Order and Chaos

MEADOWLANDS: An Accounting
Linear Storytelling Is Old Hat, Daddio!

2.

Commun & Mary arrived in what was now being called "Meadowlands" that afternoon. The first thing Commun noticed was how the area had flourished and become a full-on village in scant weeks without him around, furnished with a buzzing large market gazebo, a bar and grill, defensive walls and fortifications, a watermill on the river, a masonry, a blacksmith, and a church. The first thing Mary noticed was the fashion.

Before the either of them were noticed, she yanked on his arm and turned them both around, panic seeping into her voice. "Commun: Why is everyone naked?"

"What? You're the only one here without their fingerpaint."

"Fingerpaint, fingerpaint, fingerpaint!" Mary said. "Everywhere I go, people are obſeſſed with the paint on their fingernailſ, to ſometimeſ the complete excluſion of clotheſ. It's madneſſ!"

"It's modesty, young lady," said Commun.

"Modeſty! Then why are they walking around with their dingle-dongles danglin' and bingle-bangles all floppin' about, huh?"

Commun snickered into his hand so feverishly he lost posture.

"What?" said Mary, just barely keeping her frustration from boiling out into shouting. "What iſ ſo hilariouſ about the idea that I do not wiſh to be aſſaulted with the ſights and ſounds of ſex and flesh at all timeſ and placeſ?! That people ſhould ſhow ſome decency to otherſ, ſome dignity, and cover themſelveſ when out and about?!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but..." Commun said. "'Dingle-dongles and bingle-bangles'?" His laughter redoubled, and he nearly doubled over crying.

"We are not amuſed," said Mary. "Thiſ whole ſettlement iſ diſgusting and perverted, and I have half a mind to circumvent it entirely. Frankly, it'ſ bad enough that you're cavorting around in 5 incheſ ſquare hung around your front end!"

Commun composed himself, wiping tears from his eyes. "Your majesty," he said, and began to yammer on in that most Commun of ways. "You need to understand that Castle Vendet is a world unto itself, with its own bizarre customs, perverted holdovers from Old Old Vendet, that carry no water outside of its moat. These troops represent a beautiful little sample set of your population in miniature, I know that doesn't sound too important to you since you don't have any grounding in statistics, no?" Mary shook her head a little. "But the point is that nowhere will you find a more representative group of far-flung citizens from your gigantic country, although skewing towards the coarser and majorly to the younger, and this that so shocks you is perfectly normal for the territory you rule, at least where there's only 207 loincloths to go around, whereas to them and me, YOU are the one rudely running around with their dingle-dangle and bingle-bangle out. I've been biting my tongue this whole time!"

Mary shook her head more. "Madneſſ."

"Look, I INSIST that you apply my fingerpaint right now, and relax about the whole issue before we head in and announce ourselves," said Commun. "You can use my loincloth if you want."

What was the nature of Commun & Mary's entrance to Meadowlands? A bold, fully-dressed, and fully-announced proclamation to the residents of Meadowlands, or something that blended in a bit more?

0.

Milton was soon overwhelmed by the current. The waters washed over him, pushing him down deeper and deeper, until he woke in purgatory, waiting to be called to the gates. Eventually, he was, and strut up to the podium with unwarranted confidence.

"Okay," said Fablio, the newly- and randomly-assigned interim God of Death, as well as of Hair, Non-Meat Sauces, Roots, Skunks, Mining, Most Narcotics (besides Cocaine and Alcohol (but including Absinthe,)) Running, Perspective, Orange, Green, Purple, Cyan, Violet, Finger Length (but not Girth,) Perfume, Magnetism, Dents, Commas, Opening Quotation Marks, That Annoyance You Feel When You Had Something To Say And Waited For Someone Else To Finish Talking And Then Forgot, Elephant Trunks, Contemporary & Ancient (but not Just Plain Old) Hats, Rigged Gambling, and Ink. "So, that's two, right?"

"Three," said Milton, licking himself.

"Okay, so I put you back for 6, yeah?"

