by Charles Dean
“We have both of those in stock,” the lizard man said, tipping his narrow-brimmed fedora with his tail as he spun around holding two jars of questionable-looking gunk. “Just name your pleasure and buy your miss the perfect treasure: an age reversing lotion or a weight reducing potion.”
“Uhhh . . . I'll pass.” Darwin thought for a minute. Wait, does he have any potions that might increase my effectiveness in combat? Have I gone this long inside a game without researching alchemy? “We just came here for some information.”
“Oh, well, in that case, I have the perfect set of lists for any young man . . . if you catch my gist!” The vendor reached under the table and pulled out several books worth of lists. “So let's cut straight to the coin. What's your type?”
“My type?” Darwin stepped back, a bit shocked.
“No need to be shy. You name it, and I've got the info on it. Looking for a pretty panda? I got books. Only looking for a certain age? Don't worry, we can narrow that down too. We even have books based on just the face. You name your type, and I'll find you the perfect date.” The lizard winked.
“Are you trying to pimp out girls?” Kitchens put his hand on his katana and started to unsheathe it. “Or are you just gonna kidnap them?”
The salesman, seeing the aggressive gesture and Kitchens’ ready stance, put up both his hands and started giving his defense “Oh, no, sir! I only trade in information. What's their favorite flower, where they like to hang out. . .? I'm just a simple merchant who compiles information. If you already have a girl in mind, I can tell you what her choice dish is and what music she likes. I can't assure you a date or even a smile.”
So he's worse than a pimp. He's an assistant pickup artist. Darwin facepalmed. “We are just wondering why no-one has attacked us,” Darwin said, deciding to cut straight to the exact information he wanted.
“It could be those gaudy muscles or that terrible fashion sense. Maybe what you need isn't creams or info, but a stylist and a tailor. For a small fee, I can close up the shop right now and take you to the best tailor in town. Mark my words, by the time the sun sets, women will be lining up to pounce you. My boy is real good, hooked me up with this fancy coat and hat to match the northerners.”
“That's not what I meant,” Darwin explained, facepalming for a second time. “I mean . . . Wait, do you have any information on us in those books?”
“Oh, not really. You're a total mystery to everyone, except for the fact your tastes are more lacking than the paper bag boy,” the salesman scoffed.
“Paper bag boy? That seems like an odd thing to pick out. Do they have another option for groceries? Like a plastic bag boy?” Darwin asked.
“Option for groceries? Plastic? I don't know what you're talking about. I meant the boy who runs around wearing a paper bag. Don't tell me that ragged-up buffoon’s name is ‘Plastic,’ and that's the new kings type,” the salesman hissed scornfully.
“Huh? The new king?” Darwin’s mouth hung open a minute.
“Well, aren't you? Last we heard, the Panda King went to kill you and turned up dead. He did try to kill you, right? There isn't another giant human with horns running around, is there?” The indignant scaled salesman continued his scoffing.
“So wait . . . Your monarch dies trying to kill me, and that makes me the king?” Darwin’s mouth opened even further.
“It's not like the decision doesn't make sense. It's not like this was a democracy, and their king was some beloved and chosen ruler they would fight for long past death. No, the only people who would fight for a monarch’s name after his death are the nobles with something to gain . . . or lose,” Kitchens began to elucidate. “Given that no matter which race was in charge there would always be tension, it's likely the people didn't have a super strong attachment to him or any of his predecessors. A society that wanted to avoid unnecessary civilian bloodshed during these types of conflicts might adopt a policy like that just to avoid further fighting after their army was defeated. A kind of ‘well, if we follow them, they probably won't stab us’ kind of mentality.”
“That . . .” Darwin wanted to point out how silly it was--that if anyone attacked and killed his country's president, his countrymen would fight to the bitter end--but then he thought about it a little further. There wasn't a chance in hell he’d fight for a leader he didn't care about. As long as the new rulers were generous or didn't change anything, he'd be fine with the result. “That does make sense. So I'm the king of Mt. Lawlheima and Peh-Ting Zhou?”
