He walked in grandiose steps trying to match the golden footprints that were strewn about on the pavement. The man who had left those prints behind was a much taller man than he, so he had to launch with a bound to catch each proceeding footprint. As he jumped from footstep to footstep the large strangely shaped case on his back bounced uncomfortably with him; the object inside the case was well cushioned and so he was not concerned of it rattling or breaking though he probably should be more careful with the delicate equipment than he was. The man with the case found his steps fall silent at the end of the golden trail which had led him to the town center, a large ornate fountain displayed a beautiful show of cascading liquid gold.

He rummaged through his pockets in search of some loose coin and pulled out a single copper piece. He quickly span a circle on his heel and with a snap of his thumb flicked the coin into the fountain. He clapped his hands twice and then stretched his arms out to either side, palm facing the star. He shouted at the top of his lungs with every ounce of strength he could possibly muster. “I wish for wealth!”

His verbose actions drew the attention of many passing people, but he ignored their judging gazes. He closed his eyes and waited for some kind of gift to befall on him. Perhaps a unicorn’s horn would rain from the sky, supposedly those could bring back life but also supposedly and more importantly they were worth a pretty penny; what use would there be in returning what was already lost, didn’t it choose to be lost anyway. The horn did not rain down though.

If he couldn’t have his wish for great wealth granted, perhaps he could at least have his wish for a pork skewer granted. The town center was thankfully littered with many stalls and shops one of which conveniently had his desired treat. The quality of this shop was guaranteed by the golden footsteps that led to it, and the shops single golden post. He couldn’t help but salivate a little with the delicious odor of the pork skewer wafting over. The skewer was practically criminal being so succulent and soft all for the unbearably reasonable price of a single copper coin. He shoved his hand into his pocket rummaging for some coin.

…oh, that right, he tossed it.

He found himself in front of two massive wooden doors the size of which he found was simply preposterous. The golden footsteps invited him into this building as well. He hesitated again and shoved his hand into his pocket but upon grasping nothing he entered the building. The golden door handle was cold to the touch, but it wasn’t as cold as the inside of the building itself. The building was rather empty today with the only other person being a bored woman slouched behind a counter on the far end of the room. The massive arena was empty except for a bulletin board that was placed on the western wall and that counter that sectioned off the next room.

The click of the entrance door shutting drew the attention of the bored woman who looked up to see the disturbance. When she saw him, she dismissively returned to resting her head on the counter. He made the long walk over to the counter. Each of his steps echoed loudly through the chilling room until he finally arrived to the woman. “Do you ha-“

“Check the bulletin.” The woman quickly interrupted him without even averting her gaze from the dirty floor.

He let out an exasperated sigh and asked her again with a slight bit of pleading added to his voice. “Can’t you just tell me?”

Her eyes glazed over to see his familiar face; annoyance contorted her smooth visage as she responded. “Do you have a guild badge?”

“You know I only do freelance.”

“I’m sorry sir, I’m only following procedure.” Her expression was blank as she repeated her memorized script like a machine. He found himself in disbelief, his shoulders slumped down as the extent of this tiring dance of words was unfolding before him. “Come on Inamorata, please. Just give me an assignment and I’ll get out of your way.”

Inamorata didn’t respond to him, she continued to stab into him with those heavy judging eyes. She eventually relented and began writing something onto a piece of paper.

The man’s eyes’ lit up as the hungrily followed to sway of Inamorata’s pen. “Thank you Inamorata, really.”

Inamorata then pulled out another piece of parchment from under the desk and handed him both pieces of paper. “Get out.”

He wanted to reply, he wanted to apologize or say something, but he could not bring himself to any words. It seemed that she wasn’t going to spare him any more time anyway, so he just grabbed the papers and left the guild hall. He read the paper held in his hands. It was a solo assignment obviously; he probably wouldn’t be given another group assignment for a long time, if ever again. The assignment was a request for mokoi subjugation. He could not recognize the creature type but if this assignment was like any of the others from recent history then it would probably be a dangerous and annoying creature that no other adventurers dared tackle. His assignments were always those unwanted and lost to time, the assignments that had been fully relinquished in the minds of its creators to never be completed. This often meant they were assignments that wouldn’t pay so well; after all, if they paid well someone would have completed the assignment by now. But the assignment only needed to pay a single copper and it would all be worth it for that deliciously succulent pork skewer.

