Private - Pranksters Unite!

Stokbon.

A city so large, it might actually be bigger than all of the other cities in Falderen combined.

Stokbon, Falderen's capital. One of the biggest cities in Terrasphere. You could find a lot in this one city, or start your own store. Stokbon has a large population. In the midst of all the people, there are bound to be troublemakers.

Sean just so happens to be one of them, wanting a good laugh because he's bored. He turned to a hooded figure next to him, @Iván Carl . "Here's my idea: We... Uh... We dump buckets of water on their heads and run like the wind? I don't know whats possible in this world for a good, harmless prank. What do you think we should do?" Sean examined their surroundings. A bunch of people, all possible targets for a harmless prank to get some laughs. Now, who to choose...?

 

If there was a city in this world that could be most closely associated with Iván, it could be this city, the city of Stokbon. Stokbon was like home to the masked illusionist, he of an overpowering scent, the unlawful combination of sulfur and blood, he of characteristic deadpans, he of trademark curry mastery, he of crystal ants and nightmare fuels from down the Spire, he of serial killer vibes.

Not only was this city home to Iván, though, but it was also home to his Curry House, a former tavern he managed to transform into one of the city's more popular fixtures. Okay, so maybe most of those who came to visit were his own friends and acquaintances, it's still pretty popular. Business was booming. It was so booming that technically Iván could be considered a busy man.

Yet he was here, in the middle of what could be a productive service, having left his business on the hands of his most trustworthy associate chefs and staff while he gallivanted with someone (@Sean Poteitoku) he just met a few days ago. Such admirable business acumen. It's a miracle that the Curry House was still standing with this kind of leadership.

"Hmm?" Iván took a quick sip of his Ant Juice, which added to his infamous odor. Most men would grow pale and disgusted at the scent of the juice, but not Iván. Iván could will himself to survive that powerful scent for the explosion of fruity flavor that he could never taste in anything else. It was euphoria in its purest form. "I don't like water."

If the man could hiss, he would've. Water was boring. Why have water when you can have ant juice? Also, it was a threat to his very way of existence, his lifestyle, his hoodie. Water was the devil's ant juice. It cannot be anywhere near him. "Maybe we could knock people out, take their valuables, and leave them unconscious in an alley?"

 

Sean was a simple-minded fellow: He liked having fun. But fun, for him, did not involve stealing. Stealing just got you in jail. It wasn't fun.

"Maybe we could knock people out, take their valuables, and leave them unconscious in an alley?"

When Sean heard the suggestion by the hooded figure he was with, he made a double take... Around four times. "I thought we were pranking people, not ROBBING THEM!? How about we knock them out without actually hurting them and draw on their faces? I'd rather not hurt people in doing this, we could get in serious trouble if we do hurt people in our pranks..."

 

"No one's going to get hurt," Iván showed @Sean Poteitoku his bottle of ant juice, a grin forming on his face from behind that stinky red mask of his. "This thing can knock a man out cold just by getting smelled, no punching or kicking or a hammer to the head needed."

He could also just use his illusion magic to scare them into fainting. That's happened before, right? To be fair, he's never done that, seen it happen first-hand. He's seen it in movies, though, but that might not be enough of a good recommendation. This was real life. Things can get pretty real around her. Somewhat.

The masked illusionist has had successfully knocked out a couple of people with just his ant juice, though. All those weird quests from the Quest Master that involved hauling bandits to jail were made pretty easy by the fact that Iván could just force their faces in his ant juice and they'd fall asleep rather quickly. It was a pretty good week for him, that week.

"That's the prank, though," he continued, shrugging. "They'd think they've been robbed but in truth their valuables were just donated to a charity. Robbin' hood, get it?"

Iván laughed in his head.

 

As Sean thought over his companion's idea, he went deep into thought. "That's the prank, though," Wouldn't that still be robbing them? "They'd think they've been robbed but in truth their valuables were just donated to a charity. Robbin' hood, get it?" Are there even any charities here? And they'd still have been robbed. He shrugged. "It seems I can't argue with you, it sounds like you're the expert on the matter. Lead the way."

 

"Wait, what?" Iván had not expected @Sean Poteitoku to actually indulge him. At best, he thought he'd argue for something else and then they'd do that something else. The masked illusionist wasn't known for being a good leader.

If anything, he was a better second-in-command. The only reason his name was on the Curry House was because he got the building for them, with the roster of chefs technically his equals. At least that was true for him. He didn't know if it was the same for the others.

