Above the mortal realm at the top of an infinitely tall mountain there was a great cloud that held afloat a village that housed all the animals of the world.

Monkey was the most playful of all the animals. All the other animals in the village had their own rules and their own beliefs and they continuously worked on maintaining their rigorous vocations. Monkey was different, monkey just wanted to play but none of the other animals would join him.

While wandering through the village Monkey found Ostrich idly sitting in a corner with nothing to do. Surely Ostrich would rather play than mope in a corner. Monkey ran over to Ostrich and happily called out. “What about you Ostrich, would you like to play with me?”

“I am far too busy to be playing with you Monkey, I must tend to my eggs so that the future generations of the village may prosper.” Ostrich did not even give monkey a second thought. She sat over her eggs trying to keep them warm and comfortable.

Monkey felt dejected by Ostrich and so spat back out. “Fine, fine, that is fine! I will just find someone else to play with!” Monkey stormed off angrily and went to look for someone else to play with.

While marching through the town Monkey came across Pig who was simply staring at a bunch of troughs laid before him. Monkey had no need for Ostrich when he could play with Pig, so he ran over to Pig and called out. “What about you Pig, would you like to play with me?”

“I am far too busy to be playing with you Monkey, I must manage all of the food supplies so that the village may be properly fed.” Pig paid the bare minimum attention to Monkey while he calculated how long each trough of food would last.

Monkey felt dejected by Pig and so spat back out. “Fine, fine, that is fine! I will just find someone else to play with!” Monkey stormed off angrily and went to look for someone else to play with.

Monkey could not understand why no one ever wanted to play with him. He could not understand why they felt that any of these other things were so much more important than Monkey was.

While stewing in his own mind Monkey came across Tiger who was playing with a ball. Monkey had no need for Ostrich nor for Pig, he could play with Tiger and best of all Tiger was not doing anything important he was already playing! Monkey ran over to Tiger and called out. “What about you Tiger, would you like to play with me?”

“No.” Tiger did not even waste time speaking with Monkey. Tiger had always considered himself better than the rest of the animals, even though he wasn’t doing anything important he still wouldn’t play with Monkey. Well that just would not be acceptable. If Monkey could do one thing it was to teach the other animals how to have fun. Monkey jumped over to Tiger and stole his ball.

“Come on Tiger, why do you get to play all by yourself. Let’s play ball together.” Monkey quickly ran away from the infuriated Tiger and teased him with the ball.

Tiger yelled out in a rage. “I was not playing Monkey! Now give it back, that’s a special ball!” Tiger growled as ferociously as possible terrifying poor little Monkey. Monkey jumped he was so scared by the roar.

As Monkey jolted in fear, he let go of the ball which fell straight through the cloud at his feet and rolled all the way down into the mortal realm. “Oops.”

“MONKEY!” Tiger in an unimaginable frenzy jumped onto Monkey pinning him down and bared his bloody fangs. “Monkey you WILL go down to the mortal realm and you WILL get my ball back! For if you don’t I will personally tell Pig he won’t need to worry about my portions of food for a while. UNDERSTOOD!?”

Tiger’s sharp fangs and foul breath were only a few inches from the quivering face of Monkey. Monkey who was petrified in fear could only respond by quickly nodding in a desperate plea for his life.

“Good.” Tiger got off of Monkey who was so scared he did not even dare to stand up without being explicitly allowed. “Now go.”

“Right now?”

“GO!”

Monkey quickly ran away from Tiger to the edge of the village. Monkey had never left the village before. Only a few animals had ever gone down to the mortal realm like Tiger or Horse. Monkey was not sure what would happen when he crossed through the clouds into the mountain.

Monkey closed his eyes and he took a step through the cloud. He was certain that he was still in the cloud after that step. He could feel the wet dew collect on his fur as he continued through. After walking for an indeterminate amount of time he finally felt the wind.

With a non-trivial hesitation Monkey opened his eyes and saw a great expanse overlooking the entire world. Just a few feet above his head was the cloud that held up the village and down below him was the infinitely tall mountain leading down to the soil and toil of the lower breeds.

The cap of the mountain was weighed down by heavy snow and biting chills. The incessant blizzard that assaulted the mountain was the last bastion of defense protecting the animals from the mortal plane. The view was so grandiose that it filled Monkey with an exciting sensation of whimsical adventure. Monkey eager to depart on this journey boldly took a step forward but rather than planting his foot firmly on the ground it bended away rejecting the mountain and curled upwards before him stretching to the sky. An immediate jolt of panic ran through his mind making him lose balancecausing Monkey to collapse to the ground. Or he should have fallen to the ground but instead he smashed upwards into nothingness and was trapped suspended in the air. He looked over to his outstretched arms to see that the hair and skin had disappeared in its place was a complex weave of neural stems buzzing away.

Monkey’s mind was buried in terror, he tried to curl into a ball, but as he did he saw his heart and intestines form in front him, the still functioning organs ignorant to his horror peacefully pumping away. Monkey reached deep within himself for the strength to enact the only solution to this dilemma he could think of; he closed his eyes and cried.

Just when Monkey had relinquished himself to death, he felt a tug on the scruff of his neck promptly dragging him back to the village. Monkey euphorically gazed up to behold their savior and was greeted by the sight of the brilliant golden glow of Sea Urchin. She on the other hand was not as happy to see Monkey as Monkey was to see her. “Are you insane!? What were you thinking going to the other side of the edge of the world?!”

Sea Urchin scolded the delirious Monkey with a mixture of anger, astonishment, and worry.

Monkey interrupted Sea Urchin’s unending nagging with a half-hearted apology. “I’m sorry Sea Urchin but Tiger told me to get his ball at the bottom of the mountain.”

