When predators for weeping victims mourn,
A kingless kingdom, choked with fire, is born.
That was by the late, great Olav Bluehill, I think. It's called “A Reminder.” Normally I hate the crap outta poetry, but dwarven poetry like that masterpiece? That's worth memorizing.
Anyway, people of the Ariesian Empire...How's it goin'?
Remember me? Your old pal, Monty Jones, just another badass spearman from the quiet little city of Fulgan, in the great province-kingdom of Celsior, part of the Gods awful empire of Aries. The man who, ten years ago, single-handedly defeated Dark Lord Orestes.
Orestes. Man, what a jackass he was. Trying to use the Jade Crown's wish to blow up the world? What would he have gotten out of that? Great job, you nuked Planet Luminar in half. Now you're dead, and no one fears the name of the one who did it because everyone else is dead, too.
Regardless, he was dumb enough to try to go through with that, and every other hero fell on their asses trying to stop him. Not even Prince Raphael, the great peacekeeper—blow it out your ass— could stand against his wizardry.
Then, when all hope was lost, I, the last surviving member of that year's Chosen Three, showed up and impaled him a couple dozen times with this bad boy here—Lupus, a custom-tooled bident spear forged from solid Sadji-Taa blacksteel. It has +450 Attack, Strength and Defense buffs, no biggie. I saved the world. No magic, no healing potions, no assistance of any kind, just raw strength, a good weapon, and zero fear. That's all it took to stop Orestes from bringing the human race to extinction.
Now, here's the ugly part. Let's talk about how you thanked me for it.
Just as I'm about to receive the Medal of the Golden Fleece for my actions, some moron digs up my social media posts during the adventure. That's right, words. Words were the one thing standing between me and a medal that's only been given to seven people in the last 5,000 years.
When I got to the throne to receive the medal, Queen Stella slapped me across the face and told me never to show my racist, sexist face in her court again. I was denied the medal for “unheroic conduct.”
So, what were these horrible words?
“And of COURSE Orestes is a Godsdamn Rosie. #KillYourElves #PestControl”
“So...remind me why we aren't herding the Rosies into a big hole in the ground and filling it with cement? It would cause more joy than suffering, just look at the polls.”
“I refuse to acknowledge my healer's abilities until she gets breast implants. I'm a hero; the last thing I deserve is a flat-chested medic.”
Those three status updates were enough. There weren't any others. Overnight, I went from hero to villain—outcast, even—just for having an opinion.
And that, my brothers, is political correctness—the disease that is killing the Empire. We're not in any greater danger from monsters, black magic, pollution, Dark Lords, or even the money-laundering psychopaths in the Celsioran royal family. Political correctness will destroy us, unless we destroy it first.
My case is only a small fraction of the damage PC culture has done to the Empire. We used to look up to fearless knights and kings as the embodiment of bravery, but now, do you know who we're calling brave? Middle-aged women with cancer in drug commercials. Sorry, “fighting” cancer—that's not fighting! That's DYING! If you're sick, the nicest thing you should get is a mercy kill, not a Godsdamn compliment!
We're running on a backwards system of ridiculous, tyrannical laws, disguised as compassion and sensitivity. Cowardice is now “anxiety,” and laziness is now “depression.” Crying is the new “courage.” Feminists, Rosies, “social justice” activists, liberals, leftists—they all want weakness to replace strength.
Why have any ambition, when someone's going to call your success unfair, then take what's yours for being “privileged?” Why challenge yourself to be better at all, when you could just have healers and therapists kiss your each and every boo boo?
Why grow up, when you can stay a child all your life?
It falls on grown-ups (That’s what GU stands for, by the way. The next person who calls it “Gauntlets United” or some other crap like that is gettin' spit-roasted by Lupus here). Grown Ups like us to save the world from these children. So, tonight, we take the Jade Crown of my old enemy, and proclaim Dark Lord Monostatos Jones the master of a new world, bringing true freedom to those who have deserved it for so long! Freedom from censorship and intellectual slavery! Freedom from scheming elves and foolish girls who forget their place in society! And most importantly, freedom from disgusting, mollycoddling institutions that keep us weak and childish, especially...
