Joey supposed he couldn't complain; at least the Oracle had lent them another wagon. Still, it was strange to think that they had added yet another companion to their already large group, especially after they had all gotten used to each other. He supposed that night around the campfire, when the others had made their silly yet heartfelt pledges to their cause, it had simultaneously bonded them and sealed off their group for potential newcomers. That was, until the Quickening.

This thought, of course, led him to wonder what was going on in the other wagon, and just how much Serenity's innocent eyes were being subjected to at the moment. Initially, it had made sense for her to ride along with the now bonded pair – Yami had seemed too awkward with the whole deal, Bakura wouldn't have left them alone for two seconds, and Joey had to drive the Urodelas – but now he was having second thoughts. Marik and his Equivalent partner seemed so instantly...intimate in a way that Joey could not remember seeing before and certainly could not relate to.

Yami shifted in his seat beside him a little, and he glanced to the side. "You okay?" he asked.

The ex-Sentry nodded. "Just...thinking." He turned to look through the small window in the wagon. "How far until the next settlement?" he shouted through it.

"I'd have a better idea if I were out there instead," Bakura replied flippantly.

"I told you, you scare the Urodelas too much!" Joey replied.

"I know, I know. Actually, we should be arriving soon."

"Soon" turned out to be another few minutes. Joey and Yami saw the tops of a few cottages (with a banner bearing the Oracle's colors to let all who saw it know they were still in her domain) at the bottom of the hill they were descending and relayed that to Bakura so he could brace himself. The town looked pleasant enough as they approached, with people of all ages meandering the cobbled streets and the storefronts and display windows. They even waved as the carriage pulled through the town to find somewhere to park. It was odd yet comforting to be in a settlement that wasn't afraid of grimgos or of children going missing or of literal shadows. After so many days, Joey had forgotten what that was like.

Finally, they found a lot to park in. Bakura met Yami and Joey in the front of theirs to wait for the royal driver, the same one who had brought them to the Aviary, to park alongside them. Marik climbed out of the back first and held out a hand for Malik to do the same, and the other three males exchanged intrigued looks that ranged in cheeky amusement. Serenity joined them last with a wide smile on her face.

"Together again," she said.

Joey snorted a laugh. "It's only been a few hours, kid," he said, though he pulled her into a brotherly side hug. "All right, gang, here're our orders. While I hang back and take care of the Urodelas, someone's gotta find a place to stay for the night, and someone else should go look for a place to eat. Remember, we need room for six. Seven, if the driver comes with us." He glanced back at said man, who merely shrugged.

"I'll go find lodging," Bakura offered. "I bet I can haggle down the price. And I elect Serenity as my comrade."

Serenity blinked. "Me?"

"You. You'd be surprised how far a cute face can get you." Serenity blushed but nevertheless walked over to stand next to him.

"And I'll go look for food and...social lubricant," Yami said with a sly smile.

Joey frowned but he supposed it was better than nothing. "Fine, but no drinking until we get there."

"We'll go with you, if you want," Malik said enthusiastically.

Yami gave Joey a discreet, pleading look, and Joey quickly thought of something to say to save him. "Uh, no, I actually need you two to, um, look for supplies. For the wagon." He fished around for some paper and scrawled down a few items before handing it to Malik. "This'll give you both a chance to see the town, too."

Apparently, the bait worked, and Joey inwardly sighed in relief. Armed with their assignments, the travelers dispersed, leaving Joey and the royal driver alone with the draft beasts. Joey turned around to chat with the driver and was shocked to see he had disappeared. Well, that left Joey with the beasts.


"Are you sure the lodge is full?" Serenity asked, her eyes wide with worry. "We'll take the cheapest you've got."

The lodge owner grimaced but stayed resolute. "I'm sorry, girl, we're booked. Oversold, even," she said

Serenity sighed and turned to Bakura with a watery smile. "That's okay, we'll just sleep in the wagon again. Father can have my blanket so he won't catch his death this time."

Bakura placed a hand on her shoulder consolingly. "You're very kind. Let's go." They turned to leave.

