Order and Chaos

this one

Don't play the instrument you don't know how to play, sing instead.

How did they even know you were pointing?

you forgot to switch the person here

Turn out to have a instant and immediate natural talent for being really good at this, and play the entire album Songs of Innocense, by U2 on the keyboard organ pipe piano thing

Yes! I am great at things, so it naturally followed that I would be great at all the things. They say it's easier to learn new instruments when you already know a bunch anyway. I put my fingers down on the keyboard and slam them!

The organ squawked:

"GUILTY AS SIN."

Oh. So that's how this works. Fairly efficient. I'm learning so much already!

"Well, that's what you get when you plead innocent as sin," the judge smirked. "Let it be shown that the defendant was found guilty, if not of the crimes they are accused of, then at the least an original sin or ones inherited through ancestry, which is just as bad." He banged his gavel.

Shit! I didn't think about the fact that my entire life is built on the horrible, bloody legacy of my father.

"The sentence is house arrest. Do you have a house?"

I shook my head. I had a castle, sure, but not a house.

"Of course. If you do not have a house, one will be provided for you. Alexis?" said the judge.

Alexis, the lady in the cut-off knight armor, grabbed me by the arm and put me in handcuffs again, then led me to a district of the town filled with rows and rows of identical houses. It was eerily quiet. Finally, she stopped and gestured to a home.

"This is your new house," she said, releasing me from my handcuffs. I took a tentative step towards it, and she yanked me back by the wrist. "What do you think you're doing!? That house is under arrest. You are free to go, except under penalty of death you may never go inside your own house. Anyone else can. How does it feel? How does it feel to have your freedom, your home, snatched away from you, you sinful monster!?"

I imagined it would feel considerably more brutal if I actually lived here. Alexis left me to my own devices, so I went back into the forest so as to not get prosecuted again.

"Oh boo hoo," I heard a man sob in the distance before too long. "Oh boo hoo hoo!" He cried. "I'm sad! I don't know what to do! Boo hoo hoo!" He blubbered.

I worked my way through the forest towards the old man's voice, until I finally pushed through some bushes and found him. He was sitting on one stump in a large clearing of stumps, wearing a tuxedo, stovepipe hat, and a sash that read "MAYOR."

"What's wrong?" said I.

"I'm so sad! I don't know what to do! My city's ruined!" said the man who could be safely assumed to be the mayor.

"How?"

"Look around you!" he gestured to the stumps. "In my town, all our money is made of wood. A long time ago there were only 4 trees, but every time we cut down one, we'd plant two more! When I was a little boy this whole forest was but an empty field! Pretty soon it became obvious that the only way to keep the economy from entering a disastrous inflationary spiral was to slightly dull all the lumberjack's axes, and when we couldn't any longer, convince them to use the back of their axes and other blunt instruments! But this morning, some random stranger rolled into our town and ruined the whole dang system. They're going to be madly rich until the markets catch up, then it'll be more like everyone who isn't a lumberjack will be destitute, relatively, unable to afford even bread and crushed under the boot of the lumber oligarchy! It's happened before. I don't know what I'm going to do! I'm ruined! A-boo hoo hoo!" He broke into sobs again, then, he looked at me. "Unless... you can think of something, random stranger?"

Communism

"nope can't think of anything. good luck with that" continue on your journey!!

your money should now be fire

Communism

It struck me that something about the mayor's story was odd. The driving purpose behind my father's conquests, as he was fond of telling anyone he could force to listen, was to enforce the radically redistributive economic system he was enamored with. (And understood surprisingly well for a man with little interest in the administrative aspects of monarchy.) Some might raise the question of how exactly this was compatible with a monarchy, but very few would dare ask it in Malcolm's presence.

So what the mayor was telling me, essentially, was that he was running a rebellious capitalist enclave operating on an illegal local currency. I asked him about it, and he gave me an odd glance.

