The merchant had just finished helping one of his colleagues who was a part of the same caravan to lift his last crate of goods into the back of his wagon. As the leading rider of the caravan he felt responsible in ensuring the rest of the group was prepped and ready to go so he felt obliged to help if they weren’t. With a final scan of the line of vehicles he confirmed all were set and made his way back to his own cart at the front of the group.

The merchant took a last-minute inspection of the inside of his wagon to ensure that all his goods were packed and that the adventurers he was giving a ride were comfortable. It was a bit of a tight fit in the compartment, but the adventurers didn’t seem to be all that bothered, they were too excited to finally meet a caravan that was heading in the same direction as them. The merchant decided he should probably ask anyway if not simply for the sake of courtesy. “Everyone comfortable?”

One of the more fancily dressed members of the group shot the merchant a scowl but another member, a stout woman in perhaps her mid-twenties spoke up with an infectious grin and perkiness. “Oh, don’t worry about us. We’re just glad we don’t have to walk the trip. Then we would’ve really been uncomfortable.”

It always worried the merchant when the adventurers he was grouping with were the casual sort; they always appeared to be unreliable in his eyes. He decided to subtly prod them a little just to be safe. “Does anyone in your party have any abilities to spot mokoi or monsters before they come, or should one of you ride up front with me to keep an eye?”

The fancily dressed member sneered having completely seen through the merchant’s intentions. The annoyed adventurer was unable to vocalize his disdain as the woman spoke before any sound could escape from him. “You don’t need to worry. Our friend here-“she patted the fancily dressed man on the shoulder. “Is a very skilled auspex, there’s nothing around here whose soul string can escape his sight.”

That news did a lot to alleviate the merchant’s concerns. Finding someone who could peer into the soul sea even just a little was an unfathomably rare skill, and one that the merchant felt much safer having with him.

The merchant, feeling much better now, smiled to the group. “Well in that case we’ll be heading off now; enjoy the ride and please …at least ask before stealing some of my produce.” The adventurers all laughed at the joke and the merchant made his way around the cart to get to the coach’s seat.

There was one last interruption waiting for the merchant before the caravan could finally embark. A little girl was stood at the head of the wagon sharing a half rotten fruit with one of the horses. The girl was very small, the merchant couldn’t imagine that she could be any more than eight years old. She wore a long silver silk gown which at one point must have been a very valuable article of clothing but it was old, dirtied, and tattered, riddled in holes and stained in countless unsavory colors; the original shade of silver nearly naught but a memory on the more hidden untouched crevices of the robe.

“Excuse me little lady, I am very thankful that you fed my wonderful horse over there, but we are about to depart soon so I will have to ask you to step aside.”

The little girl turned to the source of the voice and it was then that the merchant noticed the girl’s face. Or more importantly not notice as it was hidden behind a mask. The little girl wore a strange porcelain mask. The porcelain mask was crudely drawn on with what appeared to be hand paint. The base of the hand left a yellow imprint over the porcelain mouth, six yellow fingers leaned to the right of the mask crossing the eyehole ending on six fingerprints which were each highlighted with purple paint. A yellow thumb crossed over the left leaving its print also accented in purple next to the left eyehole. An upside-down purple triangle hanged below the left fingerprint. What appeared to be a purple headless snake wiggled up from the yellow palm leading to the forehead of the mask. The mask itself did not just cover the child’s face but had a single horn like protrusion that sprouted off the top left of the mask having the bone white color of the mask darken to a pitch black at the very horn tip. This horn protrusion was also a complete three-dimensional cylinder that stretched the mask out to cover a sizable portion of the side of her head.

The most interesting part of the mask was that the merchant could not see how it stuck to the child’s face. There were no strings of any kind, it just seemed to be glued on never threatening to fall no matter how much her head moved.

The little girl spoke with a soft voice nearly a whisper, the voice was soothing like a calming song, or it would have been if her dialogue wasn’t so stilted as if she were a foreigner learning a new language complete with a thick accent that he could not place. “Um, sorry. Mister but I… waiting. for you.”

The merchant cocked an eyebrow to the strange child before him. “And why were you waiting for me?”

The girl stroked the horse a few more times while she let it finish eating the rotten fruit. She pondered a while in search of the right words to answer the merchant. “I. want go with you. To… different place.”

“Do you even know where I am going?”

The little girl shuffled in place avoiding making eye contact with the merchant. “No… but it not important. I can pay.”

The merchant found it humorous how her saying she could pay had been by far the most fluent and well-spoken thing she said so far. “Little lady what is your name?”

The girl hesitated for a while unsure how to respond before her mask faced the merchant head on in a way that he could only assume was an attempt at eye contact and she answered. “Vow.”

“Okay Vow, can you tell me where your parents are?”

“Daddy is dead. And I. never meet. Mommy. Daddy say. I not have mommy.”

The merchant mentally facepalmed at his obvious blunder. As a native of Bemean he kept forgetting but he was in Aegis now. The country had yet to recover from taking the brunt of the mokoi invasion, starving families and wandering orphans were a ubiquitous existence and it was customary to simply not question it at this point. Now that the merchant thought about it, that was probably why the girl wore that mask. She was likely trying to cover a scar, maybe a slave brand, or injury from a run in with bandits; in Aegis the possibilities were endless.