"W-wait!" the owner called. "We may have something for you."

Bakura smirked and whispered, "Just as I planned," before turning, back in character. "Oh?" he asked with just a touch of naïve hopefulness.

The owner sighed. "We're still renovating the top floor, but two of the rooms should be relatively okay for a short stay."

"Oh, thank you!" Serenity said, wringing her hands. "You are so generous. We'll take them both."


It didn't take Yami long to find a few promising pubs and eateries. This town had everything, including a thriving nightlife if the copious amounts of taverns was any indication. Although it was still a while until evening, townsfolk were already crowding the streets, friends joking and jostling each other, families carrying armfuls of wares back home, couples holding hands on their way to discreet rendezvous spots. He squinted at the rows of venues to see if any of the open locales seemed like his kind of haunt. Unfortunately, all of the pubs were closed; this granted him a moment of clarity, in which he felt a little guilty of breaking his promise to Joey to not drink.

Well, he'd at least distract himself from the urge by first completing his task and then exploring the town. He turned around and spotted a pair of women approaching him. "Excuse me," he said, and they slowed down to look at him, "but I'm not from around here. What's the best place to eat in town?"

"Oh, that's easy," the woman closest to him answered, and she nodded to a thriving spot a little way down the road from them. "The Club and Casque has it all."

"Yeah," the other woman agreed, "they're a restaurant and club room by day, tavern by night. Tables fill quickly, though."

Yami thanked the women and headed to the Club and Casque. Despite how large it was (taking up an entire street corner and standing a few storeys high), it was bustling. Every time the front door opened, Yami could hear the talking and laughter from inside. He peeked through the large front windows and saw the typical tables and chairs in the front but a more relaxed, standing-only area in the back, and a set of wide stairs leading up to the upper floors. Shrugging, he went inside and immediately had to sidestep a trio of men who were swaying and walking at the same time, oblivious to everyone else around them.

"Walk-in or reservation?" said a girl around Serenity's age from beside the door. She was holding up a notepad and quirked her eyebrow when they met gazes.

"Uh, walk-in, I suppose."

"Okay. Just so you know, there's a thirty-minute wait for the next table."

Yami blinked. The place was crowded, but waiting half an hour? That seemed excessive, but he put his name down for a table nonetheless. "What about upstairs?" he asked, more out of curiosity than anything.

"Oh, that's the club room. Right now, the Three G's are meeting there."

"Three G's?"

"Gallagher's Games Guild. I believe they're allowing walk-ins, and you can order food up there, so if you're interested..." She shrugged in punctuation.

Yami glanced at the stairs, wondering just what kind of games this Three G's club was playing. "Why not?" he said more to himself, and he went upstairs.


"Look at this one," Malik said, pointing to yet another set of shiny trinkets in the store's display window.

"Hmm," Marik responded, pretending to look at the wares when he was really watching the pure elation on the other's face. He was suddenly filled with an intense urge to buy something, which he knew wasn't his. "Why don't you buy one of them?" he asked.

Malik sighed and turned his back to the store. "Lady Ishizu would skin me alive. She says I've already amassed a large enough collection to feed a village. Which I think was her subtle way of threatening to do just that if I bought any more jewelry." He spared one last longing look over his shoulder before walking away. Marik chuckled and fell into step beside him.

"Karan tried adorning me, but he quickly gave that up. I never saw the point of wearing the pieces, although now –" he gave Malik a sweeping look – "I'm starting to understand."

Malik blushed a little and crossed his arms, a gesture Marik was beginning to recognize as self-consciousness. "I always meant to visit Karan," he said, sounding distant. "I suppose I'd have met you sooner." He gave a small smile.

"I was different then," Marik replied, thinking back to when his existence was simple and confined. He imagined what meeting Malik during that time would have looked like, would have meant. "Why didn't you? Visit, I mean."

Malik sighed. "I couldn't leave my sister," he mumbled. "It's a wonder she let me go this far. Even though she's the one bound to the Fiefdom, it feels like I'm trapped here, too."

"But why is she bound there in the first place?"