He followed the directions on one of the papers he received which led him out of town, across the forest, up a jagged mountain, through a mucky quagmire, under a hollowed knoll, finally bringing him to the beach that faced the edge of the world. A massive sand front littered with the countless beached corpses of fish; far out in the distance one could see the heavy rushing waves of the ocean. For today’s quest he was not required to visit the actual ocean; thank goodness, he could never stand the wretched stench of those thousands of decomposing corpses littering the beach. The stench was the least of it, the true tapping was how despite being an open beach it was near impossible to navigate; someone could see exactly where they wanted to go and still not manage to make their way there.

No, his quest today led him to a small cave at the intersection of the forest and beach. Smooth round stone spiraled into a mountain side. The dark and damp maw amplified and echoed the low breathing hum of a large mokoi hiding within.

The man with the case grimaced at the state of the cave, bones and flesh covered its entrance and the stench exuding was atrocious. The man cupped his hands to the side of his mouth and shouted into the cave. “Hey… um, I’m a freelance adventurer. I’ve been given a request to kill you, but I’d really rather not enter your home at the moment. So, could you come out instead?”

There was a brief lapse of silence before a deep and powerful voice boomed out of the cave. “Oh wow, I didn’t really think about it much since I almost never get any guest, but this place is quite the mess.”

“No worries man.”

The apologetic voice of the mokoi was accented with the clanging and shuffling of many objects within the cave “No, no give me a second I’ll clean this place up.”

The man was beginning to feel a little guilty at this point, he did not mean to force the mokoi to reorganize its entire house. “You don’t have to go so out of your way, especially since I’m just going to kill you it would be a waste. You can just come out.”

“Nonsense, what sort of host would I be if I didn’t even let my guest into the house. It won’t take very long.”

The man shrugged relenting, if the mokoi insisted then who was he, as its killer, to deny it. “Alright, sorry for the inconvenience.”

The mokoi gave out a small chuckle with combined with its deep voice and the echo of the cave came out as more of a maniacal growl. “It’s not an inconvenience at all, my spring cleaning has been a long time coming. Just wait out there for a moment while I get this done.”

“Okay.” The man with the case on his back found a large rock protruding out of the grass and sat himself down onto it, he stared out across the beach to the horizon watching dusk settle. The star that once lit the day was slowly dissipating over the horizon causing a deep purple to blanket the world and forming large heavy shadows that loomed from the thousands of carcasses littering the beach.

The man took the case off his back and placed the strangely shaped container on his lap. He unbuckled two large latches that kept the piece closed and opened it. A beautiful wooden device shaped like a curved hourglass with a long handle and a small thin piece of wood with a string connecting either of its ends together. The man took the hourglass shaped device and placed the furthest point of the device from the handle next to his shoulder and held it in place with his chin. With his other hand he grabbed the stick and string, he played with a small nob at the sticks end to adjust the tightness of the string to his liking. The wooden hourglass shaped device had many strings pulled across the length of it all the way up to the end of its handle. The man placed one hand on the devices handle and placed the stick and string which was held in his other hand across the strings of the hourglass device. With slow and precise movements, he dragged the stick and string across the chords of the device and played methodical sounds. He played music while he waited for the creature to clear its home for his arrival.

Dusk concluded while night arrived and finally another sound echoed from within the cave. “Sorry about that, it took a little longer than I expected but you can come in now.”

The man repacked his device into his case and threw it over his shoulder and onto his back. He entered the cave and found that the vile odor and blood stains were no longer there. There seemed to be more light and the echo a little sharper, a little clearer.

The cave slowly descended downwards until ending with a small wooden door. The door slowly creaked open as he approached it revealing within a small cozy abode warmly lit with lavender scented candles. The home was well maintained with soft clean carpets and tidied leather furniture. A bookshelf in the corner was filled with sci-fi romance books. A modest kitchenette contained a basic wooden stove that prepared a hot pot of tea. Next to the door entrance was a large hulking beast with a twisted spine and patchy bristled fur. The beast had a long upwards pointing snout with two large beady eyes stacked vertically on the left side of its face. The beast opened its magnificent maw revealing an uncountable plethora of razor-sharp teeth and it spoke. “Come in, come in, make yourself at home. The tea should be ready soon.”

“your house is truly lovely” The man replied admiring the care and attention taken to its upkeep. Upon closer inspection he noticed that many of the wooden planks forming the hut had intricately detailed pictorial carvings within them.

