Dokeshi March: Chapter 51 (Patreon)

Chapter 51

Grant sat up in a windowless room, the light cutting off as soon as the trap door above him slid closed.  He took a moment to gather his senses, and recover from the fall.  He didn’t think anything was broken, but he definitely twisted an ankle when he came down.  He then took a solid minute to berate himself for not better wording the deal he made with Beans.  He knew better.  He had to become the kind of man who didn’t make stupid mistakes like that.  His chest ached, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the mystery problem he had been dealing with, or if it was just the pain of failure.  A quick inspection of the room revealed it was a solid box just wide enough for him to take four steps in any direction, but the walls seemed to have no openings for a door.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Grant realized the darkness wasn’t quite complete.  He limped over to a small rectangle on the wall where a faint, flickering orange light was streaming in.  He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to come from a candle, and it was getting brighter.  Suddenly, the bloodshot eyes of Cuddles flashed in front of him, causing Grant to jump back.

“Ah, welcome!  Grant Monday, how I have longed to get another chance to meet you, face-to-face.”  Cuddles took a step back, so Grant could see more of the overly-large clown.  “I want to make a deal with you!  Well, more of a game, but if you win, you can go free!”

“What kind of game, Cuddles?”  Grant felt like he was scraping the words out of the bottom of his diaphragm.  He knew there was nothing good that was about to come out of the rotten Vassal’s mouth.

“Oh, the game is simple, really.”  Cuddles took a turkey leg out of his pocket and pretended to take a bite out of it through his mask.  “You see, all you need to do is guess how many days you can live without any food or water, and the door will open!”  Cuddles took another pretend bite, even faking the chewing noises, and smearing grease all over the mouth of his mask.  “Of course, to find out if you guessed correctly, you have to die first… heehee… but that’s a gamble I’m willing to make!”

Grant only had a single food bar in his belt pouch which he could stretch for a few days, but the lack of water would kill him in only three or four days.  Even if he did manage to escape, he had already voided his protection as a finalist.  He would have to make it back to the casino proper, and Grant had no idea where he was.  No matter what he did, Grant couldn’t see a way out of this one.

“There it issss…”  Cuddles slammed his face up against the slot, his crazed eyes staring into Grant’s.  His voice once again dropped into something raspy, showing the insanity hiding behind the thin veneer of his mask.  “The moment when you realize all hope is gone.  The moment when you see, there is absolutely nothing you can do, and death is the only outcome for you.”  Before Grant could stab the clown in the face with his sword, the slot slammed closed.  “Goodbye, Grant Monday.”

The faint scent of spoiled peaches and ammonia was the only reminder that the clown had been there a few minutes later, when any trace of light disappeared as the Prime Vassal walked away.

Grant wanted to rail against the unfairness of it all, to have come so close to victory, only to taste the bitter odor of insanity left behind by an obese clown who had a sense of self-importance more inflated than his gut.  He wanted to smash his sword against the walls, over and over again until either their stone gave way, or his muscles tore from the effort.  But Grant didn’t do those things.  He was no longer a child, forced to bend to the wild mood swings of a teenager.  No, instead of all that, Grant decided that it was a good time to train.

“Sarge, do you have some kind of training plan for fighting in an enclosed space, in absolute darkness?”  Grant was rubbing at his chest, where the strange pressure was once again making itself known.  “I need something to center myself.”

<Yes Grant, I do.  First, close your eyes, and use your hands to measure out the space around you.>

He did so, quickly making a mental map of the space.  There was a small hole in the far corner, and the faint smell of human waste told him it was meant to be his toilet.  Other than that, the room was completely empty.  Perfect for training.

The next hour was a smooth lesson in transitioning between the stances already ingrained in his muscle memory, and a few new tricks that Sarge taught him about using walls to push yourself off of as a way to speed up your movements.  It was an oddly light training session, but it still did the job of calming him down.

<I made it lighter than normal on purpose.>  Sarge sounded strangely solemn, as if he was about to deliver some bad news.  Which he did.  <The various movement techniques I was showing you were also a way for me to gauge any weaknesses in your cell.  And… I didn’t find any.  This place is as solid as a bank vault in District May.>

“That’s okay, Sarge.  It isn’t your fault I am in this position.”  Grant sat with his back against the wall, and closed his eyes.  “My only chance is if they make a mistake.  I have to be ready to take advantage if they do.”

<Hmm, a good outlook, considering your position.>  They sat in silence for a time, before Sarge broke his contemplation.  <Someone is coming.>  Grant didn’t know how much time had passed since Cuddles had been here to taunt him, but it didn’t feel like it could have been more than three or four hours.

“I hope you aren’t sleeping in there!”  A loud boom hurt Grant’s ears as one of Dokeshi March’s Vassals slammed his scepter against the metal slot covering the viewport of his cell.  “We came to ask you about what you did to Lord January.  You kill him?  Is he imprisoned somewhere?  What do we need to do to get the food shipments rolling again?”  Grant ignored the Vassal, not even bothering to learn his name.  The Dokeshi had a whole bunch of them, and he didn’t have the energy to memorize all of their names.

They fell into a pattern, with Grant trying to conserve his energy, and various Vassals returning every few hours to make sure he couldn’t actually fall asleep.  Despite his best efforts, Grant’s mind started to become fuzzy with fatigue.  He didn’t know if it was from the excitement of the last few days, lack of food and water, lack of sleep, or maybe even from the pain in his chest and the odd mana drain he had experienced when his sword started glowing.  No matter the reason, he was beginning to feel fatigue.

One thing Grant never did was acknowledge the Vassals’ presence.  Unless they were willing to open the door, Grant wasn’t talking.  He needed them to make a mistake.

Finally, something changed.  He didn’t know how long it had been, but one entire wall dropped into the floor, flooding his cell with light.  His eyes watered at the sudden change, but he blinked through the pain, and got a glimpse at what was on the other side.

“But, how?”  Grant wasn’t sure how they had moved him, but somehow he was looking out at the tournament area as it was being set up.  They must have wheeled his cell to one of the windows overlooking the floor, where the Dokeshi watched as people gambled away their fortunes.

<They are taunting you.  By showing that you will miss the tournament, it is meant to kill your spirit.>

“Has it really been that long already?”  Grant had lost all track of time, but he didn’t feel like it had been enough for the tournament to be starting.

<No, it is still the day before it is supposed to begin.  They are just getting things ready.>

“So I still have some time left.”  Grant tried punching the window, but all that did was hurt his knuckles.  Next, he pulled his Uchigatana and stabbed forward with all his weight behind the blow.  A miniscule crack appeared, and he instantly got excited.  “I think I can break it!”  A second blow at the same spot widened the crack, but the wall started rising back up from the floor to cut off his view.  “No!  I’m so close!”  He pounded furiously at the window, but the crack only grew to the length of his finger by the time the wall covered it up.

<It was a good try, Grant.  No one could ever accuse you of not giving it your all.>  The defeat in Sarge’s voice was almost too much for him to handle, but Grant wasn’t willing to give up.

He tried to shove his sword in the paper-thin gap where the covering was rising from, but the blade of his Uchigatana was too thick.  Scrambling for an idea, he tried his spell, Thundering Step.  It did nothing.  As a last gasp of desperation, Grant used his newest spell, Apprentice Repair.

Warning: Your spell is too low for the complexity of this mechanism.  Damage may occur as a result if you choose to continue.

Oh, did he ever want to continue!  Grant confirmed his choice, and the spell fired off just as the wall finished sealing back up.  Holding his breath, hoping for a miracle, Grant waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.

Nothing happened.