but will it pay off? I don't think it will, because Rafa, even if he gets pushed on his service games, will have his own return to back himself with which is more potent on clay by virtue of its sheer spin and margin for error.
2 - Court Geometry Battle
Being a little cheeky with this self-plug here but I've made a post about how Djokovic is the master of court geometry here. It goes in fairly detailed depth but I've neglected to talk about how his opponents, Roger and Rafa, find ways around this uncanny ability of Novak to redirect the ball wherever he wants on surfaces that favor them.
So watch the following clip from their 2016 Doha encounter (much faster, lower bouncing surface but you'll get my point): 4:36. It's a short point, but it perfectly encapsulates the danger that Djokovic poses on faster courts where his flatness of shot and depth is more problematic - when he redirects the ball he does it at unorthodox times, when the ball of his opponent is deep with spin and sometimes at fast paces.
On clay, the court geometry battle usually shifts to Rafa. Look at this point from their 2014 Roland Garros encounter, a long rally. Look how many times Rafa redirects Djokovic's backhand by hitting a forehand down the line. Due to the level of topspin Rafa has, more often than not he can draw Novak off the court on the ad side and hit that forehand down the line to perfection. Also, the backhand down the line is often a big weapon for Rafa on clay. It might be particularly important on Sunday. Although court conditions will lead to a lower bounce than usual, the loopy BH down the line to Novak's backhand is always a pretty useful shot that pushes Nole back if he doesn't take it early.
3. Court-Position Battle
Part of the reason Djokovic had as dominant a season he did in 2015 and the first part of 2016 was due to the influence of Boris Becker on readjusting his court position. Novak used to be one of the most aggressive, baseline hugging players of his era in 2011 but it tended to come and go past that season as he adopted a more defensive, retrieval oriented gamestyle past his breakout year. His court position and his ability to take balls on the rise and send them back with pace was key in his winning matches against Rafa on clay. Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvrIHPrBQHg&t=295s), here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvrIHPrBQHg&t=539s), here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvrIHPrBQHg&t=724s), and here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvrIHPrBQHg&t=914s) he demonstrates this ability against Nadal in that QF in 2015, a match that will be in the back of the mind of Nadal for sure.
For Nadal, who since 2017, has become far more offensive from the back, especially on clay, he'll need to do as he's done all tournament and play close to the baseline like Djokovic. He's not going to be better than Djokovic in long exchanges and defensively he's not nearly as good as Djokovic even on clay (while he may have been better defensively in 2012, 2013 and even 2014 on clay than Djokovic, his movement has declined due to injuries and a foot disorder which is why he's no longer as good defensively). The key for Nadal is how he attacks the Djokovic ground game with angles/spin which are more viable on clay, by taking the ball on the rise with his advanced court position and bullying Djokovic around the court, taking time away with his baseline hugging.
So it's clear that for both, standing further back and playing defence won't work very well. The one who takes initiative in court position and aggressiveness will be better off.
4. Variety and Court Craft Battle
As you've probably noticed, Djokovic has been employing the drop shot a lot this past year. It was perfection against Tsitsipas and for stretches against Khachanov and Pablo Carreno Busta. But it's still inconsistent, and I wonder if it will be all that effective against Nadal, who reportedly has been practicing hard at getting to drop shots for the past day or so lol. When both are at the net, who will win the cat and mouse volley/sliding drop shot exchanges? That's a big question. And further more, who will attack net more and look to create opportunities at the net? Who will incorporate all their groundstroke types instead of just forehand and backhand? Who will incorporate high moonballs, low slices, half-volleys etc? I would wager Nadal but if Djokovic is smart, he'll look to create opportunities with point construction and net rushes as well. So this category is undecided for me.
5. Power
It's no secret that there's a huge power gulf between Rafa's forehand and most of the tour. With his ferocious combination of huge RPM and terrific angle and pace, he can puncture the defenses of anybody on the planet on clay. But with the conditions (which I will get to in a moment) looking not so helpful for Nadal (lower bounce, balls are heavier, might rain which leads to a pretty dead court), it'll take his experience in finishing points after 3, 4, 5, or even 6 big forehands to shine through. I've mentioned how Djokovic's defence may be better than Rafa's due to his advanced age and injury plagued body but it might not matter if Rafa finds a rhythm with his power off both wings. So Djokovic will need to prove to us he can hit with power too and aim for outright winners. And he can play with that style against Rafa on clay. His power was big in his wins over Rafa on clay in 2011, as show in this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llu9rFiFt_o&t=208s), this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llu9rFiFt_o&t=410s), this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llu9rFiFt_o&t=769s), this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llu9rFiFt_o&t=800s), this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llu9rFiFt_o&t=816s), this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOHZjsmpZU8&t=59s), this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOHZjsmpZU8&t=239s) and this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOHZjsmpZU8&t=362s). He has a huge forehand and a streaky backhand when on, and he will need to, and he will I bet, exploit the power of shot he possesses.
6. Court Conditions
I won't harp on about them, but it will be around 8-10 degrees Celsius (50 odd degrees in Fahrenheit) on Sunday in Paris. Although there will be sun with overcast clouds, it will be cold. The courts will be very difficult to hit through, and the bounce will be lower than usual as a result. Not low enough that Rafa's loopy backhand down the line to Novak's backhand won't be exploitable, for an example, but low enough that it becomes easier and more comfortable for Novak to take balls on the rise. Both will need to adjust for the court conditions and I feel Novak will find that particular battle simpler for his game.
7. Mental Battle
Rafa treats every single match like a war to be won, hell, he treats every single point that way. Novak tends to have periods when he disappears mentally when he faces an opponent that pushes or challenges him. But if he has the upperhand in a matchup with this opponent, he usually refocuses and wins. Nadal is the superior clay court player with 12 titles on Phillipe Chatrier court, compared to one. The fans will be rooting for both, but in the tight moments they'll most likely hold out hope for Rafa to pull through. And on top of that, Djokovic hasn't beaten Rafa on clay since 2016. Although the mental battle on grass and hard would usually be in Nole's favor, it shifts to the favor of the great Spaniard. And Rafa will be hungry for victory on top of that.
Prediction
I predict that it will be a tough and close match, at least 4 sets in length. But I just don't see Rafa faltering at this stage of the tournament with his only chance at a slam this year being at his home court. Novak has been shaky in previous rounds and has been struggling with neck injury. Add to the fact that most of the tactical categories above swing in the favor of the Spaniard and unless Novak plays spectacularly well, I just don't think Rafa loses this one, but I do predict it will be a tight five set win for Rafa, and his 13th Roland Garros to date.
I hope you guys enjoy the tennis and stay safe. Hope you enjoyed this analysis of a few factors that may come into play in the final. Take care!

Memorial Tournament Preview Blog

Since Riggs, Trent, and Frankie have turned their golf positions at Barstool into less blogging and more playing with themselves and selling $50 cases of soda, I decided to take a dull, butter knife stab at a preview blog for this weekend’s Memorial Tournament.
Last Week
Real quick let’s talk about how much we should all hate the PGA after Sunday’s off-air debacle, and then about some questionable feature groups this week. For weather reasons on Sunday, the Workday final round tee times were moved up so players could finish before incoming storms. Great, that all makes sense. But somehow the PGA was not able to broadcast the round on TV, and when they did have to kill the live broadcast, they didn’t even mention where to go watch the rest of the tournament. THERE ARE NO OTHER FUCKING SPORTS ON, WHAT COULD CBS HAVE MADE PRIORITY OVER THIS FINAL ROUND? No seriously, someone please tell me because I would love to know what aired on CBS from 11 am to 3 pm instead of live sports. Can we also talk about how terrible the Thursday/Friday coverage is every weekend on all networks? You usually get 2-4 featured groups you can stream online from 9-3 (even these groups you often need NBC Sports Gold to watch), and then get maybe 3 hours of full coverage in a TV broadcast. There is legitimately a channel called the Golf Channel, who are airing a shitty preview/talk show while you are missing coverage. Here’s a fucking mad idea - put live golf on the golf channel before the major networks get prime coverage.
Then we got a look yesterday at the featured groups for the Memorial. How do you fuck this up? If you are younger than 70 and even sporadically watch golf, you could do this job better than whoever does it for the PGA. Here’s the formula: Brooks Koepka makes a joke about Bryson Dechambeau using steroids one week ago = you put them in the same group. Golf has so little drama because all these guys are friends and making millions of dollars even when they aren’t winning. Fans need these storylines/rivalries to be buffed up, not ignored because they might hurt Bryson's feelings.
This Week
As far as a course preview, we get a strange twist this week with the players coming back to Muirfield, who just hosted the Workday Charity Tournament. I’ve been watching golf for a long ass time and cannot remember the last time this happened, but it’s not a major headline at all so maybe this does happen on occasion. Either way the setup this weekend will look different than last weekend, with much faster greens, thicker rough, and some changes in tee box locations. I think we see some youngeinexperienced players struggle with the change in green speeds, especially since they just played these same greens and they were rolling like carpet (stimpmeter will go from 11 to 13.5). My gut tells me the winner is either a veteran or someone who didn’t play here last week. This would rule out guys like Hovland, Burns, Merritt, Niemann, etc.
Finally, we have to mention that Eldrick Tiger Woods returns to the field this week. I’m looking at his +2000 odds and hate the value because we have no idea where his game is at right now. That being said, Tiger has won the Memorial five times and placed T9 last year, and T23 the year before. I will root for Tiger to win every tournament he enters, but I won’t look at a future for him at these low odds, and for his first post-break golf since The Match.
Now let’s go over wagers this weekend and what you should look for. I am usually not a fan of betting on outright winners, before any golf has been played. The odds always look so good but you will rarely have a profitable year trying to bet winners every week. That being said, here are some of the best value picks IMO.

Dechambeau +850
- This man is -69 (nice) in his 4 tournaments since the resumption of the season, with final results of 3rd, 8th, 6th, and 1st. Not only is he launching drives 10% further than the field consistently, but his confidence is sky high and that mental edge goes a long way. Bryson also won here 2 years and 40 pounds ago, so he does like this course. But let’s not forget what a whiny bitch he is. Give me odds on if he will punch a cameraman this week and I would hammer yes.

Rory McIlroy/Justin Thomas +950
- Rory holds the current #1 world golf ranking, and JT holds the current #1 FedEx cup ranking. Neither golfer has won since returning from quarantine, however they each grabbed a trophy or two early in the season (pre-pandemic). Both have seen some inconsistencies in the past month, with over par rounds or missed cuts, but undeniably still playing great golf. You might want to think about JT’s state of mind after blowing a lead and then a playoff last weekend, but I still like him to show up and be in the mix.

DJ +1500
- DJ recently daddy-dicked Brendan Todd in the final round of the Travelers, starting his final round 2 shots behind and leaving with a 1 shot victory (6 shots ahead of Todd). He might win, he might not, either way he’s going home to Paulina Gretzky and a Johnny Depp style lunch spread.

Koepka +1750
- I’m going to choose to ignore Brooks’ round one 74 at the Workday this weekend, followed up by a missed cut. His previous two tournaments he posted 8 consecutive rounds under par, and a Sunday 65 to place 7th at the RBC Heritage. That being said, in my brief research it looks like his best finish at the Memorial was T31 in 2017, so maybe he hates this course. But Petty King’s hate for everyone besides himself is a great motivator. Can’t wait until we get a “suck on that Faldo” on a hot mic.

Morikawa +2000
- My guy Collin is less than a year removed from his amateur status, and has now made 24/25 cuts to start his career. Three weeks ago he lipped out a 3 footer to lose in a playoff, had a rough 2 weeks at the RBC and Travelers, but then he came right back and won in a playoff this past weekend. This dude is a sniper from the fairway, but can he stay straight off the tee and hole some putts? 2 playoffs in his last 4 tournaments would indicate yes.

Cantlay/Matsuyama/Rose/Kuchar +1250 to +6500
- All four of these guys have won the Memorial in the past, with Cantlay at the best odds trying to repeat his title from 2019. I sneaky love Justin Rose here who has been playing great golf, and reminds me of a slightly less hate-able version of Adam Scott. Always fun to root for Kuch daddy as well, but his association with Sketchers is unforgivable.

Hovland/Simpson/Schauffele/Berger +2000 to +3000
- Three young studs who have won or come close to winning this season, and a veteran who has been playing lights out golf (Webby). I would not be surprised to see a slow start for Hovland after two disappointing Sundays in a row, but he is too good not to make a push if he makes the cut. Schauffele actually scares me, he is definitely the odds on favorite to be a serial killer after his PGA career (eh maybe Mickelson). But that focus and weird fatheson relationship has been working for him, and he’s sitting just a few spots outside the FedEx cup top 10 and playing great golf. Meanwhile Webby is sitting at #2 in the FedEx cup rankings with a win at the RBC Heritage and a top 10 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. Side note, why is there a “t” in mortgage? Fuck that word.

My pick: once again reiterating I will likely not bet on a Sunday winner before Thursday starts, but if I was I would put my money on Justin Rose +4500 or Xander Schauffele +2500.
Thursday Matchups
Easily the best way to bet on golf, and in my experience the most profitable. Here are a few picks I’ll be making before Thursday. Currently I am 4-2 betting matchups (last 4 PGA events) and I’ll track my picks moving forward. If I get to Jack Mac or Reags level of bad betting, I promise I’ll retire and not pretend I know what I’m talking about. I’m only going to pick matchups in the featured groups for Thursday. Nothing worse than betting on someone like Marc Leishman, and having to refresh the golf cast simulator thing instead of watching live play.
Dechambeau (-115) over Thomas (-105): everything is so planned out and calculated with Bryson, and his sit-out at the Workday feels like a part of his plan. Fucking hate rooting for this kid, but I see him coming in fresh against JT who blew an enormous lead last weekend.
D. Johnson (even) over Morikawa (-120): my favorite first round matchup bet. It seems counter-intuitive going against the guy who won at this course a few days ago, but don’t forget the major change this week will be how the greens roll. And Morikawa is 150th on tour in strokes gained with the putter. Lock it in.
Take a flier - round 1 leader
I don’t think I’ve ever bet this prop but I’ve also never written a golf blog before so let’s take a shot here. I’ll put a half unit on it as well: Rickie Fowler +4000
Rick's finishes at the Memorial the past 3 years: T14, T8, solo 2nd. In 2017 when he placed 2nd, he shot an opening round 66. I also feel like I see him in the mix a lot in early rounds, but can’t quite put together those low weekend rounds.
That’s all I’ve got. Sorry it’s not funny but it’s better content than we’ve gotten out of Foreplay.
Let’s make some money and blow off work Thursday and Friday.

