[Q] Introduction to Arcadian High Society

[Mollymauk Tealeaf]

Molly and Jester were walking up to the club, its blaring neon sign shouting past the night clouds so close to this upper floating island district of Arcadia, enough of a beacon to draw them in. Airships flew overhead and after a moment of their passing a person could feel a gentle breeze in their wake. This small district in the sky was all magical-hardscape, the architecture resplendent with its walkways for nearly each and every exclusive restaurant or clothing store or whatever else kind of business the ultra-wealthy of the city was in need of. It seemed not even a chocobo was allowed to be used as a vehicle here, as the only transport they had seen was in the docking bay at the security checkpoint.

Night air that should have held the chill accompanying being at such an elevation must have been dampened by the arcane somehow and made it feel like a summer night, which was lucky because Molly had decided to go completely shirtless, and acted as though it was a choice and not due to every clothing he ever had owned that covered his shoulders had been either lost to time or cut to sheds in battle. Still, tonight made that feel like a blessing and the showman took a moment to stretch out his limbs like a cat and soak in the warmth, especially after the cold air-conditioning of the private car they took here.

“Wow, mama REALLY came through with these passes, Molly. Opening night!” Jester cried with glee, as they walked the absolutely breath-takingly clean and tidy streets of the floating island, so much removed and different than what they were used to, and even though Jester was no stranger to nicer parts of the city being the daughter of an illustrious and renowned courtesan, this was something else all-together.

There was no bustling, nobody hurried, and the two Tiefling friends walked arm in arm, too confident to have the understanding they did not belong among this upper-crust place, horned heads held high, they strutted better than even the wealthiest that walked beside them. The line outside the club that had brought them here wrapped around the building, and they heard many cries from obvious rich kids demanding entry, even one or two snotty voices exclaiming Do you know who my parents are?! but alas, the massive ogre in a pinstriped tuxedo guarding the front door with clipboard in hand made no expression, pointing to the back of the line for each of the self-important whiners.

The blue and purple off-duty, freelance paranormal investigator devils approached the massive bouncer and could not be bothered to look even a bit sheepish at skipping the whole line, showing their hologram VIP passes. Both were scanned by a diminutive gnome with a wand who apparently had a small chair set up behind the Ogre’s legs.

“Have a nice time, and welcome to Majestika,” The gnome said, and he straightened his dress robes, before taking his seat behind the Ogre’s tree trunk and pinstripe pant leg again.

The massive bouncer flashed a gold-toothed smile and unclipped a sparkling red rope made of floating rubies, beckoning them inside. A cry of “I’m from the fucking ROYAL FAMILY, you bitch,” rang out, the entitlement palpable. Molly and Jester both looked around the large frame of the golden mouthed ogre-bouncer, leaning all the way back without moving their feet.

A young woman who looked like she had money stood glaring upwards, with knee-length dress luminescent from thousands of soft- glowing gems attached to its silk; heels, necklace, and earrings to match. She was the next in line and looking up at the hulking doorman with defiance as she sucked on something metallic and blew out a plume of gold smoke in the bouncer’s face that left an after smell of mint-bubble gum to hang in the warm night on the upper levels of Arcadia.

“Well, you know…you should definitely try and get one of these bad boys, then,” Jester said, smiling and showing her VIP hologram, still leaning all the way back on her haunches with spine bent, Molly leaning in tandem beside her.

The would-be royal scoffed and folded her bare arms, scrunching up her face as if catching a bad smell and sagging her body to one side to emphasize her dissatisfaction. “...Aaand who even'R’you, anway…” she said in a strange tone of voice with words running together and drawn out haphazardly.

Molly and Jester both nodded to each other, the shorter and more leaned back blue Tiefling answered with a bright fangy smile back to the woman outside the club, “Hi! I'm Jester! And this is Molly, he's really cool, you know. We're here to dance aaand eat donuts…but I think I ate all my donuts on the way here…” she grumbled.

“Ya absolutely did, Sweet Jester. Guess that'll just be leavin’ tha other one,” Molly said, and gave a wink and playful middle-finger to the line of people watching before the hunter and the cleric simultaneously put on a pair of sunglasses they had bought at the airbus station earlier in the day. It was only after the purchase they found out only private companies shuttled to this particular piece of floating earth hanging above the city proper.

“Your dress is, like, super cool. Ok bye,” Jester called out to the glowing dress lady who seemed taken aback, her arms unfolded and face now just looking confused.

The Tiefling duo snapped back up and walked into the dark club, at night, wearing sunglasses; both thanking their infernal heritage for being able to see very well in the dark. Grunted laughter sounding from the bouncer was the last thing they heard before the music playing from Club Majestika took over.

(980/5000)

 

[Jester Lavorre]

The lights were high octane. Spectrum flashes of color seized through the dark, alternating in hue, but leaving ample time between their punches for the clientele to revel.

At a table on a raised platform, Jester began to form a hypothesis.

“So, the way I see it, technically, if you do a double triple dipper, is that a sextuple dipper?” Jester asked, leaning back on a leather couch. She wiped a greasy finger on the arm rest. “Or is it, like, two separate triple dippers? Do they become one thing when you order two of them? Or are they two different things, technically?”

Molly, holding court on the other side of the table, leaned forward. His eyes were red pools. They were rubies, they were blood in the water, and they were accenting his cheeks. His cheeks were flushed, and they flushed because Molly was a man who was born for bottle service.

VIP holos afforded certain accommodations, amongst which were copious amounts of liquor. Jester? She might take a coffee liquor in her evening tea, but otherwise, the mystique of deeper party was a mystery to her.

Two ladies approached Mollymauk. One set down a bottle of something unlabeled and muddled. He looked delighted. Then. the second of them snaked an arm down his collarbone and began to stroke his myriad scars.

“My dear Jester,” Molly declared, leaning back. He was a cat with a chin scritch, and he delighted in the attention of woman two from the bottle service. “Are we ordering a triple dipper tonight?”

Jester pondered that. What could delivery bring them? Big Mouth Bites? Two entire separate triple dippers full of southwest eggrolls?

Jester sipped thoughtfully at a virgin martini. Molly brushed off the attention of his attendant lady and gave his companion the sort of overly focused stare that belongs to the drunken.

“Jester?”

“Yes, Molly?”

“We’ve been through some shit, haven’t we?”

Jester guffawed behind her hand.

“Molly. You have been through some shit. Probably much more than I have. …probably. We can talk about it, if you want, or we can focus on having a good night tonight, you know? Maybe that’s what we both need.”

Mollymauk contemplated this, chewing his lip, and finally let out a resigned sigh.

“Yer right, Jester, o’ course. As always. Let’s get this triple double thing, then.”

