Duad stared at Lynn.

He had met otherworlders before, but never one without a contract, otherworldlers attracted elementals like moon-moths to a flame.

“How have you never been approached by a god? I mean, you’re here, on Fluv, how have you not been told about this?”

“Players! Take your marks!”

“Shit!” He growled, “This isn’t good. Ref timeout!”

The two referees both held up their hands, one, a kinnaras man with lower body of a horse approaching, bringing Matt along too.

The ref scowled deeply, “Usually the prisoners dont get a time out, let alone before the game starts. But, out of respect for the former champ,” he pointed to Matt, “I’ll hear you out, once. So, what’s the problem?”

Duad looked at them both, “This kid’s~”

“I’m not a kid dude, I’m twenty-one.”

Both Matt and the kinnaras looked back and forth.

“She’s an otherworlder without a contract,” he continued, “No one has ever explained any of this to her, not even when she was arrested.”

“Wait, so when I broke that guy’s staff at that guild hall place~”

“Yes, okay, so you, somehow force broke a contract,” he pointed at her, then at them, “Did you hear that?”

“That’s what they were talking about. Well crap, no one ever explained that too me.”

The kinnaras man looked particularly shocked.

“But, if you’re an otherworlder, the god that brought you here, they should have explained it, or tasked an acolyte to do so.”

The other ref, a dwergaz man with a beard that he tied up behind his shoulders shouted suddenly, “THIRTY SECONDS!”

“Sorry Duad, I have to issue you an infraction.”

“Double shit!”

This was bad, “You’re in net.” He shoved his gloves at her suddenly.

“What, no, Duad. You can’t, we could lose,” Matt cried.

“Better than her accidentally breaking another contract out there.”

“Line changes are not permitted in~”

“Oh, so you also don’t mind seeing her break the contracts of those players out there?”

The kinnaras stared then ripped up a green flag. “First infraction overruled.”

Duad nodded, standing up straight.

“Wait,” Lynn asked quietly.

“What’s up?”

“What do I do?”

“Anything to keep that ball out of our net.” He turned to run then stopped, holding his hands up, “Except touching their contracts.”

“How do I know if it’s a contract?” “Touch nothing but the ball!” “Okay there cave of wonders, geez…,” she crossed her arms under her chest, her mages robes had done a good job hiding her figure. “When this is over, you’ll have your freedom, so just, stay on your feet till the end, and I swear; I will tell you everything.”

“You’re a human too, so I guess ill trust you;” she looked around then said quietly, “So you broke a contract too?”

Duad nodded, “But, get your head in the game,” he didn’t want to tell her he wasn’t human, she’d had enough shock.

He also didn’t want to let people know what he was either.

The whistle blew, a sharp magically enhanced sonic vibration that shook the stadium.

The white and black leather ball dropped from the sky, the opposing team rushing in, Matt zooming in on blazing wings as usual, the captain of the opposing team standing ground against the gale force shattering blast of fire meeting fire, as Matt’s kick met the other captains blazing shield.

“Release stoic element!”

Duad didn’t see who did it at first as the first spell cast hit the ball from the other side of the pitch.

A hearty dwergaz woman guarding the goal her robes straining against her muscled arms pushed back her sleeves with hands wreathed in little cubes of black and brown light that rose up over her as she held her hands high launching a volley of stone birds that ripped across the field between her teammates slamming into two of Duad’s team sending them ass over tea kettle and punching the ball high into the sky.

Thankfully Duad was ready for it, seeing it coming, dodging one of the stone birds that shot towards him that exploding where he had been.

Leaping into the air he cast too.

“Generate welkin element,” sparkling triangles of white and grey light danced around his ankles as he called to the elementals, “Wind walker!”

The air congealed under his feet and he jumped higher still, catching the ball between his ankles before it could be carried off further.

The stone bird exploded, sending him and the ball into a spin. But invoked as he was, the air kissed him and he was carried like a leaf in a storm with little more turbulence.

He passed the ball to Number6 on his team  a kinnaras woman he had had little time to discuss much with beyond her fondness for balls; her being a wolf headed woman he was little suprised by that; not engaged by anyone, she had gotten into position as they had planned.

“Fireball!” He had missed the incantation, but not the result, a fireball soaring up to meet him as he made the pass.

“Genereate welkin element,” a halo of triangles circled his face like a mask, “BOOM!”

The word sent a blast of air that caught the fire ball, the explosion rocked him hard, back up into the air till he could get his feet under him. He was high up now, so high the others on the ground looked like toys below him. A few others rising up to cover him, one on a broom; or a mop? It was hard to tell what the lambkin woman weilded, but the growl in her voice said all he needed to know, he was her enemy.

He folded his arms and tipped back, diving back towards the earth, grass rushing up to meet him.

At the last second spreading his arms,  the force flipping him around so fast that his robes tore almost revealing his back as he landed. Dashing forward between one of the other teams defenders, and one of his own mates, he crossed the field, evading the lambkin woman as she drove down on him with her whirrling tentacled staff; spear? Her contract was amorphous, and confusing. A crazy fun challenger.

He needed to keep the ball away from their side of the pitch, and show Lynn what it meant to live in Fluv.

To live by the contract.

Or to break it all.