"It's what everyone does," he said. "Nobody uses Vindictus' worthless currency except on the rare occasions he sends someone to check in. Malcolm might be able to hold this empire together, but when he dies? His daughter won't last a week."

It was good to know that my future subjects had such confidence in me. My tutor regularly said I wouldn't last an hour.

"nope can't think of anything. good luck with that" continue on your journey!!

Seeing no need to aid the mayor in his illegal-and-evidently-widespread attempt to evade economic laws, I told him I couldn't think of anything. He sighed deeply.

"I suppose it was too much to expect from a complete stranger. Oh well, guess I'll go back to the town council and see if we can figure something out. Or maybe just take my mind off it with a good raid through an arrested house."

"I hear someone just had their house arrested today," I said nonchalantly.

"Really! Well, at least the day won't be a total loss."

He marched off, leaving me alone among the tree stumps.

I had to reflect on what I'd just learned. The defiance on currency and economic policy in general made more sense when I realized that I'd never heard of this town's notion of "house arrest" in all my extensive readings on the law. In this and other regards, they were attempting to operate as an independent government within our borders, defying our laws wherever they seemed inconvenient.

That left the question of what, if anything, I was going to do about it.

Clean up this sinful town with the power of diplomacy instead of swordmongering like your asshole dad did

Call dad and tattle on these defiant losers

Fire renders wooden money useless! Show them the error of their ways!

usurp the mayor

Clean up this sinful town with the power of diplomacy instead of swordmongering like your asshole dad did

Yes! Of course!

"Mr. Mayor, wait up!" I said.

Mr. Mayor waited up. "Yes?"

... I still had no specific ideas on how exactly to accomplish this goal.

Fire renders wooden money useless! Show them the error of their ways!

A flash of inspiration struck me! With a big, goofy grin on my face, I took out a book of matches, lit one, and threw it into the brush and leaves and trees. It caught on like wildfire! Euphemistically, I mean. So far. Surely, this would show them that Communism Is Good. Christianity Is Stupid. Give Up. Give Up. From 5 O'Clock In The Morning, To Ten O'Clock At Night. Seventeen Hours A Day. Give Up. Give Up. Communism Is Good.

"...Yes!" said the mayor, clapping with delight. Did he get it? "Yes! Yes!" He grabbed for my book of matches, which I let him have. He used all of them to light fires throughout the area. "This is perfect! We can burn up all the trees and money and then we'll just leave one big coin everyone's gotta share!"

Was that... communism? To be frank I don't really know what communism is. "Or..." I said.

your money should now be fire

"Or even better, what if we set fire to the money in order to spend it? You know, gotta burn money to make money! That way..." He stopped. He didn't have an easy time thinking of the possible implications. "Wait, even better: what if our money WAS fire!"

He grabbed a handful of the burning embers from what was now the raging inferno around us. His hands started to burn, and they smelled exactly like chicken barbecue. To cool them down, he shoved them in his wet, dark mouth, embers and all, which helped in a way, but in other ways, made everything a lot worse.

"Mr. Mayor," I said, "I'm not sure you catch my gist..."

He looked at me with wet eyes and both his hands stuck in his mouth and probably cauterized into place there and he was drooling everywhere and also he had a huge string of snot hanging out of his nose and also when he looked up at me he swung the snot-string around and it somehow affixed itself inside of his other nostril like a crazy trick shot, and now it was like a loop, a nosering.

"Will you, Mr. Mayor, marry me Miss Mary?"

He nodded enthusiastically.

"I do!" you say, completing the wedding ceremony to the knight MAYOR

, because, as we all know, mayors have the ability to officiate weddings on the fly. I kissed him on the wrists and accidentally got some of the snot in my mouth.

I dashed away from my pathetic husband, through the conflagration. He took one step and then tripped on his own snot ring. A burning tree fell down behind me, blocking my path. I would never see my new husband again and he was probably just gonna die back there. Also the whole town I was mayor of burned down too. Man, honeymoons never go according to plan.

