Deathwish, Part 3: Calmsquare Cantina

Part 1: Cinderfell
Part 2: Deal With a Vorpal

Fitting the name of the rural town, it was a quiet place with very few Vorpals walking around. Most looked humanoid, though surprisingly some even carried weapons. One had a scythe along with full back robes and a horribly disfigured face, making him look the personification of the grim reaper himself. Another dragged a massive hammer behind him, wandering aimlessly around the small town as his arms visibly stretched from the strain of pulling such a heavy object. He had two eye sockets, but only one eye with his other surrounded by scars and covered by a hastily fashioned eye patch. His clothes were slightly more modern, but he still wore ragged pants and a shirt filled with holes. And yet another had boxing gloves with martial arts garb, looking very focused as he practiced punching the air with quick jabs.

The town had very few buildings scattered about, the largest one being simply labeled Cantina. Oracle and Alicia walked in through the swinging doors, temporarily drawing the looks from the entire establishment. Fearlessly, Oracle walked up to the bartender, as did Alicia.

Oracle slammed her fist on the bar, leaning over and speaking with authority to the man behind it. “Give me the usual.”

The bartender complied with nary a word, appearing half asleep. His head was permanently tilted to the side, as if he was incredibly drunk or managed to fall asleep standing up with eyes open. His arms flopped around as he mixed drinks together, handing the result to Oracle. He then gave Alicia a glance, and flopped his body against the bar, towering over her as he asked his question. “What’ll you have?”

It took Alicia a moment to realize that while this was indeed a bar, Vorpals likely served everyone, not understanding the concept of age. “Um… I don’t need anything.”

The man flopped to the side, almost laying on the bar to take a nap. “Oh… don’t be shy. I can getcha… whatever you like.”

“I’ll take water, then.”

The bartender quickly produced a glass and handed it to Alicia, who took only a sip before tasting it clearly wasn’t water. “That… doesn’t taste right.”

“Oh? Oh… oh! My apologies, little one… I think I accidentally gave ya some… really heavy alcohol. You want me to tries again?”

“No, that’s all right…” She started to try to hand the glass back, but the bartender couldn’t take the hint and looked around for a way to dispose of it. The bar itself was entirely occupied by other drinks and now the bartender himself, leaving no room to put it down. Instead, she walked over to the nearest table and set it down. An extremely obese Vorpal was startled by the action, looking around frantically till his eyes settled on Alicia. “Oh! Howdy. I don’t seem to know your name. Mine is Slender Jim.”

Alicia looked over the Vorpal. His skin was boil covered and blighted by blotches, all producing a truly revolting combinations of green and brown. His eyes were barely visible, but had a glowing green quality to them. The rest of his features were mostly obscured by his truly impressive girth, to the point where even his legs were hidden. “Uh… hello. I’m Alicia.”

“Alicia? Strange name… anyways, it seems you brought me a drink. That was very kind of you. I would have got it myself, but I’m stuck to my chair.”

Alicia realized there were indeed chairs around, but of course she couldn’t see the chair Slender Jim was sitting in due to his enormous amount of body fat. “Did you need help getting out? I can’t do much, but I’m sure some others might…”

“Oh, I don’t want to bother anyone. I could also just shapeshift myself out if I really needed to, but it just feels like such a hassle. I figured I would just let myself get killed when the next round starts.”

Alicia couldn’t comprehend a word the fat man had just said. “I’m sorry? What round?”

As if in answer to her question, an announcing voice rang out through the town. “Five minutes till start!”

Slender Jim clarified. “Never been in Calmsquare? There is a free for all, fight to the death that occurs almost every day. Been a slow day, this one, but I hear there are some tougher customers showing up for this round. Don’t know if there is any truth to that, though.”

Alicia looked around, suddenly panicked. She ran to Oracle and tugged on her dress, prompting an annoyed response. “What? What do you need, Alicia?”

“There’s a death match about to start here?”

“So?”

Alicia stood silently as the problem eventually dawned on Oracle. “Oh… you probably don’t want to get folded in the fray.”

“Exactly! We need to get out of here!”

Oracle rolled her eye. “Keep calm…”

With some more strange gestures, a puff of smoke around Alicia revealed a new red scarf. “This is something we call a pacifist scarf. It marks you as a noncombatant. Just don’t attack anyone, or I’ll be in a world of trouble for giving that to you.”

Alicia marveled at the scarf. If this worked other places beyond this town, traveling the Inverse would be far easier. “Wow… thanks, Oracle.”

The announcer voice rumbled through the town. “Ten!”

Oracle looked around, appearing to suddenly realize she was going to be involved in the bloodbath as well. But she readied herself rather than getting a scarf of her own. “Hmm… it seems I’m still a possible target. No matter, let them come.”

“Five! Four!”

The other patrons within the cantina grabbed their weapons and began eyeing each other.

“Three! Two!”

Oracle’s eye darted around, trying to monitor the rest of the combatants all at once.

“One! START!”