"Yeah, but not yet," said Milton. "I wanna —" The phone on the podium rang, and Hank snatched it to his ear.

"Fablio, how you?" said Fablio.

"Skunks, Mining, Narcotics, Running, for Finger Girth, Nosepaint, Punctuation?"

"Please, baby! Skunks, of all… Hey, when can I get off this podium?" The receiver went dead mid-sentence. Fablio hung it up. "What can you can expect?"

"I wanna talk with whoever is in charge around here about this whole apocalypse thing," said Milton.

"Okay, do I look like an angel, honey? I don't even look like a God of Death!" Fablio huffed and swept his hand through his hair. "Besides, you just saw how busy and rushed De is trying to sort out this whole domains thing..." He gestured at the plaque of all his titles. "Goddess of Brevity and it's been weeks I've been stuck at this bum post."

"I can wait," Milton intended to say, before he was interrupted by the telephone ringing again.

"Fablio, how you? Yeah, I'm the new magnets guy. A prayer, what? No, I don't accept the charges. No, don't print it off! Demagnetize it, I don't care." He hung up. Somewhere, a compass started drifting aimlessly. "You were saying?"

"I can —"

Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light, flashin', I mean flashin', like a strobe. Sir Nose trombipulated his way in.

"I just got back from the fantasy ahead of our time in the four lands of Ellet, headed for this place called home," he explained.

"Sir Nose! How you?"

"As good as I can feel," he stretched. "I got headache in my heart, heartache in my leg."

"Ha!" Fablio said. He didn't laugh, he said that. "What brings you here?"

"Takin' care of so much business," Sir Nose said. "I need you to blow the cobwebs out your mind and dig through your stuff & things there for a funky woman by the name of Adeline for me. It's for love. Not mine."

"I can't just let anyone know what's in there," Fablio said.

"Aw, let the nose be nosey! Don't you know you're in this too?" Sir Nose said.

"I'm in the middle of a thing here, babe," Fablio said.

"I got a thing, you got a thing, everybody's got a thing!" Sir Nose complained. He crouched to Milton. "Check it: the kingdom of Heaven is within. Now scram." Milton trotted out to the lobby. Sir Nose leaned on the podium. "Now why don't you be a beach and let me take a peek-a-groove?"

"...Fine," Fablio acquiesced, opening his book of the dead.

"See, unlike a deck of cards, where there's four of a kind, there's only one of her," the nosiest Nose I know said, sniffing through the pages. "...It just had to be none of them. Killer armadillo!" He slammed the book shut. "Then what in the world is up with that funky-ass corpse in the barn loft, huh?"

"Illusion?" Fablio shrugged. "It's a love thing, right? Why don't you check with Ilthmya't, they're the God of Love right now I think."

"No, no, no," said Ilthmya't, who was made entirely of tongues, which it was using surprisingly effectively to file and defile many items. "I'm the god of…" Their whole mass shuddered. "LUST." A great multitude of hacking and exaggerated suppressed vomiting noises hit Sir Nose in fabulous surround sound. "Don't you talk to me about those disgusting humans and their mating habits, Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk. Go find Marrch, they're Love now."

"Sorry," said Marrch, digging through the back of their "A" cabinet. "You sure they're human, yeah?" Sir Nose nodded. "Sorry, maybe I can find their other half — name?"

"Mary," he said.

"Ohhh," said Marrch. "I'm sorry, but is that another girl?"

Sir Nose nodded.

"And Adeline, that's another girl's name?"

That's another nod, too.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. You need Greg, he's on lesbians. Sorry again."

Sir Nose slogged up the 49 flights of stairs to Greg's cubicle, which he had expanded to the whole floor due to the many vacated around him.

"Bud, they put me on lesbian cephalopods and rodents," Greg explained, then burped. "Not with each other, thankfully!" He laughed.

Sir Nose had to go right back down 20 more floors. Alneit rose off his fainting couch, scarves trailing behind him. "You have entered the chambers of Alneit, God of Love and Lust!" he announced himself. "Well, not yet, I mean. Right now they have me just on the lesbian humans, but it's a lot better than being the God of Dead Chickens like before. You can help me out on that with the woman upstairs, right Sir Brownnose?"

