The carrot crunched loudly with rigid fibers cracking under the mighty force of large molar teeth clamping down. Soft lips finalized the action upon locking together shutting the savage jaws and entrapping the carrot to its fatal fate. A lonely piece of carrot segregated from its greater portion had leapt free from the terrifying maw dropping to the floor and splashing in a pool of red that covered the floor.

“Seriously! You’re contaminating the scene.” A disgruntled voice emanated from a shorter man approaching the scene. He shook his head in obvious disappointment at his larger companion’s egregious behavior.

The larger man gave his approaching companion a wry smile as he answered. “No need to be so uptight, I doubt someone is going to walk over here and say, ‘oh look there’s a piece of carrot in this man’s eye, that must have been the murder weapon!’”

Two men stood before the lifeless corpse of a well-dressed butler laying cold on the large table stood center of a dark dining hall; a silver platter of teacups and biscuits had spilled over the side of the table and onto the floor. The larger of the two men stood tall; he took in the scene from a bird’s eye view as he continuously chewed the carrot resting in his mouth. The shorter, and thinner man crouched closer to the body investigating the large concave wound pierced through the butler’s eye. The wound contained within it a small piece of carrot. The thin man carefully picked the bloody chunk of vegetable in disgust and threw it away. “What about respecting the dead or just general professionalism? And why a carrot?”

“It’s supposed to be good for my eyes.” The large man replied matter-of-factly despite the matter at hand seemingly rejecting such things.

The thinner man looked up from the corpse to the sight before him. A large chandelier was splayed in dozens of pieces over the table and floor. He could feel the aimless glaze of his companion hovering over his shoulder as he spoke. “I’d appreciate it if you actually helped rather than just sharing your dietary practices.”

The large man gave a dismissive glance before pulling out another carrot and harshly biting down. “Seems pretty simple to me, the criminal stabbed the butler with some kind of arcane weapon.”

“Why arcane?”

“There’s some residual essence left in his eye, so whatever was used to kill him must of at least had some kind of enchantment if not a completely magical weapon.”

The thin man pulled out a small square lens from his pocket and placed it in front of his right eye. A dance of wispy strings and sparkling particles orbited around the ocular crevice of the corpse. In the corner of his vision the thin man saw more wispy strings; his eyes followed along the winding path which lead to a beautifully ornate lamp shade. He questioned out to his partner, curiosity coloring his voice “This lamp isn’t oil?”

“No way, everything in this place is magic. Guess the noble fancies himself a mage.” The large man chortled to his own comment before continuing. “He can think whatever he wants if he has the money to back it I guess. If he keeps placing bounties the size of this one, then at least I’ll call him whatever he wants.”

The thin man scanned around the room with his rectangular lens, each lamp placed around the walls were brimming with the dancing strings. The center of the room was darkened without the chandelier’s glow. Other than the eye socket, the area was completely devoid of the wispy strings, not even the broken chandelier showed any remnants of its light source.

The thin man returned to the deceased and continued his inspection; the butler’s uniform was battered but unscathed, brunt trauma indented the back of his head, the silver platter was strewn quite far from the body in the direction of the entrance. The thin man broke the long-standing silence as he pocketed his lens. “Is the bounty large?”

The large man gnawing away at another carrot while investigating the shattered glass of the chandelier suddenly turned in surprise. “You don’t know the bounty!”

The thin man did not respond as he continued his investigation. The large man then muttered under his breath. “Psychopath.”

The thin man quickly stood up and spoke catching his companion off guard. “Shall we make our way to the kitchen?”

The large man raised an eyebrow in confused disbelief. “I at least had the decency to bring my own carrots.”

The thin man shot a piercing glare to his conversation partner. “No, to investigate. The butler must have come from the kitchen if he had a platter of food.”

His partner merely nodded in agreement and they began their slow trod through the mansion. The two carefully eyed every nook and surrounding for clues as they made their way over, but no discrepancies made themselves known until they arrived.

