“You… you what?” Kip asked.

  “I asked you to be careful, sire.” Jasssper said, slapping his own face with his tail.

  Kip let out a nervous laugh, “You must be joking, right? I… gave you this job. I… we were going to feed you and house you. Tell me you’re joking, Blademan. ”

  “Sorry, pal. Would Loooove to be joking here, but I’m afraid not.”

  “What about all that stuff about how I was the perfect candidate?”

  “You are! Seems like there’s a pretty big power vacuum in this organization and I only have to defeat you to fill it! So we won’t lose anyone too important. That sound good to you?”

  “No…” Kip said, “No that doesn’t.”

  “Not really up to you, though, right?”

  “No, it is not.” Kip said through gritted teeth.

  “Great! So how does this work? I choose the challenge and you agree to a location? Or we both agree on a location, right?”

  Kip sighed, “Yes. We both agree.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  Kip said, “Uh, for a location… let’s see,”

  “Sire,” Jasssper asked, “May I ssspeak to you in private?”

  Kip flashed his index finger to Blademan and walked over to some privacy.

  “Sire…” Jasssper croaked, “Nobody saw. It didn’t happen. You don’t have to make him an official member just yet.”

  “I… I did, Jasssper. It’s all above board. I made him official. Then he challenged me. You saw.”

  “No, sire. I saw that you were about to. You didn’t though, because you quickly thought of the possibility that he might challenge you immediately.”

  “I… I’m not sure what you mean, Jasssper.”

  Jasssper rolled his eyes, “Sire, you haven’t done it yet, and you won’t do it yet. Because you were much too smart. And if you say you didn’t, and I say you didn’t, then it's his word against ours. And currently, he’s calling you, the dark lord, a liar and is intruding on us. We should call some local monsters to help against him.”

  “I… I think I understand.”

  “Shake on it, sire.” Jasssper extended his tail to Kip.

  Jasssper was asking Kip to fib. Fibbing was never something Kip was good at. In fact, about eighteen years ago Kip was barely waddling around, following his brothers everywhere they went. Lip, his oldest brother, was rough-housing with Chip and Skip, while their mother was at work. When they broke their mother’s vase*, it became a vow of secrecy between all the brothers. Lip, Skip, Chip, Pip, Zip, and Rip all agreed to keep it to themselves and explain that a stray cat had come in through the window and knocked it over. When it came time to seal the truce with a pinky promise, Little Kip’s brothers bullied him into the ring of secrecy.

  Under duress, he pinky swore along with them. Unfortunately for his brothers, when his mother finally came home from work, she knew exactly who to ask. And unfortunately for Kip, attempting to fib gave him a bad case of the rumbly tumblies. Little Kip threw up all over his feet and his brothers never looked at him the same after that.

  So when Kip faced down Jasssper’s tail just as he and his brothers did that day, he could merely stare in abject horror. His tummy started to rumble. He grabbed his gurgling stomach and looked over Jasssper’s shoulder or Jasssper’s long neck to see Blademan standing behind them, lamely kicking a rock as he waited.

  He shook his head, “He may have tricked me, Jasssper, but that doesn’t mean the rules don’t apply. As said, this is all above board. He has every right to duel me.”

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  Jasssper shook his head, “Sire, you can do a lot more good if you’re alive. But you have to be alive to rule.”

  “A ruler who is not subject to rules is a despot, Jasssper. And I’m sorry, I just don’t have the constitution to lie.” Kip called out to Blademan, “I accept.”

  “Goodie.” Blademan said, “So, one on one. The person who becomes incapacitated loses. Sounds good? You name the location.”

  “Right here. The swamp.” Kip said, “Swamp creatures are in play.”

  Blademan let out a soft chuckle, “Ready when you are.”

  “Ready.”

  “No… you’re really not.” Blademan ran toward Jasssper and Kip, then twisted himself like he did before, skirting along the edges like a wheel of blades. Kip and Jasssper exchanged glances before pushing Jasssper out of the way.

  Kip fell the opposite direction. Blademan wheeled by them, he dropped the topside of the wheel aftward, using angular momentum to turn around a tree and head back for Kip.