I used to work in a call center and badgered people to sign up for things they didn’t need. I made a call the other day that I’ll never forget.

When I graduated from college, I have to tell you, I never thought I would only be able to find work as a telemarketer with Stixby’s Lawn and Garden, a large landscaping conglomerate hell-bent on weed-whacking and rototilling as much of the Midwest as they could handle. Every Stixby’s customer was to get a free ceramic lawn gnome crafted in Mr. Stixby’s bearded image. The man was egotistical to say the least, and had an infatuation with becoming the god of lawn care.
My duty was to cold call people and businesses in order to drum up sales out of nowhere, which about as well as you would expect. Our computer system was outdated, and it tended to pull from an old, infrequently updated database akin to the white pages. I’d go through all kinds of prompts trying to ascertain if the person I called had a yard in need of weeding, mulching, or other general landscaping. It was about as mind-numbingly boring as you would expect, and my ear would often ache from rubbing against the cheap headset connected to my work phone.
I tended to hope that most callers wouldn’t answer. It was a lot easier to just rattle off a script on their voicemail and move on. I had been working there for two to three months, and wasn’t really worried about job security as I was still looking for something I could do with my communications degree.
I had about an hour left on the clock before I could go to lunch, so I rang up my next victim, Mr. Gibbons, and messed around on the new cell phone I had just bought. After three to four rings, my hopes were dashed as I heard a crackle of static on the other end. There was a roaring sound in the background, and I assumed that maybe Mr. Gibbons had just answered his phone at work.
“Y’ellooo?” From the hard accent, I could tell I was talking to someone from the South.
“Hi, is this Mr. Gibbons?” I tended to lead with a customer’s name before introducing myself. It gave me the chance to confirm their identity before they would most likely hang up on me.
“Mr. Gibbons? Mr. Gibbons? Oh, he’s kind of here, but not entirely in one piece. Hold on, I’ll grab his ear.”
I thought this was an odd exchange, but the only people who tended to answer the phone for an unknown number during the middle of the day tended to be elderly folk or people who were just lonely. There were plenty of times I would attempt to sell someone a service only to be stuck on the phone for 15 minutes hearing about a friend or loved one who had recently passed. I’d bite my tongue hoping it would end in a sale, but it usually didn’t. So I waited for Mr. Gibbons. At the very worst, I would be a feel minutes closer to lunch, and I was getting hungry.
I heard some shuffling on the other end, and what sounded like something being dragged across the receiver. “Mr. Gibbons?” I asked.
The other voice came back, hollering a bit and laughing. “The darn thing don’t seem to work anymore,” he said.
“You mean the phone? I can hear you just fine.”
“No pal, his ear.”
It was a weird thing to say, but I also felt like I was getting the run-around from someone who had been drinking. I couldn’t really blame the guy. In a world where we don’t have that much control of our surroundings, sometimes it feels good to screw with an anonymous caller trying to sell you unsolicited garbage.
“Well, if Mr. Gibbons is preoccupied, may I ask who I’m speaking with?”
“Eddie!” the man said enthusiastically.
“And are you a friend or relative of Mr. Gibbons?”
“Wouldn’t say that. I just kind of decided to saunter myself in here. You ever get that feeling Johnny Boy?”
“What kind of feeling?”
“Like just going into someone else’s home and seeing what trouble you can get into.”
I paused. Something was beginning to feel very off about this phone call. It also had just dawned on me that I had never given Eddie my name which was in fact, John. My parents used to call me Johnny Boy. I tried to not get freaked out by the coincidence. After all, it might have just been a form of Southern slang I wasn’t familiar with. Johnny was one of the most common names in the world, and Johnny Boy could have just been a figure of speech.
I tried to stay neutral. “What do you mean, Eddie?”
“Well, I mean that I’ve been through this neighborhood before, ya see? And I know Mr. Gibbons here is… how would ya say it, lackadaisical with his sense of security.”
I started to grip the edge of my desk and saw my knuckles grow white. Was Eddie an intruder? I didn’t know what to do. My training had never covered anything like this. Pieces of the conversation from earlier were starting to come back to me. Oh, he’s kind of here, but not entirely in one piece.
“Eddie, is Mr. Gibbons hurt or injured?”
“Oh Johnny Boy, hurt? Injured? No, I cut Mr. Gibbons into ribbons!” Eddie burst out laughing, a laugh so deafening I had to take off my headset. I heard the distant sound of choking on the other end. My hands were shaking. I lurched forward in my seat and felt my shirt clinging to my back with sweat. I put the headset back on my head even though everything in my mind was screaming to just end the call.
“Why didjah think I was holding his damn ear up to the phone, Kimosabe?” Eddie said.
“I’m g-g-gonna…” I stammered, “I’m gonna call the police.”
“Johnny.” The voice became serious. “Have you ever taken a chainsaw to someone before? It wasn’t what I thought it would be like, ya know? It was mostly smooth sailing, but ya see, I got it caught in his shoulder blade, and that sound was HORRIBLE! He was screamin’ and screamin’ of course, but the grind of this rusty saw blade on that hard bone. It was like listening to a pig squeal!”
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed. I was feeling light-headed. My stomach was in knots.
“Oh Johnny Boy, I can tell I’m losin’ ya. Losin’ ya like when I cut into all those veins and arteries and saw Mr. Gibbons just empty out in seconds. I will tell you, you can not imagine the mess here. I have to lift my boots so they don’t stick to the goddamn floor!”
I started dialing 911 on my cell phone. Even in my state of shock, I realized the best thing I could do was keep him talking while the police came, that he would get caught. That if all of this was a sick joke or prank, someone wouldn’t be able to do it to someone else again.
“So here’s what we can do, Johnny. I know you’re a smidge upset that Mr. Gibbons ain’t around. But Mrs. Gibbons-“
Oh Jesus. I had no idea if other people could be in danger, how many were in the house. I felt so completely and utterly powerless on the end of a $15 dollar headset, miles away from where all of this was happening.
“Eddie, whatever you do-“
I heard the faint buzz of my 911 call break through. I muted my headset. “911, what is your emergency?”
“Yes, I need to report a potential m-m-murder, home invasion…” The words all came out so fast that I bit my lip, tripped over my own goddamn teeth trying to get it all out as my voice trembled. I could hear Eddie’s heavy footsteps traversing through the household in my headset.
“Now Mrs. Gibbons is here and I bet she would have A LOT to say if she weren’t bound under all this duct tape!”
I could hear muffled screaming. I rattled off the address to the operator, who was trying her best to calm me down and failing.
I’m a gent, a true gent,” Eddie said, “But I’m startin’ to think it might be best if Mr. Gibbons wern’t the only one going to greener pastures. Whatdya think, Johnny Boy?”
I unmuted my headset. “Please, Eddie, don’t hurt anyone else.” I was on the verge of tears. The operator could also hear all of this, and I could hear several expletives as she started to panic at her station. It was like witnessing a car crash in slow motion, but in this case, all we could do was listen.
“Oh, Johnny Boy, sometimes you just have to finish what you start.” I heard the chainsaw whirring. I yelled for him to stop. Begged. But all I could hear was the deafening whine of the blade squealing as it bit into Mrs. Gibbons.
I threw my headset off and threw up into my waste basket.
———————————————————————
That night, I was called into the police station. An officer had contacted me to get my side of the events, as they had a lot of questions. I complied, full of bitterness, as I did not want to ever relive the events of that call again. I slowly pushed a half-empty cup of coffee around on the table as he asked me questions. The officer passed a black and white copy of a news article over to me from a local paper. I glanced at the headline – Local Couple Found Dead in Grisly Murder.
“Jeez, aren’t they pushing this out a little fast?” I said. The officer gave me a look that I’ll never forget.
“Look there at the date.”
I did, and what I saw rattled me. The article was dated October 1st, yes, the day that this had happened, but October 1st, 2019.
“I don’t… I don’t understand…” I said.
He gave me a sad look. “I don’t either.”
———————————————————————
Because the case had not been his, the police officer had to go into the archives to figure out what had happened. And what he told me is impossible to forget.
He explained the facts of the situation to me, as best as they had been able to make sense of something that clearly made no sense. There had, indeed, been an outgoing call from my work phone to what used to be the number of the Gibbons residence. However, that phone line had been disconnected shortly after the murder had taken place in 2019. Now, I had said earlier that our work database was horrendous, and that numbers frequently went un-updated for years, meaning we would often call and be told that someone no longer lived there or that it was a wrong number.
When the police arrived at the address I had given, they found no murder scene, and instead, startled an elderly couple who had unknowingly purchased the house for cheap without knowing a grisly murder had occurred there a year before.
They had found both Mr. and Mrs. Gibbons’ mutilated bodies, yes. But they had never found the killer and it became a cold case. However, when they fully searched the house that day, they went into the basement and noticed a horrible smell coming from one of the walls. The homeowners thought it was a dead animal trapped somewhere.
They took a sledgehammer to the wall, and found a crawl space that had been closed up some time ago. Inside the space was a corpse, ripe with decay. Written on the walls in dried blood, blood that was found by forensics to at least be a year old, were the words JOHNNY BOY over and over again.
The operator verified that she had heard the same voice as me in the Gibbons household. They didn’t have an exact date of death on the body, but I have a feeling, just a feeling, he died sometime around October of 2019.
How had investigators ever known about the Gibbons murder? There had been a phone call made to 911 on October 1st, 2019, only that time, they couldn’t pull the number. Maybe because the number, my number, didn’t exist yet. A male had called in, but the only words they could hear were the words, murder, home invasion. Gibbons House.
———————————————————————
I went home and took some sedatives to knock myself out and sleep, desperate to forget everything that had transpired. Around the middle of the night, I heard my phone ring. I didn’t dare answer it.
This morning, I finally looked and saw that there was a 30 second voicemail waiting for me. It was from the disconnected Gibbons number.
I didn’t want to listen to it. I really didn’t want to listen to it. But I did.
There were five seconds of silence, and then, almost barely audible, was a voice crooning the words, “Johnny Boy, oh Johnny Boy. I hope we meet again, and I hope it’s real sooooooon.”
I no longer work at Stixby’s Lawn and Garden Emporium.
I no longer own a phone.
And I think I’m going to take a nice, long vacation.

