Spring of the Thirteenth Year
PC Encounters
When a PC meets an unforeseen end or a new player joins a table mid-campaign, the party will need to take on new characters. Some bring them into the fold with a simple introductory scene, but others may opt for a full session to build a new party dynamic.
Making new friends is in many ways an adventure in and of itself.
What was this weight that rested in my palm? Was it steel? Wood? My sword? Was it someone’s life, my family’s future, or was it plainly me?
Sinking into deep thought when faced with a difficult question was a quirk of mine. I had originally been the type to conquer a GM’s unjust challenges with pure physics—not the scientific kind—or a wily trick to weasel my way out. I had spent so much time trying to find the most efficient means of success or to otherwise make my GM groan and pull out a rulebook that contemplation had become an unbreakable habit.
Yet for all my pondering, I no longer knew whether throwing myself into the fray of adventure was good or evil.
Elisa had asked why—why did I actively advance into danger? I had not been able to answer—to explain that I danced with death to chase a dream that had taken hold a lifetime ago. I didn’t see how I could. How was I meant to look my sister in the eye when she was earnestly trying to find a way for me to live safely, and tell her that I threw myself into the thick of the fight for my own gratification?
The issue was unsolvable. Elisa wasn’t wrong: while I wanted to win her a life free from discrimination, I didn’t have to risk my life for that future. On the other hand, I could affirm the validity of my admiration in a heartbeat. It was a childish passion that had admittedly silly origins, but my desire to set off on the same path my avatars had once taken came from the bottom of my heart.
No matter how long and hard I thought, these two ideals could not gel in my brain. Peaceful days and a life of adventure were harder to mix than oil and water; no person on the planet could solve this conundrum. I didn’t need anyone to give me answers to know that there were only two choices: to prioritize Elisa’s wish, or to prioritize mine.
That being said, no matter how much Elisa pleaded, I believed having some amount of strength was mandatory. Setting the talk of adventure aside, casting my lot with Lady Agrippina was like letting the cruel mistress of Fate slip a twisted wedding ring onto my finger.
My recent errand had quickly devolved from a simple task to an overtuned quest; I was sure there was more where that came from. Narrowly escaping the reaper’s embrace thrice on three separate battlefields, all before coming of age, had made me certain of one thing: I could not live a harmonious life no matter how hard I tried.
This went beyond the future Buddha’s blessing; at this point, I was convinced that the stars had aligned at my birth. I hadn’t prayed to the heavens for a life of hardship, of course, but there was little to do if They had chosen me. Put in Rhinian terms, the God of Trials had fallen for me at first sight.
I’d learned from my time in the ichor maze that this world’s GM was infuriatingly unbiased. Not only would my enemies unabashedly take time to set up on me, but sometimes the task at hand would clearly not be balanced with my victory in mind. Unlike a proper game master, this universe did not expect me to surmount all its challenges; I wanted to chip away at the possibility of dying facedown in the mud after being trampled by a streak of bad luck as much as humanly possible.
What was worse, my master was the Agrippina du Stahl. Although she was laying low and avoiding any public affairs for now, living in the capital meant that she was highly likely to drag me into some kind of disaster sooner or later. I didn’t know if she’d scheme something up of her own accord or if someone would realize her utility and try to profit off her talents, but I knew it was coming. So far I’d only seen the splendiferous exterior and the well-oiled machinery of Berylin, but I knew the political center of a massive nation couldn’t be all roses at its core.
The question of whether I would choose my dream or Elisa’s would have to wait until I sorted out the immediate danger.
As a brother, I naturally wanted to let my precious baby sister have her way, but this was no longer just a question of me, as evidenced by the jingling pink earring’s whispers: “Don’t let this be a decision to regret.”
What an impossible paradox. I wondered why any form of life had been trusted with even a scrap of organic tissue with the capacity to contemplate these unsolvable issues. As a great thinker whose name lamentably escapes me once said, when all was said and done, the depths of hell resided under a thin shell of bone.
It was a riddle worthy of a deity. Not just any old god either: it would need to be one so omnipotent that They’d trample all over the contradictory word games we mortals played with. They would have to lift an unliftable boulder without violating the rock’s unliftable properties; only a god who could bend logic from the inside out would be capable of— Whoa.
A sudden chill ran down my spine. This tingle had none of Margit’s playfulness; it was the feeling of something wholly foreign, like some unknowable thing had been peering at me all along, and I’d happened to meet its gaze. The terrible feeling of rolling dice seized me...
And then it was gone a moment later. With it went my mental baggage, and I’d managed to ride out my temporary distress without spilling a drop of pride or water—cause enough for me to marvel at my own skill.
Now a Master of Hybrid Sword Arts and with Ideal Dexterity, I’d brought my two mainstays to the realm of Scale VIII. Combined with Enchanting Artistry, I could now balance a mug of water on the tip of my blade while my mind wandered elsewhere.
I slowly exhaled the warming morning air and flicked Schutzwolfe upward; the half-filled cup took flight, and I caught it near the end of its arc, downing the water to quench my thirst.
I’d had an inkling that I’d be able to pull it off, but actually catching a cup with the blunt of my blade was really something else. Sifting through hazy memories, I recalled scoffing at comic characters doing the same, but here I was.
Facing two conflicting ideals and choosing one to cut down was an onerous task, but slicing through physical objects was a breeze; it followed that if slashing them was easy, not slashing them was just as doable. Getting into the nitty-gritty of how a sword fulfilled its purpose would be needlessly long-winded, but suffice it to say that the wielder could dull its stopping power through technique. In an extreme case, one could smack something with the edge without leaving any incision.
In other words, I am become the blade...or something.
The thin layer of snow that had so obnoxiously stuck around was finally out the door as the Harvest Goddess and her bounty brought in the warmth of spring. Farmers in rural cantons all across the Empire would be running to and fro to begin the agricultural cycle anew, and wandering merchants would be peddling wares like their lives depended on it; the joyous atmosphere of the spring festival was second only to that of autumn, after all.
Which meant that it had already been a year since Elisa and I left our beloved Konigstuhl behind. Oh, how time flies.
Yet the glee of springtime did nothing for my dilemma. Laugh at me for my irresolute temper if you must, but the pain of choice was not so evident until one came upon a crossroads like mine.
If only I could bring myself to throw it all to the wind.
