MIND GAMES: Guild Tryouts

Chapter 12

'SSS?' Ivy thinks.

—What in the world was Stan doing here? Being the announcer/coordinator of the tryouts should garner some responsibilities, but instead, he was in Oasis City. Ivy, Kira, and Dillan look at Stan as he waves three Slayer Passes into their faces.

"It is I! Stan Stanley Stanlington! But you knew that already I'm sure..." Stan starts, "I don't have all day, so can you pick a card, any card?"

Ivy looks at Stan, trying to come up with any trick he has up his sleeve. As she does this, Ivy notices Kira move her side-part to the other side of her face, just as she did before when she used her move, All-Knowing-Eye, on that group of unsuspecting players.

"Yea? So these passes are for us?" Kira inquires.

"What do you think I'm here for? A party trick?" Stan says, "Oh, actually, that would've been clever..."

"So you're giving us Slayer's Passes for free?" Dillan asks.

Kira's green aura flashes around herself, and she turns back to her party. She also parts her hair back to its resting position.

"He's telling the truth. Those passes are ours."

The party looks away from Kira and back to Stan. He smiles as they do so. Dillan looks at Kira another time.

"Are you sure? What if it's a trick?" Dillan asks.

"It can't be. Stan's telling us the truth. I didn't sense any other motive he had." Kira responds.

Ivy walks ahead of the group to Stan in range to grab one of the passes. Stan doesn't change his stance at all and looks overall bored at this point.

"Guys, seriously, if I were pulling your legs, I would've done it by now, *TAKE THEM*!!" Stan begs, waving the passes forward as he does.

Ivy flinches at Stan's yell but quickly extends her right hand to one of the passes in Stan's hand. She readily takes it from him.

After seeing this, Kira and Dillan swiftly follow suit. They snatch up the remaining two passes from Stan. Ivy looks at the pass she had just got from Stan, being very similar to the referrals, except for even more markings and decoration on it. She looks back up from it to see Kira and Dillan retreat with their passes.

"So you're just giving them to us? Where are the other passes for the rest of the runners then?" Ivy asks.

"Yea! Why tell everyone to go somewhere then show up in person?!" Dillan roars.

Stan keeps his composure.

'I knew they wouldn't be satisfied.' Stan thinks.

"Well, to be brutally honest, this was never meant to happen! Guess it just had to be this way, is all." Stan replies.

"What do you mean?" Kira asks Stan.

Stan shuffles the rest of the cards in his hands and puts them back into his pocket. He turns to his left and paces left and right while explaining further.

"Well, you see, I had this marvelous idea! I would send everyone a trade offer with nothing I wanted on their end, but I would offer a Slayer's Pass! It would be a silent gift!—"

Ivy gasps and remembers the properties of Trade Requests. Players get offered so many at a time in the market that the game has automatically silenced those notifications to improve the experience. She listens to what Stan has to say again.

"—Now the game has a limit, as you know, for how many trade requests you can send in a day to prevent spam! Only three requests per unique player ID—if they don't respond to them—and 1,000 complete trades a day!—"