I (a pizza guy) intercepted a kidnapping during a delivery

I deliver pizza and I’d been having a really busy night, non-stop back and forth, without any time to even pause and take a leak.
I’d been so busy that I wasn’t really thinking about bathroom breaks. But we’re also going through a bit of a heat wave in our area, so I’ve been drinking copious amounts of water.
All of a sudden as I was driving to this particular delivery, the urge to go hit me. Like, things went from 0 to 60 in an instant. Thankfully I was close to the customer so could get this one over with quickly. Or so I thought.
I pulled up to the house, and it was an area I’d delivered in before, so I could immediately see that something wasn’t right. All the lights were off in the house, not even the glow of a television or anything. It was extra apparent because the streetlight closest to the door happened to be out of order. And on top of it all, the block was dead quiet.
This is a big university area, and obviously there aren’t many student renters in July, but there had to be at least one person, because someone ordered this pizza.
Maybe they just liked sitting in the dark or they were out back in the yard, whatever, I just didn’t want to get out of my car and knock on a quiet house in the middle of the night (around 9:30pm) without first checking that I had the correct address and the customer was inside.
It was scorching that night, even after sundown. My car’s A/C is a joke, and the piping hot pizzas don’t help things much, so I have to try and open the car door as infrequently as possible to keep any cool air in.
I called the number the customer provided and the voice on the other end said, kind of brusquely and out of breath, “Yah?” I just tried to keep it clear and concise, “Hey, it’s your pizza out front but there doesn’t appear to be anybody home?” And the customer replied, still gasping for air, “Yah, I’m not home.”
I had to pee so badly by that point that I was much less patient than I’d otherwise be with a customer right out of the gate, “Well, then we’re going to have to terminate the order, because I’ve arrived in the stated delivery window and you were supposed to pay in cash, so, I don’t know what to tell you. Plan ahead next time.”
I instantly regretted letting my bladder do the talking for me as the voice on the other end came through more clearly as a young, bubbly, and very distraught girl who couldn’t have been older than 20 or 25.
“Oh my gosh I’m so sorry I was running down the street so I could barely hear you!” She cried, “I just switched you out of my AirPods. Is that better? Sorry, I completely lost track of time at work, but I knew you were coming, that’s why I’m literally running home right now. Please don’t leave, I’m starving and I don’t have a car. Seriously, please don’t leave. Five minutes tops, ok?”
I know what it’s like to be hungry, and running late, and have no car but not live near any restaurants. Plus when I heard her voice I began to remember more specifically having delivered to this place a couple times before, and she’d always been perfectly nice. Now I felt bad for snapping at her. I tried to walk it back, while simultaneously looking out my window for potential spots to pee.
“No, no, my bad, I’m letting the heat get to me and it’s not your fault. No need to rush. See you when you get here.” I hung up and, while surveilling the street, was starting to think I was really out of luck.
All the other houses had people in them, and were close together, so there were no clumps of trees or out of the way patches of land or anything. Of course I had just tossed my empty water bottle at the last delivery, because I’m an idiot.
Finally, I decided it was escalating to the point of an emergency, and the safest bet was to use a bush in front of the woman’s house. She wasn’t home. The street light was out so no one would see me. The people who were home were inside. My car was parked across the street and we’re a small shop who don’t wear uniforms, so if someone did spot me, they’d have no way to connect me to my employer. Animals pee outside all the time, humans are animals... this is fine.
I scurried over to the tallest bush in her front yard. She didn’t really have much of a yard, more just a walkway lined with bushes and flowers that ran adjacent to her front door. The biggest cluster of bushes, the only one where I could be sure there would be no visible splatter on the side of the house, was about four feet from her door.
I looked both ways, unzipped, and let fly. After the initial millisecond of relief, I noticed the sound was way off, more like pissing on something solid than something leafy.
I started panicking, thinking I’d aimed wrong. But once I start, I can’t stop mid-stream, so I kept squinting into the darkness to see if maybe I was hitting a key rock or something and could just move a few inches over. Instead, all of a sudden, I heard a way more concerning noise. A deep voice exclaiming, “What the fuck?”
And before I could turn around, assuming I’d been caught by a neighbor, a man came leaping out of the bushes.
He blew by me, brushing my golden shower off him as did. He spit pretty emphatically on the ground, so I think I might’ve beaned him right in the face. I didn’t see where he went after a few paces but, though this next part is kind of a blur, I do think I remember hearing a car screech out from a bit further away after a minute.
I’d gotten some night vision by that point so I was able to make out his height, build, and outfit, but only the most general details of each.
I was in such shock that I didn’t even put my dick away. I just stood there trying to figure out what had happened. The reality was so terrifying that my mind refused to accept it, and impulsively searched for a reasonable explanation that could make everything ok.
I thought, “Could these bushes lead to some backyard area and just looked like they were against the house? Could they have been obscuring an open window?”
My inner voice was desperately screaming “Bruh that man was wearing a hoodie in 90 degree weather. That was a bad man. You’re in a bad situation.”
But the very idea that I was within inches of a guy who would be hiding in bushes at all, let alone in front of a young woman’s house at night, just wasn’t something I was ready to grapple with yet. I was coping by not coping.
My fight or flight response totally failed me at that point, because my dumb ass did the absolute last thing I should have done, and approached the bushes to try and validate this “There must have been a good reason for a man in a hoodie to be behind these bushes in the middle of the night.” theory.
So I walked over to the side, turned on my phone flashlight, and tried to peer around the line of shrubbery.
Pro tip, as scary as things may look in the dark, seeing them with a single beam of your flashlight can sometimes make it even worse. That’s when I saw the bag.
There was a tattered drawstring bag sitting behind the bushes. Slightly splashed with pee. But I was in such a moronic daze from shock that I groped around for it thinking “See? This is it, this will explain why he was back here.”
It explained it. Once I maneuvered it over and pulled it open I saw a sharp knife, a roll of duct tape, and a bottle of pills. The delusions officially broke at that point and all the adrenaline, endorphins, and self preservation instincts that had been suppressed kicked in ten times over.
I became whatever the opposite of dazed is. More laser focused than I have ever been in my life, with one singular goal: “Get back to my car.”
I dropped the bag, booked it across the street, got in my car, and slammed the pedal to the floor before the door was even all the way closed. I went as far as I could as fast as I could until I hit a red signal, then I pulled off to the side and realized I shouldn’t be driving anymore than necessary in the condition I was in.
I pulled into the parking lot of a 24 hour drug store and took a breath. I was finally calm and coherent enough to zip up and formulate a plan of action.
My first lucid thought was “Who do I call first, the police or the girl whose house that was?” I thought about it for what couldn’t have really been more than ten seconds, but felt like an hour, and decided “Ok. I am in my locked car with the engine running. If trouble starts, I can drive away. I know somethings up, she might not, she needs to know not to keep walking in that direction.” But as I was dialing her number, it occurred to me, “What if there was no girl?”
I thought I remembered delivering to that house before, but what if I was wrong? What if the girl on the phone was just a decoy to get me there to rob me, or worse?
Every pizza guy on the planet has seen the Evil Genius documentary by now, so I thought “She called me all out of breath. She wasn’t home. The whole thing was off, can’t risk it, I’ll start with the cops.”
I called 911, the operator was very helpful in keeping me calm, because I was a complete wreck by this point. He kept assuring me that someone would be there soon.
I kept telling them they had to get there before the girl did, but I was trying to express three thoughts at once, and really damaging my own credibility. It came out more as:
“You’ve got to save this girl because he wasn’t after me I was just delivering a pizza. Unless they were after me, in which case there might not be a girl, but I talked to one on the phone, so then you should find that girl because they used her to lure me there. But if she’s real she doesn’t know about the guy, who was also real, and there could be more guys if there’s actually a girl, and you know what? Even if there isn’t a girl there might actually be more guys. I only checked one part of the bushes so I don’t actually know. But we’ll know which guy is the one I saw because I pissed all over him, you know. I didn’t mean to, this was back when I thought the girl was real but not home, but she might be real so you really need to find her if she is because the guy was real—“
Finally they basically just asked me to stop talking and stay on the line. But that was when I saw an incoming call from the customer. I couldn’t answer it without disrupting my 911 call, so I just ignored it.
But then she sent me this text like, “Hey I’m here, don’t see you?” I told 911 she was there and they said officers were only minutes away. But who knows how long that meant? Especially after I’d given such a scattered account of the events in my panic.
I just felt overwhelmed with guilt. Because my rational mind said the odds of her being a decoy girl for some large scam targeting pizza guys were low and the odds of her being the intended victim of a predator were high.
So I put my 911 call on mute (where I can hear them but they can’t hear me) and turned back, heart absolutely pounding out of my chest, compulsively muttering “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” the entire way.
Then I took 911 off mute and told them I had returned to look for the girl. They weren’t happy about that, but I saw her meandering past the parked cars in the street looking to see if one was mine, and I waved her down, flashing my brights.
She bounced on over to the window of my car, happy-go-lucky. I figured that was a good sign that she wasn’t in on whatever this was. But I was just so scared to be back in the general area and to not know what had just happened or what was going to happen. I kept whispering “Get in. Get in!” And she was like, “Get it? Huh? Oh! You want me to get the pizza from the back?”
I didn’t want to make the same mistake with her that I had made with 911, so instead of trying to tell the whole story, I stuck to the bare basic facts. “There was a man in your bushes. I’m on the phone with the police. I don’t know where he is right now. Please get in the car so we can lock the doors.”
I was barely able to get even those sentences out, and I was shaking like I’d had 10 cups of black coffee. I held up my phone with 911 on the call screen to verify it for her. I thought that was why she got in the car with no further explanation, but it turns out that wasn’t entirely it.
“You still there? Is she with you? Are you safe? Is anyone else there?” 911 kept checking in, not knowing who the third party I was talking to was. I reassured them, and we drove, more cautiously this time, to a location 911 instructed us to wait at to speak with police after they cleared the area.
I didn’t actually have to do much after that. The police came pretty soon after, a police car met us, I gave a statement telling them everything I observed, and she went to go speak to more officers in more detail than they needed me for.
It turns out the reason she got right into a strange pizza guy’s car without probing any deeper into my story is because she knew who the man was right away from my description.
She had an abusive ex-boyfriend who was apparently psychotic enough that he immediately came to mind from hearing “There’s a guy in your bushes.”
She later called us to thank me and insist on leaving a huge tip. I wasn’t there when the call came in so the kid who answered didn’t know to refuse to accept the money. But the manager already promised the next time we see her we can load her up with enough “one free pie” cards to last a lifetime.
Easily the scariest thing that has ever happened to me, on the job or off. I don’t get the chance to tell the story much, because I try to avoid sharing it with anyone who could possibly know the girl or know of the event.
But I’m still not the same since. Even though I know he didn’t even have anything to do with me directly, this truly shook me to my core. So, man in the bushes, let’s not meet.

