It was disgusting. A slimy mass of rotting flesh, exposed muscle, and protruding bones covered in rough patches of burnt purple feathers mostly charred black. These horrible ingredients all molded into a shape vaguely similar to that of a horse but whose back grew a thick cancerous lump that extended upwards two feet. The limp cancerous growth too heavy to support its weight, slumped lifelessly atop itself folding in two and simply swayed back and forth with the creature’s gait. The creature’s horse like head dangled by a few unsevered tendons threatening to snap and drop the lifeless morsel. Jutting from the stump of the open neck wound was the small upper body of a thin little worm with beady eyes and soft white fur coated red from its host’s blood. The creature was a horrendous amalgam created by the mokoi khan itself in the second human-mokoi war. It had long since stopped being a tool for battle though, it had been given a much more important task which it gladly dedicated its entire being to. But, for some reason it could not find its master. Currently it was wandering around the base of the Abyss in search of its master.

One day its master had suddenly left without a single word leaving the amalgam behind with the strange white lady and her entourage of six obnoxious and loud friends. The amalgam didn’t care much for the strange white lady, she killed daddy, but she was very nice to master. She was like a mommy to master in place of master’s dead daddy. It wondered if there was something wrong with the logic there, but it couldn’t quite put its hoof down on it.

Either way it was not very concerned with the strange white lady. All it cared for now was finding master and deciding if master would like this flower as a gift. It was such a pretty flower. Its short green stem growing out of a tiny clay pot. It had a little pink bud that had yet to bloom. It was kind of like the amalgam, they both had tiny heads. The cancerous mass on its back stirred awake and lifted itself upright. Thick pulsing veins began pumping heavy amounts of blood and magic causing the whole lump to convulse and expand in a chaotic and unpredictable fashion. The violent angry movements started to gather glances from the other mokoi passing by. It did not heed the onlookers and focused all of its energy in telekinetically lifting the little potted plant. “Hey! What are you doing!?”. An old wrinkly grey imp-like mokoi waddled over to the amalgam “That’s my plant! Put it down.”.

The small worm protruding from the creature’s neck turned its head back and forth between the angry lady and the pretty flower.

“Put it down now. Don’t make me count to three.” She spoke with a very stern voice that made the amalgam scared of the possibilities after three. It used its telekinesis to gently place the plant back down. “There you go. Now I’ve told you this before, but you shouldn’t take other mokoi’s things, it's not very nice. Do you understand?”

The small worm protruding from the vile beast slowly nodded its head yes apologetically.

“Good. Now here, I brought you out a delicious egesta soup.” The nice old lady revealed a very small saucer containing a chunky brown liquid within it. As soon as the worm caught sight of this wonderous delicacy the creature it inhabited excitedly trotted in place before kneeling down so that its tiny worm head could lap up the mouthwatering meal. “I’m sure you’ll find our little princess soon. You just keep looking okay. I’m sure she just went to hide somewhere away from those awful revolutionaries.”

The lady grumbled in a hushed but annoyed voice. Apparently not hushed enough as it brought attention to a passerby. “Shut up you hag, what if one of the patrols hear you? We’ll all be sent to the oubliette and then it will never be able to bring princess Vow back. Is that what you want? To be ruled by the white witch for the rest of time. She’s not even a Mokoi, I can’t believe those revolutionaries are siding with that monster.”

The amalgam was thinking that for someone that came to scold the nice lady for speaking loudly and inappropriately, he was speaking very loudly and very inappropriately. The amalgam didn’t mind though, as long as it could have its soup and continue its search for master it was plenty happy. Having finally finished its soup, the creature swayed its body close to the nice lady who was mid argument so that it towered enormously over her. The terrifying creature which was many times the size of the old lady had to crouch down so the tiny worm could kiss her cheek thanks. The lady and the man for some reason unknown to the amalgam stopped fighting and simply smiled at the worm. “Are you heading back off for your search?”. The nice lady asked bearing a warm smile and certainly a kind soul. The worm energetically nodded its little protruding body up and down to form a yes motion.