Elisa had asked why, oh why, did I choose to do scary things. She questioned my reasons for arming myself, and begged me to stay safe by her side. After spending all winter lost in thought, I had only been able to answer one of the doubts she’d spawned with her roundabout pleas for me to quit chasing adventure: no matter what, I could not give up on combat skills.
Looking back, it was clear that none of the enemies I’d faced thus far were willing to entertain a speech check. Had I not been a skilled swordsman, I would’ve been buried long before I was afforded the privilege of worrying over this sort of thing.
Personal safety as a basic right was alien to this era, and the morality of harming others often boiled down to a loose “Don’t do it unless nobody is looking.” While the tangible presence of the gods helped to some degree, a Wild West outlook on life was impossible to rein in entirely.
To gingerly and tactically plagiarize a certain association, the only thing that stops a bad guy in armor is a good guy in armor; in this day and age, this sort of logic was plain truth. It was terrible to see from a twenty-first-century perspective, but the logic of the naked blade underpinned every band of adventurers to brave a dungeon-bashing tabletop setting.
Elisa was innocent—for better or for worse. She didn’t know what malintent truly was because we, her whole family, had shielded her from it her whole life. It was only natural for a baby of nine: no child her age ought to live in fear of military power and senseless violence. The conclusions she’d come to were perfectly reasonable for a young girl.
So, if we were to assume man to be a redeemable creature, Elisa had completely bested me with her dialectic. And as an adult—under imperial standards, I was close in the physical sense too—I simply had to hold on to my beliefs and wait for her. One day, she would grow up to realize the awful implications of the disparate soul, and what it truly meant to protect another from the evils of the world.
Until then, I was to be a loving shield. I’d taken an eternity to mull my decision over, but ultimately chose the strength needed to live up to this role; my payday from the ichor maze had gone into leveling Hybrid Sword Arts and Dexterity by one each.
Please, please, there wasn’t anything to worry about. People weren’t so far gone that we needed bombastic drama just to grow. I hadn’t ever experienced a fight in my past life, but I’d still known that the only immediate solution to someone throwing punches was to throw one back. If I had truly needed to experience that sort of life-changing event to learn that lesson, all of humanity would have gone extinct ages ago.
That’s why I was sure it would work out; I truly believed that even though I didn’t have it yet, I would one day find an answer that we could both be happy with.
I wiped the sweat from my brow as I finished up my early morning training. Somewhere in the corner of my meandering consciousness, I thought, Wait. Did I just jinx myself again?
Suddenly, a wave of mana washed over me. I glanced over to see a tear in space—the same old spell I’d seen the madam use many times—from which a fluttering paper butterfly emerged. I found this odd: I had a short-range talisman that would let her thoughts reach me so long as I didn’t leave the city. Why had she gone through the trouble of penning a letter?
“‘No work today,’” I read aloud. “‘Stay away from the College’?”
The short note had been scratched out quickly, and the ink had yet to dry. Her penmanship was anything but pretty; she’d clearly been in a rush to get this out.
“Seriously? Isn’t it a bit early for a callback?”
Perhaps I really had foreshadowed a terrible event. I mean, I knew I’d just been grumbling over the trouble Lady Agrippina was liable to cause, but come on...
[Tips] Jinxes (sometimes called “flags”) are statements and events that conjure up future events at disproportionately high frequencies. He who sets out to battle after seeing a child born or before marrying his beloved is almost guaranteed to die to a stray arrow; when a player rolls with the words, “Please give it to me! I just need an expected value to live!” a 2D6 will cap out around five or six.
In her 150 years of life, Agrippina du Stahl had rarely faced true hardship. Born to a politically invincible baron who commanded countless territories and had an incalculable treasury, she was an unaging methuselah with nearly unlimited mana—not to mention her eye, extraordinary even among her kind. One could only assume that she had received some sort of divine favor, and she unapologetically used her gifts to multiply her fortunes in the service of a more comfortable life.
Methuselah were of a rare temperament, in that they took no pride in their age. Although they employed it as a metric at times, never did they gloat about their long lives. They focused instead on experiences, and only brought out years lived as a bargaining chip with mortals.
After all, their glory days never waned...and they never truly grew past that point. The talented were talented from youth, and though they were all enormously powerful in the grand scheme of life, the average were doomed to be average within their kind. Experience was important, but in the end, a life-or-death battle between methuselah was almost always decided by the speed of their mental faculties.
Not even the best, most veteran driver can outrace a sports car with a minivan. Those who were truly bright simply made up for their dearth of experience with faster calculations. As such, Agrippina had never brought up her century and a half of life as a point of pride—save for when she bullied her mortal servant—and could only recall a handful of incidents in that time where she had genuinely stood on the back foot.
Perhaps her only blunder had been when she’d legitimately angered Lady Leizniz into handing her an ultimatum: fieldwork or serious combat. On that day, the sharp-witted Agrippina had hesitated until the very last moment.
No amount of cleverness could eliminate the monotony of indefinite fieldwork, especially when it also entailed leaving her treasure trove of books behind. Furthermore, if research became her only pastime, it would counterintuitively never see progress.
However, to fight the dean would be an absolutely abysmal plan: win or lose, she gained nothing in the process. If Agrippina lost, she would be at the mercy of one Magdalena von Leizniz—who, judging from her fury, was sure to be utterly ruthless. Yet if she won, the disdainful stares within her cadre would evolve into all-out hostility; not even she had the capacity to deal with that. Even with her father’s support, a noble in a foreign land could only exert so much influence.
Knowing that she had no hope of escaping to another cadre, Agrippina had contemplated the two terrible options that sat at the bottom of the barrel. In the end, she’d chosen the path that left her with the possibility of a future renaissance.
Now, the dreadful punishment had passed, and her lovely indolence was once more in hand. One year was a mere blink in a methuselah’s life, but this past cycle of seasons had shone brighter than the finest gem when placed against the backdrop of her twenty-year ordeal.
Agrippina had soared from rock bottom to dizzying heights, and she had no intentions of slipping up now. There would be nothing worse than to let a prized jewel slip from her fingers out of carelessness. With how well she’d done well for herself thus far, she was surely set to continue sailing smoothly now that she’d tasted failure and abandoned negligence.