“...hospitals.”
[Lord Monty — Remote Detonator]
In a flash of orange, the Siege of Crestograd Memorial Hospital became a cloud of dust and ash.
When the first police and fire sirens came into the range of Monty's ears, he plopped the Jade Crown onto his head. Too large for his skull, it hung across his bald scalp lopsidedly. “This is your one warning, kiddies,” he said. “Grow up or burn.”
Greg decided that he didn't like fireworks that much.
There are three different types of reactions to seeing a particularly underwhelming episode of Nordic Drag Queen Crab Fishing switch to a breaking news report of the Crestograd Hospital bombing, and they depend on the kind of life you've had in the past few months.
Liv, who had to violently rebuff the “romantic propositions” of no less than 13 GU goons in the past two months, sighed and kneaded her aching forehead. To her, it was only a matter of “how soon” before these chumps pulled a stunt like a bombing.
Noah, who...was Noah, ran off into the next room with his face in his hands.
Era sat there, his expression blank. Dammit. I know I should say something. I should have some kind of reaction, without making it look fake or forced. The hell's going on? A bunch of people just died and I'm just…Am I heartless?
Wait. Don't be silly. It's not that I don't think it's sad.
It's that this doesn't surprise me.
Chapter 5
Never Go Into Politics
“There are some who claim that Gregor Koschei's eccentricity, along with the eccentricity of all other surviving members of House Koschei, can be attributed to a degenerative personality disorder known as Lich Syndrome. Which is, allegedly, a side effect of artificially lengthening one's lifespan.
The simplest explanation for Lich Syndrome is that upon birth, a human's mind comes with only enough fuel for a century. If a human lives beyond the age of 120 or so, the body would stay alive, but the personality would begin to die on its own. Though treatment and therapy can delay symptoms, the result would be a gradual and inevitable descent into paranoia, delusions, and antisocial behavior, ending only when, or if, the patient is killed.
In older times, this was used as an explanation for why undead necromancers, upon waking up from thousands of years of slumber in their tombs, tend to scream and gnaw at the nearest available source of flesh, rather than say 'allow me to introduce myself: I'm a necromancer, my name is such-and-such.'
However, I can say with complete certainty that this is a ridiculous hoax, meant to slander King Gregor's genius as a byproduct of some ridiculous mental sickness that never existed in the first place.”
— Grand Duchess Ethel Koschei, “Why I Spent 300 Years Surgically Altering My Body into a Human Air Conditioner in My Basement, and Why You Should, Too: A Memoir”
There was a heavy marble door outside King Gregor's throne room. At the center of the door, inlaid with gold, was the House Koschei emblem. Five lines and two circles, and looking like a martini glass with a round lemon slice garnishing either side. According to the alchemists of House Koschei's distant past, this symbol represented capitalism.
Outside the door stood the Right Honorable Lord Lucas Underhill, one of King Gregor's Civil Ministers. He stretched his arms wide and closed his eyes.
Don't overthink it, he said to himself. Just because our
blessed Celsior is run by demented immortals doesn't mean they can't be reasoned with—so long as I stay mindful about it.
With the sound of a startling buzzer, the doors opened.
The walls, ceiling, and floor of the once marble Celsioran throne room were all painted the same grating shade of cadmium yellow. The wide windows, which once looked over the city skyline of Celsior Central, were blinded with hasty streaks of yellow paint, and only a few flickering hints of sunset from where it chipped suggested that there used to be windows at all.
Only two decorations weren't completely yellow: the Celsioran flag (which was required by law to be only 50% yellow, with white, black, and maroon an unfortunate but essential part of the design), and the campfire in the center of the throne room, made from the burning corpse of the fifth floor Janitor, Mr. Blanc. Smoke from the flames was sucked away from the room by vents in the ceiling, but even then the air was chokingly ashen.
