Bout of Wits

By: Dortheron Posted on: December 31, 2015

The rowdy noise of drunken men on the lower floor rumbled in the background as a small crowd gathers, the shrill winter wind blowing past and rattling the windows. The soft candlelight reveals the crowd to be made of merchants, scholars, and persons of wealth and leisure. In the centre of the room sits a small Tsol’aa in flowing robes, watching as everyone in the room settles in for the coming event. With the slow dripping of sand down the hourglass, the Tsol’aa stands up smiling.

“Everyone, your attention please!” he calls out, his high voice settling the noise down. Seeing the audience quiet, he continues on. “I would like to thank you all for coming to my little establishment. Normally I settle with the rough folk down below who’s only intelligent phrasing comes from the creative insults they fling at each other. But tonight before us, I want to play a little game. A game of speed, imagination, and wit.”

He smiles as he waves forward to two individuals: a dark haired Mhun with a single blade on his hip, and a small dwarf in a robe, alchemical symbols bound in the expensive silk. Facing each other, they stare down each other. The swordsman glares down the dwarf with utter confidence, while the Alchemist keeps his expression blank, preferring not to reveal anything. “These two,” the host continues “will face each other not in a battle of strength, but in a battle of riddles! Whoever fells their foe first will be the winner!” The crowd exclaims out at the hosts bellow and pound their mugs and glasses on the tables they sit around. Seeing their approval, he quickly flips a coin to determine who goes first, and then points to the dwarf.

The dwarf, stroking his long shaggy beard, quietly mutters out his first challenge: “Cut to start the deeds, unheeded babbling for greater needs, scatter to further divide, together to become the guide.” As the Mhun takes it in, the dwarf twiddles his thumbs, hoping his question is a stumper. Moments pass to minutes until the Mhun slaps his hand onto the hilt of blade and declares his answer “Zaphar River”.

Frowning, the robed man nods his head and waves him on for his challenge. Smiling happily, his foe simply and briskly replies “Grounded, Flowing, Churning, Burning, Quiet, Death”. The words hanging in the air, the dwarf concentrates as the crowd tries to puzzle out the solution on their own. Time passes until the Tsol’aa, getting impatience and the judge of his little gathering calls out to the challenger. “Do you have an answer?”

The Alchemist struggled to find an answer. Time? No. Lava? No. The possibilities rattled in his head but nothing came to. When his response was required, he almost replied negatively until he spied a hand on his foe’s blade. Not your normal forged blade, but one specifically made to him. He smiles and answers with sudden confidence “TwoArts”.

Enlightened sighs and inquisitive grumbles ring out, those who bested the riddle before the answer smugly confiding the fact with their fellow audience members. The first hurdle cleared for both, the riddles begen to shot back and forth, with answers coming. They dance back and forth with their questions and replies.

“Lehrinas’ Prophecy"
“Dance of the Vault?”
“An egg”
“…a monolith sigil”
“Hunger”
“Belladona”
“Lady Valnurana”
“Ormyrr or Dala’myrr”

The challenge pushed back and forth, the swordsman quickly coming to show his ease with riddles as good as his skill with the blade, replying faster and with more confidence with each other. The Alchemist was much slower in his responses, testing out several answers in his mind and always with a hint of uncertainty in his responses.

The candles burn away and the alcohol gets drunk, refilled, and drunk again. With neither side relenting, the Tsol’aa quietly judges both sides, slowly decreasing the amount of time they have to offer without announcing it. First ten minutes, then nine, then eight. Until they had simply two minutes per question.

Finally the Alchemist simply asks “Once bright dreams, cast aside past screams, beauty ignored and need of steel, many treasures yet revealed.” The Mhun’s confident smile fades from his face for the first time, trying to puzzle out the answer. With the Alchemists held breath in hope, the stillness of the room increases as everyone sees the struggle on blademaster’s face.

“Time” the judge calls. No Answer.

“Time” he calls even louder, and still no reply. Time passes even more, longer than any after asking for a reply. Finally in a shriek of frustration, the young Mhun stalks out of the room as a burst of excitement for the young winner comes out of the crowd, cheers and congratulations being showered onto the Dwarf.

“If you don’t have the solution, then it looks like we have a winner” the Tsol’aa cries out unheeded, almost drowned out. With a warm smile on his face, the host and judge simply asks “What’s the answer?” Everyone who heard gives their own thoughts, but the winner just shakes his head.

Then, in a quiet voice, he reveals the answer.