Alas, a life lived on her lonesome had shaped Agrippina du Stahl’s mental framework to revolve around how her actions affected herself...but she was no longer alone. She now kept an emotionally volatile apprentice and a servant so altogether chaotic that she couldn’t predict what he’d do if she left him alone. Up until now, she had tossed all sorts of things their way in the simple name of entertainment.
Finally, it had come time for her to pay the interest owed for her merriment. The world had caught up to her, declaring that none were to enjoy more luxuries than they were due.
“Ah, it is good to meet you. Please, no need to be so stiff. I am but an independent professor without any cadre to my name.”
Agrippina eyed the behemoth sitting before her and pointlessly wondered how this had happened for the umpteenth time today—not that such knowledge would do her any good now.
The enormity of the man in front of her was impossible to know. This vampire had dabbled in the chessboard of politics while simultaneously embodying the game of imperial economics. The self-described professor was one and the same as the Bloodless Emperor of old; of all the things Agrippina had accounted for, a meeting with Duke Martin Werner von Erstreich was not one of them.
“Come, be seated,” he said. “I may have been the one to call upon you, but the College is your domain, is it not? With your position as researcher, it would only be right for me to offer my hospitality.”
“Yes, well... May I inquire as to why I was invited?”
“Please, take a seat first, madam. Wine, perhaps? I’ve procured a wonderful bottle from my estate. Will a red Mauser suit your palate?”
“Uh, yes.” Agrippina was stiffer than any of her usual contacts could believe possible as she planted herself on the epicurean sofa. Not only was it supremely soft, but the cushioning had been balanced to ensure the sitter’s comfort by an artisan of manic focus; yet the methuselah felt about as relaxed as she would in a torture chair lined with steel rivets.
Agrippina found herself with one of the untouchables of the College. Here was a walking landmine so dangerous that the Emperor himself had begged him, “Dealing with the different cadres is taxing enough. Please, if nothing else, keep your political sway out of College dealings.” Why has it come to this? she thought.
Duke Erstreich was known for passionately churning out treatises; he was equally famous for his patronage of scholarship, endowing those who caught his critical eye with grants and other charity. He distanced himself from the factional warfare of the College, instead proving his ardent love of knowledge by focusing on his studies.
Agrippina had awoken in the morning to another wonderful day... So why was she stuck here with this peerless eccentric? For all the times she’d forced her will onto others, this marked perhaps the first occasion on which she had no choice but to play along with the unreasonable whims of another.
“Well, let us chat for a spell before diving into the main topic,” the vampire said. “I’ve read a handful of your essays since coming across your name, and each and every one has impressed me. It must be some kind of joke that these wondrous treatises gained no traction among our peers. I at once doubted my memory, thinking that perhaps I’d simply forgotten the attention your theses received.”
“Ah, yes, well...” Of course you haven’t seen them.
Agrippina had written all of those papers to meet the bare minimum of her obligation, and refused to proactively generate interest by attending debates or asking for opinions. Her real research was safely hidden away, and she only intended to reveal it when she felt the time was right; everything she’d published up to this point had been carefully tweaked to be of respectable make, but no more than that.
As a result, this encounter completely blindsided her. She hadn’t accounted for the possibility that someone might whiff out her true talents from the way she wrote such safe and boring essays—or at least, she’d assumed anyone with enough eye to do so would write her off as unassuming.
The College was a nest of talented magia, and making real advances in magecraft often required unshakable beliefs and the will to prove it; most of her peers were full of themselves. Agrippina had penned every sentence thinking that the most gifted among them would disavow her work as sarcastic humility.
Not even with all her brilliant wits about her could she have expected that someone would appreciate these treatises. While she’d prepared contingencies in the event that someone tried to antagonize and expel her, coming up with a plan of action for the opposite on the fly proved difficult.
“To begin, I’d like to look at this one...”
Agrippina took the transcription, and with one look she braced herself for a war of attrition. When an immortal wished to quibble over their own area of expertise, they would throw food, sleep, and all of their duties to the wayside—she, of all people, would know. Born into an absolute monarchy, the refined lady could not muster the courage to refute a man who had once borne the title of Emperor of Rhine.
[Tips] Professors who do not swear allegiance to a cadre—or otherwise lead one themselves—are exceedingly rare, but do exist. Some are best suited to solo research, others are too socially undesirable to gain allies, and others still are simply so grumpy that nobody wishes to work with them. In the rarest of cases, an individual can be so unique that the act of joining a cadre could threaten to tip the delicate balance of power, requiring them to abstain from such actions.
They say there are oddballs in this world who spend their free time actively searching for ways to make more work for themselves.
“Check.”
“Argh!”
Well, if you can call this work, it holds for sure.
I pushed my pawn forward and knocked away the final guardsman blocking my path to the enemy emperor. Guardsmen couldn’t be felled so long as they remained exactly one space in front of the emperor, but this fool had greedily leapt forward, attempting to snuff out a major piece.
“Err, wait! I didn’t mean to do that!”
The old dvergar across the board—or maybe he was young? It was hard for a mensch to tell with how luscious all their beards were—twirled strands of his lengthy mane with his fingers as he groaned.
“No take-backs,” I said. “Unless...”
I tapped the wooden sign on top of the table, and the man visibly hesitated for a moment before pulling out a copper quarter.
“Thanks for the business,” I said, bowing politely. His frustrated groans were music to my ears as I returned the guardsman to his place and undid the work of the pawn.
Now then...how had it come to this?
Upon being set free from all my duties beyond caring for Elisa, I’d decided to use my new leisure to engage in some business. Carving ehrengarde pieces remained a good way to earn bits of experience here and there, so I’d kept the hobby alive for years; now, I was just selling all that I’d made. Slapping a coat of cheap paint on simple wooden figurines was a far more peaceful way of earning pocket change than anything else I’d tried thus far. Saving up morsels of experience in this way had long since become a part of my daily routine, and I was finally cashing out on all the random statuettes I had lying around taking up space.
The imperial capital was a good place to sell. The low quarter had an entire section within the artisan’s district dedicated to an open-air market where one could rent table space for twenty-five assarii a day. I didn’t have to get permission from the local magistrate like back home, nor did I have to pay a cut to a local union or guild. While it looked like we’d manage on the tuition front, I wasn’t about to say no to padding out my living expenses.
