The Stick and the System

Chapter 7: Monster Menagerie & Aether Accidents

The second day of the Grand Prix dawned with a different kind of energy in the air. The smell of festival food was now mixed with the scent of damp straw and animal musk. The Monster Menagerie was set up in a large, fenced-off pen at the edge of the square. It looked like a crude zoo built in a hurry.

The Gilded Fox gathered outside the competitors’ entrance. The mood was grimly determined. They had scraped into third place yesterday, but it felt like a fluke.

Bulkan was awake but looked deeply embarrassed, avoiding everyone’s eyes. “Hrn,” he grunted, which Caspian had learned could mean anything from “Good morning” to “I have deep regret about my life choices.”

“Today’s different,” Elara said, her voice low. “It’s not a race. It’s a controlled hunt. Points for subduing monsters non-lethally. They use weak ones—blue slimes, cave pups, maybe a stun-spore shroom. But they’re still monsters. And the Mudfoot Marauders will be in there with us.”

Tobin spun his spear nervously. “Right. So we avoid the monsters and focus on the Marauders?”

“No,” Elara said sharply. “We focus on points. We need to stay in the top three. Caspian, what can you do?”

Caspian held up his conduit. It was currently a stick. “I can make it sticky. I have a yoyo that can maybe trip something. And I have…” He pulled the small, brown noisemaker from his pocket.

Tobin stared at it. “Is that a… toy horn?”

“It’s a strategic distraction device,” Caspian said defensively.

“It’s a clown horn,” Elara said flatly. “Please tell me you have more than that.”

A town official with a clipboard bustled over. “Gilded Fox? You’re in the second heat. You go in with the Mudfoot Marauders and the Harvesters. Five minutes to secure as many points as you can. Remember, non-lethal! Use the provided nets and ropes if your conduit isn’t suited.”

They were handed two coarse nets and a length of rope. Bulkan took the rope, coiling it over his shoulder like a sash.

The gate to the pen creaked open for the first heat. They watched as the Granite Fists and two other guilds marched in. The pen contained a few scattered blue slimes the size of dogs, wobbling lazily, and two scrawny cave pups that looked more like nervous foxes with big ears. It was, as advertised, not very scary.

The Granite Fists immediately started chasing a slime, trying to wrap it in a net. It was like watching someone try to catch jello with a scarf. It was hilarious and ineffective.

“Okay,” Elara whispered. “Plan. Bulkan, you intimidate. Your presence alone might make a cave pup freeze. Tobin, you have one good strike. Use it to pin a slime’s core with your spear—don’t destroy it, just immobilize it. Caspian and I will use the nets. We go for quick, easy points. Stay together.”

The first heat ended with modest points all around. The gate opened again.

“Second heat! Gilded Fox, Mudfoot Marauders, Harvesters! Enter and begin!”

They walked into the pen. The ground was covered in straw and dirt. The three blue slimes pulsed gently. The two cave pups yipped and backed into a corner.

Dirk gave them a nasty grin from across the pen. “Let’s see how your stick handles something that fights back, eh?”

Elara ignored him. “Bulkan, that cave pup. Go.”

Bulkan took a step toward the corner, drawing himself up to his full, imposing height. He stared at the cave pup. He didn’t roar. He just… loomed.

The cave pup whined, flattened its ears, and rolled onto its back in a sign of submission. Perfect. A quick, non-violent point.

“Tobin, left slime!” Elara ordered.

“On it! Viper’s Kiss!” Tobin lunged. His spear tip glowed, extending. He aimed not for the slime’s core, but for the edge of its body, intending to pin it to the ground. His aim was true—the spear shot out and skewered the edge of the blue slime, pinning a gelatinous portion to the dirt.

But the slime, surprised and agitated, jiggled violently. The sudden motion, combined with Tobin’s drained Aether, made him lose his grip. The spear was yanked from his hands, standing upright with the slime writhing around it like a wobbly flag. Tobin stumbled back, yawned, and sat down hard in the straw. “One… per day…” he mumbled, and his head drooped.

“Great,” Elara muttered. “Caspian, net that slime!”

Caspian ran forward with his net. The pinned slime was an easy target. He threw the net over it, trying to gather the gelatinous mass. He was so focused he didn’t see Dirk’s club-wielder approaching from the side.

“Hey, fossil! Catch!” the man yelled.

Caspian looked up just as the Marauder used his club not to hit him, but to scoop under one of the other blue slimes and heave it through the air. The wobbling blue blob sailed toward Caspian.

He yelped and dove sideways. The slime splatted harmlessly on the ground where he’d been standing, then reformed, looking annoyed.

“No rule against using the monsters!” Dirk laughed from across the pen, where he was easily wrapping a net around a docile cave pup.

Elara was trying to corner the last slime, but it was proving slippery. The Harvesters were having similar trouble. The pen was devolving into chaos.

Caspian got to his feet, heart pounding. This wasn’t working. They needed an edge. He looked at the noisemaker in his hand. ‘Unwanted Attention,’ the description had said.

It was worth a shot.

He raised the horn to his lips, aimed generally at the center of the pen, and blew.

HONK. SQUAWK. HONNNNK.