Alicia hid behind an already upturned table as absolute mayhem broke out. She could hear screaming and clashing of steel as the Vorpals attacked each other without mercy. As the din slowly died down, Alicia peeked over the table. Oracle was still standing, with several dismembered bodies laying about the room. They a dark mist slowly rose off of them, but they didn’t completely vanish like they did in the real world. That only happened in the Inverse if they were completely turned to ash and blew away. Alicia already knew this, but was glad she confirmed it. But she was less glad when she saw the Vorpal who was speaking with Oracle.

“Grector, what brings you to Calmsquare?”

Grector, the behemoth that had tried to kill Alicia before, spoke with his deep foreboding voice. “Why would I not? I like crushing people, even if they are already Vorpals. But I should really be asking you that; I thought you don’t like violence?”

Alicia grabbed her pad and took notes. Apparently, Oracle was a less violent Vorpal. That might be why she had been willing to make a deal instead of instantly attacking. As Alicia looked back up, her eyes locked with Grector’s eyes, glowing behind his metal faceplate. He immediately erupted into a rage. “HUMAN!”

Grector destroyed tables and chairs alike as he charged at where Alicia had been moments before. She ran outside, terrified as Grector crashed through the side wall, looking around only momentarily before seeing her again. She ran in vain, unable to outrun the gorilla-like lumbering charge of Grector. His gray, stonelike body was massive, and his upper body was easily two thirds of his total mass. If he grabbed Alicia, she was dead. If he managed to hit Alicia, she would be lucky to only suffer a major injury. The gap closed rapidly, until Alicia ran into something while looking behind at the pursuing Grector.

She felt herself pulled into the air, flying well over Grector who swatted at the air in vain. As she landed, she realized someone was carrying her. She recovered from the shock, and realized who it was as he set her back down.

“Tut, tut, Grector. Have you not eyes? This one is clearly a pacifist, she is not a target.”

Grector grew more enraged, but refrained from charging as he knew it would be useless. “Dapper! She is not one of us! She is HUMAN!”

Dapper looked down at a wide eyed Alicia, who was hugging his leg both in thanks and fear. He raised an eyebrow, but looked back at Grector. “She doesn’t look much like one… how would a human get a Vorpal scarf and cloak? That just doesn’t make any sense…”

Grector growled. “I can practically smell it on her. You must know it too, you just love to split hairs!”

Dapper tipped his signature top hat, sarcastic grin spreading across his face. “Indeed, I do love the occasional over-technicalitization of the humdrum. But, is it not the rule that any with a pacifist scarf are not to be attacked, given they do not attack first? Does this not include a human?”

Grector was about to yell back, when he paused. He didn’t appear to know either. “Well… er… REF!”

The bartender, who was also apparently the keeper of rules for this game of death, stumbled out of the bar, moving erratically but consistently towards the two Vorpals. He dragged a book behind him, which he whipped open and help up to Dapper. “Let’s see… any who wear… etcetera etcetera… scarf of pacifism… yadda yadda yadda… ah! Applies to all in the Inverse. No mention of Vorpals, so yes. It does include humans.”

Grector slammed his fist on the ground. “By the rift! Why would they possibly want to include humans!?! It’s clearly meant only for Vorpals!”

Dapper laughed mockingly as the bartender closed the book and stumbled back into his place of business. “Grector, don’t be such a spoil sport. You have plenty of targets to fight still! There’s me, apparently Oracle, and…”

Dapper suddenly examined his surroundings. “...and… oh. Looks like that’s it. Is there a prize for top three? We could just call it here.”

Grector sighed. “I don’t want to just chase you and Oracle around. You two are always far to cowardly to let me grab you and crush you, always fighting from a distance. Fine, I don’t care.”

“Ahem… I think the word you were actually looking for is intelligent, not cowardly.”

Grector stomped away, causing the ground to rumble at his bad mood as Alicia could hardly believe her eyes while looking up at her repeat savior. “D… Dapper? Is that really you?”

Dapper looked down, apparently realizing Alicia was still there. “Hmm? Have we met?”

Alicia stepped back to address him properly, even doing a small curtsy. She could now see he still wore his typical overly formal outfit, juxtaposed with what some would consider a terrifying visage, having empty eye sockets filled with darkness and a skin complexion of sickly yellow. “Yes, we have. Long ago. Do you… remember me?”

Dapper scratched his head underneath his hat. “How long ago was it? It must have been recent because it feels like… something is there, knocking around in my noggin.”

A spark of hope ignited in Alicia’s heart. “It really was long ago, but you promised you would remember. Do you remember my name, at least?”

Dapper took off his hat, spinning it on one hand while pacing back and forth, deep in thought. “Think, think… I don’t want to break a promise, even if I don’t remember making it… hmmmmmm…”

Dapper snapped his fingers. “Lisa?”

“Well, that’ s kinda close. Try again…”

“Laura? Angelica? Hildagard? Jillian?”

Alicia’s heart sunk as Dapper listed off random names. But he stopped suddenly, and raised his hand, speaking with complete certainty now. “Of course! The name! The only one it could possibly be! ALICIA!”

Alicia was speechless for several moments. He had actually remembered. After all this time, against even the basic rules of Vorpal biology…

He kept his promise.

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Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying the story, you might also enjoy my novel! It’s set in the same fictional universe, but follows different characters.

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