I was here, under the open sky, selling board game pieces for anything from fifteen assarii to a whole libra. The pawn was like a shogi pawn in that it could only go forward, and its only peculiarity was that three of them lined up horizontally could block leaping pieces from advancing over them; naturally, it sold for very little. However, the carefully crafted knights—pieces that couldn’t be taken from the front except under very specific circumstances—were more expensive, to say nothing of the emperor and prince that were literally required to play the game. All in all, my pricing model was tried-and-true.
Still, I couldn’t help myself from throwing in a fun twist: beat the shopkeeper, and you could take any one piece of your choosing. Sure, I was basically doing the same thing as that stuart that had cheated me with “five gold coins,” but I was letting the challenger choose their own prize, fair and square. Aren’t I magnanimous?
That said, the price of a challenge was two pieces, and any take-backs would cost another piece. The old gentleman currently at the board had bought up enough units to start his own army, making him the perfect sucker—ahem, customer.
I took a moment to mull over my options and pushed forward my messenger—a piece that couldn’t capture others but that would bring down any opposing piece that captured it—that was collecting dust in my formation. I figured it’d be best to play reactively and bait out more enemy mistakes.
Not to brag, but I considered myself quite the ehrengarde player. Few people had been stronger than me back home. Before leaving, I’d even beaten a local landowner who tooted his own horn about being a powerhouse in his day, with four-piece odds (meaning I had employed four fewer pieces) at that.
My Ehrengarde Knowledge was at Scale V, and I’d always been a fan of board games, so I was confident that my skill was genuinely impressive. The important thing to note was that I’d invested in knowledge about ehrengarde as opposed to the Ehrengarde skill. Leaving it all to my blessing in the realm of play would be no fun, now would it?
Board games are wonderful. They’re a different kind of interaction from TRPGs, and differing playstyles truly express the personalities of the players who partake: when every move oozes with expression, these deep mental sports let us truly understand our opponents across the board.
Hobbies shade in the picture of life; like the tabletop adventures I’d once relished in, my journey with ehrengarde was something I couldn’t let go of. Plus, if this pastime was going to give me experience and cash, there was nothing more that needed to be said.
After the man racked his brain and took back another move, I toppled my own emperor to concede. I had spied three separate occasions on which I could’ve turned the tables on him, but had taken pity instead; pushing for a win here would be childish.
Besides, the man’s insistence on brute force had made it clear he was a sore loser. Not only was winning too much bad for business, but if he got angry and demanded a rematch on the spot—I had no rules against repeat challengers—that would cause a scene. I couldn’t keep the next in line waiting, and it would be bad if he spread rumors that I was running a scam. He was such a suck—benevolent patron that I could hand him a free major piece and still profit, so I saw no harm in a little customer service.
“Hrm... Well, I guess I’ll call it there for today.”
“Thank you for the business. Have you decided which piece you’d like to take with you?”
The dvergar didn’t seem wholly pleased with how things had turned out, but he ended up taking a knight that I’d spent a lot of time crafting. He hopped down from his seat—it was a normal chair, but his kind sat in them like full-height stools—and went home.
Judging from the direction he left in, I surmised that he was an artisan of some kind, here on a break from work. He could end up being a faithful regular, so I decided to go easier on him if he came back again.
“Awright, I’m next.”
“Hello,” I said. “Which two pieces will you be purchasing?”
The next challenger was an ogre with rolled-up sleeves. His coppery skin and red-gold hair pointed to his belonging to a tribe much farther south than the local region. A dagger sheath dangled from his waist—no dagger, of course, considering we were in the capital—so he was probably a lower-rung bravo.
“Mm,” he said, “this empress is real purdy. She’s a pricey one, but I’ll take her and that dragon knight over there. Hey, boss, make me an ogre warrior and yeoman, won’t you? I’ll be here for another four days, so get it done by then, yeah?”
Some people came by and bought into the challenge with their favorite two pieces, regardless of price; to them, the potential prize was just a bonus. As the sculptor, it was gratifying to get requests for new designs from folks who weren’t just in it for the biggest bargain.
“Then I’ll have it ready in two days from now.” Not like I have anything else to do these days, I internally muttered as I lined the board.
This match didn’t have any special rules, so we each took turns placing one piece each until our formations were complete. Some variations required the use of prearranged compositions, but the classic style of play included more thought, making it more fun.
“We’ll decide who goes first with these dice,” I said.
“Sure. Ooh, that’s a good one!”
He tossed a pair of six-sided dice and they both landed six-side up. I followed suit as a formality to get a two and three... Hey, my expected value!
“Ha ha,” I chuckled. “The first move is yours.”
“Aw yeah, let’s do this! But man, d’you make all these yourself, boss? I like collecting the cool ones, but having a whole set styled the same is real nice too.”
Like shogi, ehrengarde could not escape the fate of giving an edge to the player who moved first; it wasn’t absolute enough to say the second player was at a marked disadvantage, though, so I didn’t mind. The power of tempo only helped to shape one’s own formation to match their game plan, making it slightly easier to mount potent attacks. The rest was determined by skill, which was why I enjoyed the game so much.
Our pieces clicked and clacked without much pause; each move in a street game was only allowed ten seconds, after all.
On another note, I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to Lady Agrippina. I was taking care of Elisa, but not even she had seen our master as of late: my sister had been sentenced to indefinite self-study, and told me, “Master hasn’t been home even once.” I couldn’t even imagine what would cause the embodiment of sloth to forsake her den for this long.
I will admit that I was taking full advantage of the opportunity to set up this street stall and show Elisa around the city, and the like...but after three days, I was starting to get worried, even knowing how utterly busted that methuselah was. No matter how strong the PC, no matter how psychotically broken the enemy, people died when their time was up.
But for now, I was relishing a win. Despite starting with a solid position, the ogre played impulsively, and quickly toppled his own emperor without a single take-back. He cheerily took the empress—whose bust was seventy percent larger than the statue I’d based it off, I might add—and reminded me that he was looking forward to a purdy warrior before going off on his merry way.
I’d known that sex would sell no matter the era. Maybe if I made a few nude statues with “artistically poignant” expressions, I could...
No, no, no. This world was no stranger to beating down overt displays of sexuality, so I needed to keep myself in line. Not only that, but I would probably lose my mind if I began obsessing over how to conjure the impression of thin fabrics from solid material; I’d gotten by thus far mostly on Dexterity, but that wouldn’t suffice to reach the pinnacle of artistry. This was supposed to be an easy side venture to top off my experience points, so dedicating too many add-ons to the task would be putting the cart before the horse.