The merchant shook his head trying to keep focus. “Well I still have a seat up front available if you can pay.”

The girl started excitedly. “I can!” she rummaged through her oversized robe and pulled out a ludicrous number of gold coins shoving her hand towards the merchant.

The merchant looked at the girl bewildered. “What do you want me to do with this?”

The girl replied excitedly nearly shouting. “It pay!”

“Little lad- Vow, you can’t pay with gold. No one will accept gold as a currency around here… probably not anywhere for that matter. I don’t know why you thought it would.”

Vow’s shoulders slouched; she spoke with defeat in her voice. “Explains very much…” She faced the merchant once more in search of answers. “Why. Gold not money?”

The merchant’s heart nearly shattered. For this girl to not know such a basic thing she must have lost her family at a very young age, gone without any education for who knows how long. “Ever since the golden country grew an infinite supply of gold in 3980 twenty years ago gold has lost its value as a currency.”

The girl was truly distraught at this discovery. Some rustling from the back drew the two’s attention and they noticed the female adventurer leaning out of the cart. The adventurer called out the merchant. “I’ll pay for the kid. So let’s just get going already.”

Despite the mask, Vow was an open book and she visibly lit up from the news. “I thank! I pay you back in footar, fyuter? In future time.”

The adventurer grew another one of those infectious grins. “Sure thing kid, no problem.”

Vow happily bounded on to the front seat next to where the merchant seated himself. The cloth cover over the wagon was pushed aside just a little so the adventurer could lean out and listen to the girl talk to her. “I name Vow. And. You name?”

Vow stretched out her hand towards the adventurer who happily took it giving a strong shake. “You can call me Consanguine.”

Vow’s mask rose up slightly in clear reaction to the brimming smile underneath. “Consanguine is friend!”

Consanguine gave Vow a warm smile but felt a jab on her side. “Sorry Vow, give me a minute will you?” Consanguine dipped back into the inside of the cart in response to confront her fancily dressed companion who had nudged her. When she turned to face him, she was shocked to see his usual sour sneer was replaced with anxious worry. “What’s wrong?”

He leaned closely to Consanguine’s ear and spoke in a low whisper in hope that no one else could hear. “Whoever just boarded the carriage is dangerous. I can’t feel their soul string at all.”

He was stuffed in a tight corner of the carriage, so he was unable to see who the new occupant was. Consanguine couldn’t help but laugh that the worry on his face was brought on by that little girl. “What are you talking about? It’s just a kid.”

The man’s eyes’ bulged at the revelation but his concern remained. “What! How young?”

Consanguine shrugged as she responded. “I don’t know, seven? Maybe eight? What do you mean by you can’t feel her soul string?”

“I don’t have the deepest sight into the soul sea I admit, but there is no normal human who can be this close to me without me seeing even the faintest glimpse of any soul string. For devadoot’s sake I can’t even detect any fate lines on that person.”

Consanguine didn’t really know how to respond. Her partner spoke like he was describing an all-powerful evil, not a hungry child. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, the only thing I can think of that can evade me this well is either a spirit or a high class mokoi.”

Consanguine’s usual smile found its place back on her face. “Or a child. You must be getting really rusty.”

With a lurch of the rope in the merchant’s hand, the horses began to move forward, and the caravan commenced on its journey. The first few hours of the ride were quite pleasant with great weather and never a shortage of conversation with the unendingly curious Vow bouncing from topic to topic and question to question.

Vow had currently managed to entrap Consanguine into an interrogation regarding her job. Vow’s soft voice came out in her usual, slow stunted flow, each word seemingly deeply thought over. “So, people. pay you to. hurt?”

The merchant had no idea how Consanguine still held that amicably welcoming smile; he wasn’t even the one talking with Vow and he was getting exhausted by her incessant and tragically basic questions. Consanguine responded. “It’s not about hurting some but about protecting others. Monsters and mokoi are very dangerous and so people need us adventurers to go out and stop them before they hurt anyone.”

Even from behind the mask it was obvious to see that Vow was very confused by this. “But. if you job is to hurt. before they hurt. Then that mean you job is to hurt. People who haven’t done. Emyfang.. um amyfing? anything bad yet.”

“Well the only reason that there is a request to stop those creatures is because they have already been spotted doing bad things.”

Vow was mulling over what apparently to her seemed like a very complex answer. “Why would thing hurt. different thing.”

“They probably just want food or to expand their territory.”

“No sharing?”

“Well food for them would be little girls like you so that probably would not be for the best.”

Vow had to take a second to think that over. “No, agree. It not be for the best” Consanguine waited patiently for Vow to think over this new information handed to her. It was adorably obvious when she was lining up for another question. “So, thing bad because. they hurt thing because it good for them. and you good because you hurt thing because it good for you?”

Consanguine chuckled and petted Vow’s pitch-black hair as she responded “It’s not the same. They’re not human. Of course, you shouldn’t kill other living things without a care in the world, but we have to do what is best for our species before allowing others to do what’s best for them. There’s a hierarchy to these things. Some life is just more important than others.”