Sir Nose was exhausted, and unamused. The God of Lesbian Love and Lust was quite helpful and competent, and found him Adeline's file in a jiffy.

"Corpse in a barn loft, huh? Doesn't say here she's even dead… And this stuff just appears when it happens, you know," Alneit said, perusing her file. He bugged out. "Soulmates with Mary Lee Vindictus? Sheesh, you should really talk to De about this!" Sir Nose waved him off with his trunk. "What do you think is going on?"

Sir Nose took a deep breath. It just had to be nobody. It had to be no-one. It just had to be none other...

But what was the cat up to?

3.

The high, vaulted ceilings, the delicately-chiseled brick-and-wood construction, and the intricate stained glass window all spoke not only to a surprising reverence to the pantheon they had all worked to destroy, but to the untapped reserves of competence and dedication Commun had had at his disposal when it was his command to command. (He was, all told, a pretty terrible leader of men.) He wandered down the aisle towards the fountain, soaking in the sights with his eye-sponges, when a freshly-minted priestess tapped him on the shoulder.

"Are you just here to look, Mr. Marx?" she said — in a language he could barely decipher. The natives had already begun to blend their languages into a take-all-comers pidgin.

Commun, startled, turned around. "Ye — I mean, no." The priestess was disappointed. "I need to make an appointment with the gods, and I was wondering if you knew exactly how. Do I have to sacrifice a cow on yew branches or slip you a few coins or...?"

"I wouldn't be opposed to it!" she said. "But you need to ask an angel. I know there's a celest here in town, but I don't know if that'd do the trick… They might be able to pass the message on?"

"Can you repeat that?" said Commun. "I didn't catch it." In her digression, she had mumbled and slipped into her native tongue.

Slowly now, she repeated herself like she were De. "Give me your money." Pause. "A joke. Ask an angel. Celest in town, might pass it on."

"Why wouldn't the celest work? Or a demon, for that matter? They're all the same damn thing, it's just where they're working," said Commun.

"For the same reason you came to the church and priestess instead of bar and bartender," said the priestess.

"Come again?"

The priestess sighed. "Jobs and place matter."

"Okay, point made," said Commun. "So where can I find this wandering celest?"

"Don't know, it's kinda hard to spot — you know of Nothing?" Commun groaned and nodded. Had she really said kinda hard-to-spot? "Maybe outside the market? It'd be preaching itself for its big God of Death push, maybe?"

Commun nodded and headed out of the church.

"Wait!" the priestess said. "You could wait here. It has a sermon this evening."

"Oh?"

Did Commun stick around for that? How did that go? Was Mary there while that conversation happened or not?

5.

tell them the truth, but if you simply must kill all of your previously-loyal humans, then so be it

Mary sunk into the mud and blood foot-first, weighed down by the sword she was using to support herself. A great plume of grey smoke, miles high, billowed out into the sky from where the church's roof finally collapsed in, burning. Her arm loosely flopped off her shoulder, hanging by the skin. Her left eye was gouged in like you'd expect, and was partially-boiled to fit in with the burns that ran all the way down that side of her. Four of her ribs were sticking straight out of her chest. Her nose, now little more than a chunk of bloody red, abruptly fell off entirely and was swallowed by the mud and rain. She was broken in places she'd never known existed, and still the fight was not quite over. It had been so hard. She swiveled, keeping a keen eye out. (She couldn't use two now.)

4.

Um, excuse them?? You are their queen, they don't get to slack off in some kind of paradise when you need them dying for you on some godsforsaken battlefield. Even if you have to make up a threat to justify it, they're following you into battle, dammit.

Mary cleared her throat and stepped up on the blacksmith's market stand. "Attention, all!" she hollered. (The bustle of business did not cease.) "This is your queen, Mary Lee Vindictuſ, ſpeaking." The citizens of Meadowlands turned to Mary, suddenly silent. You could have heard a pin drop. Someone dropped a very nice vase instead.