“Double triple dipper,” Jester corrected quickly. “That part is important. It is a triple dipper because it has three appetizers in it, and it is a double triple dipper because we order two of them. What that means, Molly, is that we end up with six appetizers. You can sort of mix and match, that way if you’re in the mood for the mozzarella bricks, but you’re also in the mood for teensy little delicious burger sliders, and you’re in the mood for southwest eggrolls, you can get all three. You see, the trick is, that three appetizers feels like a lot, but once you share them with two people, it is actually not even close to enough. You could technically order a triple triple dipper, or a quadruple triple dipper, but since there’s only two of us, I think we should start small and then work our way up.”

“Well,” Molly began, pausing to take a swig of his mysterious bottle. “What if I’m wantin’ an entree?”

Jester inhaled sharply, clutching the edge of the table. She was aghast. Her startled eyes blinked quickly while she slid her chair back an inch.

“Molly,” she hissed, looking around. “Do not even say that. I think you can technically be thrown out of a place like this for saying something like that. You know what? I will forget you ever even said that. Now, come on..

Jester stood abruptly then placed her hands palms down on the table. She leaned forward dramatically, looking over her sunglasses at Molly.

“It is time to dance.”

The music was a throbbing pulse that raced through the club and drowned the listener in a pool of sensory overload. Strobing lights and frenetic bodies stomping and jumping to the rhythm of uncountable beats per minute met Mollymauk and Jester as the pair of Tieflings pushed into the waves of the dance floor. On the outskirts one could wade into the tide, but once the undertow took hold of a body and pulled it out into the open waters of a party with no end there was little hope for escape. Mollymauk knew that, rather than tread water in such an environment, you had to fully immerse and become one with the flow. Only then could the subtle current of the otherwise unreadable crowd become discernible.

Jester followed his lead, gyrating awkwardly, and bobbing her head.

Mollymauk moved with a practiced grace that the blue cleric in his tow could never hope to mimic. The dancers that stepped into his territory fell into his thrall, moving to his rhythm, as if they were a den of vipers and he was their snake charmer.

The heat of the crowd was stifling, and Jester felt sweat trick down her forehead. Her heavy layers of light fabric worked to wick away her bodily condensation, and she was aware that the smell of the dance floor was cloying sweat and hard liquor. Despite the reputation of the establishment, there was no avoiding the subtle disgust that comes with pulling a boot out of a half-dry puddle of something sticky. More than once she bumped into eager revelers and nearly lost sight of her illustrious purple friend, but Mollymauk was a beacon, and he managed to draw her in every time she feared he had disappeared.

Then they stepped out on the other side of the crowd. They had crossed. Jester realized that Mollymauk had been a shepherd leading her, the little lamb, safely through the danger.

“Ya alright, there, Jester?” Molly asked, grinning. “Thought I’d lost ya a couple o’ times, there.”

He held his murky bottle in one hand down by his hip, and linked his other arm in hers.

“Crowd like that can eat ya alive, eh?”

Jester offered a wan smile, feeling as if she’d been through an ordeal.

“Yeah, apparently it can,” she agreed. “...hey, is that…?”

Using a finger with a pointed nail, Jester indicated a tall man up ahead in a full cowboy get-up, ten gallon hat, holding a tumble of whiskey. He was standing at the bar, leaning his lanky frame against it, and chewing a toothpick.

“I think that’s Cactus Jones!” exclaimed Jester excitedly, tugging Molly towards the bar. “Cactus Jones, Molly! He’s a famous cowpoke! We have to go see him!”

The reluctant Mollymauk allowed Jester to tug him in the direction of the bar. He was not a fan of assailing celebrities.

Word Count: 1142/5000

 

[Mollymauk Tealeaf]

The two Tieflings approached the daytime public access children’s show personality. Jester had enough exuberance for both of them, which was lucky because Molly became less and less interested within the first minute of Cactus Jones politely greeting them both.

“Well, How’dya do there, little lady and…my oh my, what have we here? Someone go on and call the sheriff cause this man’s got his shirt swiped!” Came the high pitched and cracking twang of the famous cowpoke as he slapped his knee with the off-hand not handling the tumbler of whiskey. Jester was delighted and let out a husky laugh as she grabbed and squeezed Molly’s arm, jumping up and down a little. The taller and more combat-oriented of the two gave a strained smile in reply, somewhat out of politeness but mostly to hide the sheer amount of pain that was coursing through his arm, as his shorter cleric best friend had a tendency to forget how ridiculously strong she was.

“Mr. Jones, can I just say, I am probably, like, your biggest fan!” Jester said, straightening up and flashing her holo VIP card to the handsome half-orc behind the bar. He smiled at her in a way that Molly understood, but Jester was oblivious to. “Get this man anything he wants, and put it on our tab,” she said politely and added a wink which got her a laugh from the bartender.

“Oh, now none of that. I got myself a VIP too, darlin’, but thank you kindly…” Cactus Jones said and held out a hand for a shake. “Always a pleasure to meet fans…usually they aren’t so…uh…so do you watch with your little brothers and sisters, cousins? I don’t got a pen on me, but I can sign somethin’ for ya if ya’d like,” He added, happy to be recognized at such an adult establishment.

“What? I can have an autograph?! Molly, I’m going to get an autograph from the greatest cowpoke in ‘Nona. oh, wow!” Jester replied excitedly, ignoring most of the other things that had been said.

“She still watches ya every single weekend…she really might be yer biggest fan,” Molly added, trying to be helpful and fill in the gaps in the cowpokes' understanding.

“Oh, wow. Really? I..uh…well, alright, little lady, consider it a done deal! By the way, I really like your look, jokes aside…” the children’s show personality said to Molly in a more serious voice that was truer to how he probably sounded when not entertaining the children in Arcadia who were forced to only be granted public access programming. Jones put his whiskey on the bar and thumbs in his belt buckle of gaudy bronze, his jeans so tight they seemed painted on and in no way needing any support from the belt to be held up. He looked the Purple Tiefling up and down appraisingly before removing his hat to show graying hair at his temples, and reached out for a shake.

“Er-right, well, enough o’ that. I’m…Molly,” The Lavender-Skinned Tiefling offered up reluctantly while trying to be as polite as he could to the older man with sweat stains under the pits of his rancher’s button up. They shook hands and Jones’ made uncomfortable eye-contact and did another appraisal with his eyes. Molly looked to his friend for help, but she was now making small talk with the handsome bartender that Molly wished had been the one to take in his beautiful face and body rather than an aging, sweaty, children’s show personality. Jester did indeed give him an opening moments later, as she produced a napkin and pen given from behind the bar and as she pushed both things toward Cactus Jones, Molly started to slowly back away.

