A New Contestant
PSSST, hey you, yeah you. You got that desperate glean in your eye. Someone told me you’re asking around, trying to earn some coins.
Well, I got a proposition for ya. You look desperate enough. You ever played bloodsports?
You know, bloodsports, fights, duels. You’re interested?
Well good, I know just the guy. His names Goliath, takes all comers. I’m not gonna lie, he’s big, got six fingers on one hand, side effects of the juice. But you look like you can hold your own.
Oh you’ve heard of him? I mean yeah he’s big, but not as big as they say, those are just stories. You’ll be ok. Yeah, he’s big, but he’s slow. You'll have the edge in speed.
Is it to the death? No no no, it’s a show you see. People like to watch him fight. Well, sometimes he fights to the death, but no, this isn’t like that. All you have to do is last five minutes in the alley. You can do it, you’ll be fine.
What’s the catch? No catch friend. There’s two lines on either side of the alley, you just have to stay inside of em for five minutes or cross the line on his side. If you can do it, well you get to take 10% of the cut from the bookies. It’s a lot of coin.
Just try it. If you get scared you can always run away. Just step back outside your starting line and it’s all over. The only thing you lose is your pride, heh.
I can see you’re tempted. Come on, you can do it. You look pretty quick, maybe you can just slip by him. You’re in? Well, sweet magic! Let’s go then.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it gets a little rowdy here sometimes. Don’t worry they’ll move out of the way if you need to run back behind your line. They don’t want to get cut in half.
Oh no no no, nobody’s been cut in half here. Not in a while anyway. Don’t worry, it’s all a show. He doesn’t want to kill anybody. If he killed the contestants nobody would be dumb enough to agree to this.
Oh no, you’re not being dumb. That’s my point you see. This is all totally safe.
Oh? The bookies are only taking bets for how long you last? They're acting like you don't stand a chance of winning? I don’t know maybe they don’t like your odds, heh.
Don’t worry I’m just messing with ya. Worst case scenario you’ll get your bell rung a bit. Goliath doesn’t like to get his sword bloody unless it’s a worthy opponent. He probably won’t even take it out.
What? No you can’t back out now, the bookies already set up the match. Well, you can try to back out, but then the bookies will lose money and they’ll probably kill you. So you might as well take your chances at this point buddy.
Ah haha, uhm, oh you're serious about backing out? Well, no I’m not going to help you get out of here. We had an agreement. If you leave I don’t get my finders fee.
You’re scared? Well maybe you shoulda thought this through a bit more friend. Why’d you trust a goblin anyway? Are you dumb or something?
Hey you better turn around! I can barely hear ya! Goliaths coming! Good luck!
*Original story by @0xPonyboy, illustrations generated by ChatGPT/DALL-E
Entered by: 0x9A86…1586