They stopped in front of another store, though this time neither was paying attention to its merchandise. Malik gave him a critical look, like he was deciding something. Finally, he said, "The items that the Sorcerers wield are powerful. The necklace allows my sister to predict the future – hence her title – but they also tap into unseen forces to do other things, like allow them to cross distances far and wide. I only assume this is why you're on a quest to collect them all.

"But that same connection can work against them by a mage strong and capable enough. And long ago, just that kind of mage used the items to physically bind the Sorcerers' souls to the location of the items, and the items to their respective domains."

Marik's eyes widened. "Trapped, indeed. But why would the mage do this?"

"It was his parting gift," Malik replied with a humorless smile. "The mage was driven mad by the power of the items and tried to steal them, but the Sorcerers stopped him. While they were busy banishing him, he cursed them to be bound to their items and domains. And such was the cost of ridding Serendom of the Shadow Lich – or so I'm told, I was too young to witness it firsthand."

Marik wanted to ask more – what was a Shadow Lich? just how long ago had this all happened? was there a connection between the Lich and the shadow creatures roaming around now? – but Malik was distracted by the distant sound of drums.

"You hear that?" he asked (quite needlessly, how could Marik not hear it?) before taking off in the direction of the sound. Marik sighed, shook his head, and followed.

The drumming was coming from a small stage down the road and around the corner from them, and as they approached, they could also hear trumpets and singing. A small crowd, mostly children, gathered at the base of the stage and watched in eager fascination as the characters danced around in bright costumes and half-masks. The two stood at the back of the crowd with the parents, enjoying both the performance and the children's delight.

Three of the dancers hopped off the stage and begin spinning and leaping through their spectators, who parted hastily to give them a path. The dancers stopped now and again to place a flower crown on someone's head or twirl someone else. As they wove through the back of the crowd, the third dancer paused in front of Marik and clapped her bangle onto his wrist. She danced away before he could thank her, so he held it up to admire its golden glow. He caught Malik ogling it, too, and he immediately shook it off and handed it to him. He felt a tingle course through him when his fingers brushed Malik's palm, and he heard the other give a nervous laugh.

"L-let's go check out the rest of the town," Malik said, and they left the area to continue exploring.


"There," Joey breathed. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and stretched. "You two should be fine for the night, then," he said to the Urodelas. The creatures paid him no mind, more interested in their food and water.

Joey backed out of the stable he rented for the night and practically bumped into Bakura and Serenity. "Oh, you two are back quick. No luck?"

"On the contrary," Bakura said with a smirk. "This one here has a promising future in conning."

Serenity blushed. "Thanks, I guess. We have two big rooms to ourselves," she said to Joey.

The Acolyte nodded. "That is impressive. Let's go find the others, then."

The trio wandered through the town, taking in the quaint sights of leisure. It reminded Joey of the Kingdom of Black, and he grew a little homesick. He'd have to shop around for something to bring back for Tristan and Solomon.

"This is the only food place still open," Bakura said as they walked toward a restaurant called the Club and Casque.

"It's also got booze, so Yami's gotta be in there," Joey muttered. They walked inside and asked the girl standing by the door if Yami had indeed come that way.

"Oh, certainly," she replied. "He made a reservation for your party, then went upstairs to the club room to wait."

"Club room?" Serenity asked.

The other girl nodded. "The Three G's meets there every week to play games, though it's more cutthroat than you'd think." She frowned a little, seeming to remember something grisly. "Anyway, you're welcome to go up there, too."

So up they went. As they rounded the corner to the clubroom, Joey could hear shouts and calls from inside. He exchanged a glance with the others before proceeding. The club room took up almost the entirety of the second floor, with tables in neat rows in one corner, a pile of cushions in front of a fireplace in another, and a bookshelf of all kinds of trinkets in a third. There was a bar along the far wall, and while a steady stream of patrons kept the bartender busy, the majority of Three G's members stood huddled around a table in the center of the arrangement. They were all shoving each other playfully and chatting excitedly, clearly enjoying whatever was happening in the center.