Wizard Tournament: Chapter 9

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      “The number next to your name is the odds,” Sylnya told Peter. “and I think that might be some kind of record.”
      “Record?” Peter asked. “Is that a good thing?”
      “It just means everyone thinks you’re going to lose,” Sylnya told him. “The longer the odds the bigger the number.” Draevin caught a glimpse of a smirk from Peter at this news for some reason.
      “Wait a second,” Peter said. “You mean people bet on the matches. Like in horse racing?”
      Sylnya’s face went blank. She looked to Draevin but he wasn’t sure what had her stumped. “Sure,” she finally said, “it’s probably a lot like whores racing.”
      Peter’s eyes went wide and he choked out a snort of laughter. “What?” Sylnya asked. “What’s so funny?”
      Draevin got his own laughter under control first and told her, “Nothing. Just something funny that happened at the last whore race. You’d have to have been there.”
      “I don’t understand you meat-creatures sometimes,” Sylnya complained. She went back to studying the day’s schedule. She had a twinkle in her eye that Draevin was uncomfortable with given her past history of gambling. “Matching up three non-wizards in a row can’t be a coincidence. They must be trying to get them out of the way.”
      “I thought you said nobody knew which of those two orcs was casting spells,” Draevin pointed out. “Drant’ro, that’s an orc name right?”
      Sylnya waved a dismissive hand in Draevin’s direction without looking up. “Yesterday’s news. Everyone was talking about it last night after they registered. It turns out Drant’ro was just a bodyguard for the other guy.”
      “And why would you know that Sylnya?” Draevin asked seriously. “You said you weren’t going to be gambling this year. Remember how much you lost last year? You still owe me a hundred gold.”
      Sylnya gave Draevin a guilty smile. “Well that was before a certain human entrepreneur bought up all my debt!”
      “Is that what all this has been about?” Draevin asked. It all made sense. “Alex is holding your gambling debt until you finish helping Peter?”
      Sylnya snaked an arm around Peter’s shoulder and gave him a rather uncooperative squeeze. “You make it sound like a bad thing, Drae. What’s wrong with helping someone in need? Are you really going to tell me he’s not growing on you?”
      “Yes,” Draevin said firmly. As the group approached the ticket booth Draevin paused. “Please tell me you remembered your promise to buy my tickets this year.”
      Sylnya’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh yeah. I forgot!”
      “Syl…”
      Sylnya pulled some stubs of paper from her belt pouch. “I forgot I upgraded us to a viewing booth last night.”
      “Those are… expensive.” Draevin gave Sylnya a flat look. “Did Alex pay for those?”
      “Not at all,” Sylnya said. They reached the ticket counter and Sylnya handed over her stubs. The little gnome behind the counter took them and handed the group over to a female dwarf in a purple button-down Guild uniform who promised to take them to their seats.
      “Well I know you didn’t pay for them,” Draevin told his friend while they entered the main access tunnel for the arena, which was now bustling with people.
      Sylnya gave a huff of annoyance. “Fine. I didn’t. It was actually Caelnaste that paid.”
      “Didn’t she steal his room last night?” Peter asked.
      “Exactly!” Sylnya agreed. “I went and talked to her last night. She just wanted to offer her apology for that whole thing so there’s no hard feelings. She said booting you was the Queen’s idea and she had no say in it.”
      Draevin remembered the two eldrin mocking him last night. “I’m not so sure I believe that, but it is a nice gesture.” He supposed most well-to-do eldrin must just have more money than they know what to do with.
      “Here you are,” their guide announced. They’d arrived at their booth. It was just three walls to help block some of the noise from the crowd and softer seats, but it beat the hell out of sharing a wooden bench with a hundred other fans like they normally did. And the booth was as close to the field as it was possible to get; the open front dropped right onto the field. “Be sure to talk to any Guild acolyte you see walking around if you have any trouble with your reservation.”
      With that they were left alone to settle in. Sylnya sat in the middle and made Draevin scoot over to make room for Peter, but even with the three of them Draevin had more room than usual so he couldn’t complain.
      “I have a quick question before the matches start,” Peter spoke up. A few Guild engineers were still on the field making last minute checks of the battleground so it looked like they still had some time to chat.
      “Go ahead,” Sylnya said.
      “I get that there are a lot of wizards specializing in physical magics, but what about the less physical ones like lithomancy, sensomancy or cerebromancy?”
      “Those are a lot less common,” Sylnya explained. “Lithomancy’s a bit too finicky for combat, but we get a few. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an illusionist though.”
      “How would they even fight?” Draevin couldn’t help but chime in. “What is even the point of magic that can’t hurt anyone?”
      “As for cerebromancy,” Sylnya continued. “There’s only one I know of this year but he’s the best in the world.”
      “Is that Tomrha?” Peter asked. “I thought you said he wasn’t a master.”
      “He might as well be,” Sylnya answered. “Cerebromancy’s notoriously difficult to master.”
      Draevin had to agree. “I’m just glad he’s on the other side of the brackets from me this year. My cryomancy is useless against mental magic.”
      Peter furrowed his brow, then readjusted his glasses before writing down some more notes in his pad.
      The engineers started clearing out and Sylnya pointed down toward the field for Peter’s benefit. “Those white squares on the ground at each end of the field are called the fighter’s boxes.”
      Peter nodded and wrote that down. “Is that what we stood in when we registered?”
      “Correct,” Sylnya answered. “Contestants have to stand inside until the bell rings. The enchantments prevent spell casting and unravel any active spells.”
      “Unless you’re really good,” Draevin added.
      “He’s just saying that because he always wears Frost Armor robes when he goes into his matches. Don’t listen to him. It’s normally a huge waste of mana to try to bring active enchantments into your match. They’ll usually be worn away by the time the match actually starts.”
      Draevin stuck his tongue at her. “You’re just jealous.”
      “Hardly, I don’t…” Sylnya trailed off when she noticed the crowd around them suddenly starting to quiet. Draevin looked out at the field and saw the announcer was walking into the center of the arena. She was a master sonamancer from Eldesia named Maeve who wasted her talents acting as an announcer in exchange for fame and a steady paycheck. As an eldrin, she complimented her natural white skin and glowing white eyes with a bright shimmering dress of the same color designed to catch the light.
      “The first match of this year’s Wizard Tournament,” Maeve announced in the same soft voice that had made the previous announcement, “is between Shea and Joseph.” She gestured towards Shea on one side of the arena. The blue-skinned sea nymph waved both finned hands for the crowd. “Shea is a sea nymph hydromancer representing the Underwater Municipality of Shashena. She is carrying The Conch of Endless Tides.” At the mention of her item Shea held it up for the crowd to see, as was tradition. “Shea wants everyone to know that if they want their next vacation to be magical they should plan a vacation under the sea that they’ll never forget.”
      There was a smattering of applause. Sylnya commented to Peter, “The conch gives her access to a source of infinite water.” Peter nodded, scribbling in his little notepad.
      “Shea’s wish is for immortality,” Maeve finished. She then gestured towards Shea’s opponent. He held up a scrap of burnt cloth. “Her opponent today is Joseph, a half-elf from Caldenia.” There was an immediate booing from the audience in response to this announcement. “Joseph carries a scorched swaddling blanket from the Draenlin Orphan Fire earlier this year.” The crowd laughed at this.
      Draevin felt the need to comment. “Another one of Korack’s. I don’t know how he convinced the poor sap anyone would just let him win. You might not want to watch this next part.”
      “No,” Peter said firmly. His jaw was clenched tight. “I’ll watch.”
      “Joseph wants everyone to know that The Draenlin Orphan Fire was a tragedy the likes of which has never…” The crowd started making too much noise to hear the announcer’s words after a short time. People were screaming, booing, laughing and even just whistling. Maeve waited patiently for everyone to calm down before she finished. “Joseph’s wish is to bring back all the children who died…” The crowd drowned her out once again. Maeve just shook her head and departed the field gracefully. Normally she sat with the judges in the upper stands and when she returned to her seat the crowd finally went silent.
      The contestants were in position. Maeve raised her hand to signal the judges and the piercing chime of a bell rang through the air. The first match began.
      Joseph gestured ineffectively with his scorched blanket. Shea giggled at him and pulled a stream of water from her conch with a flowing gesture. Joseph was on his knees preaching, Draevin even caught the word “children” in his speech.
      Shea hit him with a torrent of water that blasted him backwards. He slid back until it looked like she was just going to push him out of the arena and take her free win, but then at the last second she twisted her fingers and the water wrapped around Joseph in a globe that suspended him in the air. She dangled him upside down, flinging him this way and that to the crowd’s amusement while he drowned. When she was done toying with him she dropped him on the ground.
      She let him cough for a moment and catch his breath, then as soon as he opened his mouth to speak she shot the stream of water down his throat. He struggled for just a moment, before exploding into a shower of wet gore.
      The crowd erupted in cheers and high in the stands above the bell chimed a second time. Maeve announced, “Joseph is dead. Shea wins.”
      The announcement let loose a roar from the crowd. Draevin was disappointed in how few of the fans were booing Shea’s pointlessly violent display, but he added his voice to theirs. “Booo!”
      “She just killed him?” Peter asked incredulously.
      Sylnya just shrugged. “There’s no consequence for killing someone who isn’t registered with the Guild.”
      “And what’s the consequence for killing someone who is registered?”
      “Only a fine if you didn’t register a Mutual Assurance pact with them.” Peter looked disgusted.
      “You’re going to need thicker skin, human,” Draevin advised. “It gets a lot worse than this.” Peter gritted his face but didn’t respond.
      A pair of medical wizards, marked by their white robes, marched into the arena. They quickly used some spells to clean up Joseph’s “mess” while other apprentices in purple removed the water.
      “They have to reset everything after each match,” Sylnya explained, “so it’s fair to all the contestants.” She took the time to point out the four large boulders scattered symmetrically across the field. “Usually they repair those rocks when they’re used for cover, but even cleaning up water is important.” Peter nodded.
      “The next match is against Drant’ro and Faernyl,” Maeve announced from her more permanent position above the stands on a raised dais next to the judges.
      Faernyl, the red-headed elf they’d run into on their way to the arena grounds, was already waiting in his fighter’s box. The other box remained empty.
      There was a commotion over in the contestant seating area. Draevin peered over and saw some Guild acolytes in purple arguing with a pair of orcs. One was a tough warrior type with a large sword on his back while the other had a grey beard and a long walking stick. The acolytes were trying to get the warrior to move and he wasn’t having any of it. He finally pulled out his sword and they were forced to leave him be.
      After a few moments a messenger ran up to Maeve. “I’m afraid Drant’ro has refused to fight. He has been disqualified from the tournament,” she announced to a chorus of boos. “Faernyl’s match will be postponed until an alternate can be located. We will move on to our third match early. Will Korack and Peter please make their way to their fighter boxes?”
      “That’s you!” Sylnya barked at Peter. “You better hurry!”
      Peter jumped out of his seat. “Already? Where do I go?”
      Sylnya pointed back towards the way they had come. “Back that way, same as when we registered yesterday. The stairs on the left.” Peter nodded. “And good luck!”
      As soon as Peter was gone Draevin let out a big sigh of relief. “It’s about time,” he said. “All his questions were starting to get on my nerves. I hope you still get paid after Korack kills him.”
      Sylnya glared at him. “You can be really insensitive sometimes you know. But yes. I will.”
      When Draevin stretched his legs into the extra space his foot bumped against something. He looked down to see what it was and spotted Peter’s leather satchel. By all accounts the bag was going to be Sylnya’s responsibility after this. He scooped it up to give to her and it made a loud jangling sound. He shared a curious look with Sylnya. “Sounds like it’s full of glass bottles,” he commented.
      She snatched it from him and took a cautious peek inside. It was indeed filled with bottles. Dozens of empty glass bottles. There was also a roll of parchment. “Is that his Fireball scroll?” Sylnya asked.
      Draevin picked it out and carefully unrolled it until he could make out the raised, glowing runes. “Unless he has two of these things.”
      Her mouth opened in shock. “Give it here, There’s still time before his match starts!” She didn’t give Draevin a chance to hand it to her though, she just yanked it out of his grip and shoved the satchel into his arms. “Kot. Ride!” She commanded her shadow. Her shadow stalker, Kot, emerged and she jumped on its back. The pair bounded away down the stairs in the direction Peter had gone.
      Left alone with Peter’s bag Draevin decided to satisfy his curiosity regarding the glass bottles. He held one up for inspection. There was just the slightest hint of white light glowing on the rim. Were these mana potions? Was he recycling the bottles?
      He spotted Korack stepping into his fighter’s box down on the field. A few seconds later Peter jogged up to his own box a little red-faced from his run. Almost immediately a familiar green-skinned creature rode up on the back of a shifting black cat. Sylnya tried to hand Peter the scroll but he shook his head. They argued for a bit, then she left with the scroll still in hand.
      “Sorry for the delay. We’re ready to begin the second match,” Maeve announced from her raised dais. The crowd’s individual conversations broke off and a short cheer erupted.
      After the noise quieted Maeve gestured in Korack’s direction. “In this round we have last year’s tournament champion, Korack!” The crowd cheered appreciably. Korack held up a rod of unknown material covered in intricate carvings. “This year Korack has brought as his item a custom magical focus. Korack’s sponsor this year is Trunstown. Korack is wishing for immortality if he wins this year’s tournament and he wants everyone to know his wish last year has nothing to do with the famine that his home nation of Kreet is currently experiencing.”
      The crowd continued cheering for another minute. While this was going on, Sylnya returned to the booth with the Fireball scroll. “Apparently,” she said as she dropped into her seat, “he didn’t want it. He said it would be useless against a pyromancer and he didn’t want to risk it getting burned.”
      Draevin shook his head. “He’s probably right, but there goes whatever slim chance of winning he had.”
      Sylnya just sighed and stuck the scroll back in Peter’s bag.
      Maeve was gesturing to the other side of the stage. “Korack’s opponent this year is a human named Peter.” The response from the crowd was mixed. Sylnya hollered her support, but most of the rest of the crowd was booing. There was a pocket of humans, way in the back of the cheap seats on the second level, that was making a bit of a racket.
      “There seems to have been some kind of confusion with our human contestant,” Maeve continued, “and he’s entered his box without an item—” It was impossible for Maeve to continue talking as the crowd erupted in a cacophony of laughter. Showing up without an item simply never happened. Maeve had to wave her arms for a while to quiet down the crowd. “Peter chose not to disclose his specialization.”
      In the short gap of silence that followed, a large orc bellowed out, “Human’s don’t ‘ave any magic!” He was rewarded with a shower of laughter and a small boo from the human section.
      Once again Maeve had to wait for silence. “Peter’s sponsor is Haevish Family Mercantile. Visit Haevish today while they’re selling ‘a copper a cup.’ That’s right, this is truly the cheapest wine available.” Maeve did the ad-read for Peter’s sponsor with an unenthusiastic deadpan. “Peter’s wish is to improve the lives of humans everywhere.” As soon as the crowd heard Peter’s sappy wish they started making a ruckus. It was impossible to separate the laughter from the insults. Draevin clapped politely for Sylnya’s sake.
      This time when the crowd quieted Maeve dropped her arm in the signal to the judges and the bell chimed to announce the start of the match.
      Almost faster than the eye could follow, Korack shot out a lance of flame compressed down into a beam that blasted straight towards Peter and pierced a fist-sized hole in his chest.
      He fell to the ground. He was dead instantly.
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5dimes is stealing from Future Players

I'm a commentator for a tournament of nightmares. Before we reach the end, I got the interview of a lifetime.