I leisurely continued playing ehrengarde and selling pieces until evening sneaked up on me: the setting sun had nearly hidden itself away behind the city’s spires. As I started cleaning up, I made plans to take a quick bath and bring Elisa out with me for dinner. She was getting accustomed to her luxurious life, but it seemed that a lowborn soul would always be more at home when eating the street foods of the common people.
I cracked my neck and was just about to close up for the day when another customer walked up to my table.
“Excuse me. Would you happen to be done for the day?” Cool and steady, the voice cut through the clamor of evening with a tone that reminded me of those sudden summer breezes that whisked away a sweltering day.
I eyed the source of the polite interruption—a priestess, her face hidden by her hood. Her robes were black—an unembellished flax—and a silver medallion hung from her neck, marking her as a follower of the Night Goddess.
The lunar mother presided over serenity, solace, and caution. She healed the weary souls who slumbered at night, promising them tranquil respite; for those who used Her veil for wicked means, She swore to mend their ways.
While not as commonly revered as the Harvest Goddess, the Night Goddess had a strong following in the Trialist Empire. Her adherents primarily included soldiers and night watchmen, but She was also fairly popular with knights, nocturnal races, and graveyard shift workers. I didn’t know anyone particularly devout to Her cause, but Captain Lambert of the Konigstuhl Watch had always considered her his patron goddess.
The people of the canton had quizzically joked, “That terrifying bastard worships the Mother Goddess?” but we were far removed from the days of honorable formations in war. When nighttime raids and assaults at dawn were common practice—both on the giving and receiving ends—mercenaries were sure to love Her tender embrace on the same level as the God of Trials.
I glanced up at the sun; it was high enough to warrant one more game. The sheer number of pieces meant that a long session of ehrengarde could last a whole day, but it was typical for a quick match to end within half an hour. She’d gone through the trouble of coming, so I thought it fair to call her my last patron of the day.
“I still have time,” I said. “Would you like to buy a piece? Or perhaps you’re here for a game.”
Her face was unnaturally shadowy, even with the setting sun—her clothes were likely blessed with some kind of divine protection, and I couldn’t tell what face she might’ve made at me. She took a seat without saying a word. Then, pulling out a silver piece, she picked up a watchman and flag bearer like she’d been eyeing them all along.
The watchman was a terribly eccentric piece that was invincible so long as it did not move from its starting square; I’d modeled the one she’d taken after an old man sitting in a chair, keeping a lookout at night with a spear in hand. The flag bearer had the unique ability to allow the pieces to its left and right to advance forward alongside it once per game; it, too, was incredibly idiosyncratic, and could make or break a match depending on how it was used.
This priestess had a rather acquired taste. Both of her selections were difficult enough to use that they were considered litmus tests of a player’s skill. Back in my early days of playing, I’d struggled to make them work, and they’d caused me many a headache when on the other side of the board. I couldn’t even count how many times my final push had been stopped dead in its tracks by an impenetrable watchman or a flag bearer’s charge plowing through my defense. We didn’t have many ways to pass time in the countryside, so there had been plenty of master tacticians offering to play at the local plaza.
We pieced together our starting lineups, keeping one eye on each other’s selections, and it was impossible to tell who was better off by the time we were done. Personally, I preferred to keep my openings malleable and tailor them to my opponent; apparently, she was much the same.
However, I’d split my emperor and prince to afford myself more defensive opportunities (as I could take the emperor off the board on my own turn to promote the prince). My opponent had elected to place her emperor on the front lines with an empress (who gave the emperor the movement of a knight) in order to rush me down, with her prince tucked away for safekeeping.
Hmm... How do I put this? It sort of felt like a battle between sixteenth-century and eighth-century strategies. It was like seeing an undying hero lead his army into battle with nothing more than his own personal might to back his confidence.
We rolled the dice to determine turn order, and my luck wasn’t as good this time: snake eyes. Without a moment’s delay, she pushed a pawn forward. What a fast player.
Click, clack, click, clack. The steady tempo of pieces thumping onto the board continued under the reddening sky. Merchants who’d closed up shop, passersby who were drawn in by the pleasing sound, and lovers of the game who’d happened upon our bout by chance all gathered around, forming a small crowd around our board.
From the very first move, she’d placed her pieces without a shred of hesitation, only taking a handful of seconds for each maneuver. Even with my Independent Processing running at full throttle, keeping up with her was a serious challenge.
This wasn’t a blitz game or anything, so I didn’t have to match her pace. I was speeding up for my pride’s sake alone.
I mean, there were almost ten people watching our match; there was nothing lamer than to back down here. The fear that I might blunder at any moment kept me anxious beyond belief, but I was determined to see this through.
From what I could tell, she wasn’t a natural-born multitasker. I’d played with the madam when the game tickled her fancy every so often, and the priestess was nowhere near that level. While she wasn’t making any outright mistakes, I noticed a handful of moves that could carry negative implications for her in a few moves’ time.
A real methuselah would be in a different league. I’d once played Lady Agrippina with eight-class odds—that is, she’d been down eight classes of pieces—and still suffered a total defeat. If I were up against a monster like that, I wouldn’t last more than five minutes at this pace before my whole board crumbled.
This priestess was simply the type to play her best at rapid speeds. I’d run into a fair share of these sorts: deep calculations just got their wires crossed, so they left the decision-making to their guts. They were usually on the weaker end, but every so often, a player could pose a real threat with sheer instinct.
Now on her final push, she used her flag bearer with a knight and emperor at its wings to charge past my wall of pawns in a glorious assault. She blew past my fortress of pieces; only a guardsman remained to protect my emperor. It seemed the end was near...but alas, she hadn’t been able to outrun the consequences of her berserk pace.
Before she could deliver the finishing blow, I let my emperor cede, promoting my prince on the other side of the field. My guardsman quickly fell without its liege, but it didn’t matter; her advancing emperor still had to get through a messenger to reach my new monarch, and the rules prevent any emperor from killing a messenger.
That one turn’s delay was all I needed. My prince still had an escape route, and she had no choice but to give chase if she wanted any hope of victory: her emperor abandoned the knight that had escorted it into my territory. I just needed to encircle her leader and the game would be set.