Mary continued. "You have all crafted a nice little paradiſe for yourſelveſ, and in record time, too. You ſhould all be commended for your great effortſ." Troops smiled at themselves. "However, you have overlooked two baſic facts: One, that the meadow land you've founded Meadowlandſ upon could very well be an illuſion crafted by the dead god Feluſ, who I killed perſonally. Two, that you never had a choice whether to ſettle or not in the firſt place.

"You are the perſonal army of the monarch of Vendet. You will be acting as my bodyguardſ. Tomorrow morning, we will decamp from here and march under my command, right back up the mountain, to the tower of the godſ."

Mary stood and allowed her statement to seep in. Discontent wafted through the crowd, and ran over into yelling, noisy rage. "No, of course not!" said the crowd, in unified chorus. I must take a detour now to clarify, they're not any sort of sci-fi hivemind or anything, they just very agreed and happened to have good timing. Mary raised her hand in an effort to quell them, but instead was hit in the shoulder with a melon. She grabbed a sword from the blacksmith's collection and posed with it, as if she was sure she had the physical endurance to keep holding it up.

"You forget, too, that I am a Vindictuſ!" She yelled. "Either you poſſibly die protecting me, or you die right now, by my handſ!" Commun nodded sagely. A classic Vindictus bluff. She really was her father's daughter. "What'ſ it going to be?"

5.

You can't make an omelette without killing a few chickens. Mary didn't know that she had it in her. Yet there she was, up to her ankles in the blood of the fallen, the insubordinate. She began to worry. Maybe Commun was wrong, and Felus had cursed her to kill every human she met. Why couldn't they just surrender and follow her? Why did she have to punish them? Where did she find the strength, the fortitude?

Temporarily, Mary shoved these concerns to the back of her mind when she heard a rumble from the rubble. (Was it a house? It was all rubble now.) A woman emerged, badly scarred, bracing a crossbow against her broken shoulder. Commun recognized her immediately: it was that black-haired mutineer who had become his third right-hand.

"Demon," she spat at Mary, and fired. The bolt ripped through her good shoulder, causing her to lose her grip on the sword handle and fall, face-first, into the mud. "Why won't you die?" The mutineer was crying.

How was Mary gonna get out of this one? And where was the Nothing? (It wasn't Mary, was it?)

1.

"Hey, you can use my fingerpaint if you want," said Commun. "I know it's not royal colors, but…"

"I'm fine," said Mary. "Thankſ."

Mary was a lot better than fine. One good night's sleep and she was at peak health. Her sling was left far behind, since her arm unbroke itself overnight, and healed over without even the faintest hint of scabbing. The only injury she had left was that neck-pocket, which looked bad but only hurt as much as the gap between your toes hurt. She looked every bit 19 again. (This despite the fact that she was, factually, 20.)

Commun always kept a keen eye out, though. Just as he was going to figure out later by watching her gay gaze travel in Meadowlands one more way in which she was her father's daughter, he figured out now that Mary Vindictus was beyond dead, and it was possible she didn't even know about it, with how utterly nonplussed she was by her healing abilities. She wasn't a ghost, or a zombie, but a still-fresh body possessed by its own, correct soul: a ghoul, immortal and unaging. The lucky girl.

But did he ever tell her just how lucky she was?

SpoilerShow

2.) What was the nature of Commun & Mary's entrance to Meadowlands? A bold, fully-dressed, and fully-announced proclamation to the residents of Meadowlands, or something that blended in a bit more?

0.) But what was the cat up to?

3.) Did Commun stick around for that? How did that go? Was Mary there while that conversation happened or not?

4.) "What's it going to be?"

5.) How was Mary gonna get out of this one? And where was the Nothing? (It wasn't Mary, was it?)

1.) But did he ever tell her just how lucky she was?