“Alright then. We wish you the best of luck. Go bring our princess back.”

The happy amalgam with a full stomach and full heart, scampered down the busy streets of the abyss. It wasn’t too confident that master would be here, but how silly would it feel if it went all the way to Trammel causing a big ol’ hullabaloo with the humans just for master to have been right here the whole time. That is why it had steeled itself to search every nook and cranny of every nook and cranny of the world until it found master again. It was like that hide and seek game they used to play when master was young, but this was unfair the amalgam thought. Master always made it a rule that outside of the castle garden was cheating and the amalgam had made triple sure that master wasn’t hiding in the garden.

Maybe master was with the angry general since he didn’t join the revolutionaries. But the angry general was so angry and was no fun to hang out with. He definitely wouldn’t play hide and seek that’s for sure. He also wasn’t very safe to be around since he was like a leading general for an intercontinental war… and a civil war. OH NO! Maybe that is why master left without telling the amalgam. Master knew that the amalgam would get all in a huff and stop master because being next to war people doing war stuff is far too dangerous. So instead of being reasonable and letting the amalgam take care of master, master chose to sneak away.

The abominable monstrosity pleased with its great intellect and deductive abilities galloped away towards where it thought the general might probably maybe be. It knew that the general might probably maybe be there because it had seen the general there when it was there nineteen years ago. Wow! A genius and with a great memory, the repugnant freak was learning so much about itself today.

The creature had unbelievable speed and strength and had run out of the abyss, across the continental bridge passed the border security and into the Mokoi badlands within a matter of minutes and was streaming through the dry wasteland when it heard the chime of a bell. Dinner? Unable to dissuade its pavlovian programming the amalgam stopped dead in its tracks, right before its very eyes it saw a pink rhombus appear out of thin air. This wasn’t food, it returned back to its monstrous gallop and dashed through the badlands at an unimaginable speed. Another bell chimed and another pink rhombus appeared up ahead, but the amalgam wasn’t going to be tricked twice so it quickly ran past the strange object and continued towards its goal.

Finally, with the chime of a bell signifying its arrival, it was now at the location. Wait, the bell wasn’t signifying its arrival, it was just the pink rhombus again, and now it’s doing all this weird stuff with its body. Ignoring the strange pink thing, this meeting place seemed really empty for a meeting. Why wasn’t the general or master here? All the buildings were weird looking, like none of them had doors, or at least the ones that did have doors had them totally unhinged and just lying on the ground. All the wood of the buildings was black and soft and crumbly. All the dissenters as the general called them weren’t here either, huh, the amalgam wondered where they went.

The pink rhombus thing was now like a featureless human with only one limb holding a parchment and was weirdly following it around. Maybe it too was curious of where the dissenters went. It was kind of cute, like the amalgam was master and the pink thing was its pet. The pink thing suddenly turned grey and stiff; the parchment it was holding lost its glow as it too turned into a boring grey. This confused the amalgam very much, but one mystery to solve was already enough, so it ignored the used to be pink thing and began sifting through the rubble and ash in search of master. Master had always been very dedicated to hide and seek, so the amalgam could not leave a single stone or corpse unturned.

That not so pink thing seemed to want something from the amalgam, maybe if it helped the amalgam search this town it would hear the non-pink thing out. Chances were slim though, ever since the pink thing became the grey thing it stopped moving completely. Then, the amalgam could hear the not very pink thing doing some strange things in the background, but the amalgam could not be distracted from its duty. It continued its search until it eventually arrived at a building that the amalgam had recognized from the last time it was here. If it remembered correctly, this demolished heap of refuse was what one of the locals called a hospital, but it remembered master saying that hospitals were for healing and these bones did not look like they were particularly healed. A loud snap echoed out distracting the amalgam from its duty making it turn towards the now pink again being! There was a stone mold of the being lying on the ground beneath it. This transformation back to being pink again seemed to come with a change of heart as the pink thing seemed to understand that the amalgam would only listen to it if it helped it search the town.