King Gregor's wife, Queen Aurelia Koschei, ghostly and thin—a good 40% of her body mass must have been hairspray—sat by the burning janitor and toasted a single marshmallow on a melting plastic fork.
And there, legs propped on his desk and strumming a banjo, was King Gregor Koschei himself. His cadmium yellow, latex, three-piece suit—from which he had never once stripped in 497 years, for any reason—was particularly shiny in the fluorescent light.
The only skin Gregor exposed was his pale grey head and hair, garnished with a pair of horn-rimmed sunglasses. His lips quivered as he sleepily sang his favorite campfire song.
I love my army, I love my shrieking wife
I love my throne room, I love eternal life
I love the whole world, except the parts that suck
Boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada
I love my kingdom, glory to Celsior
I hate the jackass, that just came through the door
This better be a voggin' emergency
Boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada—
“Your Majesty,” said Underhill. “There's been an update about the Chosen Thr—”
“Boom-de-yada.” said the king, pointing with his banjo.
Underhill sighed. “Boom-de-yada. Sorry.” Whatever. It's a lot better than when he was playing pirate last month.
Gregor clapped and blew kisses to the air. “Thank Gods! It's about time someone around here understood the value of sittin' by the fire in the great outdoors, under a blanket of stars. Anyway, on to business. You have ten seconds to prove to me that you're not wasting my time.”
“Well, Your Majesty—”
“Ten.” It was Aurelia, whispering into his ear from behind. “Nine. Eight...”
With a shudder, Underhill produced a file folder. “Just got the memo from the Imperial City. These are this year's Chosen Three and Dark Lord.”
Aurelia snatched the folder from him, crushing it in her tight grasp as she crept up to her husband and dropped it in his lap, while glaring at Underhill the whole time.
“Much obliged, hon,” said the King.
Aurelia came behind Underhill yet again. As was the rule, Underhill struggled to keep his eyes on Gregor the whole time.
“Open your mouth,” she whispered. Underhill obeyed.
[Current Roster]
[Leader: Erasmus P. Gualtieri / Fencer / Male / Age 19 / Rosencracian]
[Wizard: Olivia-Mae S. Matapang / Mystic / Female /Age 19 / Phiscaean-Celsioran]
[Cleric: Friar Noah W. Tamino / Healer / Male / Age 18 / Celsioran]
[Support Role 1:
[Support Role 2:
[Mentor:
Gregor browsed over the wrinkled paper within. His mouth shriveled, and he drew in a pained breath. “Oooh. We're all gonna die, aren't we? On one side, the leader's a one-legged Rosie hobo, and if that ain't a red flag already, I don't know what is. But on top of that, the Mystic's a convicted murderer with no impulse control, and, by Ilya the Wise, their healer is male. How is that even a thing?! That's like giving a little girl a butter knife and going 'behold, a lumberjack.' And these are who the Empire is sending to defeat a pro wrestling villain with a pointy stick.”
Meanwhile, Aurelia had been pressing her index finger onto each one of Underhill's teeth, hissing out a number for each one, counting them over and over.
“This round is gonna be 100% pure barf, I swear,” said Gregor. “Still, if five centuries of controlling the Empire's economy has taught me anything, people like barf. Barf sells. Like it or not, we're gonna need to sponsor a team here, and since both options are equally unpleasant...”
[Gregor — Flip Coin]
[Tails!]
“...Chosen Three it is. Aurie dear, where's Prince Raphael?”
“This man has an uneven number of teeth,” said Aurelia, prodding through Underhill’s mouth with more fingers.
“That's really nice. Where's our son?”
“Crestograd, combing through the exploded hospital pieces for people.”
“Ugh! As if we needed a reminder that he's a bleedin' heart.” Gregor turned to Underhill. “Thanks for the report, pumpkin. We'll send Raphael over to the Imperial City to be their mentor right away. Forgot to ask, what's your name?”
“It's Lucas Underhill,” said Underhill, accidentally biting Aurelia's pinkie finger.
Aurelia spent the next ten minutes letting out a single, prolonged screech in the corner of the throne room, wringing her lightly bruised finger in her hands.