Where this tournament began.
If you're lost or wish to know more; Here's some extra info on our fighters provided by the NFC.
Where we left off: For every victory, there's an even greater consequence.
-
There was only one person among the crowd not applauding, not celebrating and not cheering.
Nelle had been trembling since she looked over the distorted form of Wendy and had barely calmed down now that things had settled.
Together, we looked at the descending screen showcasing the fight between Malphas and Zunkle, the countdown to their match and the title fight following it. There was a moment of silence before she put her hands on my arm, gripping the bicep tightly.
“We need to talk. I think it’s time to be honest about some things. Bring your equipment, even the music player. We'll need it.”
I stared back and went to open my mouth, but thought better of it and nodded as we took off for her intended destination, darting & weaving through the crowds as deftly as we could. Nelle refused to let go of my arm the entire time. Though if it was out of necessity or fear, I couldn’t tell you.
Passing through the third ring of the venue, something bumped into us and sent me hurtling to the ground, smacking my skull on the concrete and struggling to get up amid swathes of eager audience members looking to make a bet, grab a snack or discuss tactics. Each time I tried to get up, eyes blurry and ears ringing, something would knock me back over.
A gruff hand took me by the shirt and hoisted me effortlessly to my feet, dusting me off. “It’s gonna happen soon, Sal. Protect ‘em, like you promised.” A cocky, brash voice called from behind me as a furry head nuzzled against my hand for the briefest of moments. Before I could turn back, the figure pushed me forward, through the crowd and towards Nelle, who’d only just spotted me.
“Up here, we’ve got the area to ourselves. Just the three of us.” She muttered, leading me to a wall adjacent to the pit, an embedded ladder leading to a hatch above.
“Three? You mean the guy and his dog who just picked me up?” I asked, following her up the steps and the promise of fresh air filling me with vigour. She twitched when I said that, frozen in place as if stabbed with a dagger. Without looking back, she shook her head.
“No, not them… You’ll see.”
With that, she hoisted the hatch open and climbed up, helping me to my feet as we traversed the concrete and over to a pair of sofas and a coffee table opposite the edge of the building. The stars above rhythmic in their blinking, constellations I couldn’t recognise swirling in the inky blackness, promising secrets untold if I just sat down to decipher them. Across from the building, we could see a pair of lit up billboard’s, one highlighting the: "Natural beauty and mystique of Sturgeon: the nations black pearl!" The latter offering a stay at the eponymous Hotel Inertia, the pair of finely crafted Olive Tree doors sporting an ouroboros serpent across the length of them, a radiant woman standing in front. Middle-aged, a shaven black head and a trim frame adorned by a blue suit with not a single button out of place, smiling wide with the motto of the establishment beneath her.
“The Hotel Inertia; A room for Sturgeon’s finest. A floor for every occasion.”
I felt something the longer I stared at the billboard. Prying my eyes away felt like the smart thing to do as I followed Nelle over to the couches. She propped her feet up and winced, wounds still tender from her brush with death.
“It always finds a way to keep me going, though I’d hoped I’d never have to have this conversation. Least of all with you…” She pinched her nose and let out a bitter chuckle.
“Fate is cruel, isn’t it, Sal?”
She gestured for me to sit down and mechanically, as if I was awaiting grim news, I did so. Setting up the recording equipment and hitting play, I fell back into my usual role as a broadcaster.
I spoke my mind.
“Madame Lockwood… Nelle… what is it you need to tell me? So much of my time here has been spent in secrecy, voices calling from the shadows and people who know ME but I don't know them. I... I need some answers. I need them from you." I asked, keeping it blunt was the best course of action to begin with. Open questions allowed for better answers. She sighed and without looking at me, began talking, her lip quivering.
“We talked about the monk & the nun before, the idea that there is a constant cycle of birth, pursuit, struggle, death, regret and forget. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by stating that it's JUST a story, we both know it’s not. But since this began, both the story and this…”
She gestured around her, signalling the NFC tournament.
“You’ve been kept in the dark about the various roles at work. Some of those threads will unravel themselves before the night is done. Some will be obvious and some will… inevitably hurt. But, the one thread I suspect you wouldn’t know of without intervention, is the one I hold onto…”
She reached over the table and grabbed the music player, scrolling to her chosen playlist and hitting play.
Slowly, she pulled out a locket from around her neck alongside the ear she’d severed from the lycanthrope, placing it on the table with a small thud.
“This is the ear of Buck Nasty McGraw… Sir Simon “Buck Nasty” McGraw, to be specific… He got the two tiered moniker from taking out his first abomination… a Lycanthrope that’d been eating the denizens of a local indigenous village. It bucked and kicked around while he frantically held on, laughing heartily like there was nowhere else he’d rather be… from that day on, he was Buck Nasty McGraw. Never a dull moment or cruel bone in his body, he’d only take down what was a threat.” She smiled wistfully, eyes glazed over with years of pain and regret. “He was my confidant, my friend and my everything. Far away from the eyes of Sturgeon in another world entirely, we hunted down a rogue group of individuals seeking a power no-one should ever wish to behold. They’d housed themselves in the lives of unsuspecting townsfolk, whispering in their ear to do unspeakable things and bring them items to cause unmitigated disasters. When the elder reached out, he called them “The Order of 8” but they had a more direct titling…”
She looked over as the hatch swung open and a battered, tired Wendy hoisted herself up and walked over, arm still bandaged up and face-mask once again in its rightful place as she finished Nelle’s sentence.
“The Unbounded. The same scourge that dogged us in The Hotel. They were called “The Order of the 8th floor” before we came to know them intimately.”
There was a chill that ran through my bones, the very phrase standing my hairs on end, and made the surroundings feel like they rattled for a moment. Nelle nodded.
“Buck and I went in there to stop them. Buck was special, you see. He had an innate ability to see what nobody else could, to befriend any creature that had the capacity to love and to identify the weaknesses of those who would seek to do us harm. But in this particular instance, it was my specialities that were needed. In the life before I became The Compendium Keeper, I was known as something else. A Sin Eater. The last Sin Eater, to be exact.”
She took pause and passed the locket over, the faded image of a younger Nelle in her 20s, dreads tied back in a bun with dimples in her cheeks as she smiled ear to ear. A dashing man in his 30s winking at the camera with his muscular arm draped over her, adorned in tattoos and a thick black beard, sporting a stetson and a gold tooth that shone brightly even from the sepia toned photo, his ears adorned with piercings and a stretched lobe on the right. She directed my attention to the severed Lycanthrope ear on the table. Adorned with piercings and a small hole at the bottom of the skin.
“We went in there and began extracting them one by one, before something happened and we were left with a choice; Buck could give up me or something just as precious… he chose the latter, leaving me with a world devoid of him and a new purpose: Seek out the evil that subjected him to a fate worse than death, help end the cycle and guide the next group in their time of need. Such is my role. Buck lost me, but you can still save Nora.”
I looked at her dumbfounded, wondering how on earth I fit into any of this.
“Nora Zayne does not need saving from anyone, she’s clearly a beast who knows how to fight. I’m just an ordinary guy.”
She smiled at me, clearly in a place of far greater understanding than I was, but without that air of superiority. She simply offered warmth when she spoke.
“She knows as well as you do how strong she is, but that isn’t the kind of saving I’m referring to. She will need you at a critical moment and how you respond will change everything afterwards.” She sighs and tucks the ear away, keeping the locket out. “And as for you being ordinary? Right now, yes. But much like Buck, Sully, Sigurd & Sema before you, you’ll become something wonderful. When the time is right. She left you a note, didn't she?”
I blinked, thinking back to the note I'd seen on top of The Compendium right before Nelle's fight:
"Sal,
This tournament is coming to a close and you’re going to see things you don’t want to. Things that will hurt. But if you believe in anything while you’re here, make it this:
You are only as powerless as you let yourself feel. You are only as in control as you allow yourself to be. You can be the background noise in a busy room or the light that punctures the darkness.
But either way, you’ll always be my friend.
- N”
"You mean... that wasn't..." I breathed, but she shushed me softly. She leaned forward and kissed my forehead, a motherly affection running through me as she cupped my cheek and patted it gently before walking off to the hatch.
“In the right light, you even remind me of him…” She grinned and I saw years peel away in the wake of her joy. I just nodded, still dumbfounded. “I’d best get our notes prepared for the exhibition match and have a word with our eponymous Nora. You still have the interview of a lifetime, right?”
Turning back, Wendy was already splayed out on the couch, arm draped over her eyes and one leg crossed at the knee bouncing in rhythm.
“A promise is a promise, Sal. I’m sure all those at home will get a kick outta this…” She took her good arm away from her face for just a moment, long enough to give the Hotel Inertia billboard the finger. “Fuckin’ hellhole, I wonder how the fuck it’s even still standing?”
“So you were a resident in this Hotel? What happened? How did you get from there to… here?” I took out a notepad and began hastily jotting down shorthand, something I’d learned to do from my younger days as a fight analyst on live broadcasts. Certainly not for the bum-fights, regrettable as those were to be a part of.
“Resident isn’t the right word. I wouldn’t have even said I was from Sturgeon prior to meeting the gang, because to me: Sturgeon didn’t exist. Every floor in that fuckin’ structure is its own reality. Its own world. One floor, where we met our friend Robin, contained an entire tent community basking in the sickening sounds of a grand gazebo atop the hill that made them all docile, sickly and weak. When we stopped the sound, they began tearing each other apart. The last thing we saw was the elders skull being caved in as the doors closed.” She sat up and leaned forward, putting a finger up as if to stop me from asking something.
“To be clear: The elevator stopped inside the tip of a rooftop terrace, not unlike the one that we have here with the hatch. There was NOTHING above but black skies, the expanse beyond this floor was endless. And yet… we ascended when we got back in, not descended. That entire Hotel houses things you could never dream of. Including where I came from, a cul-de-sac of domesticated monsters…”
For the first time, I saw a deep pain in Wendy, even more pronounced than the initial anger after seeing Nelle fall. She was shaking, fists balled up so tight that the fingers cut into the palms, eyes alight with passion.
“I don’t remember being a child. I just remember waking up in the middle of this prissy, far too perfect cul-de-sac with monsters pretending they weren’t monsters. That bitch over there on the billboard picked me up, my body just filled with the kind of impending doom you feel when you see someone driving dangerously on the road in front of you or walking down a street at night and the only other guy on the footpath has his hood up and is making a beeline for you… just absolute fucking dread. As she knocked on the door of the people that would come to be my “adopted family”, I remember her looking down at me with wide eyes, tiny pupils and a grin that looked like it was on tenterhooks. She said: “you’ll be a fantastic offering for the others” before everything faded to black…"
She shivered and I felt the same disgust and dread she felt. The idea of being somewhere you didn't recognise, the last face you see that of utter malice and sinister intent emanating from their being. I'd been there...
"Some time later, I found a crazy guy named Sigurd laying in a crumpled heap by the elevator doors. I tended to him and he got to see firsthand what role I played in the hungry family… that of their endless meal. I don’t know what it was about him, but something in the way he behaved, spoke to his friends or maybe his will to survive… but I swear to god that it was the first time I truly woke up.”
She ran a hand through her hair, breathing out dramatically and sniffing.
“Man, if and when I see him again, I need to thank him properly. He helped me see something in myself that I knew was always there but had been too stuck in my own head to realise…”
“Freedom” I asked, tapping my pen against the notepad. She shook her head.
“Value."
There was a silence and I grew a stronger respect for her, not even realising the importance of self worth in the strong until that very moment.
"After that, we acquired some new friends; one in the town of sickly sounds, a guy in a lone radio tower, and so it went. We’d eventually take on The Order Of The 8th Floor and all their horrors, before we ended up reuniting with The Concierge on the top floor, worse for wear and with a couple of losses in our wake. When all was said and done, we had her beat and Sigurd walked over to put an end to things. I’ll never forget how she smiled when the lightning struck or the last thing she ever said…”
The wind picked up and I felt a bitter snap behind it, either my empathy was through the roof and I could feel what Wendy felt… or something ominous was in the air.
“One down. Seven to go.” She finished, getting up and shaking her head. “I’m only just now understanding what she meant, but that question would lead me to rumours about the NFC and their tournaments. I decided to make myself a target for the upcoming Openweight tournament and seek out more answers, maybe get my wish along the way if I happened to win… of course, that didn’t happen and it leads me to a question for you, Sal.” She leaned down and looked me dead in the eyes, that mask more intimidating up close, power radiating from every pore of her skin.
“Who made me feral? Who took out Qwong Xiao? Who is pulling the strings and why? You don’t see it as convenient that Eustace De Kolta, well known Wendigo hater, ends up facing a version of me that couldn’t see sense? That former challenger Nora Zayne is in there too?”
“They’re setting up for something more…” I breathed, the tapping of my pen stopping. “But what?”
“All I know is I’ll be on hand to help, however I can. Something tells me that we’re all gonna be needed when this is over. Beyond that, I have a feeling this exhibition match is going to be… interesting.” She cracked her back before walking off, holding up a lazy thumbs up with her good arm. “Thanks Sal, takes a skilled guy to do what you do and to let me run my mouth like that, hope it was worth it!”
“I hope you see Sigurd again, Wendy. I’m sure he’d be proud of what you’ve done here. I know I am.” I blurted out, almost on command. She stopped in her tracks and didn’t turn back, but I saw her hand shaking as she put it back in her pocket.
“Hell, now you know my wish. Good luck, Sal. You’ll need it.”
-
Sitting there and gathering my notes, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed in the moment, as I had done so many times throughout this tournament. It’s not so much that the world revolves around me, because it doesn’t, but to even consider I have my own part to play in this is a lot to absorb for someone who is used to calling the action from the safety of a booth or behind a computer screen.
