Let the Games Begin

Checking his phone, John realized that, though the meeting with The Magician was five or ten minutes to him, it was less than a minute in real life. That man is seriously impressive. I wonder if all the members of the Major Arcana are that strong?

“Hey, we should see what breakfast looks like,” Abigail said, appearing at John’s side, “join my teammate too.”

“You’re still hungry after what we had at the diner?” John asked, a little surprised. They had both had three eggs, numerous sausage links and bacon strips.

“I can always eat,” Abigail definitively stated, heading to the room with breakfast. Walking through the doorway revealed a bustling hall and several tables full of people chatting with each other.

So far, he had encountered plenty of applicants who were hostile right off the bat, so to see so many people talking to complete strangers in such a relaxed manner, well, the sense of camaraderie in the room was intoxicating. Amazing what a little good food could do.

Speaking of food, looking past the tables to the end of the room showed big buffet dishes lining the walls. Did The Magician really set this all up? What is this room normally?

Deciding to suspend his disbelief, he joined Abigail at the long table, who had already begun piling food on her plate. Not really hungry after the breakfast he had had, he merely took a glass and filled it up with orange juice out of a pitcher.

When they had finished, they looked along the tables for Grace, who was sitting alone and looking at her phone. Abigail went to join her, and John was going to follow but was distracted by a tap on his shoulder.

He looked back to see the teammate he had been assigned, “The Prodigy”. “You’re John Newman?” she asked, eyeing him up and down. In person, she looked slightly different than her photograph. Namely, he hadn't expected her to be short.

She wore a ranger hat with an emerald band running across the bottom, adorned by a silver badge of some sort. The hat covered black hair in a shoulder length cut with bangs. Her eyes still showed the crosshairs, and it was fascinating to watch them move. Her mouth and neck were covered by a flowing piece of cloth that hung down, almost like a cowboy’s serape. The only thing covering her torso was a forest green tank top, which was doing its best to hold in her breasts, one of which had a barcode tattooed on it. Her forearms to her hands were outfitted in some sort of high-tech gauntlets, with lights glowing close to the elbows.

A belt held her pants up, a small plush lizard figure dressed in mafia clothes and a key chained to one side, and a compartment built into the other that stored metallic capsules. A zipper interrupted her right pant-leg halfway down, and on it hung a small compartment. Her boots looked exactly like her gauntlets, the top glowing with a similar light. He used Advanced Spy on her, and the window popped up for a moment before closing itself, a different pop-up replacing it.

Lucille Palmer’s ‘Sharpshooter Eyes’ cancelled the effects of Advanced Spy!

“Don’t try to use any magic on me, please, especially before even replying to me. It’s a pet peeve of mine. I prefer to work alone, but am trying to be cooperative,” Lucille explained, offering her hand.

“Nice to meet you too?” John replied, shaking her hand, “I was going to go eat with some friends, you’re more than welcome to join us,” John offered, gesturing toward Abigail and Grace. Lucille looked to them for a moment and her expression was… unimpressed.

“If we must,” was her reply as she walked with him toward their table. They sat down, John next to Abigail and Lucille next to him, as far as possible from the other two.

“Hi! I’m Abigail, this is Grace, you’ve gotta be Lucille!” Abigail exclaimed, leaning over the table. “Nice to meet you! I look forward to seeing what you can do.”

“Working with me? You’re not my teammate. How do you expect to find us during the trial?” Lucille simply responded, not bothering to look at Abigail.

John took the opportunity to explain, “Grace is going to put magnet stickers on us. She’ll activate them when we get in, and it’ll slowly pull us together. They get negative polarity, we get positive.” The techno-elf didn’t seem into this plan at all, but not disheartened in the least by the elf’s cold demeanor, Abigail went on.

“Hey, how about we all say where we got our names from to get to know each other better? I’ll start!” Abigail said, putting her fork down. “I named myself ‘Cherufe’ because it’s been my nickname since I was a little girl. My Dad told me it’s a creature made of fire. Since I can turn into fire, it seemed fitting.” At the end of the fiery girl’s explanation, Grace slapped a sticker on Abigail’s forehead.

“That’s half right, the Cherufe are lava-people believed to possibly predate humanity on Earth who are thought to be responsible for the creation of volcanoes as they are today,” Lucille cut in, looking from the ceiling to Abigail. Realizing she was being excessively cold, Lucille continued, “But it’s an apt comparison to your moveset and the name of a powerful race of creatures.

“I named myself ‘The Prodigy’ because confidence is key to being selected for non-public bounties. I also plan to rise through the ranks quickly. If I really wanted to, I probably could have gotten into Class B, but it’s better to start low and work up,” Lucille explained, a little bit of the tension leaving her voice. Grace was going to slap a sticker on the quiet girl’s breast, but Lucille stopped her hand and put it on her arm instead.

“I called myself ‘The Joker’ because these guys have a cards theme going on, and I wanted to join in,” Grace explained, a Joker playing card appearing in her hand from her inside jacket pocket. “Going to be pretty easy to leave calling cards, just buy a bunch of decks of the same brand.” Her part finished, the brit put her magnet sticker on her hip.