“It appears that way,” Kitchens laughed.
“But what about the whole ‘kill the head honcho’ part of our plan? I mean, unless you're feeling a bit regicidal, we need to think of something quick,” Darwin groaned. This was going to be a lot more complicated than he had anticipated.
“Well, what do you have in mind?” Kitchens asked the question, but his look was the knowingly smug one he used that made Darwin understand he already knew what Darwin was going to suggest.
“A king should meet his council, don't you think?” Darwin grinned. Forget complicated. I'm just overthinking things.
“A king should indeed meet his council.” Kitchens smiled too.
“I'm surprised no one told you about it sooner,” the uppity lizard chortled while shaking his head. “Hey, you're the new boss. See? Wasn't hard to say. Why hasn't anyone done it before? Well, forgive my rude compatriots and their inability to inform you at the gates. If you want to meet your new advisors, they should be waiting for you in the main chamber of the palace. They usually stay there all day and night gossiping and bickering like boys trying to decide which fighter is better.”
“Why does that need to be debated? I'm the best there is.” Darwin gave a hearty, egotistical laugh, complete with an opening ‘Muwahaha.’
“Maybe today, maybe the best alive today, but what if you were compared to the warriors of old from centuries ago?” the merchant asked.
“Doesn't matter. I win,” Darwin said with a laugh and then flexed his royal authority, “or are you questioning your king?”
“Sir, I'm a humble trader. I may pay taxes to the crown, but my only king and god is the coin. Of course, if you buy enough of my products, I'll call you whatever you want.” The lizard-man’s tongue snaked out as he spoke the last phrase before punctuating it with another wink and a slap on Darwin’s arm.
“Alright, well, let's get moving. We have a schedule to keep before all hell breaks loose and we start losing our own townspeople to our own troops.”
Darwin thought about Alex breaking through the door and attacking everyone indiscriminately under his own orders. “Yeah, good point. See you round, Liz.” Darwin waved and left. He knew where the palace was. Who didn’t? It stood out more than that one girl with a callipygian figure and yoga pants in the gym trying to do bent over rows off a squat rack.
“Are you sure you don’t have time to buy some skin treatment creams before you leave? You don’t want to show up to your coronation with dry and flakey skin, do you? I can even try to get some hair growth for you if you want to try regrowing your fur!” the salesman called out as Darwin and Kitchens walked towards the palace.
“You have to admire his tenacity at least,” Kitchens remarked. “If I were younger, I might have been tricked into buying one of his products for the wife. She used to love that expensive stuff.”
“Really? You’d think, with a game like this, no one would be conned. I mean, can’t you just edit your skin texture in the character creation screen?”
“I meant if I met someone like him in real life.”
“Ah, well, in that case, yeah, he does seem good. But, for a moment, I thought you were going to tell me you would have been conned into buying information off of his list,” Darwin laughed. “I mean, I don’t know . . . Maybe back in the day that’s just how things were, old man.”
“You realize it’s a bit hypocritical to call me old man, right? I am almost positive that when I log off, you’re the old man in
the group,” Kitchens assumed correctly. “You calling me old man is like the two babies in the group arguing over which one is the whelp.”
“Yeah, but, while you’re still here, I need to take the pot-shot before I lose the opportunity.” Darwin chortled more. “It’s not like we’re recruiting people who know what a flip phone is on a regular basis.”
“That’s true, whipper-snapper,” Kitchens returned fire. “So you think there is something preventing the other players from attacking us here? The title of King may explain why the NPC guards have been treating us well, even if they seem annoyed to do so, but it doesn’t explain why the players haven’t been doing anything.”