Hmm. The gears in Iván's head started turning. If Sean was easily persuaded, maybe he could invite him in his personal quest to find his purple god. Maybe. Maybe some day. For now, he was on a break. They were on a break. No need to rain on this parade.

"Are you sure you want to go with robbing people?"

 

"Are you sure you want to go with robbing people?"

Sean lowered his head, going deep into thought. Maybe instead of robbing... His face lit up like a Eureka moment. "Hey, how about we take their things, put them somewhere nearby, then give them a really complicated set of steps to get the items back?" He suddenly started laughing maniacally. He had remembered that prank from a YouTube series where two people kept doing that to each other in a sandbox game.

 

"Hmm," Iván wasn't really that big of a fan of complicated things, of making things complicated, which was why he preferred to stay in the shadows most of the time. It was also one of the reasons why he wore that red stinky mask, those goggles and exaggerated turtleneck before the mask, that hoodie and everything else that covered most of him from head to toe. People knowing what he really looked like would make everything so...complicated. "How complicated?"

To be fair, his original plan to knock people out and take their valuables, leaving them in an alley to wake up dazed and confused, was technically complicated. Anything that composed of more than three steps should be complicated. That plan had four steps, including the first step, which was to find people to knock out. He wondered if @Sean Poteitoku's plan involved four steps. Maybe 600 steps. That would be extremely complicated.

That laughter did not inspire confidence. For some reason, Iván awkwardly joined in, laughing as hard as he could while staring at Sean. If he wasn't wearing his mask, his face would've been hilarious, like some sort of trapped victim being forced by his oppressor to laugh at a terrible joke. Not that Sean was laughing at a terrible joke. Iván didn't even know why Sean was laughing, why he was laughing, so it was hard to tell at that point. Still, laughter.

 

As Sean was laughing maniacally, his companion asked "How complicated?" He stopped and thought for a second, before turning and starting to draw an image in the air with his finger. Mind you, it couldn't be seen, but it was visuals. "An example is we take an adventurer's weapon and make them go to every corner of the city before just saying their weapon is ABOVE where they woke up. Now, time to find people to prank!" He pointed forwards and began walking.

 

Sean set to work setting notes around the city using some paper and a quill he found in the trash-in surprising good quality, for some reason. "Go to the alley behind the weapon store on the other side of town." "Look under the trash near the armor store back on the other side of town." "go back to the weapon shop and look under the trash." "Go to the square and enter one of the alleys." "Go back to where you woke up. Your things are under the trash." After Sean was done, he went to a large crowd. Noticing a young male seeming to have a sword on him and nothing more, he walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. "Excuse me, mister? Could you please come with me for a second?" Sean asked politely, leading the man into the alleyway in which he met up with @Iván Carl ... And right into him. "He's yours, buddy." Sean stepped back to prevent the man from escaping. "Don't worry, we won't harm you. Just want to have some fun."

 

While @Sean Poteitoku did his thing, which was basically most of the work, Iván spent all that time hiding, waiting in an alleyway, playing, toying, with a summoned magical familiar, a smaller version of the crystallized ant queen from his first Aristocracy mission. It was a failure of a mission, though it wasn't because the team was terrible or anything. To be fair, they didn't even get the chance to unlock the full potential of that team. Majolica was right when she said being betrayed was no fun.

Was it destined then, when Iván's second death happened in the Crystallized Zalra, having succumbed to a pack of talking crystal wolves, after baiting them with some stranger cursed with Zalrisis, only for karma to return the favor and give him Zalrisis for his efforts? He was on another lead to get closer to the Spire's purple god for a second time, another failed lead, when he got his own taste of the crystal curse. Zalrisis, the crystal curse... Crystallized ant queen as his first large-scale monster... Fate did work in mysterious ways.

"No," Iván dryly denied his familiar's attempts to bite off his arm, shaking his head and pointing a firm finger at it. "Bad ant queen. Bad ant queen! Biting my arm off is bad. You can bite Sean's arm off later."

Speaking of Sean, the red-haired Felis appeared with some stranger, a swordsman, as if on cue. Iván willed his familiar to dissipate into thin air before getting back up to his feet. He stood his ground, blocking the other exit with his body. A grin formed on his face, but with his red mask on, neither of his two current companions could see it. "Don't worry, friend. I'll be gentle."

