Coel and I walked into the Cat’s Eye through the big wooden door of what looked like, from the outside, an old run-down building. The inside was much better kept. The dancers, I later found out, only dance at night. At some of the tables there were card players, and at some there were people eating. The bar was in the center of the room. It was four sided, with a television suspended above each corner. There were people sitting around the bar watching a documentary on something called ‘football.’ I could hear the jukebox playing somewhere, but I couldn’t see it, and a chorus of drunken voices was bellering out the words to ‘Hey Jude.’ That song has to be hundreds of years old, but I know it because we listened to it in my high school World History as part of our study on ancient cultures.

We walked up to the bar and started talking to the bartender about any jobs. He was a big guy with a big belly, and man was he hairy. He wore a white apron that was stained, with vomit in some places.

"Well, you could help out cooky in the back, moving tubs of lard and kegs and such," the barkeep told us in his gruff voice, "that’s all there is right now… hey, I haven’t seen you before, why not?"

"Well, I uh…" I tried to come up with an excuse but I wasn’t quick enough.

"Boys, do any of you know this guy?" The bartender hollared into the crowd. A couple of guys who where taller than me and must have outweighed me by a hundred pounds each stood up at the bar.

"Well, I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting this one Earl. He must be a section C," one of them said. The other grinned a big, toothless grin.

"Ah shit!" Coel exclaimed.

"Dammit, Coel, I told you this wasn’t a good idea!"

The started walking towards us, the one who spoke was cracking his knuckles. The toothless one swung at me with a big right hook, which I easily dodged before kicking him in the gut. When he bent over I slammed my elbow into the back of his neck, sending him to the floor.

While their concentration was on me, Coel had gotten behind them. He smashed the other one on the back of the head with a beer mug he found handy.

"Oh yeah my man!" I said slapping Coel a high five.

"That wasn’t so tough," he replied, both of us were laughing. Then we heard a big, deep laugh from somewhere in the bar. Everyone immediately shut up, including us. A huge man stood at the other end of the bar. He was at least seven feet six inches tall, and had a thick black mullet. His arms were bigger than most peoples legs, and on the left arm he had a tattoo of a broadsword with the words ‘I like swords’ on top of it. He was tanned and dirty from whatever job he did. I’ll admit, I was scared of this guy, but I didn’t let him know that of course. He walked over to us, still laughing.

"You guys think you’re tough because you beat those two?" He said in his deep, rumbling voice, "ha ha ha, don’t make me laugh. If you two weaklings want a fight, I’m your man." He clenched his fists and smiled at us.

"You’ve got balls my man, looking for a fight with both of us," I said, getting ready to fight him, "and judging from your size they must be big. But that won’t matter, big man, unless your moves are just as big."

As soon as I had finished we heard a gunshot. Everyone looked over to a table where a man in a purple cloak was sitting, pointing a huge pistol at the ceiling. When he looked at us we couldn’t see a face under the hood of his cloak, but he spoke to us in a powerful voice, "I suggest you take this to section D, a more suitable fighting environment. I will escort you to make sure you don’t get at each other in the residential section."

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We had to walk through section B to get to section D, which gave me time to think of how stupid it was for us to have gotten into this. Coel and I walked behind the guy in the purple cloak, who was a little bigger than myself.

"Who is that guy?" I asked Coel.

"He’s known as Purple Roland the Gun. No one knows his full name, and only a few more have ever seen his face. He’s supposedly an expert gunman. Back there he probably could have killed the three of us before anyone even realized it. He’s supposed to be as good at hand-to-hand combat as he is with a gun. He’s a member of the Last Chance’s council."

"I’ll remember not to piss him off. What about the big guy?"

"Just some dumbass, Marcus Jones. He’s been fighting in the tourney for twenty years, and has just barely survived most of the fights. He’s known for using a couple of gigantic swords in the tourney. Luckily he doesn’t seem to have them with today."

"Why does a guy his size need a weapon?"

"Because he’s too stupid to really know how to fight, and usually resorts to just violently swinging them around."

"Well, at least we have a chance then."

"A chance to see if you’re any good that is."

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