The kitchen was a disheveled mess with vegetables scattered all over the tables and shelves, a half-eaten fruit even laid on the floor nestled in a corner of the room. A small circular dining table was placed in another corner of the room, supposedly it would be where the servants would have their meals. The room to the storage was left slightly ajar where the mild odor of nearly rotten meat wafted from.

The thin man gasped aloud in shock of the dire state of the room. “This place is a mess! You’d almost think the murder happened here.”

“The noble’s family has gotten into this weird fad of not eating any meat. I couldn’t imagine giving up meat, but I guess its healthier or something. That’s why I chose to up my green intake, the nobles must know what they’re talking about right? I Feel bad for the servants though, I heard that they also got to share in the diet since meat isn’t even allowed in the building.”

As soon as he finished his sentence the two quickly turned over to the storage door where that rotting scent continued to emanate. The two shared a worried glance before making their way over to the storage. When they swung the door completely open, they were greeted with a massive closet filled with crates adorned with simple vegetable drawings.

“Guess we better start searching.”

The two each went to a crate and removed the lids.

“Empty.”

“Same.”

The two shared quizzical glances before quickly removing all the lids from every crate. Empty container after empty container it seemed that the entire storage had been ransacked until suddenly an explosion of putrid decay. The body of a young woman was stuffed into one of the crates along with her apron and tall white hat. Her lips were shriveled, and throat was a deep purple as well as terribly contracted. The large man leaned closely and rubbed his thumb against her lips, a very faint glaze covered his thumb.

The large man brought his thumb to his nose and gave the substance a cautious smell before speaking. “Looks, like she was poisoned.”

The thin man looked to his companion with disapproving confusion. When his companion noticed he gave him a light shrug. “What? Now we know how she died.”

The thin man looked over to his partner’s thumb in disgust. He quickly wiped the event from his memory as he continued with the investigation. “We should try and find what poisoned her.”

“It was probably consumable, whatever was used is probably in her stomach right now.”

“The poison is clearly extremely potent; she might not have been able to completely consume whatever it was before becoming paralyzed.”

The two stood next to each other beside the contorted and disfigured body folded in the crate while they pondered on the vessel used to deliver the poison.

“I think I saw some half-eaten food in the kitchen.”

The two left the storage searching for this food item in the kitchen. The large man quickly relocated a half-eaten fruit and picked it up. He placed his thumb still containing the poisonous glaze next to the fruit and compared the substances coating it to his thumb.

“Well we found the murder weapon, think the killer used this fruit to stab that other guy’s eye out?”

The large man broke into laughter at his sarcastic speculation. The thin man was uninterested in his partner’s ill-mannered jokes and snatched the fruit from his hand to inspect it himself. The fruit had a strange shape and texture, it wasn’t very familiar to the usual fruits that he was familiar with seeing grown in Aegis.

“Isn’t this fruit a delicacy from the sodality of rain?”

The large man merely shrugged while looking at the plethora of vegetables covering the cookery. “I don’t know.”

“It is.”

“Well if it is then at least that narrows down the potential people who have access to it. And by extension the potential suspects.”

The two made their way out of the kitchen satisfied with what they had uncovered from the room. Before leaving completely the thin man took out his small square lens and scanned the room, the place was completely devoid of magic except for whatever residual wispy strings were left from the few turned off lamps. The two made their way over to the local market in search of suppliers of exotic goods that originate from the sodality of rain.

The market was filled with traders, sellers, and buyers. The transactions of money and commodity filled the streets with life and energy. The two found a stall offering a variety of unique items and approached the vendor.

Before they could even open their mouths the vendor quickly spatted out. “I don’t sell to hunters.”

“We just have quest-“

“I don’t care what you want. Your kind aren’t wanted here.”

The two unsure of how to respond simply walked away from the agitated vendor. The thin man spoke with tired dejection. “We should put away our badges, shouldn’t we?”

“Yep.”

The two unpinned small circular badges depicting a large ‘H’ from their chest and pocketed them away. They arrived at a second vendor who seemed much more amicable to meeting them. The vendor greeted the two with a welcomingly brimming smile. “How may I help you two strapping young adventurers today?”

