February ~ 7!

CHAPTER 7

Thunder echoed across the landscape, startling Grant awake. He couldn’t even remember when he had fallen asleep! His eyes popped open, and he found that he had rolled within a few inches of the river. Quickly, yet carefully extracting himself from the weeds he was tangled in, he tried to understand what was happening. The sky was clear, why was there thunder? “Wait! I know this! This is Lady February pounding the ground into submission! She’s coming this way!”

He couldn’t help feeling excited about the prospect of going up against her, but was a little nervous as to why she would be coming this way. This mind flashed to an option he had, something he had needed to fend off the entire previous day: an ambush.

It wasn’t exactly an honorable way of defeating her… but the alternative was to participate in—and win—an extremely arduous tournament against all manner of people putting everything on the line to win. That was a risk he didn’t want to take. “This… this might be the way to go.”

The clatter of footsteps increased in intensity as Lady February passed underneath the welcome sign of the town and came into view. Grant’s stomach churned, butterflies threatening to escape. She sprinted down the hill at breakneck speed. A relentless, unstoppable force.

“Any moment now…” Grant prepared himself. As soon as she stepped foot on the bridge, he would launch himself at her and force her to submit… or see if she could survive the same treatment he had given Lord January.

Then Lady February leaped into the air, somersaulting onto the upper guard-rail of the bridge. Grant couldn’t believe his eyes; she had just used the natural environment to enhance the difficulty of her run? At the end of the bridge wall, she jumped into the air and laughed as she grabbed hold of a tree branch, used her momentum to carry her forward, and tumbled in the artistic sense through the air, landing lightly on her feet.

Grant stood there stunned, completely dumbfounded as his plan unraveled before his eyes. After smoothly landing, she continued on her way, not even breaking her stride as she sped towards the ravine in the distance.

<For what it’s worth,> Sarge began with a light cough, <I thought it was a sound, logical plan. Pretty clever actually, trying to save yourself a ton of time and effort. How were you to know that she’d be more monkey than human?>

“I just can’t win. Should I have coated the walls with oil or something?” Grant despaired as he looked around the bridge. No matter how he looked at the area around him, it was clear where people should be walking! Running on guardrails? Swinging through trees? Who did that? Was she entirely wild?

He had no plans for the morning, beyond whatever Sarge was going to make him do, so he hurried over to the town and collected his free Bed so that he would have a boost to his cultivation before the day got started. The sun had barely crested the horizon, meaning that he had at least twelve hours to prepare for the event he was signed up to participate in. “Oh! That’s right! Unlimited snacks the entire day of the event!”

He had a bounce in his step as he entered the contestant tent and examined the selection of goods. Grant grabbed three of the berry-and-seed snack boxes, and an additional Bed before going to the counter. The cashier looked at the items, then Grant, and smiled warmly. “That’ll be four Hours, sir.”

“I have this!” Grant proudly presented his token.

“A deluxe coupon! Now I see why you’ll need so many of these.” The vendor smiled conspiratorially. “Good luck with your race today! You should grab some energy slimes. We’ve run out, but I heard some of the food stalls have some stock left?”

“Slimes…?” He shook his head and exited the health food shop, then stuffed the boxes into his pack. A group of joggers ran up, and Grant was struck by a magnificent idea, “Unlimited food on race day… hey, guys! I went and bought too much. I can’t get a refund… would you be interested in taking these off my hands? Twenty-five percent discount. Whatcha say?”

“Oh, yeah! Is that a Bed?”

“A box each for us please!” The runners happily handed over forty-five Minutes each before moving on to consume their snacks. Outside, Grant cackled as he counted his stacks of coins.

“Three Hours, just like that! Maybe I should have been a Thursday; I’d make a great merchant.” With nothing better to do, he decided to see if he could make some more money. The smile on the street vendor Grant had accidentally offended the day before dropped away when he got to the front of the line and smiled brightly. “You again? Come to haggle over prices, call me names?”

“Not this time.” Grant grinned and presented his race coupon. “I would like to stock up for the race.”

“Why… certainly!” The food vendor was temporarily lost for words, shocked that Grant was doing a delux event. “I admit, I may have underestimated you. What would you like, sir?”

“I’ll take those two remaining pink protein drinks, and…” Grant’s eyes scanned the products, “five of those bars.”