2.) A bold, fully-dressed, and fully-announced proclamation to the residents of Meadowlands

0.) But what was the cat up to? Ascending to godhood via filing errors

3.) Did Commun stick around for that? Yup. How did that go? Well, the church ended up struck by lightning, but that might have been unrelated. Was Mary there while that conversation happened or not? Nope, she was have a deathmatch.

4.) "What's it going to be?" Half's gonna fight, the other half's gonna step back and watch that go down.

5.) How was Mary gonna get out of this one? Sinkhole. And where was the Nothing? (It wasn't Mary, was it?) The Nothing was being stared down by a cat.

1.) But did he ever tell her just how lucky she was? Nope.

2.) A bold, fully-dressed, and fully-announced proclamation to the residents of Meadowlands

0.) But what was the cat up to? Level 14 in godhood rpg

3.) Did Commun stick around for that? Yes
How did that go? Perfectly!
Was Mary there while that conversation happened or not? No

4.) Everyone is going to fight at once!

5.) How was Mary gonna get out of this one? With more violence!
And where was the Nothing? (It wasn't Mary, was it?) Yeah its mary

1.) no

0.)

Felus had always had a reputation as the least effective of the gods. For a start, he wasn't much for raining down wrath, instead preferring to give humans what they wanted.

Except, he could only give it to them as an illusion. A comforting illusion, true, but it was nothing like the real thing. So he wasn't even that good at his own domain. Indeed, many gods had taken it as an insult that somehow he hadn't been wiped out before they had. Perhaps because Malcolm hadn't considered him a real threat.

So they wouldn't have been surprised to learn that he had left a cat flap in the afterlife that any old cat soul could wander in through leading to the very soft cushion that served as the seat of his power. They'd just consider it another way he was too lazy to do his job properly.

Not that I knew any of this when I first stepped through. I just wanted a nap. I hadn't had much luck with averting the apocalypse, and figured it might go better after I had a good rest.

Of course, when I woke up, I was Milton Felus, the new God of Comfort. I was also the god of That Gunk Under Your Desk, The Squeaky Noise Your Chair Makes, and other general worthless things that had been filed to Felus temporarily because nobody else wanted them. And I was aware of this because of the general sense of omniscience one gains upon becoming a god.

It wasn't the rush of knowledge flowing into my simple cat mind that was my most immediate concern, though, or that I was now responsible for Discarded Mattress Covers. It was the fact that I was now aware of nine realities at once.

1.)

Of course I didn't tell her about it. What good could come of it? She'd either go mad with newfound power, or bemoan the loss of who she once was and probably go off on some needless quest to get back to normal. Either way, it would just waste time. Time we didn't have, not with the gods still mad at us and an apocalypse on the way.

Besides, it might encourage her to get into a fight at the Meadowlands. We had enough problems without having to defeat our own army.

2.)

"I am Mary Vindictus, heir to Malcolm! And I have come to lead you out of the false comfort of these Meadowlands, so that we may fight for a better world for us all. A world where no one has to be ashamed of who they love, or the color of their hair. A world where there is nothing to fear but the name of Vindictus. A world where you people have some actual clothes to wear, goddammit."

3.)

I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, Nothing spoke.

"Nothing is greater than the gods," it said. "Nothing can save you. Nothing lasts forever."

The speech carried on in that vein. I couldn't blame Mary for missing it, though the crowd seemed rather impressed.

But that wasn't why I was here. I was here to ask Nothing for a favor, and when the speech finally wrapped up, I stepped to the front of the church and asked it how I could make an appointment with De.

It promised to get back to me later. That went about as well as could be expected, I suppose.

4.)

I waited. And waited. And waited. The whole time, I had a strange feeling that something was the wrong color, but I couldn't quite place just what.

Finally, Nothing spoke.

"Nothing is greater than the gods," it said. "Nothing can save you. Nothing lasts forever."

The speech carried on in that vein. I couldn't blame Mary for missing it, though the crowd seemed rather impressed.

But that wasn't why I was here. I was here to ask Nothing for a favor, and when the speech finally wrapped up, I stepped to the front of the church and asked it how I could make an appointment with De.