“Jester, I’m gonna go an’ see about that dance floor. I think it’s time I go searching fer a bit o’ catharsis, love,” he whispered to her, and she waved him off, unbothered and wholly distracted. He did not dare to look back and could feel the cowpokes eyes on him walking away.

“Well, with an arse like this, who can blame em’,” Molly said to himself, “an’ best o’ luck findin’ another swain fer tonight's tryst, Cactus Jooones, but thank an Arbiter’s jockstrap it won't be sweet, dear me,” he sighed while he sashayed away.

The dancing was just a short walk between some high-top tables and down some steps. The moment the soles of the half-naked Devil's knee-high boots hit the floor, a new song had started. He stared up at the lights spinning an array of colors and let the vibrations coarse through his body. He started slow, just snapping his fingers to the beat and took a big swig of the murky bottle filled with something that sweetly burned as it poured down his throat. He bobbed his head a little, unsure and unfamiliar with his own hesitation. He was a showman first and foremost and a damned good one. Mollymauk lived for the party, why did he feel so…heavy? So resistant and restrained in a place that had everything he could want. His mind was suddenly filled with all the things that had happened over the last few months and he continued to just snap his fingers and bob his head to the thumping sounds. He closed his eyes standing just at the perimeter of the bodies all muddling and rubbing together to the same song.

The Tiefling Hunter had once been the main event at his former carnival, his tent and shows always drawing a crowd. Now here he stood, on the outside of things, dithering and dilly-dallying on whether to join.

Molly breathed in deep and focused on the music, the vibrations, the sounds of everything everywhere all at once and the flashing lights. He let the amalgamation of it wash over him like a wave of warm water, and he thought now of lighting that fire inside of him, letting a spark take hold and fill him up. Yes, he had been through alot, sure…but he was alive and this was his life, his body now. Things had happened well beyond his control and that was okay. He shook the baubles and trinkets on his horns, hearing them through the pulsating beats of the music with eyes still closed, he smiled and finally opened them. A real smile, fangy and full of temptation, desire, and mischief. His crimson-colored eyes narrowed to match the grin in that hungry for life way that made the already bright eyes of the Devil Showman almost gleam with the hot-burning wildfire for living and doing it his own way that made him so attractive to people. He set the bottle down somewhere.

He was free. Free to let go. Free to forgive himself. Free to not give a single fuck about any of it, even only for tonight.

“Can’t be makin’ yerself a diamond without a bit o’ pressure… ARCADIA watch out, cause Ole Molly is back, ya damned sexy babies,” Molly whispered to himself, and realized the same song was still playing.

He snapped along, but this time while shuffling out into the throng of the crowd, pelvis first, spreading out his arms like wings as he slid the last part of the way to the middle of the dancefloor as the people parted. A tall woman with eyes like a snake and light shining scales crossed his path to dance and he grabbed her hand, immediately spinning her away to be swallowed by the masses enclosed around him. The purple, shirtless Tiefling switched to a one-leg, one-step shuffle as he rolled his closed fists one over the other as his shoulders matched the rhythm.

Others around him slowly joined in and once it caught on, it spread like the wildfire now burning in his partial soul.

980+1315=2295/5000

 

[Mollymauk Tealeaf]

It’s murder on the dancefloor, but you better not kill the groove, DJ! Gonna burn this goddamn house right down…

“Arbiter’s arse-hairs! How many times has this song played?” Molly asked himself, breaking out of a hazy daze, and more out of breath than he should be as he leaped in-time to a perfectly choreographed dance number happening all around him. He was caught by two sets of strong arms as they kept him lifted above the crowd, the shirtless Tiefling with his arms splayed out like an eagle.

His body seemed not his own, but it did not feel that way. Every so often he could break through the fog of euphoria and realize he was, yet again, in the middle of a dance. He also knew it was only a matter of time before the energy of the constantly grooving club attendees also on the dancefloor would overwhelm him, and he’d be right back into it, leading a new choreographed number for the writhing mob to the SAME SONG.

He saw Jester while being hoisted like a bird above the heads of the crowd, her horns and blue skin catching the many flashing lights, always an unmistakable giveaway. As he was lowered like a God, a strong arm under each of his own, Molly tried to focus while he spun and spun, the others around him copying his movements. He needed to make this look natural, he needed to tell his friend something was terribly wrong.

Wait…was anything wrong? This place was amazing, and this song was absolutely bumping. What was he even doing? That’s right! He was vibing with all these amazing people, and he was their lord of the dance.

The flamboyant Showman did a slide to the left, which his countless new friends copied, then he did a slide to the right, which was also imitated. Suddenly, he was there, at the edge of the space. A pair of pink eyes full of concern bore into his crimson own. A blue hand reached out with a vice grip on his forearm before he spun away, the strength behind it stopping him completely from moving.

So he danced in place.

“Molly! Look at me!” Jester yelled over the music.

“I’m looking! Come and dance, Sweet Jester. It’s wonderful, these people are fantastic...Come on, just one dance! We can leave after my favorite song plays, cross my heart,” Molly said, trying to coax her into the obvious fun of the night.

“Mollymauk Tealeaf! It has been, like, two hours. Oh, Traveler! That guy over there just fell over!” Jester said, and looked on in horror as the young man was dragged off the dancefloor almost immediately by a pair of waiting attendants. Molly looked but he didn’t see anything.

“Jester, are ya alright, love? I couldn’t have been out here longer than…longer…than…” and the Purple Tiefling looked in horror to his friend, now in one of the moments where he had a sliver of lucidity coming to hit him full-on like a charging chocobo. “Oh. Oh! Jester, listen to me, I don’t think I can stop dancin’. I already feel myself being pulled back into it…I just want to groooove fer forever,” and Molly’s head lolled as his shoulders and hips caught the rhythm and beat again, making up for the slow and lethargic movements he did while he had a moment of clarity. “Jester! You really gotta come and dance, everyone is so nice,” and he went to pull his friend into the choreographed servitude that seemed to be taking place.

Jester full on punched Molly square in the mouth.

“Sorry, Molly,” she said weakly as he slumped a bit, caught unawares. The freakishly strong and shorter blue devil pulled her tall and lanky purple compatriot out of the gyrating fray of hapless and helpless club goers, and the instant the showman’s knee-high boots hit the carpet surrounding the dancefloor, the spell was broken. Around them almost half of the fellow dancers seemed to just collapse with exhaustion as their bodies finally were given leave to rest. Cries and groans started to fill the air of the space, and Molly realized the song he had been hearing now in Club Majestika wasn’t the song that had been playing over and over in his mind at all.

“What in the absolute fuck…well enough o’ that, an enough o’ this place…” Molly panted, staring around the entire nightclub which seemed now weirdly deserted for a venue of this caliber.