The stranger wasn't amused. From a raised eyebrow and crossed arms, his features turned more threatened, more afraid, as the masked illusionist began working his magic. With his expertise in illusions, knocking their victim out would be easy-peasy. Should he have used his hammer to do that, though? Tricking the man's senses into sleeping was definitely less painful.

@Skyswimsky

 

As Sean looked at the guards, one pointing a crossbow at him, he didn't even flinch. Instead, he just face-palmed. "Oh God, the guards here are insane." He noticed the flyer land near him and picked it up. "So you're trying to arrest me based on a horribly drawn picture of somebody else? This person doesn't have cat ears or a tail. A cat boy can't be a human. Also, they use a sword much larger than the one I use!" He started laughing. "You're surely mistaken, I'm sorry." He looked at the crossbow again. "Oh yeah, if you try to shoot me, I will burn the crossbow into ashes. I have fire magic." He started playing with a small ball of fire in his hands. "Now, could you please leave us alone? If you don't, I'll have to resort to force. And I don't want to have to resort to force."

 

Hmm? Iván was caught unprepared when two other gentlemen arrived on the scene. During his last conversation with @Sean Poteitoku, it seemed that they'd only need one victim to prank. Or at least that's what Iván thought. Did Sean actually want more pranking victims? Did he even say how many pranking victims he wanted?

Ah, the perils of assumption. He should have asked, the masked illusionist should've clarified things. Now they had an unconscious body in the alley and two other victims who have now seen their face. Even if he managed to knock these two out, they'd already know, at least have an inkling of, the wool that was being pulled over their eyes and to an extent sanity.

Wait, did he just call us criminals? Oh, no.

At a glimpse of the flyers, Iván's eyes grew wide from behind his red, stinky mask, once the face of a deadly but cuddly, debatably, predator from down the Spire, some sort of guardian guarding some sort of hot springs. That's a lot of "some sort," and for good reason. That expedition left them, his party with Portia Ahrens and Destiny Divebird and the late Temperance and Haru, with more questions than answers, Iván especially.

It has been his personal quest, after all that trouble was said and done, to further find out more about that Spire, the creatures in it, and specifically, the purple god that "saved" him. Even now, as the guards spoke to each other about red hands, criminals, and monocles, Iván could swear he was hearing the voice of that purple god, whispering to him, telling him what he needed to hear, what he should do, what needed to happen.

Save them, my prince. Bring them to me.

"As you wish, my god," Iván dryly assured the purple god, that voice in his head anyway, of his compliance, though to the others in that alley, it would have probably seemed odd and out of the blue, as if he was talking to himself, to no one else in that alley.

The masked illusionist stared out into the guards, the way he moved his head and his neck creeping out the sane one of the two, the one without the ridiculous monocle. Grinning from behind his mask, spread out his palms towards them, placing one foot behind himself, as if he was taking on some sort of stance. "Congratulations, my new friends, Archer and Mister Peanut, your enlightenment is at hand. Welcome...to the Spire!"

Nightmare Fuel: Welcome to The Spire

(Illusion Magic) The Inverted Spire was one hell of an adventure. Literally and emphasis on the word "hell." It was cool, though. Iván had his first death there and now he's pretty much obsessed over that one masked god-thing he saw before he officially died. Wait, what the hell are you doing in The Spire? Are you dead? Did someone knock you out and left you here? Oh, wait, you're not actually down in The Spire. This is just one of the Iván's tricks, making you think and feel you're actually in The Spire. You will be soon enough.

While the experience would have been bewildering to both the uninterested Johnson and the overconfident Mike, their senses being tricked by the masked illusionist's illusionary field into thinking that they have just been transported to some sort of creepy hellhole, Sean would have found the whole yelling awkward and overdramatic, considering that he wouldn't have been able to see and feel what the guards were currently forced into seeing and feeling.

Sean would've probably just raised an eyebrow at Iván standing there, with his hands extended towards the guards, and at the guards standing there, reacting strangely at unseen things. Considering that this illusion spell required Iván to expend copious amounts of energy, this whole awkward scenario would probably last longer than Sean would have liked. Or understood for that matter.

Very good, my prince. Skeep-beep de bop-bop beep bop bo-dope skeetle-at-de-op-de-day! You are making your god proud.

Yes, yes I am! Iván laughed maniacally, his grin the widest it has ever been. Soon, we will meet again, but for now, I shall make myself worthy of your audience, my god.