Before it could respond, a bolt of lightning struck the church. I had the strangest feeling Mary had gotten herself into trouble.

And of course, I was right. I had gotten myself into trouble. But it was nothing I couldn't handle.

"Pfft. Lightning? That's all you've got?"

I wasn't worried. Greg had been a god of lightning for less than twelve seconds, of course he wouldn't have very good aim. His efforts to turn my heart away from the fight with touching stories of cephalopods finding love hadn't worked much better.

Really, I don't know why he'd insisted on attacking. Adeline wasn't even under his jurisdiction, from what he'd said. But when a god demands a fight to the death, you don't have much choice but to indulge him.

5.)

I could see the confusion on their faces. They genuinely weren't sure what to do. Or perhaps they were thrown off by just how fully they agreed with each other. Or maybe it was that the numbering was off, but then again, they couldn't count anyways.

After a while, they turned to argue, the same argument repeating hundreds of times throughout the makeshift village. Finally, I heard the nearest ones settle.

"All right," said exactly half of the disaffected soldiers. "I'm going to fight her. You can stay back if you're still going to be wishy-washy, but I'm not leaving without a fight."

And the other half just shrugged, and stepped back, in exactly the same way.

Well. Worst case, half an army was still an army.

6.)

I soon saw the less-committed half of each argument grow angrier, nodding along with the litany of complaints about what Malcolm had done and why should we follow his daughter. As one, the soldiers stopped fighting amongst themselves and turned to face me.

This was not going to be easy.

7.)

She'd asked a good question. Why wouldn't I die? It probably had to do with the fact that I was already dead. Or maybe it was related to the numbers and colors being even more off now.

Not that I had a chance to answer her, not before the ground opened up beneath me. I had escaped the battle, but now I had other things to worry about.

Such as the fact that I was staring at the Nothing.

And it seemed afraid of me.

8.)

"Because I am Nothing," I laughed, and flung a startled Commun at her head. "I consumed your queen, and I will consume you all, and I will be the new god of this world."

9.)

I had a headache. At least this time, I was Milton - just not the Milton I had been at the start.

I was starting to understand. These were different worlds, different possibilities. As Milton Felus, I was observing them all, but could not affect them.

But here, in this ninth world, I was Prince Milton, being tended to by mermaids, and too busy sleeping off whatever the hell I had been drinking last night to provide any sort of mental stimulation to the newly-divine cat poking around in my mind.

Prince Milton didn't really understand what a "quantum waveform" was any more than I did, but I didn't need to. I just needed to leave some ideas in this mind that would stick around when the body woke up. Prince Milton would be the observer who would collapse the possibilities into a single option - it was just a matter of making sure they were the right possibilities to prevent the apocalypse.

So what dreams was I going to give myself while I had the chance?

The same dream this adventure started with, ofc

A dream in which you only have one finger so that's as high as you can count

She was dead. And I was holding the gun.

Nobody would believe I hadn't done it. I wouldn't have believed I hadn't done it, if I hadn't seen the real killer with my own eyes.

Not that it made a difference. Even if I didn't look like a murder, no one would believe a story like that. What I saw - what I saw them do - that was nothing short of impossible.

And yet, it had happened.

I had to calm down. There was more at stake here than the matter of my innocence, my failure as a bodyguard, or the assassin's strange abilities. This was no random attack - she had been killed for a reason, and I knew all too well what that reason was.

The negotiations with her home country.

She might have lived here for most of her life, but she knew the language, the customs. She knew it better than anyone. She was our best chance at overcoming their resistance, at avoiding the war.

And I, assigned by the Crown to protect her, had murdered her in cold blood. My own apparent guilt was nothing compared to the ambassador's inevitable conclusion. It would indict our entire kingdom, and ruin whatever chance we had at peace.

In the immediate term, I had only one choice. I had to give myself up. There was a small chance that I could shoulder the blame alone, and spare my nation. My personal suffering was nothing if it could save our people from a long, bloody war.

And yet, whoever was behind this would no doubt consider that a minor setback. They would strike again, rendering my sacrifice futile. Whatever happened to me, I had to do what I could to ensure someone would pick up their trail.