So that's when I passed out from smoke inhalation. In my dream, De the goddess of brevity had a — naturally enough, short — chat with me. We'll circle around back to that. You don't know what happened in there exactly yet, because you are not in the dream, or any dream.

You got the power. You got the might. You're ready to battle. You're the black knight.

You are Malcolm Vindictus. Currently, you are in the midst of what is, technically speaking, the greatest military campaign of all time, in terms of pure land grabbed. You and your original army of forty thousand Vendet men and women set out two years ago and have been sweeping through hitherto-undiscovered regions of the world ever since.

You have also grown reflective in your old age. It was fun, and you had no regrets, but what was to be your legacy? You suppose your wife, Melissa, was a competent enough bureaucrat, and your boyfriend and second-in-command, Commun Marx, was able to use you to enact his vision of sweeping social reforms named after himself (which you had no capacity to understand, to be frank, though you tried your best to parrot,) but you weren't entirely sure the authority of the Vendet crown was respected and it wouldn't just all collapse as soon as you died, especially among these newly-conquered areas that have just plain surrendered to you on sight. Even in these distant, uncharted lands your reputation precedes you. It's flattering, but it means that you and your accumulated eighty thousand men never got to actually FIGHT, everywhere you go instead automatically surrendering to you.

Your only hope for your more long-reaching anxieties (something you never thought you would have) is your heiress, Mary. She's a good egg, or at least was when she was 17. You hope she's run away and discovered the world and come back more worldly by now.

As for your short-term problem, war boredom, there was only one solution in your mind. You rallied the troops and took their attention with a speech.

"We are going to kill the gods."

Silence. Confusion.

There I was, two days later, sitting on a rock, freezing my ass off in the middle of the night, searching the darkness for any unexpected visitors. Guard duty sucked. I bet fuckin' Malcolm Vindictus never had to do any guard duty. Nothing ever happened, anyway. I mean, hell, nobody was gonna attack us tonight! We wiped the floor with their holy asses! Either they were gonna surrender tomorrow, or we were just gonna wipe the floor again and again until they did or there was nobody left.

Then, a small light crested over a hill, waving frantically through the air in an arc. Oh gods, was it a god? Was it one of their faithful holy warriors, come to ambush us in the middle of the night? I grabbed my sword and stood up. More waiting. I wasn't about to go follow them. They were going to have to come to me.

I dropped the sword when they did. Turns out, it was one of our own soldiers. His arm, the one that wasn't carrying the torch, was flayed. His intestines spilled out of a whole in his chest, and looked like they had been through a sausage grinder after that. The left half of his face was slightly caved in, but the swelling compensated. Blood poured out of his mouth. His kneecap was somehow removed and then reattached under his shoulderblade.

"Oh my gods, man, I'll get you to the medic at once!" I said, then hoisted him up onto my shoulder like a sack full of potatoes.

"No..." he said. "No." he said. "Gods," he chuckled. "I'm... dying... they're..." he coughed. "They're all dead."

"The... the gods?"

He laughed once, again, hard. He spat up blood all over my chest. "Us!"

My heart dropped down my throat. "Us? Even... even Malcolm?"

He nodded. "All... of them," he said. "...But... me. Wait! Cor... correction." He died.

This was bad news. But luckily, I'm not the type of person who's prone to panic, so I quickly assessed the aspects of the present situation:

• Malcolm Vindictus is dead.
  
• Your so-called "B team" camp, the support, was only 20,000 deep.
  
• All the superior officers — captains, lieutenants, colonels — had been camped with him in the A team, so they were dead too.
  
• We are surrounded on all sides by, first, the faithful that had taken arms in support of the gods, or those who had surrendered, cowed by Malcolm's reputation alone, who would thus would be willing, ready, and able to strike at his retreating, Vindictusless 20,000.
  