Sea Urchin was stunned for a second, its spines frozen in a way unbecoming to such a majestic beast. “Urchin? What are you talking about? it’s me Lenity. Are you okay?” Sea Urchin was speaking in a strange way about things that Monkey couldn’t understand. It kept berating Monkey with these odd questions. “Addle, do you know where you are? Do you know who you are?”

“Of course, I’m Monkey, and you just brought me back to the animal village.”

The bewildered Sea Urchin was muttering something to themselves, but Monkey could not quite make it out. Sea Urchin finally turned to Monkey with a stern resolution. “Okay fine then ‘Monkey’, why did you go to the bottom of the mountain?”

“No one in the village wanted to play with me so I stole Tiger’s ball and accidentally dropped it. Tiger said I had to go get the ball or else he would eat me.”

Sea Urchin resumed muttering. “Tiger, Tiger, Ah Cicerone! Okay Addle, I mean Monkey. Just wait here I will go talk to Cicerone… the Tiger. I will make you better. Do NOT go down the mountain again okay? If you really have to go to the mortal realm take the Immersion.”

Sea Urchin turned around and began storming off but stopped and turned back to Monkey. “Did he really make me look like a Sea Urchin?”

“What do you mean? You’ve always looked like a Sea Urchin, and you always acted like a Sea Urchin. You’re all thorny and hard to approach, most people don’t like you and even try to avoid you. It’s just natural because you are a Sea Urchin right Sea Urchin?”

“You-, I-, he-, I cannot believe that-. Addle we will talk about this later, first I have to give that Tiger a piece of my mind.”

The Sea Urchin then scuddled off on its prickly spines while angrily groaning to themselves something about how they were in no way thorny. Sea Urchin was a nice animal, but they really were just too uptight.

Monkey didn’t want to disobey Sea Urchin’s command but if he didn’t get that ball back then Tiger would almost certainly gobble him up and use his bones to pick at the fatty bits that got stuck between his teeth! Monkey was too young to die, he was only four-hundred-fifty-five years old.

Sea Urchin did mention that if it were an emergency that he could take the Immersion. It was very difficult to go through the Immersion since it was heavily guarded by some of the bigger animals and only those with special permission were allowed through. Luckily, Monkey was a very clever animal and was confident in his ability to trick the simple guards.

Using his skillful craftsmanship and developed mind Monkey had fashioned a disguise that looked exactly like Horse out of wood. Horse was one of the few animals who was allowed to travel back and forth through the Immersion without question. Monkey looked at their creation and was very satisfied.

Monkey wheeled the wooden horse right in between the two guards Crow and Dog with utmost confidence.

“Addle, what are you doing?” One of the guards, Dog, seemed to have mistaken Horse for this Addle character. Monkey was not too familiar with those who frequented the Immersion, but it would not matter so long as Monkey could successfully trick the guards into thinking the wooden horse was the real deal.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m not Addle it’s me Horse.”

The guards were unable to contain their intense laughter. Both of them had fallen onto their sides with their arms clenching their stomachs. “Addle you should probably go before Gelding shows up. That is hilarious though I’m actually crying.”

Crow wiped a tear from their eye as they stood back up. Somehow Monkey’s disguise had not worked even though it looked so perfect.

A bitter voice came from behind Monkey. “What is going on over here?” The guards froze into an upright position as they stared worryingly at the unknown speaker.

Inside the wooden Horse, Monkey could not tell who it was. “Hey Dog, can you turn me around so that I can see who is talking?”

Dog did not reply but the wooden Horse did begin to turn as the animal from behind twisted it for him.

“Hello Addle.” It was Horse, and they seemed very unhappy with their long face.

Monkey put on a nervous smile as they spoke. “Oh, hi Horse.”

“Do you think this is funny Addle? Maybe I’ll feed you to my daughter, she’s about ready to grow up.”

“But horses don’t eat meat.”

Monkey could not see but he definitely heard the two guards stifle a laugh from behind him.

Horse with their long angry sneer spoke through gritted teeth. “Even you’re not this stupid Addle. Did Cicerone do something to you?”

“Sea Urchin mentioned something about this Cicerone animal, but I have never met them before.”

The guards in the back broke into laughter once more. “Sea Urchin! Do you think that’s Lenity? Oh, I’m still crying.”

Horse glared menacingly to the guards. “If you think this is so funny Lobo then you can be the one to bring Addle back to Cicerone and get him fixed.”

“Yes Gelding.”

Dog’s ears drooped down, and he started pushing Monkey and his wooden Horse away from the Immersion. Monkey kept trying to convince Dog that he was the real Horse and that the Horse they were speaking with was the fake one but at some point in their walk Dog’s expression went from entertained to pitying.

Eventually they had arrived back to Tiger’s. Dog rolled the wooden Horse over like a sacrificial offering right in front of Tiger who immediately broke into laughter. Dog was the first to speak. “He tried getting through the Immersion with this pretending to be Gelding.” Tiger broke into an even heavier laughter. Dog continued to speak. “I thought it was funny at first to but you really screwed him up this time, I hope you didn’t do any permanent damage. It’s time you bring him back to normal.”

Tiger stopped laughing. He grimaced at Dog making sure to fully reveal his large teeth. “He lost my special ball! He’s lucky I didn’t just eat him right there or prep him up for the visitor that the highers’ are going to summon.”

“You had an arcane heart!?”

“Had. Now I have nothing but-“

Tiger was Interrupted by the chime of a bell. Right in front of Tiger there 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 Tiger holding a glowing parchment: It read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Illusionist