The crowd had turned towards me after the gunshot. They feared what I would do next.

I thought very carefully about what I would say.

"whoops, did any of you see that?"

"You guys aren't some sort of sci-fi hivemind, are you?"

or

"Ok, I know what this looks like, but I have a really bad but actually true explanation for it"

shplilocotae

"Shplilocotae!" I shouted. I hadn't been able to come up with a better idea than just trying to confuse everybody.

"What the hell does that mean?" everyone asked at once like some sort of sci-fi hivemind, but I was already running away.

I had run for a whole ten minutes when I remembered that my initial plan hadn't been to evade the law or chase after the murderer, but to surrender as a last, desperate hope to facilitate peace. And running away didn't really help with that.

Fortunately, nobody had noticed, as they were all blind and still trying to figure out what the hell shplilocotae meant. Unfortunately, they were still so confused that they didn't hear my desperate explanation, apology, and surrender to the authorities.

So I had to come up with an explanation for what the nonsense word I had spouted meant.

With a sawed-off shotgun and a box of nails.

"It means with a sawed-off shotgun and a box of nails," I offered desperately. I was starting to think that I wasn't very good at thinking of things to say.

"That's how you murdered her?" the crowd asked. "It sounded more like a regular gunshot. And where do the nails fit in?"

"Um. I didn't actually murder her, but I'm turning myself in anyways as a show of good faith to the ambassador."

"Well, okay, if you say so," the befuddled crowd replied, "but we still don't understand the nails."

At any rate, I was thrown in jail, the ambassador was contacted and the negotiations went rather smoothly under the circumstances. There would be no war, and they were even fine with allowing me to be released on the basis of insufficient evidence - provided I did their nation a favor.

Or rather, several complicated favors that involved a good deal of traveling around the countryside on various unrelated quests, though they expected some parts of the searches to overlap.

But just as the treaty was about to be signed, the ambassador brought up one last condition.


He wanted some objects held by the gladiators in the Great Colloseum two kingdoms over. I wouldn't have to fight if I was clever about it, he told me.

Of course, I was starting to feel like I wasn't all that clever. Nonetheless, due to the centrality of these quests to a successful peace settlement, I had to be consulted, and so they asked what I thought about this final stipulation.

Approach it emotionally. Don't be afraid to cry, that's how the truth comes out!

And I broke down into tears. I was fairly sure that my father had been killed by a gladiator. A powerful gladiator who I certainly didn't find attractive in any way who had then taken my mother as his prize only to give birth to...

I started to feel like I was getting sidetracked. I couldn't keep my head about it. I decided to just leave it up to fate, and so I asked for a coin to flip in order to settle it.

The ambassador handed me a ball.

You can't use a ball like a coin! Balls don't have two sides, silly!!!

"This isn't a coin!" I protested.

"It is in our nation. And in yours soon, for adopting the Bearing is a condition of the treaty."

"But you can't flip a ball! How is anyone going to decide anything?"

"This is how we decide things back at home. We throw the ball, and if it comes down red, we do what the Emperor says. If it comes down any other color, we do not."

The ball was, of course, red on every inch of its surface. This explained quite a lot about our negotiating partner.

This isn't even the first time this has happened

Suddenly, I was struck by a realization.

Up until I said "Shplilocotae", this whole event had played out identically to that stupid dream that I had read about while sneaking a peek into Mary's stupid dream journal.

Since there was no way something that stupid could happen in real life, it was only logical to conclude that I was dreaming. Although I couldn't imagine why I would bother to dream Mary's stupid dream, of all things.

Regardless, if I was really dreaming, then the consequences for this kingdom of the blind didn't matter. I could respond to the ambassador any way I wanted. Even in ways that didn't make sense.

Turn the battles and adventures into playing cards, and use them like a tarot deck

So I pulled out a deck of cards. It consisted of the quests the ambassador wanted me to go on, and for some reason it also listed several of the battles scheduled at that colloseum.