The trio of travelers circled the group but couldn't see Yami or any indication that he had been in the room. Then, the Three G's members exploded into shouts, half of them congratulating one another while the other half practically tore out their hair in lament. They shuffled around the table, and in the gaps, Joey could see Yami's unmistakable tricolored hair. He jostled his way through the crowd and found Yami sitting across from a man who slumped over in his seat and examined the cards in front of him with frantic desperation.

"Another one down," Yami said, crossing his arms and smiling smugly. "Who's next?"

"Yami?" Serenity asked, having followed Joey through the group. "What's going on?"

"I've been teaching the members of the Gallagher's Games Guild how to play a game and mean it," Yami said, eliciting laughs from the club members behind him.

"He's been wiping the floor with us!" one man said.

"He's beaten us at every game!" a woman called.

"Surely not every game," Bakura said incredulously.

"They've even taken to calling me – uh, what was it again?"

"The King of Games!" the Guild members shouted in unison.

Joey snickered at Bakura's obvious resentment. "What, think you could do better?"

Bakura didn't answer, not directly at least. Instead, he marched over to the seat opposite Yami's and glared at its current occupant until the man scrambled away. He gathered the scattered cards as he sat. "All right, how do we play?"

Yami grinned and began gathering the cards near him, too. "We each take it in turns to draw a card, trying to compose a hand of a single suit. Then, we have to battle one another with those suits. Higher values win." He took the other half of the deck from Bakura and quickly and expertly shuffled the deck, drawing the attention of the club members, who packed in near the table again. "I'll let you have the first turn."

Bakura snatched a card off the top of the deck, and the game progressed quickly from there. Both combatants silently took their turns, handling their cards like old pros, while their audience cheered and hollered for whomever held their interest (which seemed to change turn to turn). Even Joey and Serenity were egging them on.

"Come on, Bakura, that was such an obvious ruse," Serenity said at one point.

"Clearly you need to be cut off, Yami, you're not seeing your cards right!" Joey taunted at another.

"This is where you've all been this whole time?" Joey heard over his shoulder. He glanced behind him and saw Marik standing there, with Malik beside.

"Oh, hey, you two," he said. "Bakura, Serenity, and I just got here. Didn't take long for Mister Hero over there to challenge Yami to a game."

"Who's winning?" Malik asked, leaning forward with interest.

"Hard to say. They're pretty evenly matched."

"Then let's make it interesting, shall we?" Malik cupped his mouth and shouted over the noise, "Free drinks all night for the winner!"

The crowd yelled in enthusiasm, and Joey laughed. Bakura and Yami looked to each other and nodded, apparently accepting the new terms of their game.

The game went on for much longer than Joey expected, but more surprising was the Guild's rapt attention. They were just as excited about the current turn as they were about the first. Joey wondered if this was because of the deadlock or just the fanaticism that drove an adult to join a club dedicated to playing games. Suddenly, the mood shifted. The Guild got quiet and watched with anticipation as Yami discarded a card and drew another. He smirked and set his hand face down, ending his turn.

Now was the moment of truth. Bakura glanced at his hand again before looking between the discard pile and the deck, weighing his options. Finally, he decided to draw a new card. Time seemed to slow down as he flipped it up to read the value and suit of his card. The Guild waited in pin-drop silence for a reaction.

Bakura hissed an expletive, and the crowd once again erupted into jaunts and jeers. He and Yami lay their hands down, the former almost complete except for the one card Bakura had drawn, the latter a perfect set. They had both drawn the most powerful values, meaning the game came down to simply finish collecting the suit. Joey was taken aback by the level of skill they'd both shown in a game neither had played before.

"You know, the jar's supposed to eat the loser's soul," Yami said. He propped his head up with one hand, as though waiting to see that very spectacle. He was talking about a large jar with seals all around it and binding ropes tying a box to it. Joey recognized some of the symbols on the seals and hoped Yami was really joking about the curse. Bakura eyed the jar suspiciously before scowling and pushing back from the table.

"A win is a win," he said, though he sounded loath to admit it. "Congratulations. Although I do expect a rematch soon."

Yami grinned. "Count on it. Now, where's that drink I was promised?"