“Oh,” she said, voicing her surprise coolly.
She must have spotted the castle I’d prepared a few squares away. An emperor or promoted prince adjacent to a castle could swap places with it, and my prince was going to arrive at safety sooner rather than later. It had been a point of interest in the early game when tucked in next to the emperor, but I suspected keeping an eye on it as the tides of war changed had proved challenging.
This kept my monarch alive for an extra round of play, giving my other pieces a chance to abuse the cracks in her formation. Not willing to let her emperor fall, she had no choice but to put an end to her offensive. Naturally, this play alone wouldn’t lead to a direct checkmate, but...
“...It seems that would be the game,” she said.
And so it was. While she could still abdicate with her emperor, her previous overextension left too many vulnerable points in her position; regrouping would take a lot of effort, and I wasn’t going to sit around and let her take it easy. If she tried to go all-in on the attack and press for my prince, her other pieces were too far removed to support the emperor, and she was sure to come up just short.
The existence of a prince in addition to the emperor may seem like a flaw that would drag out games, but ceding the throne in a losing board state was almost always the same as admitting defeat anyway. Funnily enough, it was as if the game itself warned its participants to not let a successor’s existence be cause for one to rest on their laurels.
“A fine game.” The priestess’s dainty fingertips pushed the emperor off its balance. Both the emperor behind enemy lines and the prince cornered with nowhere to go fell to the board alongside their clever schemes. Alas, such was often the fate of would-be heroes and legends.
As the curtains closed on our bout, the onlookers applauded and immediately began a postmortem, as hobbyists are wont to do. Someone reached in from the side and recreated the exact board state from seventeen turns ago, and the audience began to argue amongst themselves over such things as, “This must be where victory was sealed,” or “No, no, you could certainly see it a few steps prior.”
“Are you here always?” The priestess seemed uninterested in the spectators and rose from her seat, plucking the two pieces she’d purchased off of the board. She was totally unfazed, even when the crowd complained that they needed those pieces to continue their analysis.
“Well,” I answered, pulling out extra pieces to appease the others, “whenever I have time. I can’t promise that I’ll be here tomorrow, but I plan to be around for the near future.”
“I see. In that case, I pray we might enjoy another bout sometime.”
I motioned for the others to open a path, and she quickly exited the scene.
...Boy, I’m tired. Spending fewer than five seconds per move really strained my mental faculties. At least Lady Agrippina had always woven in long spells of deep thought at times—not to say that I ever survived a well-planned move from the woman, but still. To think I’d be more tired now than when playing a methuselah.
Hey, wait a second. I summoned up my character sheet and checked my stats. Wow, that’s a lot of experience. I could get a minor trait with that.
Pleased with the multifaceted payday, I watched the excited mob chatter on and on about our game. I wonder when they’re going to be done...
[Tips] Anyone can play ehrengarde, so long as a few basic pieces are available, making it a well-loved game in an entertainment-impoverished age. The majority of imperial citizens know how to play, and the low up-front cost of a simple set combined with the lack of upkeep makes it a mainstay in the realm of recreation.
On the other end of the spectrum, some immortals dedicate their eternities to learning the intricacies of the art, and will even offer rewards for strong players to share experiences with them over the board. The top contenders can go around hunting these bounties to make a living as true professionals, and the best of the best even receive salaried sponsorships to stay at their estates as personal practice partners.
I was employed by a woman who I obviously didn’t want dying on me, but who was sure to throw all manner of commotion my way if she remained alive. To not know whether to wish for her safe return was my eternal struggle.
Much to my surprise, Lady Agrippina was nowhere to be seen after half a month. Elisa received instructions on what to read, write, or recite by way of origami butterfly; she was still alive, but she hadn’t returned to her atelier this entire time.
Curiously enough, no amount of head-scratching allowed either me or Elisa to make any form of contact with her. We didn’t have an address to which we could send letters, and the madam had left the receiver for my Voice Transfers in the lab.
To top it all off, we’d visited the seamstresses’ yesterday and mustered the courage to ask Lady Leizniz about the situation. Her response had been, “I suspect she is taking a dose of medicine long overdue,” complete with singsong timbre and a perfectly set smile.
I’d instantly realized the dean had been behind it all, and the thought was frightening like no other. Lady Leizniz’s beaming smile had surely been the product of more than our cosplay session. I refuse to dwell on the other details of the occasion any further. That maniac had tried to get me to cross-dress—and not just in any old dress either. Any fool could have clocked me at first glance! I knew that souls were twisted by hatred as part of a wraith’s rebirth, but I couldn’t help but feel as if her personality had been perverted in a different way.
I’d refused, to be clear. My stores of pride were close to bottoming out, but I refused to give up my last shred of integrity, no matter how fruitful the trade turned out to be. If I’d caved there, the only thing left to sell would be my actual ass.
Leaving the substance of decades of therapy sessions sure to come aside, I was once again posted up at the open-air market. Even after the rental fees, I pocketed an average of four or five silver pieces a day; unfortunately, my stock of figurines was disappearing as quickly as my pride.
Come night, I used all my Hands in parallel to mill out four separate carvings at once to churn out experience, but the most labor-intensive pieces still took two hours to finish. Polishing up a figure and painting it took another hour. My production process couldn’t keep up with demand.
As I pondered whether I ought to shelve the shop for a while to focus on building up my stock, she appeared again. Draped in the same hooded robe as at our first meeting, the priestess always showed up as the sun and moon shared a fleeting moment in the heavens.
“You’re here today,” she said. “Shall we play?”
“Yes, of course.”
And, as was a matter of course by now, we began moving our pieces at a brisk pace. I presently held the lead with four wins and two losses, but every single victory had been hard-fought. This game got harder and harder as your opponent learned your habits, and I suspected our head-to-head would trend closer to even the more games we played.
The clicks and clacks went back and forth with musical rhythm, and the falling pieces changed the board with every beat. Deciding what to sacrifice, save, and take in mere seconds was a daunting task; yet for all the consequence a single mistake could carry, the stress of playing was of a very pleasing sort.
I wondered what sort of person this priest was. I’d heard many a clergyman partook in the game in between their pious duties, but I found it odd that she always arrived at this hour. Most activities venerating the Night Goddess began around this time, yet she came to visit nearly every day. Considering she also checked in on days I wasn’t present, she wasn’t an average grunt in charge of handling busywork...