  “I’m coming for ya, Kippo!” The blade wheel skirted toward Kip. He plodded along the soft mud and hid behind a tree. Blademan recorrected himself and used himself as a buzzsaw, directly attacking the tree Kip was hiding behind.

  “Ahh!” Kip screamed.

  Blademan did not stop turning even though he’d sunk into a tree. He continued to use his bladed arms, legs, and head to quickly chip into the wood. Kip stepped backward and fell from a root half buried in the ground. The woodchips hailed on him and the sawdust entered his open mouth as the bladewheel ripped through the lumber. Kip coughed as he crawled backward.

  Blademan finished chopping through the tree and spun toward Kip. Kip rolled out of the way but as Blademan’s legs were above him in the wheel formation, he dropped them, balanced on one hand and counter balanced his legs with the other hand, slicing Kip. Kip grabbed at his cheek, when he pulled his hand back he saw it was drenched in blood. As Blademan had imbalanced himself, he needed more distance to self correct. At about forty feet blademan committed to another turn.

  Kip ran in the opposite direction but the viscous mud made it harder. Kip fell to his knees as Blademan grinded toward him. Kip leaned in and stuck his hand in the mud to get up. His hands went down further than he was expecting. There was a divot in the earth. He buried himself in mud and pushed up. When he turned around, Blademan was much closer than before.

  Kip attempted to dive but the viscous fluid of the mud caught his ankles, and Blademan sliced Kip’s calf on his sped through.

  “What good are my scales?!” Kip asked himself. He limped toward a clump of bushes. Blademan could not turn quickly enough. Instead he released himself from his wheel form, using the momentum to leap toward a tree. His legs entered the trunk and he brought his knees down to launch himself directly behind him, continuing his wheel.

  “You have the right to give up, Kip! I’m sure you’ll make an amazing advisor!” Blademan yelled.

  “We’ve already got one!” Kip dove into the brambles. Blademan was twirling fast. The entire brush rustled. It fuzzied Blademan’s vibrational sonar. He ran through the middle of the brush, cutting them in half. Blademan decided that if he could not accurately ‘see’ where Kip was, he’d tear through the whole brush.

  Blademan exited his wheel form and bounced off another tree, turning around and slashing through the brambles. He ran through the brush again and again like he was a pizza cutter and the brambles were a decidedly basily pizza.

  He kept splitting it up but the texture of what he was stabbing never felt different. It never felt like he was hitting kobold meat. At this point a flurry of leaves and branches had been shot up into the air, the brush that Kip had hid in was more or less completely torn up and reduced to a pile. Blademan had to stop. He leapt up and stabbed at another tree, higher up, and planted his foot inside of the trunk, like some kind of monkey made entirely out of swords. He looked around. Since his head became a sword, he had very limited eyesight, but could sense the vibrations upon his bladehead. He waited.

  And waited.

  And…. waited.

  The thickness of the mud and peet on the ground had dampened the vibrations. While Blademan waited for Kip to reveal himself, he realized that Kip was in the wind, there was no way he was in the brambles. He must have escaped somehow. Blademan would have to go looking.

  Blademan slid off the tree onto the mud. The two blades slunk into the ground easily. Blademan had to lift his whole legs out of the mud, then sink it back in. Every single time. He made his way over to the brambles very slowly.

  “Kippo?” Blademan asked, “You there, buddy? Or are you dead?” He continued to walk forward, “It’s okay if you want to give up, champ! I don’t blame you at all.”

  Blademan had finally made his way to the brambles and poked through them. He didn’t find anything. When he was standing on the brambles, the mud was about waist high. Kip had jumped into the greenery, then sunk under the earth, where he crawled out of the way through the mud and was now completely lost.

  Blademan stuck his blades up, ready for action. He placed his arms in the mud where he hoped to get a better sense of the vibrations.

  Bluh

  Bluh

  Bluh

  And a large PLOP

  Over and over again. It couldn’t be a heartbeat. Breathing? Blademan slogged through the mud as he got closer. He leaned down to the source of the vibrations. Bubbles. Bubbles spurting up. He pulled back his hand, ready to stab when… Kip used the Burst action to jump through the mud, landing on Blademan’s back and clawing through Blademan’s chest.

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