• The remaining army of 20,000 is such a melting pot (from all those surrenders) that there is no true, common language, and as you return home they will surely peel off to return to their own homes, possibly even
  defecting to the enemy.
  
• The only thing holding the army together in the first place was a fear of Vindictus greater than their fear of the enemy. Without anything keeping you all in line, you're likely to fall into complete disorganization and thus become sitting ducks, for no individual can stand up to the whole armies that will be falling down on you.
  
• You have no horses.
  
• You have no boats.
  
• You have no food or water.
  
• You are extremely low on ammo.
  
• You are thousands and thousands of miles from home. My home, Vendet, that is. At minimum, you're looking at two year's travel.
  
• There are no local guides or maps among you.
  
• It is almost winter.
  
• The gods are, naturally, extremely displeased with you.
  

I still kept my cool as I enumerated the few relatively-positive spots:

• The divine retaliation will likely be mild, them having been badly weakened with the loss of thousands of their ranks, and not generally being known to give even the most extreme heathens the "your followers, your family, your friends, your land, your country, your pets, your pants" treatment, although who knows with a loose egg. You also got the sense they were humoring the great warrior fulfilling his inevitable, implicit destiny to seek all the power he could — a dog chasing a car who doesn't know what to do with it — and may even be slightly thankful over how he helpfully pruned their massive, massive, way too huge ranks. As such, you can expect the gods' displeasure to manifest only in consistently gutter luck, the effects of which can be minimized if you remember to leave nothing to chance.
  
• The faithful army is currently resting, either unaware of their victory or basking in it, allowing you a window to act first within.
  
• There's an exit that will neutralize the effect of a lack of horses because no horses can pass through. However, it is difficult terrain, and unfamiliar to you, so your memory of the road home becomes useless.
  
• Nobody besides me and the active enemy forces know Malcolm Vindictus is dead yet. Nobody knows that you just killed a bunch of gods yet. If you take the road, you would be able to stay ahead of the news for a while, at least until the horse-riding faithful overtake you, and if you take the pass almost certainly not.
  
• You have tents.
  
• You're no Malcolm Vidicti, not one of you, but you are still mighty warriors, highly-trained under his tutelage, well-equipped other than for ammo, and 20,000 is still nothing to sneeze at.
  

It wasn't inspiring. Though my mind was calm, my body was nervous — I was sweating like I was in the desert even while I shivered from the cold. I wrapped my loincloth around my sword's hilt so it wouldn't slip out of my hands when I needed it. I was going to have to wake up the others, and, very likely, fill the leadership vacuum myself.

So what was my plan? And what was that thing I forgot about while listing off all the ways we're totally screwed that screws us even more?

oh yeah why don't we just make malcolm's daughter the leader. where is she?

keep everything under wraps. Tell no one that Malcolm Vindictus is dead. In fact, tell them that he's healthier than ever and that you've received news that he will single-handedly dismember everyone, yes, both the enemy and his own army, if they don't win this.

Malcolm Vindictus has headed to the divine planes to conquer the gods themselves, but by golly you better not get complacent because he's in the next reality over.

See! "Meeting his maker" can be a reverse euphemism!

Put on your Malcom Vindictus disguise

Other thing that screws you: Gods, like people, can continue to haunt reality in weird ways after their deaths.

keep everything under wraps. Tell no one that Malcolm Vindictus is dead. In fact, tell them that he's healthier than ever and that you've received news that he will single-handedly dismember everyone, yes, both the enemy and his own army, if they don't win this.

The first thing that came to mind was covering up Malcolm's death; the only ones who knew of it were me and the gods. And while the gods could be expected to gloat, we didn't need to convince the enemy. We just needed to make them doubt the word of their own gods, which was something they were often inclined to do anyways. It was almost impossible to keep following the gods if you actually listened to what they said, after all.