“Yeah, I don't know, I got caught up talking to the handsome bartender- I think he’s like basically obsessed with me or whatever, he just kept asking me if he could get me more of those virgin daiquiris over and over and didn’t even charge me for a single one… like, calm down, you know?” Jester was starting to catch steam on a ramble and Molly butted in for a brief moment to steer it on a more constructive path.

“Well, he’s a bartender…and ya get free drinks as a VIP, Jester…so ya just talked to him fer two hours while I was dancing the absolute pants off o’ the floor out there?” Molly asked, feigning incredulity.

“You looked like you were having a great time! Also, I also was talking to Cactus Jones. He’s the best, and I think he really likes you, Molly. He couldn't take his eyes off you the whole time and kept muttering under his breath and...ohhhhhhhhhh!” The blue Trickster Cleric replied, slapping her forehead as she and the sweaty Blood-Hunter both looked up near the bar where Cactus Jones stood, thumbs in his belt-buckle, grinning wildly.

“What even is, like, your problem?” Jester shouted over the music to the skinny Man in tight denim jeans as he strolled casually down the steps towards them.

“Me? Well, I guess you can call me a collector of sorts, and Im always looking for new species for my…menagerie…the endurance of your friend, Jester, is quite remarkable. I own many clubs, including this one and someone like Mollymauk, hm. Well. Some things we just must have in this world…” The pretense of the folksy cowpoke from the children's program had completely vanished, replaced with a gruff voice sounding always on the verge of contempt and arrogance.

“The children of Arcadia trusted you!” said Jester, heartbroken and filled with some type of grief as a part of the child that stayed with her all these years broke off and crumbled.

“The children of Arcadia can suck it!” The Cowpoke shot back, and the two Tieflings gasped in horror as the villian before them also got a little embarrassed and tried to backpedal. “No, that's- that was uncool. I didn't mean, I was just saying something to what you were saying…Shut up! I'm in control here, and what kind of grown woman watches children’s shows anyway,” the fallen-hero Jones said, voice filled with mock pity.

Jester’s shoulders slumped and Molly put an arm around her in comfort, staring daggers and shaking his head at the despicable abuser of power clad in denim and cowboy hat before them. Now it was the Devil Showman’s turn to show contempt and disgust behind his ruby-colored eyes.

Cactus Jones thumbed his bronze belt buckle and scoffed. It gave a small flash in the lights twisting above and Molly heard the song from earlier calling out to him, and he put a hand to his head, rubbing between his horns.

...If you think you're getting away, I will prove you wrong, I'll take you all the way, boy, just come along…

The TV Personality took off his ten-gallon hat, smoothing his hair, showing more gray hidden than just at his temples. He cleared his throat in aggravation and continued his tirade and intentions nobody had asked him for.

“Now sure! I may be a little drunker than normal ...I'm usually not so forward,” they said, switching to the folksy Cowpoke character voice, feigning apologetic, before shedding it like the skin of a snake you'd find out in the hinterlands, his real voice of malice and vitriol coming back. “...but well, I had to see what you could do, Molly! You did not disappoint like so many of the wealthy and well-connected that walk through any of my doors. A diamond in the rough, as they say. Hm…You know what? You should be so honored, you vagrant look-” He was cut off from his weird and hurtful villainous monologue with a very hard bottle of dark liquor to the back of his head. The same bottle that had filled Cactus Jones whiskey tumbler the entire evening, oddly enough.

This coincidence was not lost on Jester.

“Oh, thank the Traveler,” she said in a feinty voice, giving credit to her deity.

Molly rolled his eyes but sighed relief as the music in his head stopped, and even gave a wicked smile when the half-orc bartender came rushing up to Jester with fear in his eyes.

“Jester, are you alright? He had asked me to make sure you drank some of the alcohol, but I just couldn't do that to you. Can you forgive me for playing part in the deception? I promise, it was my first day,” The bartender said dramatically in earnest, taking both her hands in his.

“Oh geez you guys, I don't know…OK!” the Trickster Cleric said in her playful manner, looking at Molly and giving him an ‘I told you so’ eyebrow raise, but she was downright excited, and her best friend could tell.

Molly went over and rolled the TV Personality and Club Owner on to his back. The cowboy hat was next to the unconscious man on the ground and the Devil Showman knew a good style when he saw it, placing the hat on his head, but his horns made it impossible to wear.

Either way, he decided he was keeping it.

Cactus Jones' eyes sprang open as Molly was pulling the belt with its seemingly arcane buckle all the way through the loops around the pair of skin tight blue jeans.

“No! No…how…how dare you take that from me!” The False-Cowpoke said, but he couldn't get up from the floor with Molly pressing a heeled boot into his chest.

“Oi, would ya look at that…I guess consent does matter ta ya after all, ya shameful ole’ bastard,” Molly said, and flashed his full-faced grin. “Eat yer heart out,” and the Blood-Hunter Devil took the boot off the chest as he used it to slam into Cactus Jones’ nose, knocking him out again; the thin carpet doing nothing to protect the skull as it bounced off the nightclub floor.

“Well, I called a friend at APD, He knew to connect me to the right department for this kind of thing, they are on their way,” The bartender said, an arm wrapped around Jester and his cellphone in his hand. Molly tossed him the belt and buckle.

“Ya got cop friends? We know a detective that handles things like this…actually we know a couple detectives at the APD now don't we, Sweet Jester?” Molly said, as he stretched out sore muscles a bit, looking at all the tired former dancers who were too exhausted to leave.

“Wow, can you get me a reference? I start at the academy next week!” The bartender asked Jester, the former Dante's Abyss contestant and Haunted Haven Survivor who was now acting like she was having a fainting spell in his arms from all the commotion they had been through.

She perked right up and caught the half-orc by surprise. “Oh absolutely. We know, like, so many detectives. A magic Detective named Mickey and a really great homicide detective named Columbo…and…”

“We just know the two, but if yer wanting the credit, we will get out of here and ya can say ya did it all yerself,” The former Carnival Tarot Reader gave a glorious bow, and started to leave.

“Wait, Jester, how will I find you?” The bartender asked.

“Don't worry, Fjord. I'll find you,” the blue Tiefling replied and placed a finger to his lips, squishing them.

“Dyoo wanna tay muh scoot’r?” Fjord asked through finger-mushed lips.

About ten minutes later, Jester and Molly were getting on to the small two-seater, two-wheeled vehicle in the hidden away parking garage for employees of the small island. A back entrance of sorts for the help to come and go. The entire small open-air building rested over the edge overlooking Arcadia proper, as if it was spilling off like a concrete waterfall.