The large man covered his hand over the hilt of his sword and pushed it towards his back as he moved closer to the vendor. “The jewelry you are selling is beautiful, I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

The vendor’s face beamed at the compliment. “Oh yes, this style of jewelry was once a prideful craft from the smiling skies.”

The large man finally noted the vendor’s age and winced upon realizing she was definitely old enough to remember. “Oh, I’m very sorry- “

The vendor gave her client a dismissive wave and a gentle smile. “No, no, don’t be. I’m very proud of our history and the smiling skies legacy continues to live on in this craft.”

“Well it is very impressive, Commix is such a fascinating town to have such a rich mixture of cultures. I just came from a vendor who sold fruits from the sodality of rain.”

“Oh, you must mean Villein, His fruit is to die for!”

The thin man burst into a fit of coughing and laughing. The vendor looked worried at the man. She reached an arm out towards him as she asked worried. “Is everything alright sir?”

The thin man quickly recollected himself. “I’m, I’m fine. Just had something stuck in my throat.”

The larger man looked to his coughing ally with a large grin coloring his face. He continued his interrogation of the vendor. “His fruits are truly delicious; he must make a killing off it. You know Wan, you should get this necklace for your wife.”

The thin man looked with bewilderment to his companion. “My wife?”

The large man looked over to Wan with an even larger and cheekier smile than before. “Yes, I’m sure your wife would love it.”

Wan’s expression quickly turned to sour discontent as he pulled out a few silver coins from a locked pouch on his belt. The large man cheerfully chimed in. “Sorry for my friend is in a sour mood, he’s dead tired you see.”

The large man couldn’t help but chuckle to himself a little. “You know what, I would like to thank Villein for informing us about your stall, but I can’t quite remember where he was set up.”

The vendor gave a gasp and her forehead twisted with a mixture of confusion and suspicion. “Oh, I didn’t realize Villein was the one who mentioned me, I should thank him as well later. You can find him down that way.”

“Thank you very much.”

With a wave goodbye and Wan carrying a gaudy necklace for no one, the two set off in the direction that the vendor pointed. The two arrived at the place that the vendor had directed them to. A small door opened inviting the two in. When the two walked into the store they were greeted with a collection of strange and succulent fruits that teased the eyes, the store also contained many other strange and foreign things that the two unfamiliar with the sodality of rain couldn’t identify.

Wan noticed some movement in the corner of the store behind a shelf. He walked over to see what that strange orange blur was. When he turned around the corner, he saw a carrot; the carrot held on to a small duster and swiped at the floor pushing any dandruff or dirt to the edge of the room. The small carrot was minding its own business trying to ignore the customer as it continued its work, but it got progressively more difficult to ignore the man as he inched closer and closer. His face had reached inches from the carrot which nervously turned to face the man.

“I see you’ve taken an interest to one of my toadies.”

Wan turned to face a tall muscular man dressed in a foreign blue garb. The man had a muscular build and tall frame, his tanned skin echoed the hard labor he must work every day to grow his plants. His hands were large and calloused, his eyes stared down to the strange man lying on the floor who had been glaring at a carrot. Wan’s face contorted in confusion as he spoke. “What is this creature?”

“It is a toady of my magical creation; I use them to help me around the shop and fields whenever I need a helping hand.”

Wan’s companion had joined the two in their corner of the room, or would it be three of them with the carrot there?

“I’ve never seen a wizard merchant before. I had heard that wizards had to dedicate their entire life to research and practice without ever a single respite until their dying breath.”

The merchant seemed flattered by the large man’s statement and his cheeks could not hide a slight reddening. “Well I suppose some wizards just have more talent than others so they can spend more time on other hobbies.”

The large man was taken aback by the merchant’s strange response but Wan had ignored their conversation completely while he focused on the carrot intently. Wan’s companion tried to ignore him and continued on speaking with the store’s patron. “I see you also have a hobby in art… your drawing is quite… unique.”