“Have you actually seen any players?” Darwin noticed that, while there were still a few players here and there, there weren’t significant numbers in the streets like there had been last time. He couldn’t be entirely certain, as the players may have just been keeping their distance, but they were generally fairly easy to identify by the way they clustered together. Players often chose odd garb they considered fashionable and insisted on holding their weapons and wearing armor in town as if they were going to be forced into a brawl at any moment. The NPCs, in contrast, were generally dressed like professional role players who broke character as often as a struggling extra afraid he’d lose his last paycheck if the director heard him say one word without a fake accent.
The last big give away, one for which you had to be close enough to the NPCs to listen to them talk to tell, was their speech patterns. Most of the players spoke in choppy, to-the-point sentences that featured as few words as possible strung together in an order that would make a seventh grade language teacher cringe. NPCs, however, always spoke in full sentences that were somehow always magically grammatically correct--even though Darwin hadn’t seen a single school his entire time in Tiqpa. How did they even learn to read and write? He found himself baffled after thinking about it.
“Not enough for a city this size. Did we scare them all away?” Kitchens’ head turned quickly from side to side. “Do you get that eerie feeling that we are walking through a bad horror movie too? That there might be some weird terror waiting for us around the next corner?”
“You go to the paranoid option quick, don’t you?” Darwin observed.
“Well, you know, war and winter. Those that don’t worry over the small possibilities either end up dead or turn out to be lucky when one of those two hits. Last I checked, we are in a war . . . or, at least, we were,” Kitchens noted.
“That is a good point, but maybe you’re overthinking it.” Darwin didn’t actually think he was. ‘Eerie’ was an understatement. He felt more creeped out than the only girl at an anime convention; and, even though he didn’t see anyone looking at him, he had the strange sensation of eyeballs following his every moment. He just knew that the only thing he could do was operate on the knowledge he had at hand and trust in his zweihander. “Maybe the good players all just joined our guild, and that’s why the city is mostly empty. The ones that are left are just the crafters.” And let’s hope you believe that. I don’t want to put too much time into worrying about something I can’t change.
“So that’s how you think it is?” Kitchens looked at Darwin for a moment, an odd, flat glare, as the two continued walking. “Then I suppose it wouldn’t hurt one way or the other if we just dashed at full speed. After all, we do have a schedule to keep up with.”
“No. No, it wouldn’t,” Darwin replied with a nod, and the two took off sprinting. It wasn’t just their ordinary pace, and it was like a game as Darwin ducked, weaved and spun around the people walking through the market. He was going so fast he could feel the wind pressing against his face stronger than any natural breeze or gust ever had as he gave it his all. At one point, failing to find a path between a rather obnoxious group of hippo-sized bear people, Darwin jumped over them and didn’t land until he was dozens of feet past them on the other side. He was having so much fun playing his little impromptu game of ‘dodge the pedestrian’ that he almost didn’t notice when they reached the gates of the palace. He would have kept going right past it if Kitchens hadn’t yelled ‘stop’ at him once or twice.
“We’re here,” Kitchens said one last time in a voice that made Darwin think that his statement of fact was more than just that and had the dual-purpose of making sure Darwin didn’t keep barreling down the road. “In excellent time, I might add.”
“Yeah, I kind of hope we didn’t knock over too much on the way.” Darwin looked back at the wake of his run. The people behind him were still staring at the two strangely, as if a celebrity and a famous axe murderer had showed up at the same time.
“Should we call a guard, have them get all prepared for us, or just go in unannounced and make them nervous?” Kitchens questioned, looking up at the rather large building.
“You mean like a dad who wakes up too early and catches his kids still playing games at 5:00 a.m.?” Darwin asked as he scaled the marble stairs toward the ornately-gilded, double-door entrance at the top.
“Angry father catching the kids gaming it is,” Kitchens said as he followed Darwin up the stairs.
“Might as well get the persona right. I’m told heads will roll at this meeting if we don’t get all eight copies of our Monday TPS reports from each person in the department.”
“TPS report? That sounds computery. Have you worked in an IT department?”