As they were cleared to exit the garage to make their way onward home far down below, Molly asked a question.

“Jester, how do ya intend ta find that handsome man again? Also, I never Knew you could drive an air-scooter,” the purple devil said as he got on the back and wrapped around his blue devil companion, his cowboy hat prize still in his hands.

“Molly, don't be silly, I have no idea how I will find him…or how to drive this thing, but in both cases, we must trust in the Traveler,” Jester replied cheerfully and hit the gas, taking off the ramp and immediately sending them in a freefall towards the moving lanes of air-traffic below.

“Waitwaitwait-” was all Molly had time to say before they both started screaming.

2295+2260=4555

 

[Jester Lavorre]

“JESTERRRR!”

Molly’s banshee wails reverberated through the night sky, but much like the final frontier, in the wild west of Arcadia’s air traffic there was no one to hear you scream. Besides Jester, anyway, but she wasn’t listening. She was having too much fun.

The sky was onyx streaked with the headlights of electric vehicles that coasted through the air currents above the city with the deft precision of a flock of migratory birds; the night sky flashed and strobed with their light pollution until the skies over Arcadia bore a strong resemblance to a low budget psychedelic rock concert.

Jester and Molly’s air scooter avoided dive bombing a boxy looking four cylinder by mere inches. They were so close, in fact, that Mollymauk wondered if he’s lost the tip of his horn, but was too afraid of what might happen if he let go of his insane companion’s waist to check.

“ARBITER ABOVE!” Molly screamed, pleading. “OH, SWEET ARBITER ABOVE! HEAR MY PRAYERS AND SAVE ME FROM THIS MADWOMAN!”

Jester cackled like someone who’d finally lost their grip, leaning forward to enhance their aerodynamics.

The interesting thing about air traffic in the skies of Arcadia was how little Jester understood it. There was a rhythm to the proceedings. There had to be, or else flying cars would be colliding everywhere and plummeting from the sky in fiery plumes of death. Yes, there was no doubt that an orderly system of rules and regulations dictated the flow of air traffic, and that Jester and Molly’s freefall did not comply with that system.

With the grace of an albatross suffering a stroke, Jester tugged up on the clubman bars of their air scooter while depressing the brakes, resulting in a maneuver like a clumsy drop into a halfpipe littered with speed bumps. The resulting trajectory shot the pair horizontally into oncoming traffic, which Jester frantically steered them through by threading the needle between vehicles with a hair raisingly thin margin of error. At one point, Molly was certain they’d swapped paint with a yellow muscle car. How they’d managed to do so without crushing one of their legs in the process, he might never understand.

“You doing alright back there, Molly!? Do not worry, I’ve probably got this!” the Tiefling shouted, looking over her shoulder. “Probably!”

Molly blanched, his purple face paling to a splotchy lilac. Much like the illustrious lilac, he was wilting against the freezing night air’s bombardment. He shut his eyes tight and shouted: “Jester! Please! I’m beggin’ o’ ye, please look at the road, don’t look back at ol’ Molly!”

“Molly, there isn’t a road! It’s just sky!”

A blaring horn and twin rods of halogen light suddenly demanded Jester’s attention. She swung her head around just in time to widen her eyes in abject horror, for they, as an entity, were about to combine with an oncoming freighter. The lights reflected in the glossy pink of Jester’s irises. She had to act fast!

She swung hard right, spitting them right out of the flow of traffic, and back into another nosedive. They began to revolve gently, spinning on an invisible axis as they descended. Jester was reminded of the spin cycle in a washing machine and felt the insane urge to laugh bubbling up in her throat, despite everything.

“We survived,” gasped Molly, opening his eyes again. “We actually survived!”

“Of course we survived, silly,” giggled Jester. “We’ve got the Traveler with us!”

Mollymauk looked around, astounded, and found that they were freefalling through open air, alone. Aside from the cars overhead and each other, there was no one else with them in the sky. Was there actually a Traveler? Or had Jester navigated the dangers of plummeting ass over teakettle through oncoming traffic on raw luck and blind faith? Did he even want to know the answer?

A sigh of relief slipped out of him with the inevitability of an uncontrollable fart, and he pinched it off just as quickly. Was it over? It couldn’t be over.

The floating island shrank away behind them, while the surface of Arcadia began to grow larger, slowly. If the buffeting winds and the air scooter’s gradually increasing number of revolutions per minute could be ignored, their fall could almost be considered peaceful.

Molly practiced deep breathing, trying to get his heart rate back to a place below the hypertensive line. Sure, Jester could be rash, but they’d gotten through the worst of it, hadn’t they? With the roar of traffic dying out behind them, all that was left was the…

“The landing,” whispered Molly. “Oh, no.”
His ticker started to pound more heavily, as if begging to be let loose, to get off the bus before the final stop, the end of the line. The purple showman gulped audibly.

“Jester, what is yer plan for the landing?”

Silence.

“Jester. I need ya ta tell me ya have a plan fer the landing.”

She whispered something.

“Need ya ta speak up, Jester!” cried Molly, a faint edge of mania creeping into his tone. “I didn’t quite hear that one!”

“I DO NOT HAVE A PLAN FOR THE LANDING!” Jester shouted, letting go of the handlebars to throw her hands in the air. “I didn’t think this through, okay, Molly!? Is that what you wanted to hear!?”

He stared at his friend’s lustrous blue hair blowing wildly about her head like a halo.

“That is exactly what I did not want ta hear,” Molly replied. “Please, please put yer hands back on those handlebars, Jester.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. She was reaching through the air, trying to catch a leaf as it raced past them.

Molly closed his eyes again. So this was it, was it? He reflected back on his life, or the parts of it he could remember, and felt something hollow rise up in his gut. It was a feeling of emptiness, not unfamiliar, but harder to push away now that he was being confronted with the end. If that’s what it came to. Had he done everything he’d really wanted to do? He’d been married, sure, and he’d loved. He’d loved and lost, and then some. He’d fucked with a terrifying monster clown and lived to tell the tale, and played around with some of the most fascinating supernatural forces to taint the grounds of Erde Nona. Hell, he’d even met Santa Claus.

Was it enough? Where was the fulfillment? Where was the feeling of being whole? That feeling he’d looked for his entire life?

He looked around, dazzled by the stars, the ink of night around them, and the looming surface of the city beneath them. Was this all there was?

During his contemplation he’d missed Jester reasserting her control over the handlebars. For all the good it would do them.

“I love ya, dear Jester,” Molly assured his friend, giving her waist a squeeze. “If this is it, it’s been a good ride.”’