Seeing its guest in such awe at its home filled the mokoi with pride and it puffed its chest out an chippered out in an elated tune “It is always important to love your own home.”

The man ran his fingers across a particular set of pictorial carvings that depicted New heirisson conquest from the mokoi’s perspective; a terrifying villain leading a group of barbaric hellions cleverly infiltrating undetected through some hidden mokoi tunnels that should have been unknown to the humans making their way into the hind ranks and slaughtering the leaders of the bout. It was endlessly fascinating to see how the history was written from the other side. More fascinating was with the quality of which the carvings were made. “Did you carve all of these drawings on the wood yourself?”

“I have a lot of free time as you could imagine, It has become a sort of hobby of mine.” A sharp whistle came from the kitchenette and the behemoth creature suddenly jolted upright. “Oh dear the tea! I’ll be right back.”

With surprising speed for a creature of its size the beast sprinted to the kitchenette. The man meanwhile made his way to a large cushiony leather couch, he placed his case down next to it and sat down allowing his body to sink into the couch’s deep comfort. On the coffee table a mere few feet from the couch there was a small framed drawing depicting the beast next to a beautiful woman with long flowing blonde hair, one could almost mistake this woman for a human if it were not for her long scaled pink tail that ended in a sharp barbed spike. “Did you draw this image as well?”

“The one on the coffee table?”

“Yes, of you and a woman.”

“No, I did not draw that. It was drawn by a splendid mokoi artist back at home. I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Arete and I just had to have him preserve the moment with a drawing. This was of course before her betrayal joining the mokoi surrogate revolutionary army. I still keep the piece out though, perhaps my bias is colored by our wonderful encounter, but I feel like perhaps there was a reason to her decision. Oh, look at me talking politics, mokoi politics at that to a human. Let’s change the subject shall we.” The beast returned next to the man handing him a tray with tea and strange biscuits. The beast sat down on a chair across from the man and took a sip from their own cup.

The man having realized that he was quite famished from his long trek graciously accepted. “Thank you for the tea.”

The beast gave a brimming smile. “I try to be a good host. My training as a proper noble are not lost in the solitude of the human territories.”

The man, with a little bit of initial hesitation, took a bite of the strange purple biscuit. As soon as he bit down, he was caught with great surprise at its wonderfully soft and fluffy texture and powerfully sweet taste. “These cookies are delicious! What are they?”

“An old mokoi recipe. These thew wafers were always my favorite as a child.”

“I can see why, these are great!”

The night continued on and the two drank tea, shared stories, and joked around. At some point in the night the tea was changed to alcohol and then they really shared stories, really joked around, and even played some games, some human games but even some mokoi games as well. The party of two went on long and hard but the momentum was dying and the alcohol dried. The great mokoi beast was laying sprawled across the couch and stared at the framed image on the coffee table when it spoke. “When I was cleaning the home, I heard you playing some lovely music. Could you play some for me?”

“Of course, friend.” The man received his fiddle from the case and began to play a light and sweet song, the music was beautiful and soft to the ears. The mighty mokoi listened with great glee to the music, for an hour it just laid in silence allowing the piece to flow into its thin round ears. After the hour though it found itself lulling to sleep. The man continued to play until he had fully confirmed the beast was unconscious. He packed his device and closed the case; he unsheathed his dagger and drove its sharp blade across the mokoi’s neck.

The man then had to spend the next few hours properly dismantling the mokoi to fully extract all usable components and placed them in a sack, of course this included the mokoi’s head as confirmation of the subjugation. He grabbed one of the candles and placed it down on the carpet. The man walked over the exit of the room and watched the candle until it finally passed its flame to the carpet. The man then turned and returned to town.

By the time he had arrived at the guild hall it had become day and thankfully Inamorata was no longer on shift. He handed his monster contract and parts to the clerk and in exchange received his pay. There was no time to spare now, he quickly made his way over to the shop so he could finally taste that delicious pork skewer.

“Sorry sir, we’re all sold out of that.”

The man found himself at the center of town, each of his feet planted on large golden footprints. He stared at a shining copper coin at the bottom of the fountain. He rustled though his pocket in search of a copper coin but before he could find it the water in the fountain suddenly rippled away as the sound of a bell chimed. Right in front of the man there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other forms. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards the man holding a glowing parchment: it read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Song