The pink thing quickly moved over to a house; it placed the parchment on the ground which strangely seemed to turn its hand grey. The being was unfazed by this unfortunate predicament. Right next to the glowing parchment and the pink being’s grey hand was a fallen door. The being must have had the same idea as the amalgam as it flipped the door over to see if master was underneath. The being flipped the door with what the amalgam though was unnecessarily excessive force, what if it scared master by doing that? The amalgam was still by the hospital so it could not see if master was there or what her reaction to the violent action was. The amalgam was patiently waiting with bated breath to hear the pink being answer that burning question of if they had just won hide and seek.

The pink thing abruptly jolted from ruin to ruin like an energetic tourist running out of time, it waved its single hand around in strange dramatic ways at each stop making loud cracks and pops to signal whether it had found master. Every crack must have meant that it had not found master, and each pop must have meant… that it also had not found master since it kept running around the town in search of master at incredible speeds that even impressed the amalgam. The amalgam did not expect the pink thing to be such a rushed and aggressive hide and seek player. The pink thing should really learn to relax and appreciate the joy of building tension as you slowly approach the hider. It clearly just had its mind set on winning without any consideration for fun.

The pink thing finally ended its rushed search by climbing the frail remains of a large dilapidated building. The pink thing roosted up high above granting it the perfect angle for spotting any possible hidden corners. Or it would have been perfect if the pink thing could see. It had no eyes! Perhaps the amalgam should double check all the places it had been before since even if master was there the pink thing wouldn’t have been able to see it.

The pink thing’s blank face then opened revealing a single gargantuan eye; the eye shown like a brilliant star illuminating even the darkest of hidden crevices. It was an unfathomable light of blinding brilliance. The eye scanned across the horizon and as it did so it disintegrated all inorganic matter that befell its ocular assault.

The entire town had been razed within an instant leaving only a few mounds of bone sporadically bunched around. The pink thing clearly never played with a child before, sometimes when you know where they are, you have to pretend not to for a little while; it’s all a part of the fun. It seemed that the pink thing was just anxious to finish searching this town. It truly was the most intense hide and seek player, almost as if it wanted to finish as quickly as possible so it could do something else. The pink thing did not spend long suspended up in the air, it slowly floated its way down towards the ground with complete disregard for gravity or physics, both things which the amalgam thought that one certainly should be regarding. The pink thing landed next to the glowing parchment it dropped earlier. Now that the amalgam was paying attention, the pink thing’s hand was no longer grey. It seemed like it wasn’t anyway, it was hard to tell with having to squint through that shining light the pink thing emitted. The pink thing placed its hand directly on to the parchment and picked it up. Well now the pink thing was just being downright silly, even the amalgam knew that master obviously could not possibly have been hiding under that parchment; she was good, but not even she could be that good. The pink thing moved over towards the amalgam with what the amalgam could only imagine as the conclusive confidence carried by someone who had thoroughly searched a location for the hider. The pink thing held its arm outstretched in front of the amalgam’s severed neck. The amalgam was suddenly visited by a great divine thought. “Not here.”

Yes, the amalgam and its newfound pink friend had certainly looked as well as they could. It was a smart creature for realizing it had finished searching this area for master. The pink friend appeared to agree as that wonderous shining light it emitted dissipated away. The little grub was appreciative of that since the light was quite blinding “Now take the invitation.”.

What a strange great divine thought that the amalgam suddenly had. It had no idea why it would think the thoughts it just thought, it didn’t remember being invited to anything. “The glowing parchment. Here.”.

The creature was very confused. It saw many thin thingies like this one before, they usually didn’t glow though. Regardless, it couldn’t read so these things weren’t of much concern to it. “Just take it!”

The amalgam suddenly had the brilliant idea of telekinetically grabbing the parchment because it thought it would make its new friend happy. “Now just get to the arena of thrones in a month's time. You’ll find your master if you do.”

Somehow grabbing that parchment made the amalgam certain that if it went to the arena of thrones it would get to meet master. Wow, what a wonderful thing these paper things are. It wondered what it said on that paper.

“It says that

You have been invited to

The Tournament

You are The Weapon"