Whatever the case, our relationship began and ended with the conversations of make-believe war that we shared over the board. Prying into her personal history would be uncouth; it wasn’t as if blue blood was going to let her pawns beat my knights, anyhow.
Oh, the placement of that nun—a piece that couldn’t make captures but could sacrifice itself to shield an adjacent ally—is obscene. Wanting to go on the offensive today, I’d marched my emperor into enemy lines; she was making full use of her defensive arsenal to stifle my momentum. I could trade the guardsman accompanying my emperor for her nun, but that exchange would lose me material...and my other pieces weren’t quite in range to help.
If only this adventurer were one space farther forward... In exchange for pawn-level mobility that made them dead pieces in attacks, adventurers could be replaced on my own side of the board after being taken. Had it been in position, I would have gladly sacrificed it.
Argh! The magus waiting in her back ranks now pushed into an infuriating space. Magia could forgo movement to take pieces one tile removed, and now that it had posted up, my army’s movements were severely restricted. My attack...
Nipped in the bud, my offensive ultimately came up one step short, and I had no choice but to concede. Thinking about how I’d committed too many major pieces to pick off her prince in the midgame made me groan. If I’d still had a knight, or better yet, a dragon knight—a one-of that everyone used that could move in any direction for any length and leap over a single defender—left over, I could have promoted my prince and had some hope of resetting the board for a win.
“Am I mistaken, or did you hold back?” With her prize of a vampiric empress in hand, the priestess seemed uncharacteristically displeased as we opened up our postmortem.
“You didn’t give me any room to go easy,” I answered.
Hearing my response, she deftly rearranged the board to its positions some fifty turns prior, and made a few hypothetical moves to show a future that we had not encountered.
“Would your pawn not have reached my emperor if you had pushed it here?”
“Yes, but, well... Taking an emperor with a pawn is...”
The southern regions of the Empire abided by an unwritten rule that letting a pawn cut down an emperor was simply too crass to be allowed. Putting the ruler in check with a pawn was fine, but we held on to the desire for our monarchs to meet a beautiful end at the blade of a worthy opponent. For mate to be delivered by a foot soldier’s hand was considered hideously base.
That evidently was not the case here, but I couldn’t shake off the customs of my hometown. The tabletop munchkin in my heart whispered with bloodshot eyes that I ought to just pull the trigger, but my romantic side implored me to uphold beauty and honor; when it came to ehrengarde, the latter won out.
“I suppose if that is how you play, then there is nothing to be done...” Her tone suggested she wasn’t as understanding of my decision as she let on, and she rose from her chair with these rather unholy words. “But the distinction of rank means nothing in the face of death.”
Er, actually, maybe her statement was the epitome of piety? Regardless, her no-holds-barred philosophy clashed with her refined speech and mannerisms in a frightening way. I knew a dagger was ever a dagger no matter if its wielder was lay or noble, and that one good stab could bring most living creatures to their end. But as a peon like any other, I couldn’t help but wish for the emperor who reigned up high to keep his chest puffed all the way to the grave. How could we ever want the person who decided on the future of our nation to die a piddling death?
“I bid you good day...and make sure not to count this in our score.”
I had just been mentally tallying a four-to-three total history when she made her demand and left. Getting away when I had a clear path to victory had really gotten to her. Personally, I didn’t see the problem with chalking one up on her side to my own player error, but...
Actually, no, what surprised me the most was that she’d been keeping track at all. For all the games we’d played, she’d never once shown any concern over the outcome of a match. Despite her class, she had a bit of a childish side to her; I rudely smiled at her cute attitude as she receded from view.
[Tips] “No pawn mates” is a popular rule in southern Rhine, in large part because the Emperor of Creation was born in the region. While checks are allowed, checkmates are considered distasteful. Imperial political scientists often cite this as an example of the Empire’s strong national zeitgeist: love for the Emperor permeates even the recreational pastimes of the lower castes.
The rift between mortal and immortal is impossible to bridge. Of all their differences in value, the deepest divide is that of what life is. This is not merely to say that the undying are more patient or that they are prone to more complacence; their attitudes regarding economies of time are mutually exclusive.
Although mensch sometimes forgo proper sustenance and sleep in favor of their favorite activities, they cannot avoid consumption or excretion as a whole, and some degree of rest is required for them to enjoy their pastimes to their fullest. Carried to the logical extreme, they live for life’s sake, and every other activity is accessory to that goal; after all, no superfluous pursuit can make headway if the bare minimum requirements needed to stave off death are not met.
However, the same cannot be said of immortals.
Methuselah do not have to eat or drink, and vampires can power through the pangs of hunger to relinquish their sole source of nutrition—blood—without keeling over. Furthermore, their natural talents most often converge on some fixation or other: in the end, life becomes accessory to whatever mode of recreation they choose.
Perhaps the most well-known example would be that of ehrengarde connoisseurs. Once obsessed with an art, undying beings will dedicate the whole of their eternal existence to it. The better part of undertakings cannot be completed alone: even the solitary crafts of painting or poetry require editors or trusted critics to polish the work before it enters the public eye.
Thus, one must ask, what would an immortal hobbyist do when stumbling upon a person that can help hone their craft or with whom they can share their passions? They try to drag them into it, of course—to make them squander any and all free time chasing the same dragon.
It is here that the gulf between life lived for life’s sake and life lived as an afterthought becomes abundantly clear. Immortals gleefully take in their favorite lesser beings in an attempt to share their interests with the poor souls. Ehrengarde lovers are infamous for latching on to choice players and never letting go: they pay exorbitant sums in order to ensure that the masters of their hobby can devote every drop of attention to furthering their own skill.
It ends ever in tragedy. Fleeting life-forms dabble in the arts as a way of giving their existences greater luster; scarce few individuals truly dedicate everything to a calling. They marry, have children, and give birth to things more important than mere vocations before they inevitably pass away.
Immortals cannot fathom this so-called “normalcy.” The two walks of life are simply that different in every way, shape, and form.
“And so, madam, as we know it possible to open a space between two locations through which objects can be transferred, I see no reason as to why we should be unable to filter what may pass through. The formulae required to restrict teleportation to biological matter may be all but alien to modern magic, but we know they exist. If we therefore form a barrier of tubular shape...”