But there was a problem. No matter how clever the excuse I concocted, Malcolm Invictus was a man who loved battle and bloodshed. There was no way he'd stay off the battlefield. If I didn't have him show up, the whole ruse would soon fall apart.

Put on your Malcom Vindictus disguise

Unless someone else took his place. Malcolm had a very convenient habit of addressing the army while wearing his highly imposing and face-concealing battle armor, so in theory, someone could acquire an identical suit of armor and take his place. Not permanently, just long enough to avoid the total collapse of our forces while we regrouped.

The main problem with this plan was that Malcolm Vindictus was not the sort of man to run from a fight, ever, and running from this fight was clearly the best course of action. So it was either get killed while impersonating him, in which case he'd probably kill you again in the afterlife, or have the whole charade fall apart as soon as someone starts asking questions. And the risks for the poor sap who was revealed as a fraud, well, they were enough that I was convinced I didn't want to be that poor sap.

Other thing that screws you: Gods, like people, can continue to haunt reality in weird ways after their deaths.

My train of thought was interrupted when I spotted the swarm of locusts in the distance. And the fire raining from the sky. And the frogs hopping all over the camp.

Of course we weren't going to get off easy. Even if the living gods didn't hold much of a grudge against us, the dead ones could have cast all manner of curses and plagues in their dying breaths. And most of those curses would be directed at us.

Whatever cover-up I was going to conduct of Malcolm's death would have to wait. There were more immediate issues to deal with, and I was essentially the top-ranking officer now, which meant I had to deal with them.

And I was completely unprepared for it. Desperate, I said a prayer to the only force that might be able to offer guidance against the gods themselves: Malcolm Vindictus.

I was very surprised to get such a quick answer back.

Malcolm Vindictus has headed to the divine planes to conquer the gods themselves, but by golly you better not get complacent because he's in the next reality over.

See! "Meeting his maker" can be a reverse euphemism!

"I can't believe I left a weakling like you in charge," he said. I couldn't actually see him glaring at me from under the helmet, but I could certainly feel it.

I was about to squeamishly offer an apology, but then I realized how inappropriate that was given who I was talking to. So I did the unthinkable and yelled right back at him.

"You got us into this mess! You went and took everyone higher up the command chain than me! How dare you show your, er, helmet here again after what you did!"

He was only marginally impressed. Better than I'd hoped, really.

"You don't realize how many of them I took down first. When we started, there were thirty thousand gods; now they number a mere dozen."

"And that means there's twenty-nine thousand, nine hundred and eighty-eight dead gods cursing us. All at once. And I have to clean up your mess! Though I suppose that's nothing new. You couldn't even handle basic enforcement on economic policy."

"I did not manifest all the way over here for a lover's quarrel, Commun. I came to warn you."

"If it's about the rain of fire, you're a little late."

"That is the least of your worries. I have crossed over from the other side - an easier task than it sounds after killing all five hundred gods in charge of maintaining the boundary between life and death - because the end of the world is coming."

I stared at him.

"The what."

"The gods agreed more than a century ago that they wanted to end this world. But they couldn't agree on how. So as a compromise, all the gods of fate worked together to guide one man's destiny so that he would declare war on the gods themselves, killing most of them so the survivors would have an easier time coming to a consensus."

I blinked.

"You mean to tell me, the gods planned this, and they're still sending thousands of curses our way?"

"Of course they did. Each of them expected to be one of the survivors."

"Naturally."

"In any case, I can hardly complain; they've rewarded me for my role in their plan with an eternal battle in the afterlife. And it is glorious. But I so dislike leaving unfinished business in this world, so I will be needing your help."

I watched a chunk of fire land not three feet away.

"We, er, might be a little busy at the moment."

"I'll keep it short. Kill the rest of the gods, save this world while you're at it, and whatever you do, don't let that bastard Milton take my throne."

"He was conceived legitimately, though."

"I thought I told you to look into annulling that marriage."

"It turns out you can't do that after one of the spouses has died."