Why someone as decidedly dull and boring as me has a place here among killers is beyond me, but the more time passes, the more I feel that surge of emotion and desire to do SOMETHING.No matter what happens next, I have to do my part. I just wish I knew what that was.
Picking up my things, I realised Nelle had left her locket and, not wanting it to get stolen or lost, I picked it up.
A flash of memories hit me like a freight train. Holding onto a great beast as a younger Nelle screamed in fear, a conversation shrouded in darkness with a pair of sunken eyes floating in front of Nelle as I stood there, powerless. A deal with a gold toothed shadow, the handshake that sent shockwaves through my body…
“Hurts, doesn’t it, Sal?”
Whipping round, the voice seemed to come from all directions and I immediately recognised it as that of Moirah, one of the sisters. A tapping that sounded as if it was pounding on my eardrums reverberating around us, the thick air ripe with the smell of sulphur.
“All those places, all those memories jostling for position. Like a mass in your skull… It builds strength, malice and accumulates the experiences you build over time before one day bursting and taking you with it. Life isn’t like a box of chocolates… no, it’s like an aneurysm; You never know which moment will be your last.”
Hands gripped my shoulders and thick yellow nails dug into the soft flesh, pulling up at my tendons and moving me without my consent. My arms reaching out for the locket, Moirah giggling in my ear and Clodagh’s incessant banging making my eyes throb.
“We are tired of waiting. Tired of constant mis-steps by you and those associated. If you cannot willingly understand the truth, we shall force it out of you. There is too much at stake for failure.”
Hands grasp around the locket and the images begin to burn into my skull; Downing a drink that burns my insides. A lightning strike surging through my body. A gunshot to the head. A plane crash. A white snake curled in my arms as I slip away. The tear-stained face of someone I know strangling me as I helplessly struggle and buck my hips for dear life. Everything ebbs out of me and my knees buckle to the floor. All I see is red, my nose dripping blood and the world fading into nothing more than a pink hue.
“She… she needs me.” I gurgle, the hands pushing down on me with extreme force, the tapping evolving into a thunderous chorus of aggression at my resistance.
“She needs nothing from you. She only needs to play her part and that will be achieved with or without you. You are inconsequential. You are moments from fulfilling your purpose.”
More flashes as a deep shade of red fills my peripheral vision. A young woman laying in her apartment, blood everywhere and an empty crib. The sounds of despair as the woman on the other end of a phone is beaten to death. Nelle crouched over a body and sobbing… Nora. Nora’s warm face as she hugs me before her last fight in the NFC. Why is she hugging me?
“It’ll be fine. Trust me. I’ll win it for both of us.”
Something in me snapped. A protective instinct I didn’t know I had. Pulling at the hands and feeling the pain surge through my chest, I didn’t care in that moment, I just knew I had to get up.
“No. I have to… I’m all she has. We bring each other strength… you can’t stop that!” My body moved before I gave the command. My left leg flew out from under me and drove itself upwards, front of the foot colliding with the face of Moirah behind me. Bone fragments and blood accompanying a loud groan as I felt my body freed and the thunderous booming returning to a tap. Not waiting for a retaliation, I swiped the locket into my bag with my sleeve and dashed for the hatch, nearly tumbling down the stairs as I hit the bottom, breathing heavily.
What the fuck did I just do?
I took my time walking back to the venue, nobody giving me any trouble or even a dirty look for once. If anything, people seemed to go out of their way to avoid even looking at me. Which, after what had transpired previously, was welcomed.
I sat down just as the 2 minute bell called out and the exhibition match was announced.
This was going to be bloody.
-
As the lights dimmed, Alduin walked over to me, cape billowing behind her and a manic grin on her face as a cinderblock hand slapped my back and damn near winded me.
“Sal! Glad I caught ya, loving the musical vibes you’ve been putting out there. SO much so, that I have a few… additions for ya. I mentioned to Madame Lockwood there n’ she said they were already on the device. Damned if I know how… technology ain’t one of my friends. But, if ya could play these during those ever so pivotal moments in the upcoming fight and during mine & Nora’s entrance, I’d be pretty damn grateful… Oh, speaking of: since I’m the one fighting, I’m gonna need ya to do the announcing. That won’t be a problem, will it?” Her eye flashed, and the eyepatch rumbled, the exhaustion of what transpired out there suddenly setting in, making me feel decidedly ordinary as I nodded.
“You got it, Commissioner. Whatever you need.” I croaked, fumbling with my bag as everything spilled onto the table, Alduin laughing as she walked off.
“That’s why I like ya, Sal. You just do it. You’re certainly a changed man! Ha!” She stretched as she sauntered off to get the microphone. I guess even warming up wouldn’t stop her from showmanship.
I reached out for the locket when Nelle grabbed it first, as if she knew I shouldn’t touch it. Whisking up my notes with far quicker hands and placing it on the table, she thanked me before silently pointing to the recording material as the lights dimmed.
“Fight fans, before we reach the conclusion of this night under the NFC banner, we have two very special matches for you. Our first is one forged in blood and spilled just as much. It’ll be a battle between Father and Son as the former attempts to help the latter see the error of his ways and perhaps seek a little justice for the lost lives here tonight. Without further ado, we throw it over to Commissioner Alduin Von Trier for the official introductions.”
I pointed to Alduin, who grabbed the mic with gusto and began her spiel.
“Without further do, let’s get this blood feud on the road! In the corner to my left: He is the Jersey Devil, our resident chef and the Father of violence… Put your hands together for Zunk!”
I looked down at him. He was in a tank top with fighter shorts, his gargantuan frame only accentuated without the chef’s outfit and apron. His usually pleasant expression replace with a cold indifference as he stared a hole in the opposite direction. Towards his opponent.
“And in the corner to my right: He was a standout fighter in this year’s tournament and one that brought us violence at the very start of the proceedings, so it’s only right we end with him. He was formally paired with his entourage, Mr. Stares, but he’s now back in his usual form; The Black Dog Of Jersey: Malphas!”
She gave both an eager look before leaping out of dodge and to the safety of her perch as she walked off, understandably to train, but throwing her hand in the air and bellowing “BEGIN!” For the match to start.
NFC EXHIBITION MATCH: “JERSEY DEVIL” ZUNKLE VS “PUPPET MASTER” MALPHAS
Malphas, unchanged from the last time we saw him, took furtive steps forward, cocking his head to the side as he grinned, the nails in his lips now nothing more than bloodied holes which stained his teeth.
“Well pops, we knew this was gonna happen at some point. To be the baddest, you have to take out the best and the weakest. You taught me that.” Zunk stood his ground, unflinching in his resolve and unwilling to move.
“I didn’t teach you a damn thing. I tried to channel your anger and hatred into something productive. I thought you’d grow out of it.” He clenched his fist. “But you only got worse.”
-THUMP-
Without warning, Zunk struck himself square in the stomach with all his might, his eyes widening in pain and a wheeze leaving his lungs as Malphas continued to walk him down.
“Well, you didn’t teach me directly… But I sought out info, determined to find out what was so WRONG with me. Until I was found, reborn, and told the most important piece of wisdom I’d ever get. Do you know what that was, Dad?” He twitched his fingers and Zunk pulled his head back, fingers pulling on the hair so tight it threatened to pull out thick black tufts. Malphas leaned forward, inches away from his father’s bloodied face.
“The sins of the father will always impact on the son. But you can so easily reverse that, if you’re willing and open to doing what needs to be done.”
He curled his hand; the fingers twisting and Zunk’s body doing as he obeyed. His arm volleying back for another unprotected shot at his face, but his head also being forced forward by the other hand in a macabre torture technique.
“He’s using him as a goddamn punching bag… literally a human puppet. Is there anything he can do, Nelle?” I look over to her, the book is closed, and she’s resting her elbows on it, hands clasped and over her mouth.
“Not if he wants to keep what little of his soul he has left, Sal.” She replied, as if speaking from experience. I felt a lump in my throat as I looked back, Malphas laughing giddily at the prolonged beating his Father was sustaining.
“Marvellous, now let’s try taking out that tongue, no more bullshit spewed from your mouth!” He clapped his hands, observing the battered father figure and framing him like he’d done with Rex. “Hmm… or maybe we should just take the head entirely? Hard to say when you’re having so much fun!”“There’s really no hope for you, is there, boy? If I brought you back to your Mother… what would she think of you now?” Zunk called through gritted teeth and smatterings of blood. Malphas just laughed.
“She’d probably wonder how she came back to life and why she’s nothing more than a bag of bones! Still, better than being a sack of meat, right? I’d have probably had to cut her up too. So safety the or-“
A punch flew from Zunk that instead of hitting his own face would connect with the stomach of his son. The force of which sent him flying back, feet dragging through the pit floor and dropping him to his knees.
“Hey, Sal. There’s a song of mine on there, think you could do me a solid and uhh… y’know? Oh and don’t put it on an odd number.” He didn’t even look at me, instead muttering the prime numbers in quick succession under his breath.
Sure enough, I scrolled down and saw a single song under his name.
It simply said; “Blizzard.”
The deep bass rang out and Zunk cracked his neck as he walked towards Malphas. Who, to his credit, was up to one knee and one hand on his stomach, the other twisting in front of him.
Again, Zunk saw resistance, his right arm striking at him repeatedly and smashing his ears, jaw and nose. But each shot just made him more determined to walk forward, spitting out blood on the fourth punch.
Malphas backs off and places his hands and legs against the wall, a cornered and frightened animal as Zunk walks him down, determined.
“You always thought The Jersey Devil was some goat-like creature of the night, didn’t you? I never told you that it was always just me… a part of me that I kept firmly locked away and promised to never touch again when I met your mother. After we had you, bad people came after me. Very, very bad people. They got to her while I was away, made you watch what they did to her. Christ, you were four…”
Zunk stopped in front of his son, pity across his face.
“I went after them, did what any husband and father would do, but worse… Still, you changed so much after that. But I believe there’s still hope for you. Some glimmer of what your mother was in there. You just need to take my hand and we can put this behind us, a few broken teeth, and some fractured ribs are nothing to a family like ours.”
He outstretched his hand and Nelle shook her head in dismay.
Malphas stretched his own out and for a moment, I thought we’d see our first good ending to a bout.
To my horror and disgust, I was wrong.
Malphas leaned forward and sank his teeth into Zunk’s hand, biting at the fingers until he tore off one of the digits at the mid-point, the blood spraying across his face and the canvas. He spat the finger out and coated his hand in it, giggling as he crawled along the wall and away from Zunk.
“There is only ONE family and it sure as hell isn’t yours. With your blood on MY hands, I can show you just how good I am at control. As I did with Zanaya, Rex and the rest. I am DAMN good at carrying out my master’s will, and as long as I get to carve people up, I’ll keep on doing it!” He held his hand up and Zunk’s face grew vacant, his mouth hung open and he bore the same expression the others had done before him.
This was the prelude to the end.
“I can’t believe this. Of all the sick things I’ve seen in this tournament, biting the literal hand that feeds has got to be one of the worst! Malphas should be ashamed, but given his prior antics, I don’t think that’s possible! Get up, Zunk! Move for god’s sake!” I pleaded, my hands shaking, and the fear of losing someone else with no means to save them filled me with such dread, but there was nothing I could do.
Nelle didn’t move from her analytical stance and the crowd bayed for blood as the techno music swelled.
Malphas walked over with confidence, pulling a weapon from his back and brandishing it playfully as he got closer. He showed no hesitation as he drove the blade deep into Zunk’s chest, dark blood running down his torso to the delight of his son.
“Guess blood ties do run deep, huh?” He looked at the trail and laughed. “Best of luck, dad. I’ll keep your legacy going and improve on it!” He patted the shoulder of his still standing but vacant father as he began to walk back, never seeing the surging knee coming for his temple as he turned.
Malphas flew through the air and crumpled into a heap on the ground as Zunk lowered his leg, sadness and disappointment riddled across his face.
Malphas tried to scramble, but Zunk was quick. He picked him up by the head, his gargantuan hands cupping the younger man in them as if holding a coconut. He slammed him down once to pacify him before hurling him towards the centre of the pit, no longer able to crawl away.
Every step Zunk took bore the weight of what he was about to do, echoing the gravity of the words when he spoke:
“As of late, you’ve been doing terrible things. Things I cannot forgive, forget or ignore.”
“Please… dad, I’m sorry! I’ll… I’ll leave the services of my masters... of the order and I’ll stop what I’m doing… I’ll change. I swear! Oh god… please, help! I deserve better, I did what was asked of me! Are ANY of you gonna help me?!” He snivelled and darted frantic eyes around the venue, but none would intervene as his father honed in like a lion ready to make the kill.
“There is no other avenue left for you, Malphas. But, let me offer you one final piece of fatherly advice…”
Zunk raises his fist, his entire body twisting back with the force he’s generating and his eyes glowing like that of the Jersey Devil he is synonymous for. Malphas’ whimpering a mere backdrop to the swelling beat and his father’s chilling final words.
“Leaving this world is not as scary as it seems.”
With that, he drove the fist down onto Malphas’ face with such force that the venue shook. When the dust cleared, there was a divot left where Malphas’ head resided, the decapitation marks on his neck clear as day, something resembling scorch marks across the neck lining as Zunk raised his bloodied fist from the hole and walked back without a single word.
It was over.
I looked at the broken body of a man who had spent this entire tournament dismantling the enemy, pulling their strings and making sure at least three families were torn apart by his insatiable lust for destruction. But my mind wasn’t on that, nor was it on what was going through the mind of a man who had just rekindled the flame of his old violent moniker to take out his son. Hell, for a moment, it wasn’t even on the upcoming title fight that would determine everything.
It was on what he said in those final moments of bravado that stuck with me.
The claims of pulling the strings, making sure everything went to plan for his “masters”.
But before I could ask Nelle what she thought, I was handed a slip of paper that contained the details for the bout. Standard things like the fighters names, monikers and the match stipulations.
There were two things on that slip of paper that caused me to break out in a sweat and my heart to jump into my throat and stay there. Just two simple sentences changed my world and raised the stakes of the title fight exponentially so.
The match type? 3 Stages of Hell. First to 2 victories wins the belt.
The names? NFC Champion Von Trier and Sabotta.
Nora Sabotta.