Faced with a handsome man in the absolute best of spirits, a methuselah scoundrel wondered to herself how many days it had been; yet even in spite of losing track of time, her razor-sharp mind continued to whiz at full speed. Living with frail mortals that could die if she so much as glanced away had caused her to begin using day-night cycles as valuable measurements of time as of late. Had she been the same old Agrippina of yore, this conversation would be fated to never end.
“You mean to suggest that we construct a space-bending rift on one end that specifically filters away air, I presume?”
“Yes! You’re a bright one, madam! That’s exactly it! And by employing anti-gravity magic to ‘drop’ the ship sideways, we ought to achieve forward movement without need for propulsion, all free from air resistance. Am I not a genius?! Should we set a regular route with this technology, the airship will be the fastest mode of transport in all of history!”
“A wonderful idea indeed, Duke. The only hiccup would be that one thousand magia of our caliber would still lack the mana to power such an endeavor.”
How long had she discussed these pointlessly unattainable theories detailing pointlessly advanced engineering in pointlessly precise detail in service of a pointlessly high-minded ideal with this pointlessly energetic man?
Methuselah were a people who, in theory, did not need the concept of time to structure their lives. But to relinquish food and sleep in favor of endless debate and mystic experimentation screwed with even Agrippina’s internal rhythm.
While she couldn’t write off the conversation as boring by any metric, her time here was undeniably taking its toll. Sitting face-to-face with a man that could easily kill her in the societal sense and could probably do the same in a physical one did not rub her the right way.
Worse still, the former emperor constantly barraged her with topics that prodded at her interests in a crafty attempt to draw more comments out of her. Agrippina hated the man’s silver tongue, but couldn’t afford the rudeness of silence with a person of his standing—which was also the reason she had yet to cut him off and ask when they were going to get to the real meat of the conversation.
After debating several magical theories for long enough to wither anyone’s perception of time, the vampire slapped his thigh and beamed at her with a vivacious smile.
“My goodness,” he said, “this has truly been a fruitful discussion. You see, I simply cannot help myself when an unsolved problem is left dangling before me.”
Flaws with the current airship design had dominated a large part of their discussion. The original theoretical proofs had been published fifty years prior, and the Jadwiga had taken to the open skies only to crash after being attacked by fledgling drakes a piddling thirty years ago. The second ship, the Kriemhild, had been run aground during a stable low-altitude test by a flock of drakes and griffons. This recent disaster lingered in the memory as a testimony to the difficulty inherent in even the slightest defiance of gravity.
The Empire required a reliable means of flight. An airship needed the ability to protect itself from exterior threats and complete its voyage without outside support; a vessel was only worth anything if it could make it there and back again in one piece.
Alas, this proved a difficult objective. People had been made to toddle around on the dirt, and to forsake their initial design was to take on challenges greater than one ought to bear. In response, the good duke had initially considered the possibility of employing a barrier of space-bending magic or some sort of short-range physical separator.
Agrippina had been introduced to him as an expert on the subject, so he’d brought up his ideas with no more intent than to get a second opinion before touching on more serious matters. He’d planned to quickly—by immortal metrics—move on, but lost himself in the exciting conversation and totally forgot about his original reason for being here. This was in spite of his retainer begging him to come out already from beyond the door—the poor servant had been reduced to waiting for his master rather than on him.
“Yes, well...” Agrippina paused, savoring her relief that the end was in sight. “I suppose these treatises penned with my meager wits have served some use if they were enough to entertain you, Professor.”
“Please, there’s no need for modesty, madam. Truly, I find it peculiar that you and your exceptional talents have been buried beneath the rabble all this time.”
As if to smother Agrippina’s returning tranquility, the duke gathered the scattered essays and ran his fingers across the covers. His beauty was intoxicating as he lovingly gazed at the works.
“An analysis of the foundational correlation between heat dispersion and magical augmentation. A critique of the Fifth Axiom for its inconsistencies with space-bending magic, and a subsequent proposal of nonaxiomatic theory. A proof to allow both space-time degradation and dilation to theoretically coexist... Each and every one touches on a topic that a scholar could spend a lifetime researching. For these wonderful subjects to be confined to short-form essays is a shame like no other.”
The vampire sighed with such passion that it transcended the realm of lust to attain new heights of sensuality. Noticing his shift in demeanor, the scoundrel realized, Oh. Not good, and instinctively began weaving a teleportation spell.
Unfortunately, Agrippina was a few moments too late.
“This must be fate,” Martin said. “Worry not, for I shall endorse your rise to professorship using my name! I have no doubt you suffered many an injustice as the daughter of a foreign house, but those days are over! You have the Erstreich Dukedom at your back now—this boorish title will see some good use yet!”
The morally bankrupt methuselah felt as though she could hear something very important shatter into a million pieces.
To begin with, she had remained a researcher thus far of her own volition: she was free from the tedious responsibilities of professorship, and her subordination to Leizniz had meant none would approach her in the hopes of stirring up a new cadre. On the flip side, she enjoyed privileges beyond those of a student, which she used to further what research piqued her interests and read forbidden tomes in the library. She had no need for funds thanks to her family, so being a researcher offered her the most freedom to advance her research.
Agrippina did not need prestige; she already had money; glory was a laughable motivator. This incorrigible nature of hers had been the very reason a woman of her marvelous talents had lazily played second fiddle to a vitality-loving wraith.
“No, in fact, it would be a waste to shelve a brilliant mind like yours away in the realm of academia. You would make for a wonderful advisor to my daughter... Shall I create a new position in the palace?”
Agrippina could hardly even imagine how many rules and customs he would need to trample over to get his way, but for a brief moment, a voice in the back of her mind whispered that it knew how she could get hers: if I kill this fool and run, maybe it will all be swept under the rug...
...It probably won’t, Agrippina’s waning sanity grumbled back. No, it definitely won’t.
As she resigned herself to her fate, she could hear that sickly wraith’s scornful laugh echo in the depths of her heart.
[Tips] Researchers at the College all dream of writing a masterwork essay that will gain the attention of all their peers and send the world of academia into a mad frenzy—which is practically the only hope of receiving a letter of recommendation for promotion. This also means that a person who goes out of their way to hide their accomplishments should, by all accounts, never receive an opportunity to climb the ladder.
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