Act Seven: The Jester’s Catch.

  The Jester was built wrong. Too tall, too thin, with joints that articulated in directions human anatomy didn’t support. Its costume was stitched from something David’s True Sight identified as tanned facial skin. It juggled three iron spheres—each one a mechanical skull with spring-loaded jaws lined with serrated teeth.

  "The Jester loves to share his toys with the audience!" The Ringmaster’s voice carried the enthusiasm of a game show host introducing the lightning round.

  The Jester’s arm snapped forward. One of the spiked skulls flew toward the bleachers—directly at the veteran with the curved daggers.

  The veteran reacted on combat instinct: he drew his blades and slashed the projectile out of the air. A perfect deflection. The skull clattered harmlessly down the metal steps.

  The music stopped.

  The Jester’s painted smile inverted. Not gradually—instantly, as if someone had flipped a texture. The skull on the stairs sprouted mechanical spider legs, leapt onto the veteran’s head, and closed its jaws around his cranium with a sound like a watermelon being compressed in a hydraulic press.

  Three veterans remaining.

  The Jester picked up another skull and threw it at the back row. At David.

  David tracked the projectile’s arc. Mass: approximately seven kilograms. Rotational speed: high. Surface: serrated, poisoned at the tips based on the discoloration pattern. The system’s logic was clear from the violation that had just killed the dagger veteran: the "gift" must be accepted physically. Deflection or evasion equaled rejection. Rejection equaled death.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He had to catch it.

  David raised both hands—bare, the tactical gloves providing no meaningful protection against serrated metal. The skull hit his palms with the force of a thrown bowling ball. His arms absorbed the impact against his chest. The serrated spikes on the skull’s surface punched through his gloves and into the meat of his palms, sinking deep enough to grind against the metacarpal bones.

  The pain was extraordinary. A simultaneous activation of every nociceptor in both hands, amplified by the Abyssal pollution coating the spikes. David’s nervous system screamed at him to drop the object. His hands wanted to open. Every reflex in his body was trying to override his conscious decision to keep holding the thing that was hurting him.

  He didn’t drop it. His smile didn’t waver.

  He pulled the skull’s jaws apart with bleeding fingers and extracted the second blue fragment from inside.

  [Hidden Item Acquired: Blue Ticket Fragment (2/3).]

  He let the skull fall. It rolled away, inert now that its gift had been accepted. David wrapped his hands in tactical bandage from his storage ring, the white fabric turning red immediately.

  Michael was staring at David’s hands. "You caught it on purpose. You knew the fragment was inside."

  "The performances encode the clue locations. The Jester’s juggling pattern matched the data from Act Three. The gift is the delivery mechanism." David flexed his bandaged fingers. The SSS-rank physique was already working on the damage, but the hands would be compromised for at least an hour.

  Acts Eight and Nine ground past. Viper’s heavy-gunner broke during Act Eight—his smile collapsed, he screamed, he ran for the exit. The Red Balloon Clowns collected him. The sounds from outside the tent were brief and wet.

  Two veterans left. Viper and one other.

  And during Act Nine, while every eye in the tent was fixed on the stage, David’s shadow extended along the floor to the seat the gunner had abandoned. The Shadow Bear Spirit’s tendril found a blue glow taped to the underside of the rusted metal bench and delivered it to David’s pocket.

  [Hidden Item Acquired: Blue Ticket Fragment (3/3).]

  [Condition Met. Initiating Ticket Synthesis...]

  [Middle-Class Ticket Acquired.]