Jester’s heart beat wildly, too, but with the kind of reckless abandon one might find in the heart of a ferret dashing madly down the hallway with an ill-gotten set of car keys. She felt her blue fingered grip wrapped tight around the handles of the scooter and knew that, in those very hands, she held the fragile glass sculpture of their very lives, and that at a moment’s notice it could all spill right out of her grip to shatter in front of them, and that was it. That would be the end. It was in her hands, now, and the Traveler’s.

Her wild grin grew wider.

“What are you talking about?!” Jester asked, laughing in loon-like whoops. “It’s just the start! What about the house? We have a whole life to live, silly Molly.”

“Then ya’ve got a plan!?” the burgeoning hope in Molly’s gut began to swell like a balloon, but not like a healthy balloon. More like a shriveled balloon whose inflation depended on a smoking asthmatic. It was tempered with despair. “Oh, Jester! Tell me ya’ve got a plan!”

“What? No, don’t be ridiculous. We don’t need a plan. We’ve got the Traveler!”

Molly’s groan was impossible to hear over the angry howl of the wind.

The air that rushed up to meet them grew deafening and stung their Tiefling eyes with thin whips of ice. Jester could scarcely see for how bleary her eyesight had grown, which was unfortunate, since she was tight rope walking them across the thin line between death and a safe landing.

What she could see was the growing constellations of Arcadian city lights coming up to meet them, growing larger by the second, and smeared through the lens of windy tears.

Jester clenched her teeth. The moment of reckoning was bearing down on them. She realized with an unpleasant pang that her bladder was full to bursting, and that she might not be able to control it on impact.

“Molly!” Jester shouted over the wind in their ears. “I might pee all over you!”

“WHAT!?” Molly called back.

Jester couldn’t tell if he hadn’t heard her correctly or was incredulous about the idea of a golden shower in a situation like this. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“I’m going to pee!” Jester shouted again, louder. “Get ready! It is probably going to be a lot! I drank so many of those virgin drink thingies!”

The city raced up to meet them, which sent a thrill of adrenaline through Jester’s body. It was exciting and terrifying, and oh so unpredictable, which was Jester’s element in a nutshell.

She released her bladder and felt her trousers grow wet and warm, but once she’d started there was no stopping. A surge of relief coursed through her body, and with it, in a stroke of clarity, she noticed something.

“Hey, look at this!”

Jester pressed the chute release on the console of the air scooter. A hiss of air punched through the bellowing wind, followed by the flapping of blossoming fabric when the drag chutes found their freedom. A glorious mushroom of tan fabric sprouted out behind them, catching the wind.

“Hang on tight!” yelled Jester.

Mollymauk’s grip grew vice-like around her waist. He’d gone as silent as the grave, which was probably for the best, since she wasn’t known for her stellar concentration. Any little distraction could be the end of them.

The drag chutes found their clutch on the turbulent air currents above the city, slowing the death spiral of the scooter abruptly into a gentle float like that of a flower petal tossed about in the calm eddy of a spring breeze in the afternoon.

Jester’s immense strength overcame the sudden deceleration of their fall, and they felt the nose of the scooter pull up as the front chutes found purchase.

They floated before the moon, reminiscent of some otherworldly caricature of a Spielburg film from some other universe.

Jester looked back at Molly. He was soaked with pee, but looked visibly relieved to be alive. There are worse things than being soaked in pee, she realized. Heck, some folks liked being soaked in pee!

Mollymauk did not appear to be one of those people. He wrung out one of his opulent sleeves, grimacing, and sniffing the air, wrinkled his nose. Despite it all, he put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“I gotta hand it ta ya, my dear Jester,” Molly said, looking out over the city skyline. “Ya did it. Ya actually did it.”

“Of course I did,” Jester replied, looking haughty. “It was never out of control.”

She thought back to the wild sensation of gripping their lives in her hands while she maneuvered the handlebars of the scooter whose freefall was literally completely out of her control, then pushed away the thought.

“Never,” she said again. “Nuh uh, not once.”

The scooter hovered lazily through the night. Jester began to steer them down towards Arcadian Central Park, whose beatific tree branches would make a wonderful stopping point for their aerial adventure. The chutes tangled up in the smattering of branches, who caught the falling scooter with gentle bark laden fingers.

So they were soaked in piss. Was that much of a price to pay for the thrill of the night? And they’d almost died. But so what? People almost die all the time. The important thing was that she’d landed them, safe and sound, back in the heart of the city. Wasn’t that what a night out was all about? Rolling with the energy of the city, feeling its heat, its hunger, giving into it, then guiding the boat to shore at the end of it all, living to see another day. And truly living at that. Had they not lived on this night?

Jester reached up from the grass, taking Molly’s hand and helping him down from a thick branch the way a gentleman might help a lady out of her carriage. He was very wet, and looked like a poodle who’d been thrown into an ice bath.

“You smell like pee,” Jester told him.

“Yer one to talk,” Molly clapped back, smiling despite himself. “So. That’s it, eh? We did it. We’re alive.”

“Well,” Jester began, then trailed off. “I wouldn’t say that’s quite it.”

“What’re ya talkin’ about, Jester? I’m covered in piss. I’d say that’s more than it.”

“One last thing,” insisted Jester. “Trust me. You’ll like the surprise.”

She took Molly by the hand and led him out of the park, out into the street, towards the historic district.

WC: 3438/5000

 

[Jester Lavorre]

“An’ where exactly are ye takin’ me, Jester?”

The sun poked its fiery eye out over the city. A dimmed orange blanket interceded on the night; where there had been constellations twinkling artificial light as far as the eye could see, the natural light of the sun began to reclaim Arcadia. The night belonged to the city. The day belonged to no one.

“Jester,” Molly groaned again, tugging at her sleeve. “Jester, come on. I’m covered in piss, dearie. It’s time ta go home. I need ta take a hot bath an’ flop down in a pile o’ furs in my own tent, away from, no offense ta ye dear, any manner o’ crazy fer a bit.”

To Molly’s dismay Jester kept walking. Her step was bouncy, even jovial. His own gait was bone weary and hangdog. Every step sent a jolt of pain through his heels and up to his thighs. It was a constant reminder that no man, devil, or reveler could dance the night away free of consequence. The mind may be willing, but the body has its limits.

Molly noted with mute horror that Jester was humming. What manner of creature could plummet through the sky skating death by the seat of their pants and live to hum a tune in the aftermath?

“Jester!” Molly shouted, insistent. “I swear ta the Arbiter, ta the Traveler, that-”

“A walk through the Historic District!” Jester cut in. “Remember? When I first showed you the house?”

She swept her hand through the air and indicated the buildings around them, just like the first time she’d walked him through the district.