“Five! Are you sure? You only need one, two at most during an entire day.”

Grant glowered and raised an eyebrow. “Five. I’m hungry and need energy. Does this let me fill up my waterskin?”

“Absolutely it does…” the vendor hedged, deflating as Grant handed over the pouch. “You know that I still need to go and restock all my own goods, right?”

The young Lord of the Month ignored the snark and tapped his chin, “Do you have any of those energy slimes? I was told there was some stock left at the food stands, but I don’t know what they are.”

“We have them, there is also a limit of one per person per day. This is a special formula, imported directly from January. Purified honey; super sweet. One hit of this concentrated liquid during a race easily fully replenishes stamina.”

Grant chuckled to himself as he departed the stand. Around the corner, out of sight of the food vendor, it took no more than five minutes to offload his latest stash. It would take a bit of work, but he was determined to replenish his funds. For the next hour, he did rounds of the square and side streets, offloading bars, pink protein drinks, and drink recovery drinks to dozens of delighted runners.

He stared at his open money pouch, now filled with over seven Days of coins. Grant decided to do just one more loop of the town, stopping off at the various stands; then he’d be done. “I’ll take ten more bars please, and oh, one recovery drink!”

The food vendor with the bum leg smiled too widely back at him. “They are tasty! Just can’t get enough of them? Sorry to say, I don’t have ten bars left to give you.”

“No worries.” Grant waved his token in the man’s face. “I’ll take whatever you’ve got!.”

“Before that, I think they want to talk to you…!” The vendor pointed behind Grant just as a shadow engulfed him.

He spun around on the spot, shivering as he found three House Tuesday Peacekeepers surrounding him, “Pardon the intrusion in your routine, but there have been reports of an unlicensed food vendor selling goods.”

“Doesn’t my deluxe race package entitle me to unlimited snacks and drinks during the day of a race?” Grant wasn’t offering a challenge to the men, he was legitimately confused.

“For personal consumption, and only for what you eat during the same day. Any excess is strictly prohibited. It is clearly explained in your packet.” The Peacekeeper pointed at the folder that was jutting out of Grant’s pack

Grant pulled out the paper and blankly stared at the tiny text, trying to figure out what the man was talking about. His face burned crimson as he tried to sound out the intricate text. “Part… participants are re… required! Participants are required to arrive at least ten minutes… pree-or… prior? Prior to… com… competition start time?”

The Peacekeepers winced as Grant kept going, and realized that the man could barely read. They decided to be lenient, and let go of the weapons they had been reaching for. “Ah. I understand that you may not have been aware of the rules. We can take you to the guardhouse to properly educate you while you work off the fine you’ve incurred, or you can voluntarily reimburse the various vendors.”

Grant let out a moan and stifled a cry as he opened his money pouch, full of low-value coins. He tipped half the coins into the Peacekeeper’s cupped hands, and the man scoffed. “All of that. We’ve made a tally.”

The young man tipped out the remaining small coins with a long-suffering sigh. The Peacekeeper shook his head. “What about those, the big Day coins?”

“Those are mine! Look!” He flashed the coins in front of the guard’s eyes. “See? The coins are from January.”

“Yes, by adding those, you should have fully paid your bad debt. It isn’t my fault you gave the foodstuff out at a fraction of its value.” Grant almost broke down at the heartless demand. He handed over the remainder of his coins, and the Peacekeeper nodded severely. “The matter is settled. Don’t come to our attention again, Grant Monday.”

“Understood.” The guards left Grant to his misery, slumped against the wall, penniless once more. Then his eyes popped back open and he sighed in relief when he remembered the several Weeks of Time stored in his main pack.

<You’re full of mad schemes, Grant.> Sarge chuckled at the youngsters misfortune. <It would have worked, but you got greedy. That and the fact that they likely easily identified the ‘husky’ boy wandering around town, hawking healthy food on the cheap. Either don’t be so greedy, or blend in with the locals. This would be a good start to a disguise course, but I don’t think you’re ready for that yet.>

There was one positive outcome: as Grant walked through the town, he passed many runners merrily munching on cut-price bars and swigging drinks. They gave him the thumbs up as he passed, and called out a greeting to him. This brightened his mood considerably. “If nothing else… it seems like I made some friends!”