Vow was wholly unconvinced by this argument and released a disapproving grumble to show it. Consanguine tried to hide how cute she found the child’s annoyance but failed miserably only making the child even more annoyed.

Before their conversation could continue anymore, Consanguine’s fancily dressed companion spoke out urgently “I can sense a really potent sou-“ A solid cloud of swarming Arcana blew through the cloth cover of the wagon and upon contacting her companion, completely dismantled his body into unidentifiable pieces which were carried away by the cloud leaving the other end of the wagon. The magic cloud had also stolen away with many pieces of the wagon including a large chunk of the wheel causing the carriage to stop in its tracks.

Consanguine could not spend time mourning the death and was quick to react. “Magical beast south east!” She shouted as loudly as she could. Her call was followed by all the other adventurers pouring out of the other carriages and readying themselves for the opponent.

Consanguine looked through the tear in the side of the cart, her gaze following the direction that the attack had come from. There was no enemy as far as she could see: unless? She squinted her eyes and intently focused on the horizon to a small blur far in the distance at the other end of the field. She couldn’t make out any details of the creature from this distance, but it was moving closer. The blur barreled towards the caravan at a horrifying pace.

The other adventurers had also noticed the incoming enemy and a few wizards were able to conjure some barriers just in time to confront the next wave of whizzing clouds. A volley of three separate clouds of corrosive magic smashed into the hastily built barriers weakly fizzling into nothing.

Archers were beginning to loose their shots as the creature entered within range and it answered in kind with another magical assault. The creature’s new spell was more solid and streamlined in design, a viscous spear almost organic with its own breath and shifting limbs. The magical spears were sent off towards the caravan and even with the wizards reinforcing the barrier the spears punctured through them like butter.

The spear shot through one of the wizard’s chest and landed elegantly on the ground behind. The shifting limbs of the weapon failed to stabilize into any uniform shape, but it did try to mimic a pair of legs and a single arm as best it could as it lunged towards an adventurer nearby.

Four more of the organic spears shot through the crumbling barrier and the entire caravan was set in an uproar. Consanguine leaped out of her cart drawing her weapon towards the nearest magical spear creature. The organic weapon swung around to face her, but it was too late as she sliced the spear in two with her sword. The enemy was still writhing on the ground seemingly trying to reshape itself into two smaller versions of itself. Consanguine unsure of how to properly kill the thing or if it could even be killed resolved to continuously slicing the enemy into consecutively smaller pieces until hopefully it was simply too small to cause damage.

She felt a sudden pressure from behind her and when she turned, she found that the monster had already found itself against the magical barrier. It would have looked like a normal buck if It wasn’t for its behemoth size and ludicrously long teal fur that failed to hide its elephantine muscles.

The monster did not relent its pace as its sheer weight crashed through the barrier and ran completely through one of the carriages smashing it to smithereens. That corrosive cloud from earlier oozed out of the creature’s antler’s gently blanketing the floor.

Without any hesitation, Consanguine charged towards the gargantuan opponent with her blade raised. The creature directed the cloud around it to fly towards Consanguine right as she was about to swing down on its exposed neck.

Consanguine had seen what the cloud could do, she knew that this attack would kill her. All she could do is hope that she’d be able to get her own attack in as well. But, to Consanguine’s surprise the cloud never touched her. As the substance got closer to her she could see the fabric of reality wobble and twist around the cloud causing it to fall out of existence. She had no time to question what happened as she swung her blade down, but her arm suddenly stopped mid strike.

She was nowhere near as skilled as her fancily dressed comrade, but he had taught her how to at least sense her own soul string. She could feel it being tugged, some entity had gripped onto her identity and tugged at her being. Her actions were no longer singularly hers but shared with this soul bound hijacker. This other entity forced her to freeze still.

Now that she was forced out of action, she could properly take in the stimuli around her. Where the cloud had wobbled out of existence there was a wound in the world, the assuredness of reality itself destroyed only managing to slowly reverse the process and recover itself back to normal but this time without the cloud that was once there. She noticed that the creature was frozen still just as she was. Perhaps the same entity had taken hold of it as well.

Her thoughts were redirected towards the sudden soft stunted voice of Vow. “Please stop!” She ran up to in between Consanguine and the creature her small arms raised up to the two. Vow looked directly into Consanguine’s eyes and pleaded. “No fight! We can share. goodness.” She then turned to the creature and spoke in a language that Consanguine couldn’t recognize, a strange fact since there was only one commonly used language in Trammel. Vow was much more fluent in this other language and the creature although not perfectly did seem to comprehend a few of the words spoken to it.

After some negotiation, the creature managed a heavily monitored and restricted nod in understanding. With such, Vow left Consanguine’s sight and returned with a large crate of food and bandages. The grip on the creature’s souls string relented and it cautiously willed one of the spears to take the crate. Then a bell chimed; the creature suddenly startled took into a frantic sprint along with its spears away from the caravan.

Next to Consanguine 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 Vow holding a glowing parchment: It read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Child