~*~

Many of the buildings looked impossibly old. Some of them seemed to have undergone a more modern treatment, with new finishes or entire sections of their architecture that looked to have been replaced. The roads were cobblestone. The sidewalks were brick, the most common material used when a city undertakes an effort to preserve the aging materials of an old, old part of town. Mollymauk hadn’t even noticed their surroundings, so tired was he from their night of debauchery. The old buildings, the narrow streets, and the aging sidewalks so painstakingly preserved by the municipal district struck him as hauntingly beautiful in the awakening light of the day’s young sun. For once, he was quiet.

“It’s beautiful,” Molly admitted. Some of his ire drained out of him. “But I still don’t understand what we’re doin’ here.”

“Look around, Molly,” insisted Jester. “You’re probably thinking that your dear, beautiful, handsome, strong, powerful, brilliant friend Jester has lost her mind. Probably. What you don’t realize is that I think that you might be losing your mind, just a teeeeensy little bit. You know, we cannot just live in tents forever, silly. I grew up in an entire mansion! I mean, not an entire one, because I was sort of tucked away into certain little parts of it, but it was a mansion.

I learned a lot of stuff there, you know. I learned about the world and history and how to make donuts and how to make tea and all kinds of different very cool stuff, but, like, I never got to see any of it. And you have totally gotten to see a lot of stuff, but you have never really gotten to live any of it, you know? You’re always just go, go, go, and you never get the chance to relax. You know, it is kind of like you’re this spazzy weasel that just jumps from one place to another hoarding special prizes that don’t mean anything to you and you never really get to live.

So you know what I thought to myself, Molly?”

A brief space opened up, which Mollymauk knew he needed to capitalize on, lest Jester dominate the entire conversation.

“What’d ye think, Jester?”

His voice was subdued. She’d struck something.

“I thought to myself, you know who has a lot of money? Molly! And you know who else has a lot of money? I do! Ever since your wine endeavor got you that kickback, I have been trying to figure out how I was going to spend all of our money.”

“Ye’ve been - what!?” Molly’s mouth dropped open. He stared incredulously at the back of his friend’s head. His lips moved wordlessly.

“So I contacted a real estate agent,” Jester plowed on undeterred, her voice taking on a manic fervor. “I reached out to this real estate agent and I said ‘hey, real estate agent, I’ve got a whole bunch of money and I’m ready to spend it, start showing me some gosh darn houses’, and I started going on tours, Molly. Tours.”

“Tours?”

“Oh, yeah. Big time. I went on tours of hovels, I went on tours of apartments. I went on tours of entire neighborhoods, and I went on a tour of some side room in a sewer!”

“A sewer!?”

Molly remembered their encounter with a certain homicidal shapeshifting clown and shuddered involuntarily.

“A sewer,” agreed Jester. “And finally I went on a tour of a haunted house. A haunted house deep in the historic district. My real estate agent was all like, ‘this is a bad idea, you need to start thinking about the consequences of your actions, and where did you get all this money?’ or whatever, but I knew better. I thought about it, and you know what I said to myself, Molly? I said, Molly always feels empty, and a house can feel empty, and you know what a haunted house is not? A haunted house is not empty. It is never empty. So I knew right then and there that I was going to buy us a haunted house, because the home reflects the homeowner, and if the home does not feel empty, then maybe you will not feel empty either.”

A strange wave of emotions ranging from self pity, gratitude, disbelief, and anger washed over Mollymauk. He didn’t know which emotion to address first so he simply did not address any of them. The pair of Tieflings turned onto another street with a sign that designated it ‘Dancing Chocobo Lane’. It seemed deserted.

“The neighborhood as a whole is pretty racist, but what neighborhood isn’t these days?” Jester continued. “Luckily, the house has a mind of its own, and it seems to repel any visitors! Isn’t that awesome? Nobody lives on this street at all!”

Jester reached into her satchel and pulled out an entire sheath of documents.

“So I forged your signature on a bunch of stupid legal documents - you know how good I am at forgery - and used a whole bunch of your money to buy this house! I mean, technically, I split it fifty-fifty with you. Technically. So it’s kind of like we’re even. I had all that money from the Abyss, and you had all that money from your entrepreneurial whatevers, so what was I gonna do? Just let it sit there, gathering dust?”

She came to a stop and gestured grandly at an enormous mansion.

It loomed larger than life in the twilight sun. It seemed to swallow up the light behind it so that it was a vague impression of a mansion rather than a detailed portrait. Molly squinted and noticed a window, looked at another section of the building, and when he looked back he was certain that the window was gone.

“It likes to change and move around,” Jester explained, noticing Molly’s look of surprise. “It’s more like a living thing and less like a house. I did not want to live in a house with no personality, you know?”

“So ye chose a house with a literal personality? That’s usually a figure o’ speech, Jester,” Molly said quietly, starting to find his words.

“Tomato, tomato,” Jester said flippantly. “There’s like, ghosts in there, Molly. There’s an old ghost named Benson who’s kind of like a butler or something, and then there’s just like, tons of other ghosts who might pop out of the floor while you’re pooping, or you might wake up and they’re sitting right on your chest, and they’re pooping, but the poop isn’t real because they’re ghosts, so it’s just a reeeaaally funny joke!”

Mollymauk, still reeking of piss, frowned. Bathroom humor just wasn’t hitting with him today. Still, there was a certain majesty about the house that was undeniable. It had an opulence to it that resonated with him, Molly being a man who loved showmanship. And hadn’t he always appreciated things that were so over the top as to be completely impractical and borderline unbelievable? Maybe Jester was onto something, here.

“So ye took all my money, and ye bought me a house?” Molly asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I took all of our money, and I bought us a house,” Jester corrected, wagging a finger at him.

The Tieflings shared a long look. Jester’s twinkling pink eyes searched Mollymauk’s impassive red ones. They were hard to read; over time Jester had learned that, unlike with other people, there were no emotions to discern in the red canvas of Molly’s eyes. The emotion had to be interpreted by the shape of his eyes, the lines around them, the subtleties in the expressions on his face.

Molly had learned that Jester’s eyes were immensely expressive, and what they conveyed was joy. An unsuppressable happiness lived within the young woman; she held a love for life and all of its pursuits that felt so foreign to him that it was almost impossible to understand. But maybe he was beginning to understand it after all.

They began to laugh, and Molly clapped a hand onto Jester’s shoulder.

“Thanks Jester. I love it. I really do.”

~*~

In the present, they came to stop before the mansion, exactly the same way they had when Jester had presented Mollymauk with the purchase. Despite the ache in his joints, Molly couldn’t help but smile. Maybe a walk was what he’d needed to let go of the stress and the panic of the night. Moreso than even a night out, perhaps.

Molly clapped his hand onto her shoulder the same way he had back then.

Jester daintily plucked his hand from her shoulder and wrinkled her nose.