Meet The Freak 16

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I'd never been very fond of tea. Iced tea, sure. The Arnold Palmer was probably my favourite drink in the world. But actual proper tea? Well, I wasn't a fan of hot leaf water, thin and unsatisfying as it was.
But after the incident with Will, Valentine had suggested that I take a break, try some of the tea. It felt an awful lot like being sent to my room, but I didn't argue, embarrassed as I was. So I'd found the set of punch cards, picked the tea I'd disliked the least, and a moment later a stream of hot black tea filled the tiny porcelain cup.
It was all I could do not to crush it to dust in my fist. My anger at Will had burned itself out, leaving only frustration. Simon had seen me lose it, and Valentine had seen me lose it. Damn it all, getting hauled off to another world was supposed to be a chance for me to start over. And here I was falling back into the same old destructive patterns.
I looked up with a start as the latch clicked open, and Valentine appeared in the doorway. Still at the threshold, she took a deep breath before stepping inside and closing the door.
"Good," she said pleasantly, "It doesn't smell as if you're about to tear someone limb from limb, anymore."
"Yeah..." I said slowly, "Sorry about that."
Valentine frowned in confusion for a moment, before rolling her eyes and sighing in exasperation. She came over to the couch I was monopolizing, sat down in my lap, and put an arm around my neck.
"You thought I'd be angry with you?"
"Yeah, I did kinda lose my shit at Will. And I-" I hesitated, "I've really liked, you know, this," I said vaguely, gesturing at her on my lap, "And then, well, I went and did what I did."
Val absently flicked her wrist, "You didn't throw me in a river- today -and besides, you said it yourself. Like it or not, by taking the hotel we've made ourselves the local rulers, and I can only imagine what the baroness would have done had someone disrespected her in the manner Will did. And Temerity? If she were feeling merciful, perhaps she'd have him flogged, though death would not be out of the question. This world is crueller and harsher than the one you left, a leader cannot accept such disrespect, lest they not remain in power for long."
She patted my cheek, "But you did make two mistakes. Will did need to receive his comeuppance, but it should have been better reasoned. Thankfully I don't believe Simon saw much of what happened before the human struck the window, so as far as he knows, it was well reasoned."
"What about Matt?" I asked, "The gynoid?"
"Neither of them is of any consequence. But there is still your second mistake. I am not a reward for good behaviour," she intoned, her voice a near growl, “You beat the hell out of someone, whether they deserve it or not, and what, I'm supposed to scorn your affections to teach you a lesson? Or perhaps you carry a dozen orphans from a burning building, am I to swoon and throw myself at your feet? No," she growled, "If I want you, I will have you. Or perhaps I'll decide that men are not to my taste, and I'll invite girls from The Blushing Maiden to warm my bed. Whatever I choose, it will be that way precisely because I am the one that gets to choose, and not because the gods are rewarding you with a pretty toy," she held up a clenched fist, "Forget that, and I'll thump you until you remember."
I cast a side-eyed glance at her delicate little hand, and when my gaze returned to her face, I found her smirking.
"I know," she agreed readily, "I'd probably break my hand, and then wouldn't you feel terrible."
I raised my hands, "Okay, okay. Please, no thumping."
Val hopped up, "I'm glad we've had this talk. Now if you're finished sulking, the gynoid and I finished the puzzle. The penalty timer should be almost over, and we're only a few minutes behind Simon. Come now, I imagine the two of us will need a translator for this next puzzle, and you'll have to do."
"Amazing."
Valentine dropped her arms to her sides and gazed up at me with a degree of exasperation in her eyes that had only previously been achieved under laboratory conditions.
I gave her a wry smile and a shrug.
Valentine looked over at the gynoid, "I could have half a dozen of The Blushing Maiden's most inventive girls at my beck and call, and instead I'm following this idiot around."
Unable to understand Val's words, the gynoid furrowed her brows in confusion, "Your presence clearly arouses the small purple woman, but your words appear to frustrate her. Perhaps you should consider remaining silent more often."
Val raised an eyebrow as my face began to flush, and she glanced between the two of us.
"Excuse me?" I demanded.
"My programming is tuned to recognize certain physical signatures," the gynoid explained, "Pupil dilation, firmness in certain areas, rate of breathing, dampness in others-"
"I get it! You can tell we're horny. I don't need the details!"
"Well, not yourself. You seem much more temperate, at least where Valentine is-"
"So the rules for this one are really simple," I began loudly, in Elvish, and the gynoid subsided demurely, "Finish the maze as fast as you can. It's dark inside, which is why we've got the oil lamps there."
Val smirked, "Anything else?"
"That's it."
"You certain?" She asked, nodding towards the gynoid, "Because it feels like there's a little more going on."
"Maybe I'll swing by The Blushing Maiden and scoop up your favourite girls," I glowered, "Then I won't need to put up with your nonsense."
The rulebook hit the lectern with a thump, and I bent to scoop up a lantern. I lit it, stuffed the box of matches into my pocket, and strode into the maze.
The threshold of the maze was more of the rough masonry work that I'd by now grown familiar with, and I was careful not to catch a toe on the edge of a flagstone as I strode deeper into the maze.
The wavering lamplight reflected dully off the stones, with none of the wet sheen I'd come to expect. The smell of damp was still in the air, but faint, and I could hear no rushing water.
The harsh edges and square corners of the corridor gave way to a winding passage of raw stone. Beyond excavating the passage, little work had been done to finish it. Here and there I could still see the tool marks left by the miners' picks. The girls caught up with me only a moment later, Val close at my right, and the gynoid behind my left shoulder.
The sinuous passage carried on for only a dozen or so strides before it shifted back into a dead straight corridor of worked stone. I lifted the lamp, and could just make out the ghost of a T-junction another dozen paces further. Turning around, I realized why they'd left part of the entrance in-the-raw, as it were. The curves were enough to hide the light of the maze's antechamber, and I suspected that if I were standing at the junction, that the way back to the entrance would look like any of the others.
"Have either of you got anything to mark our path with?" I asked, once in Elvish and again in French.
"I have a pen here somewhere," Val muttered, digging around in her pockets, "It's not meant for hard surfaces, but the ink glows in the dark. It could work."
"I have an internal compass," the gynoid provided, "Though I'm not certain how much use it will be."
"It'll keep us pointed in the right direction at least. With the entrance behind, an exterior wall and Simon's maze to either side, it stands to reason the exit is that way," I pointed out.
"Ah, here it is."
There were a couple false starts as Val worked to get the pen to write on the stone, but in short order, she'd managed a little sketch of a door on the wall of the corridor.
We paused at the junction, and I considered our options while Val knelt to scribble on the floor. The lanterns weren't dim, not by any means, but even so, it was hard to make out much of consequence. One corridor looked much like another.
I still had one of Val's magic torches on me, and they were a lot more durable than the oil lamps, so I took it out, flipped it on, and threw it down the corridor to our right.
"Hey!" Valentine protested.
"What?" I retorted, "Now we can see what's down there, come on, give me yours, and we can see what's down the other one."
"Or we could just walk over there," she insisted, pointing at the torch I'd thrown.
It had come to rest a fair ways off, inside what looked to be a chamber of some sort. The floor was made up of large stone boards, for lack of a better term, and I saw an opening in the far wall.
"Unless you plan on leaving the torches where they lay, we will need to fetch them back."
Ah, yeah, that was a good point.
"Alright, I'll-"
There was a huff of breath, of the sort you might expect from something as large as a horse, or a bull. I raised the lantern, but needn't have bothered. Down the left-hand passage, nearly at the level of the roof, could be seen two burning coals.
The creature's footfalls shook the floor, and as it emerged into the lamplight, I made out the shape of a bull's head atop the body of a giant. Its chest and abdomen were well-muscled and tanned to a bronze sheen. Its wicked horns pointed forward and gleamed like steel. Its breath steamed in the air as it drew nearer, and the red-hot eyes seemed to pulse with every heartbeat.
"Bugger me," Valentine breathed.
"Merde," the gynoid agreed, both of them already backing towards the other corridor.
I reared back and pitched the lantern at the minotaur. It caught the creature in the upper chest, just below the neck, and shattered. The oil inside spilt across its chest and burst into flame, but still, the creature came inexorably onwards.
I had broken into a run even as I'd thrown the lantern, and now fought for more momentum as I charged the minotaur.
The flames might not have fazed the creature, but in the darkened corridor, they were enough to blind it to my approach. I caught it utterly off-guard as I struck it about the waist, hard enough that my teeth clacked together and my head rang with the impact.
We went down in a clattering heap with me atop the thing, and I scrambled for purchase as it thrashed under me. My left hand found one of the horns and held fast. With it for leverage, I pulled myself up to kneel on its chest and drove my fist into its snout with all of my strength. The shock travelled up my arm, a lance of pain that seemed to start at my fingertips, burn through the marrow, and spread across my chest.
Still, it thrashed, so I hit it a second, and then a third time. The pain grew more distant with each strike, and I was about to hit it a fourth time when the gynoid called out.
"Wallace, enough!" she shouted.
I looked up at her, arm cocked to punch the thing, my other hand still gripping its horn as it thrashed about. In the light of her own lantern, she seemed concerned, but not overly worried. I returned my gaze to the creature and understood why.
Its horns and skin didn't just look like polished steel and bronze. They were steel and bronze. It was another automaton, not as complex as the gynoid maid, but certainly a cut above the guards in the first room.
I'd pounded the thing's snout inwards, and it looked as if I'd turned its face inside out.
Valentine came to stand beside the gynoid, "You big wonderful moron," she sighed.
"Hey, you thought the thing was for real at first too," I protested.
The gynoid took my hand gently, even as I argued with Val, and began inspecting it.
"Yes," Val replied primly, "And then I recalled the rules, as you told them to me. Am I mistaken, or wasn't it made clear that nothing here would harm us?"
I let go of the automaton's horn. I'd clutched it so tightly that my hand felt stiff, and I clenched and unclenched it to work the stiffness out of my muscles. Oil had stuck to me in a few spots, though it was nothing serious, and I patted the flames out with my free hand.
I shrugged lamely, and Val leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. Even kneeling, I was tall enough that she had to go up on tiptoe.
"I'll see if the beast you vanquished was guarding anything interesting," she promised, "And if anything frightens me, I'll throw my lantern at it."
I pushed myself up and off of what remained of the automaton, its movements finally slowing, careful to keep my hand steady so that the gynoid could finish cleaning the wound.
She had her nose close to the wounds across my knuckles, to better inspect them in the poor light, but peered up at me as the light of Val's lantern receded.
"Poorly thought out heroics seem to be effective," she remarked.
"What are you, my wingman now?"
She shrugged, "I only wish to be helpful, in whatever manner I may."
"You know, I think I'm good."
"Ah, perhaps she is the one that requires my assistance."
"What's that supposed to mean- Ow!"
"Just a disinfectant. Nothing's broken, but even you may be brought low by infection."
"I found something," came Val's voice, echoing down the hall, and her circle of lamplight joined with ours a moment later.
She held an old fashioned key, large and bright red. It looked more like a prop than the sort of thing that would unlock an actual door.
"It was just around the corner, waiting on a pedestal," she explained, and I muttered a translation to the gynoid as she spoke, "But from the look of things, we were meant to approach from the other side."
"Oh?"
"Yes, the pedestal faces a large blue door. It has a keyhole of the right shape for this," she explained, gesturing with the red key, "But it doesn't turn in the lock. I imagine we were supposed to find a blue key, and use that to get behind the minotaur."
"Sounds like we found a sequence break."
"Hmm," Val mused, "I suppose that's a fair term for it."
"How much you want to bet we'll find a blue key near a red door somewhere down this way?" I asked, jerking my chin towards where I'd thrown the torch.
"Let's hope we've made up some time. Now, how's your hand?" Val asked as the gynoid finished tying the bandage.
"I'll probably have some scars, but it'll be fine," I assured her, "Come on, if we have made up some time, let's not waste any more."
It was as we approached the room with the stone boards that I finally began to hear the rushing water I'd been expecting. I held out a staying hand, and the others slowed.
I jerked a thumb over my shoulder, "We were meant to be running scared through here," I said simply.
The gynoid prodded experimentally at one of the stone boards with the toe of her shoe, and it shifted as she put her weight on it. She leaned into it a little bit, and this end of the board tilted down while the other swung up, and the sound of rushing water filled the room. Not a room of stone boards then, but a room of seesaws.
They were staggered, left, right, left, right. Someone who tried to walk, or more likely, run, across would find themselves always stepping upon the inside edge of one or another.
"There's no pattern here, as there was in the other room," Val frowned.
The gynoid pressed experimentally on the only other board she could reach and watched as it moved.
Then she stood, and outlined her plan, "You see how they alternate? Each set must have its own fulcrum, a bar running the length of the chamber. If we stay near the pivot point, the boards shouldn't rotate much if we are quick enough in the crossing."
Valentine nodded along as I relayed the gynoid's explanation, "Sensible," she agreed, once I was done, "She and I shall go first, now behave yourself and stay here till we're safely across."
"Behave myself?" I growled, but she was already giggling and prancing away with the gynoid close behind.
The two couldn't even speak to one another, and it still felt like the two were conspiring against me.
I smiled despite myself. I was glad they were getting along. I was a little worried that the shapely gynoid would inspire jealousy in the waifish Valentine. But who knows, with Val's tastes being what they are, maybe I was the one that should be jealous, lest the gynoid steal her away from me.
"Catch," Val called, and with a flick of her wrist, the torch flew from where it lay in the centre of the room, to strike me lightly in the chest.
I caught it before it hit the ground and waited for the girls to make it across. It wasn't possible- at least for them -to step directly from the doorway over to where the fulcrum for the one set of boards seemed to be. But a little hop got them close enough, and the boards themselves were heavy enough that they didn't move very quickly under the weight of those two, particularly with them staying near the pivot point.
Considering that this was a game, not a proper deathtrap, odds were good that they might have made it across fine even if they'd gone straight down the middle. Presumably, the creators of the game didn't want it to end with an anti-climax, and an entire team getting dunked in the river would be kinda lame. No, I bet the first couple people would make it across okay. They didn't need to be faster than the automaton, just faster than their slowest friends.
I braced myself on the doorway, and took a wide-reaching step that put my foot just shy of the pivot, and then pushed off the wall with all my strength. I couldn't swing my leg over far enough and ended up with both feet on the near side of the pivot, and my stomach lurched as the board began to tilt inwards.
I didn't bother trying to balance on it. I just started running. It was a clumsy, halting run, as I made sure each step came down on the right set of boards. One wrong step and all my weight would land on the very tip of what was, in essence, a very large lever. The other end would probably cut a gouge into the roof with all the force I'd be putting on it, and I'd end up in the water. Maybe I could catch myself, but the very idea made my elbows hurt. I'm stronger than I look, and I look really fucking strong, but I was still made of meat. I might be able to lift a small car, but that didn't mean my elbows were meant to endure the strain of catching half a ton in free fall.
I veered back towards the centre of the room as I neared the far side. I wouldn't be able to set up my jump as carefully as I'd done the first time, but I had a hunch.
I leapt. Not as far as I could, but as high as I could. And when I landed, it was with both feet planted and legs locked. I didn't crouch to absorb the shock, that would only spread the impact over a longer period, and I needed all of the force to come down in a single instant.
The fulcrum did what I expected it to do, and what roughly made bearings tend to do when they are shocked. It locked in place. Only for an instant, but it was enough. I bent my knees for a second leap, and threw myself through the doorway and right into Val and the gynoid. Val yelped as I bowled right through them, but to my relief, I didn't land atop either.
Val was back on her feet in an instant, "You made it," she cheered.
I brushed the dust from my jeans and straightened, "Yeah yeah, no time for teasing. Come on. We need to hustle."
I broke into a fast walk, and the others jogged to keep up.
"Of course, you can give me my comeuppance later," she agreed, bobbing along at my elbow.
The next junction was, less than simple.
"My my," the gynoid breathed.
"Backtracking through this is going to suck."