"Whatever. The point is, that's what I need you to do. Now I'm heading back to face the greatest warriors of all time. Don't mess it up or I'll see to it that you suffer."

He vanished, and I knew it was no idle threat. Malcolm Vindictus was not about to let a little thing like death stop him from getting what he wanted.

I also knew that I was completely incapable of managing the army or the kingdom without him. I was an economist, for Vindictus' sake!

oh yeah why don't we just make malcolm's daughter the leader. where is she?

That said, he did have an heir that he didn't despise. Maybe I could hand this unpleasant job over to her, assuming we survived the various plagues the dead gods were sending our way.

Speaking of which, what exactly was I going to do about those?

first, rinse your hands with hot water
then scrub with soap for thirty seconds! (sing the alphabet song to help keep count)
make sure to get between your fingers and under your fingernails.
then, rinse your hands again with more hot water.
then, using a paper towel, turn the water off.
dry your hands completely!

first, rinse your hands with hot water
then scrub with soap for thirty seconds! (sing the alphabet song to help keep count)
make sure to get between your fingers and under your fingernails.
then, rinse your hands again with more hot water.
then, using a paper towel, turn the water off.
dry your hands completely!

Vendet. A Room in the Castle.

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman.

Doct. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?
Gen. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon ’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.
Doct. A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching! In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?
Gen. That, sir, which I will not report after her.
Doct. You may to me, and ’tis most meet you should.
Gen. Neither to you nor any one, having no witness to confirm my speech.

Enter LADY MELISSA, with a taper.

Gen. Lo you! here she comes. This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.
Doct. How came she by that light?
Gen. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; ’tis her command.
Doct. You see, her eyes are open.
Gen. Ay, but their sense is shut.
Doct. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
Gen. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her to continue in this a quarter of an hour.
Lady M. Yet here’s a spot.
Doct. Hark! she speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
Lady M. Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One; two: why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
Doct. Do you mark that?
Lady M. The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now? What! will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting.
Doct. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
Gen. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known.
Lady M. Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!
Doct. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
Gen. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.
Doct. Well, well, well.
Gen. Pray God it be, sir.
Doct. This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.
Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown; look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on ’s grave.
Doct. Even so?
Lady M. To bed, to bed: there’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed. [Exit.]

wosh u hands wosh u teeth and eyes wosh u soul

Consult with the heir apparent that's most apparently heir here

send for the most favourable heir with the fastest creature you own: The Mega-Horse

It's just a horse, twice as big as a normal one and over-encumbered by its own weight. It's mainly to show off.

Consult with the heir apparent that's most apparently heir here

send for the most favourable heir with the fastest creature you own: The Mega-Horse

With the doctor and gentlewoman as witnesses to the Queen's behavior, it wasn't long before the royal court was called into session to work out what to do about it.

The first thing everyone realized was that they couldn't take any action against a member of the royal family without the backing of another royal. No one considered King Malcolm a viable option, of course; he was in the middle of a campaign, so it would be impossible to contact him. Besides which, as this wasn't an issue that involved any sort of combat, he wouldn't have a very informed opinion on the matter anyway.

That left the two heirs, and naturally the court was divided on which to ask. Milton was not considered legitimate by King Malcolm, of course, which would cause problems if the King were dissatisfied with his decision; but half the court thought that his distinct advantages of being easily located and being male gave him the edge. The other half thought it was better to go and find just where Mary had run off to, because she was going to be Queen and had been training for it all her life and Malcolm had insisted on her succeeding him, or at least on not letting Milton run things ever, and who were they to question the King's judgement in such matters.

They argued on it for hours and hours, counting votes repeatedly, always coming up with a tie and no decision being made.

Eventually, someone suggested they just find someone else to cast the deciding vote. This was reluctantly agreed to, and that was how it came down to me to decide which of the heirs to the throne would be entrusted with making decisions about the Queen's mental health.

But who was I? And what would I decide?