“What are you going to do with the other fifty-two cards?” John asked, confused as to why she wouldn’t just buy a bunch of Jokers. Surely that was possible.

“I don’t know, open a casino or something. What are you, the constable?” Grace joked, slipping the card back into her pocket. “No, that’s right, you’re ‘The Gamer’. The least stylish name here.”

“Well,” John began, about to give the real explanation for his codename, but upon seeing Lucille’s interested look, he decided not to, “I like video games, they’re all I did with my life before getting my powers.” Unimpressed by John’s codename and wanting to show it through her sticker application, Grace slapped the sticker onto his cheek. John moved it to his arm, under the duster.

“I’ve got to agree with Grace here, John, we’ve all got pretty cool names, but yours is… the weird one,” Abigail joked, poking him in the ribs. Though she had been cold to Grace and Abigail up until this point, Lucille joined in.

“They’re right, nobody would pick ‘The Gamer’ over ‘The Prodigy’ or ‘Cherufe’, even if your reputation is a little better,” Lucille said, a slight smile appearing on her face, though none of them could see it.

“So, our plan is to have the four of us work together to help accomplish one thing from each of our lists. We’ve taken a look, and we only have one shared task,” John explained, taking out the slip of paper that had their tasks on it as Abigail did the same. John’s read as such.

Complete one of the five tasks listed below with evidence, survive a night, and travel to the beacon of light.
Slay a minotaur
Protect the three dwarves on their way to the mines
Make peace between the merfolk and the sirens
Prevent the group of savage vampires from destroying the Meul village (can be completed by up to 4 pairs)
Eliminate another pair of applicants

Out of all of them, John thought that slaying a minotaur (if they could find one) would be the most straightforward. The other four had context which he didn’t know. What would attack the dwarves? Did the merfolk and sirens even speak English? How many savage vampires were there, and how strong were they? Would they even run into another pair of applicants weaker than them? Abigail’s list had different objectives, but similar themes. Hers read as such.

Complete one of the five tasks listed below with evidence, survive a night, and travel to the beacon of light.
Slay a thunderbird
Protect the caravan as it makes its way from an entry point to an exit point (can be completed by up to 5 pairs)
Befriend the Dargon
Clear the main highway of Midnight Snakes
Eliminate another pair of applicants

“So, worse comes to worst, we just take their ID cards and win anyway?” Lucille whispered to John as everyone finished reading the tasks.

“No!” John whispered back, slipping the paper back into his inventory. “We’re going to look out for each other’s objectives, and work together to make sure all four of us pass,” John explained to Lucille, who looked unenthusiastic at this plan.

“Fine, just make sure none of you are dead weight,” Lucille snapped, getting up from her seat.

“Man, she’s a wazzock. Dishy though, I won’t mind watching her work,” Grace commented as she watched Lucille walk away.

Lucille returned empty-handed, though none but John took note. As she pulled her chair to sit back down, The Magician’s voice rang through the hall, “All the meetings are over! You may now march to the main hall and walk through mirror A1, the only currently operating mirror there. I’ll meet you all on the other side.”

As soon as he finished talking, everybody got up, though some looked unsure as to what to do with their dirty dishes. “You can leave your plates, it will all be cleaned after you,” The Magician added, though John didn’t see him, and didn’t know if or how he saw them.

Following the signs posted and the crowd, the group quickly made it to the central hall. The back wall of which was covered in mirrors. The center mirror was the largest, and took up the height of the room. Beside it, there were stairs to the left and right which led to raised platforms and the second row of mirrors. Luckily, theirs was on the first floor, to the left of the central mirror.

After walking through, John noticed they were in what looked to be a fully functional Rider-Waite base. All the mirrors behind them glowed, but aside from his fellow applicants and The Magician, the room was empty.

“Alright, we’re in the testing Kingdom now. I’m warning you all right now, you have the capacity to get seriously injured here. The safety net has been removed, and in **** cases, **** may occur during this test. I’m going to do my best to monitor you all and avoid it, but know that it is a possibility. You may return through the mirror we came through now if you wish, this is your final chance to turn back. After this, it’s pass or fail - you must survive a day here. I’d seriously advise those of you at the bottom of this Class to turn back. I may have mentioned it during our meeting. You know who you are,” The Magician announced, and a few dozen people slowly but silently made their way through the crowd back into the mirrors from whence they came.

“I’m not supposed to do this, I’m just supposed to let people whose partners have left take the test solo, but I’m going to be nice here. If your partner left, you may partner up with someone else whose partner left,” The Magician explained, and quickly added, “but don’t tell anyone I allowed you to do this. Solo testers were supposed to ‘simulate the unpredictability of working with fellow members for the first time’, but if someone flakes on you when you accept an official bounty with them, they’ll be severely punished. Just doesn’t make sense. There an even number? Alright, great. I will now teleport you all to random spots in the testing area.” With that, a runic circle appeared under each person, just big enough for them. Each pair had the same circle, so they would be teleported to the same place. In an instant, the building was gone, and John and Lucille were in the middle of a large, dense forest with mighty trees around them.