The sound was unbelievably loud, abrasive, and wrong. It cut through all other noise.

Every single creature in the pen froze.

The two remaining slimes stopped wobbling. The cave pup Bulkan was intimidating yelped and covered its ears with its paws. The slime writhing on Tobin’s spear went rigid. Even the slime Dirk was trying to net paused its struggles.

For about two seconds, there was perfect, confused silence.

Then, chaos of a different kind erupted.

The sounds had confused and agitated the simple-minded monsters. The blue slime near Elara, instead of running, pulsed angrily and started vibrating in place, emitting a low, dangerous hum. A cave pup started chasing its own tail in a frantic circle. The slime on the spear finally managed to pull free, but instead of attacking, it began rapidly dividing into three smaller, agitated slimes.

The judges and the crowd outside the fence stared in bewilderment.

“What did you do?!” Elara shouted over the new cacophony of yips and angry slime glugs.

“I distracted them!” Caspian shouted back.

“You enraged them!”

Dirk recovered first, seeing opportunity. “Forget the points! Herd them toward the Fossils!” he yelled to his cronies.

The Mudfoot Marauders began using their clubs and nets not to catch monsters, but to shoo the confused, agitated creatures toward the Gilded Fox’s side of the pen.

A newly divided mini-slime lunged at Caspian’s ankle. He yelped and hopped backward, switching his conduit to yoyo form almost without thinking. He swung it, not hard, but the solid wood smacked the mini-slime and sent it rolling away. < Minor Slime Defeated! EXP +2! >

He got a point! A tiny, ridiculous point.

Elara was fending off the vibrating slime with her short sword, using the flat of the blade to parry its aggressive jiggles. Bulkan had abandoned intimidation and was now gently batting away the tail-chasing cave pup with the back of his hand, careful not to hurt it.

In the confusion, one of the Marauders, trying to shoo the divided slimes, tripped over Tobin’s still-sleeping legs. He stumbled right into the path of the vibrating slime, which, sensing a new target, launched itself at his face. It enveloped his head with a wet splorch. The man stumbled around blindly, screaming muffled curses.

Dirk roared in frustration. He left his net and charged across the pen, not toward a monster, but straight for Caspian. “You little nuisance!”

Caspian saw him coming. He had no Aether left for a sticky stick. The yoyo wouldn’t stop a charging swordsman. He had one move.

He put the noisemaker to his lips again, took a deep breath, and blew right in Dirk’s face as he got close.

HONK-SQUAWK!

The sound at point-blank range was devastating. Dirk skidded to a halt, his eyes crossing momentarily. He shook his head, disoriented. “Gah! What is that?!”

It gave Caspian just enough time to duck under Dirk’s wild swing and scramble away.

A shrill whistle blew. “TIME! Heat two is OVER! All competitors, exit the pen NOW!”

Town guards rushed in with large barriers, starting to corral the agitated monsters. The Gilded Fox dragged a sleeping Tobin to his feet and stumbled out of the gate. The Mudfoot Marauders followed, one of them still peeling a very annoyed blue slime from his head.

They stood panting outside, covered in straw and slime residue. They had no idea how they’d done.

The head judge, Alden, the old man from registration, walked up to the scoring table. He looked over the notes from the judges inside the pen. He announced the scores.

“The Harvesters: eight points. The Mudfoot Marauders: fifteen points.” Dirk smirked, despite his red, irritated ears.

Alden continued. “And the Gilded Fox… nineteen points.”

The Fox members stared at each other.

“How?” Elara whispered.

Alden’s eyes twinkled. “Points were awarded for subjugation by any means. Intimidation of one cave pup. Spear-pinning of one slime, however temporary. Dispersal of one slime into smaller, less threatening forms. And,” he said, a hint of a smile on his lips, “for the successful distraction and redirection of multiple hostile creatures, preventing injury to competitors. A… unique strategy.”

They had won the heat. Not through strength, but through sheer, unadulterated chaos.

Dirk’s smirk vanished. He stomped over, his face flushed with anger. “This is a joke! They used a toy! A stupid noise!”

“A conduit is a conduit,” Alden said calmly, repeating his words from registration. “Its application is up to the wielder. The results stand.”

As Dirk stormed off, Alden glanced at Caspian. His gaze was thoughtful, lingering on the noisemaker now tucked back in Caspian’s belt. He gave the slightest nod before turning away.

Elara let out a long breath. “We’re in second place overall.”

Bulkan grunted. It sounded pleased.

Tobin, finally awake, blinked. “Did we win? I had a dream about pudding.”

Caspian looked at his hands. They had won by causing a mess. His ridiculous, evolving conduit was finding a way. He pulled up his status mentally. The little bits of EXP from the mini-slime and the event completion had pushed him forward.

< Congratulations! Level Up! >

< Current Level: 4 >

< New Form Unlocked. >

He focused on his conduit, feeling the new potential humming within the wood. He didn’t know what new, absurd tool Level 4 would bring. A rubber chicken? A paddleball?

He smiled. Tomorrow was the final event: the Aether Gauntlet, a test of fine control.

Somehow, he had a feeling his bag of stupid tricks was just getting started.