The merchant seemed slightly confused at first but turned to hearty laughter upon following the man’s gaze to the drawing he was referring to. “My daughter drew that, back in the sodality of rain before I was a successful merchant, I had saved up coin for many months to buy her a sheet of papyrus that she could draw on with coal. She ended up drawing that image, it’s supposed to be a portrait of her with me and my wife. She was no August Chichi, but that she had chosen to waste that entire canvas I saved for so long to draw her family is the greatest blessing a father could have asked for.”

“This carrot.” Wan butted into the father’s nostalgic yearnings while never removing his gaze from the carrot who was nearly shaking on the spot in fear and nervousness of the man before it. “What could it do, could it, could it kill a man?”

The carrot became very confused and disturbed by the man before it and slowly stepped away from the stranger before turning and running away. The store clerk burst into a fit of laughter. “Could a carrot kill a person!? I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t laugh at my customers, but you must be joking me, It’s a carrot!”

Wan’s companion similarly found himself estranged from his companion and his vegetative conspiracies. Although unsure of what Wan’s plan was, he continued to pry even if he knew not what for. “Apologies for my friend, he is inexperienced with magic and so I’m sure seeing an animated creature must be driving his imagination wild without any concern for physical limits. The reason we came here is because one of our friends shared your fruit with us and it was so delicious, I had to come. In all honesty the taste is incredibly unique you must be known even to the lord of the land.”

“Well I’m sure you know that the lord is incredibly fond of magic and so he has taken quite a liking to me; so much so that he made me his main supplier of vegetable harvest. He even invited me to dinner once to ask me all about magic.”

Wan and his companion gave each-other worried glances before the large man continued his questioning. “I can understand the lord, your magic is truly impressive, with such a relationship with the lord surely you must have come acquainted with the staff.”

The merchant grew a snide grin as he puffed up his chest and leaned in closer to the group. “Well I’ve actually gotten into a relationship with the chef of the house. And let me tell you that there is no better woman than a chef, she even stayed at my house last night and I can tell you cooking is not the only thing she is great at.”

“I thought you said you were married?”

The merchant grew solemn and his shoulder slunk. “I will never forget my first wife and beautiful daughter, but sadly I lost them long ago to a terrible necromancer and his terrible sycophant of stone. It drives me mad that the vile creature of rock still roams the sodality of rain and terrorizes its citizens to this day.”

“I’m so sorry for bringing up bad memories.”

The merchant shook his head and raised his arms passively. “No, no worries. This all happened a long time ago and although I will always remember those two and their contribution to my life and who I am, I have learned to move on and can now go home to another wonderful lady and live another happy life.”

Wan stood from his lying position and dusted his clothes off. He mentally checked in his mind that carrots make terrible cleaning staff. There were other thoughts that circled his mind and bothered him even more than just shoddy work. “Is your chef friend still at your house now?”

“Well of course, she was let off work yesterday and has spent these entire two days with me.”

Wan turned to look at his companion to see if he had also caught on but it seemed his companion was too busy driving the pommel of his sword into the skull of the merchant who immediately folded to the floor unconscious.

The large man sheathed his sword and simply gave Wan a shrug. The two were about to pick up the body when suddenly a searing pain shot Wan’s leg. An enraged carrot with unfathomable strength had shallowly wedged itself into him. Wan quickly sliced the carrot with his sword and pulled out the piece remaining within him. When Wan pulled his head from his injury and up ahead of him he saw an army of little sentient vegetable, a small collection of which held on to a large glowing rock whose bright yellow hue lit up the entire room in a comfortable glow.

The rock kept shining brighter and brighter, Wan’s companion could hardly ask out “Arcane heart?” before he was interrupted by the chime of a bell. A sudden flash erupted from the rock and hurled an incredible force that shot the two back with such ferocity they smashed through the wall and out onto the city streets.

When the large man recovered his vision from the brilliant light, the merchant and his evil vegetables were gone and in its place was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus that grew out of thin air, 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 shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards the large man holding a glowing parchment: It read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Hunter