“You smell like piss. Let’s go inside. You need a shower.”

WC: 5188/5000

 

[Mollymauk Tealeaf]

Molly walked the halls of 1857 Dancing Chocobo Lane in his thick and fuzzy pink bathrobe and an oversized towel wrapped around his head, covering both his horns. The matching pink slippers on his feet did wonders for his mood, as he shuffled through the second or third story of the timeless mansion. To be honest, Molly and Jester were never entirely sure which level they were on.

The perfect hardwood floors creaked unevenly, and always late, which made Molly shiver for some reason. After another few minutes, the purple devil gave up entirely searching for his room.

“Benson!” Molly called out to the house, as he yawned, the night’s endeavors now weighing on him in full as he thought of the giant four-poster bed that awaited him at the end of this hunt. Benson the Butler came out of a random door that the Tiefling was sure wasn’t there a moment before.

“Yes?” The tall butler asked cordially, his voice always so kind but firm, somehow sounding ancient despite the forty-something year old face he wore, and the youthfully strong figure he cut in his black suit and bowtie. Benson offered Molly a nightcap in the form of an oversized glass of wine on a silver tray. The wandering-carnival-showman turned property-owner took the stem of it immediately and tilted it back as he started to sip, forgetting his question as tasting the blood-red liquid moved to the forefront of his mind.

“Are you looking for Jester, Sir? She’s in the study-er, the main study, rather. I believe I saw her in there just a moment ago, and I assume she was lost looking for her room…yet again. If I may be so bold…between you and I, the owner’s rooms are one of the few things the house never changes, yet I fear she forgets. It pains me to think that time and time again she is set to wander these halls like so many of us, wayward and bound spectres are destined to. Tis a shame. If she would only just ask, and admit to not remembering, she could rest in the wondrous accommodations the house has made for the two of you. Will you talk to her, Sir? She only ever need ask. This is a big place, and it is easy to become forgetful,” and Benson finished with his usual small and sad smile, towering over Molly and as tall as the Blood-Hunters wrapped horns.

Molly, having become increasingly more embarrassed as The Butler rambled, kept drinking the oversized glass of syrah wine until it was finished.

“Spicy,” The Tiefling declared. “Is that a new vintage then? Amazing stuff, that is. Well, anyway, enough o’ that. I’ll talk to dear, sweet Jester…you're right about it bein’ a big house, getting lost is nothin’ ta be embarrassed about, like ya be sayin’…Not everyone can be havin’ the ole steel-trap like Dear Molly,” the devil in a bathrobe said as he tapped the side of the towel covering his head. To really sell the whole performance, he winked while flashing a grin.

“Would you care for another glass, Sir?”

“Ah well, if yer offerin’ dont let me stop ya...”

“I shall have it waiting for you in your room then-”

“Er- actually, I was thinkin’ of joinin’ Jester in the study, if it's all the same, Good Butler.

“Very good, Sir,” Benson replied, and gave that small smile, as Molly squinted to see if it contained a hint of knowing sarcasm. Even the Showman couldn't find a trace.

“Benson, ya said the main study?” Molly asked, his embarrassment fading as he put a bit of red from his upper lip onto the pink fuzzy sleeve of the robe, proud of his own slyness at handling this situation.

“Yes I did, Sir. The main study is currently and conveniently, next to your rooms for the moment. Excuse Me while I grab your wine.”

Molly did in fact see a small bit of coyness concealed within the butler's smile this time, as Benson turned on his heels and went through the nearest door, leaving the Tiefling to stand stupefied in the long hallway.

“Well…shit.”

A flight of stairs and three lefts, a right, a left, and another right, took him past a series of portraits that seemed to have been hung for leering more than anything. The paintings were as beautiful as they were haunting, and showcased the different eras the house had lived through, which was always a little disturbing to think about. Also, why those faces? and the first thought Molly had was of taxidermy heads; a hunter's trophy wall.

He shivered again.

Inside the main study, when he finally found it, Jester was deep in conversation with one of the ghosts as a small construction crew of other spirits milled about. The fireplace was going, and his best friend and fellow Tiefling sat on the floor in the foundations of tonight's blanket-fort being built for her, as Benson led the team of workers.

“...and he was really obsessed with me, probably. He just kept making me drinks, and he basically proposed, or something, I think,” Jester said to the younger ghost, Margaret, and the teenager with a hole through her chest listened in awe.

“Wow, Jester, that sounds so lovely! Now that he has given his intentions to court you, it's just a few dates with a chaperone and then he can talk to your parents about the dowry!” Margaret exclaimed and clapped her hands excitedly.

“Oh, yeah, like, big time…” Jester replied, giving a deep throaty laugh and wiggling her dark blue eyebrows up and down.

Molly, listening from the doorway, was certain his friend had no idea what a dowry was.

“What does he look like? Does he come from a well-bred family?” The ancient Margaret asked.

“Oh, pffft, for sure. Aaaand, he looks like a guy, like, you know with muscles and green skin, and some really cool tusks-” Jester’s sing-song rendition of Fjord the bartender was cut off by another ghost currently working on clipping one blanket to another for a roof as he stood on a chair.

“Sounds like a half-orc. I'd say stay away, Madame. Nothing good comes from tangling with the likes of them. Even I, a mage of great esteem in my time, was brought low by such a beast. Be wary the same doesn't happen to you,” the specter in adorned mage robes from eons ago said, as he tapped the side of his nose.

Another ghost spoke up, somewhere hidden behind a tower of pillows.

“Don't listen to him, Jester. He's just salty he got his head smashed in by a mage hunter, is all. It's what he gets for burning down that orphanage...”

“I am reformed, sir! Who said that? I'll have you know, I had the honor of going toe to toe with Wunya Shotya, the greatest mage-hunter to ever grace Arcadia, I am sure,” the robed ghost mage shot back, indignant.

Molly stepped into the room fully, and all the spirits greeted him with fanfare as he went and sat with Jester in the now completed blanket fort. The two smiled at one another with fangs showing as Benson came over to hand them a glass of milk, and one of wine, respectively.

“Another night in the blanket fort then?” The Butler asked.

The Tieflings looked at one another and then back to Benson with a shrug.

“Well, I suppose there is always tomorrow night, you two,” he said, then walked out.

Some ghosts stayed and laid about in the large quilted-fortress with its reinforced pillow towers and pillars, the fireplace the only source of light with the tight-shuddered windows to keep out the day, as the sun had surely risen by now. As the owners of 1857 Dancing Chocobo Lane settled down to sleep, so could finally all the spirits and a hush fell over the house, save for the occasional creak of floorboards where no foot had stepped.

WC:4555+1357=5912/5000