“No, but it just seemed like an appropriate line. If I was to go into how ridiculous and redundant some of the military procedures can be, well, you might have a real hard time believing me,” Kitchens laughed. “I mean, we had a guy show up late by half a minute at the beginning of the month once, and by the end of the month, they had us showing up at 4:00 a.m. just to make sure we didn’t miss PT that wasn’t scheduled to start until 7:30 a.m. My cursed punctuality had me there at 3:45 that time. And that’s just an average day for the enlisted.”
“Remind me never to join the military.” Darwin’s gamer instincts caused him to recoil at the thought of all the potential EXP wasted from sitting around and doing nothing for two and a half hours.
“Nah, it’s good. I’d go on about how it enforces discipline or some other mumbo jumbo, but, to be honest, it’s the dental and health insurance that really sells it. They have great dental,” Kitchens replied and shrugged.
Darwin, having reached the top of the stairs, opened the door to find nothing. It was just a large empty chamber with fancy, elaborate paintings of everything from waterfalls to cherry blossom trees on every wall. There were all the kinds of nature paintings, in which a few leaves would be beautifully laid out on the canvas, and then there would be nothing else but blank space surrounding the painted the leafy bits. It was eye-catching enough to make both Kitchens and Darwin pause until a guard interrupted their thoughts. “Can I help you?” the halberd-carrying lynx hybrid said, pulling the two men back to reality.
“Yeah, we’re looking for the council chambers,” Darwin said, not seeing any marked doors or guiding placards in the room.
“Right this way, King Hornsenstuff, and, might I say, you are dressed impeccably,” the guard turned and took the two of them towards one of the walls.
“King Hornsenstuff?” Darwin asked as he touched one of the horns on his head.
“Oh, that’s just what the council calls you since no one knows your actual name,” the guard answered without even turning around to address him. “We were told that you won a tournament and proved yourself as the noblest and greatest fighter in the city before overthrowing the king, but for some reason, the previous tenant to the crown threw away all the records of the event, so we only had hearsay to go on.”
And no one remembered my name? Well, I guess the primary witness and many of the other secondary witnesses probably died either in the ring that day or in the big battle later. Darwin sighed. Oh well. I can enter it in the records later. That is the prerogative of the victor, right? To alter the records to ‘best’ reflect history?
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“Now, I will warn you,” the lynx-man continued, “I’ve been told not to let anyone into the council chamber because they are currently in the middle of a serious debate discussing important matters of state.”
“But you’re taking us to them regardless?” Kitchens asked.
“Of course! Have to follow the line of authority, after all. My mother always taught me to do whatever the boss says--unless his boss says different.” He chuckled as the three of them approached a wall with a waterfall painting on it. “Here you are,” he said, pressing a petal of a flower painted near the waterfall. When he hit the button, a clicking sound was heard, and the entire wall slowly slid open to reveal an even larger room with what looked like fifty different were-beasts eating finger foods and drinking what Darwin could only assume was wine or sake huddled around the floor in groups of five or six and rolling dice.
“Who dares disturb a council meeting! Can’t you see we’re up to important work!” one of the men yelled as they all turned to see why the door had opened.
Up to important work, are they? Darwin glanced around at the strange markings, the old-fashioned character cards and the high numbered dice. They are! They’re playing board games! “Very, very important work, I’m sure,” he said as sarcastically as possible.
“I don’t know. Maybe they’ll learn the importance of a ten-foot pole,” Kitchens mocked with a laugh. “Perhaps they’ll even be sure to carry rope.”
“This is because of the old man remarks, right?” Darwin laughed.
“Yep,” Kitchens snickered. “Us old men have to have a good memory, or there would be no point in a long life.”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness, but we are deeply immersed in serious matters of state,” the loud-spoken one who first assaulted Darwin’s ears with his snappish complaint about being interrupted replied in a much softer, but still condescending, manner.
“Matters of state, huh?” Darwin remained skeptical as he looked around.