We'd emerged into another room, and now stood on a platform six or so feet above the rushing water. There were two raised paths stretching out across the open space, each leading to a separate opening in the far wall. The left way was made up of a large drum that stretched the length of the room. There were no obstacles, but we'd need to walk across the top of it to get across, and I guessed that it would start to rotate as soon as we set foot on it. This was another problem that the girls would find a lot easier than myself, Val in particular. She weighed less than a tenth what I did, and was quite a bit quicker. She'd make fewer mistakes, and they'd cost her less. While one wrong step from me would set the thing rotating rapidly to one side and I'd be thrown off into the water.
The path to the right looked more promising, however, as it was a test of timing, rather than dexterity. On the right was a series of swinging blades, a classic honestly, though the blades were foam, painted in an exaggerated style, rather than sharpened steel.
Finally, at the beginning of each path, was a small pillar with a slot atop it. A slot, very much like the one in the tea vending machine back in the break room.
The gynoid produced three cards from a pocket in her blouse. Two held stylized depictions of piled coins, while the other had a book on its face.
After a moment's thought, I grimaced and shook my head, "We should save it if we can."
"Left, or Right?" Val asked, slowly and carefully.
I frowned, but the gynoid answered, "Right," in elvish.
Clumsy as her pronunciation was, I could understand her at the very least. Which is to say, Val could understand her.
"Oh, don't look so surprised," Val mocked, "The two of us aren't helpless."
"Would you please tell her that the right-hand path is the most likely to bear fruit?" the gynoid requested, "Of both paths, the left is most likely to lead back to the blue door, and we have no need of that now. Besides, I foresee you having difficulty making it across. The right hand then is the easiest for you, and the least likely to send us back where we already were."
"Maybe you should give her the necklace," Val suggested, once I'd finished relaying the gynoid's reasoning, "She seems capable, and I'm not certain what we need you for at this point."
"Maybe I take the key and the gynoid and chuck you in the river," I retorted, "Not certain what we need you for at this point."
"Please, enough flirting, time is of the essence," the gynoid called back.
She'd already made it through the first two swinging blades, and she beckoned us forwards without taking her eyes off the one in front of her.
"Is she chastizing us?"
"Yup."
"Mmm, maybe she'll give me my comeuppance," Val mused.
The timing was simple, and we made our way through with little difficulty. The pattern for the blades was simple and unchanging, and as long as you paid attention, there was plenty of warning before one came down.
The relative simplicity made me wonder if perhaps the automaton had been meant to still be chasing us, or maybe I was merely familiar with this sort of obstacle. Every dungeon in Skyrim seemed to have something like this, after all. The players this maze had been intended for may have looked upon the series of swinging blades with a little more trepidation.
The gynoid was several steps ahead and didn't wait for the two of us to finish making our way through before she slipped through into the passage beyond.
I felt a flash of annoyance. She was doing it wrong, she should be waiting for me, and what if there were traps she didn't spot it in time?
I growled and forced the thought away. The gynoid didn't need my permission to scout ahead. At this point in my life, I'd grown used to being let down in group assignments. And while I'd been out of university for a couple of years now, the memory remained. Which meant I usually did my best to take the reins in matters such as these, and being eight feet tall, people tended to let me. But the gynoid, as well as Valentine, knew what they were doing. I let out a long breath and took a step forwards just as the next blade hit the bottom of its travel and arced out of the way.
The gynoid reappeared only a moment later, holding a green key. Despite her composure, I got the sense that it was all she could do to keep from jumping up and down as she bade us forwards.
"I've found the red door, and this was sitting in front of it," she explained, "Quick, quick, the red key!"
The gynoid's energy was contagious, and Val skipped through close behind as I finished navigating the swinging blades.
There was a sharp right turn, a short length of corridor, another left, and then we stood before the red door. Val drove the key home, and it turned with a laborious ratcheting sound. The key withdrew, and there was a slow clank, clank, clank, as the door began retracting with fits and starts into the floor.
Then the gynoid did start jumping up and down, and I found myself chuckling as she all but bounced off the walls.
"Now what do you find so amusing?" she demanded.
"You're just not what I expected," I replied.
The gynoid pulled up her skirt and swung her legs over the half-open door, "Am I unlike the gynoids on your world?" she asked.
I stepped over after her and reached back to give Val a hand.
"There are no gynoids on my world," I admitted, "Maybe that's why you're not what I expect. Plenty of fictional sentient machines, but no real ones. Like Commander Data from Star Trek. Man, I wanted to be Data when I was a kid."
The gynoid glanced back as she reached the next intersection, saw that we were both close behind, and took the right-hand path. I kept after her, and Val paused only to mark our way before rushing after us.
"This Data, he is a military man, and an officer no less? I'm afraid that such things are not permitted where I come from. And I doubt that any young man wishes he were a combat android."
"Data was the second officer on the Enterprise, the flagship of The United-" I stopped myself, "Well, I thought he was cool at the very least. And as a kid who found the emotions of those around him utterly incomprehensible, he was pretty relatable. He also seemed to know everything, which was pretty cool. Now I don't have any idea if you know everything, but you're a lot warmer than Data. Jumping up and down, bouncing off the walls, eager to win the contest, and most likely plotting my demise with Val."
"I've decided that I like puzzles," she replied, "And I've never won anything before."
At each corner, we'd take the right path, and while we hit dead ends twice, and once found ourselves looping back upon our path, Val's marks made matters clear. Short of running pell-mell down the halls, getting lucky at each turn in the maze, we were making fine time.
"I hear water once again, another puzzle, or perhaps the end?" the gynoid guessed.
"Looks like both," I observed, as we rounded the last corner and stepped out into the final chamber.
The floor of the chamber was a sheet of ice, or very nearly ice. The look was right, it was even as slippery as ice when I knelt to touch it, but the temperature was all wrong. It certainly wasn't warm inside the maze, but it wasn't anywhere near cold enough to keep anything frozen.
Dozens of blocks of ice seemed to grow up out of the sheet, blocking off the direct path to the far side, and forming a sort of mini-maze of its own. This chamber had another pillar waiting to accept the hint card, and I squinted at the maze, trying to figure out what it might do.
To either side of the puzzle were open drops, back down into the river. If I wasn't carefully navigating it, I could slip right off the side and into the water, with nothing to catch myself on.
And on the far side of the icy maze waited a pair of massive stone doors, set with three-
"Damn," I breathed, "We need that blue key-"
Like it or not, we'd seen most everything on this side of the red door. Which meant we'd need to backtrack all the way to the room with the swinging blades and spinning drum and take the other path. That would have been the 'ideal' path, had I not clobbered the minotaur, as it would have led the players through the back way to get at the red key. In fact, the green door was probably over on that side as well, since we hadn't yet run into it.
That drum was going to be a problem, and I didn't know how the hell I was going to make it across. I tried to recall how close together the two exit doors were for that room. Maybe I'd be able to jump across? If not-
"Solve this nonsense," the gynoid urged, interrupting my train of thought, "I will fetch the blue key."
And then she left at a dead run, taking both the green key and the hint card with her as she did.
I felt that flash of annoyance once again, but realized she'd made the right call. Odds were good that she had a more time-consuming task. Whatever the hint card did, it was essentially a time saver. As we were running at the speed of the slowest group it was only sensible she be the one to use it, whether that be on the room we'd seen or another puzzle that might be between her and the blue key.
I turned back to my task and trusted she would see to hers.
"I wonder if a fabric could be made of this material," Valentine pondered.
She was kneeling to inspect the material as I had, though her expression suggested a different set of potential applications than had occurred to me.
"One track mind," I muttered, busy inspecting the puzzle before me.
"Not one track," she protested, "Two, the second one is food. And, well, it's not as if I can eat this, now can I?"
"There is more to life," I remarked.
"Mmm, doubtful."
I swept my gaze across the field of icy blocks, a plan beginning to form in my mind, "At least you know what you want," I replied.
"Yes, now what about this distraction? Have you a way through?"
"Still working on it, but I think I've got a general idea," I assured her, "Hold on, I'm going to try something."
I stepped out onto the not-ice and pushed off the solid stone behind. I began to slide, relatively quickly, towards the row of blocks a few yards off. Try as I might, I couldn't get any lateral motion. Even when I hit the wall and came to a stop, trying to pull myself along the floor was fruitless. Nearly frictionless, I doubted that real ice was anywhere near this slippery. Only pushing off the icy block gave any purchase, and sent me sliding back over the Valentine.
"Alright," I decided, "I've seen this sort of puzzle before. I remember them being a pain in the ass as a kid, but it's actually somewhat simple."
Valentine furrowed her brows, a look of evident concern on her face, "You were faced with such travails as a child?"
I waved a hand, "It was a game, god damn ice gym leaders always had something like this. The point is, the maze we need to solve is not the maze before us."
She quirked an eyebrow, "Do elaborate."
"I mean, it looks easy, the whole thing is laid out in front of us, and that's the trick. It looks like a maze, but if you try to solve it like a normal maze, by tracing the path and trying to follow it, you'll just end up sliding all over the place. No, better to think of it as a series of linked points. The first point is right there," I pointed, "The one place you can reach by sliding across through the gap in the wall. From there, the next set of points are the only ones you can reach by pushing off one of those two walls, and so on, and so on. That keeps you on the right track, and out of the drink."
"Mmm, I think I see what you mean."
"Of course, the real trick is to solve it backwards, since we can see the end from here."
I outlined the path I'd come up with, and once Valentine agreed that it seemed to make sense with the rules I'd outlined, we put it into action. I lead the way, with her one position behind. That way at least she could backtrack if I accidentally put myself in an untenable position, or ended up sliding off the edge. But my reasoning was sound, and the two of us made it across safely.
Valentine was quick to try the red key, but while it turned in the lock, as expected, nothing happened while the others were absent.
"You know, they could have done us the favour of providing somewhere to sit," Valentine said, watching contemptuously as I took a seat on the flagstones with my back to the wall.
I yawned and stretched my arms, "It's a good thing this isn't too comfy, or else I think I'd fall asleep."
She placed a hand on my shoulder to steady herself, and sat across my lap, "Maybe you should have taken more of the tea."
"Not much of a tea drinker," I replied, "Never liked coffee either. Hot chocolate is pretty great, though."
Valentine's eyes grew wide and desirous, "Might such a beverage be created with the ingredients at the hotel?"
"I think I can figure something out," I promised.
Val put her arms around my neck and drew herself in close to kiss the corner of my neck, just below my ear.
"You must realize," she murmured, "It takes some of the fun out of trying to tempt you when you're just so agreeable. A wiser man would make the task seem much more arduous."
I set my jaw and tilted my head to look her in the eye, "I believe you already promised me a rather spectacular kiss."
Val bit her lip and grinned. She shifted in my lap to straddle my hips, instead of sitting across my legs. Tilting her head forwards, her hair fell to cover her face. She reached up to the neck of her flight suit and drew the zipper down to her navel, revealing a silken shift beneath. She filled the air with the aroma of her pheromones, and I felt myself relax as they did their work.
She slipped her hands underneath my shirt and ran them across my abdomen, "Awfully tense, aren't we?"
Even as I watched, beads of moisture began to form on her bare skin, and the already heady scent of her grew almost overpowering.
She ran her fingers through my hair, and with the other, cupped my cheek lightly. Stirring her hips slightly, she drew me in. Lips slightly parted, she pressed hers against mine, and damn, was she ever a tease. She'd draw back, just a little, as I tried to press closer. And each time she would pull away slightly less, slowly giving in, but making me work for it.
I'd slipped a hand in the front of her jumpsuit and under her shift. She never seemed so very small as she did now, with just one of my hands very nearly able to circle her waist. Even with all her enchantments and attitude, I was terrified of hurting her. With Will, I'd lost control for only a moment, and that had still been nearly enough to cripple the armoured man. But with Valentine, even an instant of anger-
She seemed not to care. With the length of her tiny body pressed against my chest, she didn't stop. I was drawn this way and that, as she'd pull back just a little, only to draw me in once again.
It was only once we heard the gynoid's rapid footsteps that we drew reluctantly apart. I helped Val to her feet, and she gave me a wicked grin as she zipped up the front of her flight suit.
Not a moment too soon, as the gynoid appeared at the edge of the icy maze, lantern still swaying too and fro from the jostling it had gotten on the way.
"I have them," she shouted and flung the keys in a high arc.
Green and blue thumped against the door, and they'd not even stopped clattering around on the ground before Valentine had scooped them up and driven them into place. The doors began to move apart, sliding into the walls at either side and as they did, I busied myself guiding the gynoid through the field of ice.
By the time she'd made it across, Val had already slipped through the growing gap and disappeared.
Valentine was not the first into the treasure hall, but judging from the state of things, we'd not been far behind.
The treasure hall ran the width of the building, with a high vaulted ceiling that was held up by pillars so thick I could not circle them with my arms. There were windows at either end of the hall, high in the wall, above the doors that led outside. It was dark beyond those windows, though there was just enough light from the streetlamps outside to show the swirling blizzard that was kept at bay by half an inch of glass.
Behind me stood the exit door to the maze, one of three set into the wall at my back. Ours was still clanking open, and while the centre pair of doors stood empty, those at the far end of the hall remained silent and shut.
Two shallow pools, fed by water flowing out from underneath the wall, stood between the three exit doors, and I was glad to see that Will was not laying face down in either of them. I still felt anger festering in my gut, but I didn't want to kill the man. I was somewhat concerned to see the trail of droplets and wet footprints that suggested someone had dragged themselves from the pool and gone out into the cold, but hopefully he was smart enough to get somewhere warm in a hurry.
Across from the maze exits were another trio of doors. The largest of which was directly across from us, with a gold number one scribed above, nearly a foot tall. And, unfortunately, they were already open, or nearly so.
It looked like something you'd expect to see on a hangar, with an opening nearly fifty feet wide. The doors hadn't quite finished clanking open, but Simon and his 'angels', as the gynoid had called them, were already picking through the treasures beyond. Jankin stood by the door, standing guard for all the good it did and muttered something at our approach.
Simon glanced up and spread his arms wide, "Hey, you guys made it."
"Anything interesting?" I asked grudgingly.
"Eh, kinda. I bet the intended players would be stoked to win all this," he shrugged.
Simon swept his hand to encompass the furniture, clothes, appliances, and general bric-a-brac piled behind him, "But I'm pretty sure the main ingredients in all this crap are asbestos, lead, and arsenic."
I pointed at the comb that the small and slim one was holding, "At least that comb won't poison anyone. Might explode though."
"What?" Simon demanded.
"Yeah, it looks like ivory, but I'm pretty sure that's celluloid. A whole lot of this junk is celluloid, actually," I realized.
"Celluloid as in film?"
"Celluloid as in the thing made with the same process that creates nitrocellulose. As in guncotton."
Simon switched to Elvish, "Cilla darling, please put that down," he urged, "Everyone, just, maybe don't touch anything."
"Was there any coin?" Valentine sighed.
"Actually, yes. There were several dozen coin purses full of shillings. They're the only thing I'm sure won't eventually be the death of me."
"Do you have any idea what sort of mana there is in arsenic?" Val inquired.
Simon nodded, "I do."
I rolled my eyes, "Feel like sharing?"
"No, not really."
"After I was so kind as to warn you about the celluloid? A great many Victorian and Edwardian women died or were disfigured when celluloid combs and hair clips ignited and set their hair and scalp aflame."
Simon was about to speak, but paused as tall and busty- I think that made her Victoria? -approached and whispered in his ear. Simon frowned, shrugged, and then nodded.
"Tell you what, I won't share what I know about arsenic, but I'll offer a trade. I'll hand over everything in here that's got enough lead in it to be useful, and in exchange, you give me everything in your prize vault that's got at least some arsenic."
I glanced at Val, "Fire, Mind, and Weaken," she provided.
"Deal."
Continued in comment

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