When she was done, she noticed that Mr. Underhill's corpse had been added to the campfire, and Gregor had moved on to his next song with the second banjo he kept for emergencies. The other had been jammed neck-first down Mr. Underhill's throat.
The Imperial Palace had the outward appearance of a ten-towered castle of crystal bricks, but within, it was indistinguishable from a suburban shopping mall. Everything above the tenth floor was official government space, restricted from the public. Below the tenth floor, there were bootleg sunglasses stands all the way down.
The food court, on the fifth floor, had a feature that raked in tourists from all sides of the Empire: the ancient Stone Palace, where the original kings and queens of Aries lived.
Rather, it was a balcony that overlooked the Stone Palace. Actually visiting the Stone Palace was reserved exclusively for the Crown Princess, people with the Crown Princess's permission, the Patriarch of the Church of Aries, and anyone eager to see what being shot on sight feels like.
The original castle, having stood for well over 60 centuries, with its lacy, delicate embellishments of white marble and stained glass murals, was too much of an Ariesian cultural icon to demolish in favor of the new Imperial Palace. A heavy concrete fortress was built around the castle to build a foundation for the new palace, crowning the old one like a cardboard box over an imaginative but annoying toddler's head.
And from the food court, one could see the tops of the highest towers, long since boarded over, as they scarfed down their Fiery Habanero Triple Chokeyburgers.
In a tinted-windowed room along the balcony sat the Chosen Three. Armed guards stood at either end of their bench, and the heroes' weapons were locked in a metal trunk nearby. The Princess was, presumably, eager to see them, but a lengthy meeting had her confined to her throne room, and had the new Chosen Three confined to a waiting room between the Golden Elevator and the food court.
“Pamina said she's trying to figure out who our mentor should be,” said Noah. His voice was hoarse, having sobbed hysterically for five hours prior about the GU's hospital bombing.
That, combined with the fact that the Chosen Three had been cooped up for an entire afternoon in a Templar armored transport awaiting clearance into the Imperial City during emergency conditions, had left the heroes tired beyond recognition.
“A mentor, huh?” said Era. “Was it that obvious that I have no idea what I'm doing?”
“Don't be silly!” said Noah. “Having a mentor is just a standard tradition for—”
> Liv chuckled. “You kiddin' me, Slasher? They could smell it off you a mile away.”
“Then how about I just cut the middleman and take a bath?”
“First time for everything, Slasher.”
Era scoffed, trying not to grin. “And what's with this 'Slasher' business? My name's Era. And I'm a fencer, so I prefer thrusting into people, instead of slashing.” His eyes widened. “Oh, Gods, that came out wrong. Anyway, it's Era.”
“You sure about that, Slasher?” Liv's grin became more and more evil by the nanosecond. “The ancient, unbreakable laws of the Mystic cults make it so that saying someone's true name in their presence is to curse them and their descendants for a thousand years.”
Noah pursed his lips, trying to keep a few words from escaping. As much of a lie as it was, he knew Liv loved her little nickname tradition.
“Slasher it is, then,” said Era. Oh, well. Better than “Rosie.”
The golden elevator arrived in the waiting room, accompanied by a light show and some pre-entry entertainment.
[Golden Elevator — Pretentious Arrival Chime]
“And did the Wheel, in ancient time / tread through the Ramblind Forest green / and was the Sun's eternal flame / on Dunngate's arid pastures seen / and did the shining Golden Fleece... ”
Liv rolled her eyes. “Not again.”
“Does this happen every time someone visits the princess?” said Era.
“Yeah, but engineering has been getting complaints,” said Noah. “I think they'll stop at the fourth verse this time.”
After 27 verses of Hymn to Aressia, plus the controversial trombone toccata that was cut out in 3217, plus some background and commentary from Professor Giuseppe Newhaven of the Imperial Religious Music Society, the golden elevator opened at the top floor.
Neverstone: A LitRPG Adventure (The Mad Elf Book 1) Page 6