With all of its pets given homes for the year, Death bowed. "Thank you for your love of my dear pets. I hope to return next year. Watch for my return." With that, Death packed up the tent, and within moments, it was as if Death's tent had never existed at all.
As you walk through the Fall Festival, there is a booth sitting silently off to the side. It seems rather unassuming: small, black. Any light that falls upon it seems to be sucked into the darkness making up the material of the tent. You stand and look at it for a moment, almost drawn to it, though you don't know why.
As you watch, another festival goer steps up to the tent, and almost cautiously lifts the door flap. For just an instant, it seems like dazzling colours come from inside the tent, then the person steps inside, and the colours are cut off, as if they'd never been. When they come back out, you notice, once again, the colours that seem to exist inside the tent. Plucking up your courage (which has grown with watching someone go in and emerge once more), you step up to the tent, then carefully lift the door flap and step inside.
What you find inside is a tent lit with balls of light in different colours: red, pink, purple, orange, yellow, and white. You are so stunned by the lights, that for a moment you don't see the hooded figure standing behind a counter, nor the pets all around you, their fur and scales mimicking the colours all around.
"Beautiful, aren't they?" The cloaked figure asks as it observes you watching the brightly coloured pets. "I bred them specifically for this holiday."
"Which holiday?" You ask, turning your attention to the speaker. After all, Fall festival is a coming together of so many holidays at this time of year.
"Why, the Day of the Dead, of course." The figure, all in black and gender indistinguishable, replies with some amusement, as if your not knowing is humourous. "These pets are near kin to the spirit guides, but will stay here in the land of the living after the holidays are over. I, however, must return to that land of the spirits in due time, and I wish to find good homes for these pets before I go. I had thought to look for owners through direct sales, but so many worthy people have taken an interest, that I have decided to run a raffle."
The figure seems to read your interest correctly from your expression, and continues, "I can only remain for two more weeks, so this raffle will end on Saturday November 17, 2018 at 11:59pm. Fate shall decide which worthy owner shall become the master of these darlings. Each person who wishes to enter my raffle may have one raffle ticket free of charge. However, passage between the spirit realm and the living one is not cheap, and neither is raising these near-living beasts in the land of the dead, so I offer the chance at further tickets at 5,000 gold each."
The figure raised a gloved hand, seeing the protest on your lips and silencing you before you can speak a word. "If a worthy person should come to me and explain that they have been in these lands for less than one month, I will, of course, offer them a discount. For these newest wanderers of Sylestia, I shall require only 1,000 gold for each extra ticket. That sounds fair, does it not?"
At your grudging nod, it seems that the specter smiled, though such an expression could not be seen. "So, choose which of my pets you would like to put your ticket upon. Be mindful, even if you have many tickets on a type of pet, you may not win. That is up to fate. Also, should you have more than one ticket allocated to a pet type, you may only win one from that type. You can win up to four times, for that is how many species I have ready to go home with new owners this year, but no more than once per species."
With this final piece of information, Death, for that is whom you have been speaking to, hands you a golden ticket and gestures with a gloved hand to the pets, silently asking you to decide which species you will attempt to win.
Even as you try to choose, a paper appears in your hand. It seems Death does not want you to forget the rules:
Rules
1. Raffle ends on Saturday November 17, 2018 at 11:59pm Sylestia time
2. Each interested participant is given one complimentary ticket to be played on the species they desire
3. Extra tickets may be purchased for 5,000 gold (or 1,000 gold if you are new to Sylestia. "New" meaning less than 1 month)
4. Each participant may win up to 1 of each species that they enter a ticket on. Winning is not guaranteed. Fate decides (aka random number generator).
5. Have fun. This is a festival, after all
Looking up from the note, you look again at the pets available for raffle. Time to decide. |