Once again, acting on impulse hadn't done much for me, because I didn't know what I wanted to accomplish. So, as I had been doing for this entire dream, I followed up on it by acting on impulse again and doing... some kind of tarot reading.

"See, there's a problem with that," I said, putting down Cedric the Bearded versus the Knight of Green Stone next to A Confrontation With The Inner Self and The Search for Clean Water. (What was with these quests, anyhow?) "According to this, if you send me on these missions you intend, you'll meet with ill fortune."

Somehow, he was convinced, or at least the look on his face suggested it.

"You're right. You're right! I can't believe I nearly doomed both our nations like that. Tell me, Sir Milton, what must I do instead?"

I had him right where I wanted him.


So naturally I messed things up by suggesting the first thing that came into my mind.

"You should buy a sweet computer," I said. "Made out of candy."

He looked at me, confused.

"And where might I buy such a thing?"

I'd messed up again, but this time luck was on my side.

bickerpops, ahoy!

"Bickerpops, ahoy!" someone suggested. "His candy may be disagreeable, but he can construct anything from it!"

And so the ambassador bought a computer, whatever that was, made entirely out of candy from Old Bickerpops the candy merchant.

He thanked me, signed the treaty, and turned the computer on.

Suddenly, the world around us changed. Everything was candy. Everyone disappeared except the ambassador and myself, and we were clad in chocolate armor and wielding candy cane lances.

"Now we can settle this properly, knave," he said. "I thought I could assure war by killing your Princess and framing you, but you had to go and surrender. Then I thought I could negotiate a ludicrously favorable treaty, but then you showed me that reading. But now! Now, I can simply destroy you, and that should ensure that nobody in this kingdom can stop us, since they won't actually be able to see us violating the treaty."

This made far more sense than it should have, considering we were armed with candy and somehow inside a machine that I had no understanding of.

So I did the one thing I could do.

best.

I bested him in combat. It was my dream, after all, so my combat skills were unmatched.

Also, he hadn't realized that the computer thing had broadcasted his confession over its speakers, even though they were just lollipops. So everyone knew he was guilty and I was innocent. We negotiated a new treaty with the Empire that was satisfactory to all parties, and I was hailed as a hero. Just like I deserved to be.

Then I woke up and vomited on a mermaid.

The mermaid thanks youu for your offering. free snacks for the babies

Fish out the cat you came down here for

The mermaid thanks youu for your offering. free snacks for the babies

"Thank you very much for the vomit, your highness," she said, bowing.

Fish out the cat you came down here for

"Milton," I said, vomit still dribbling out of my mouth. "Where's Milton? Fish that cat!"

"Fish a cat?" said the mermaid. "That doesn't make sense at all. It'd be like asking me to fire a water. But don't worry, you're right here, honey. It's okay now," said the mermaid.

I nodded. It made a lot of sense. I was there, and it was okay now.

"Your mother wants to speak to you," said she. "She's gone quite mad recently."

"Ah!" I said, standing up on woozy legs. "Bring me my saxophone."

"What?"

"I simply refuse to speak to my mother without my saxophone and that's final."

"Well, I can't go on dry land..." she lied.

"That's okay, I always keep a back-up in the moat. I can wait." I ran my hand through my hair (matting it with puke) and straightened my wet clothes.

Once I had my horn in hand, I went to the monarchical bedchambers, ironing the clothes I was wearing.

"Fuck!" I said.

"Son?" my mother called out from behind about twenty layers of silk and the smoke of fifty incense candles.

"Ow!" I said.

"Son, is that you?" she said.

"Shit!" I said.

"Is that the voice of my son?" she said.

"Ow!"

"Come closer, my beautiful baby boy..."

"Fuckin' shit!"

"My perfect child..." She reached out for me.

I screamed. I had just touched the iron to my crotch, then dropped it on my foot. "What? What is it?" I said.

"Ah, you play the fool, son, but so can I," she said. I put my reed between my lips and started wailing through her monologue. "I have them all convinced, now, that I'm mad. With the queen mentally unfit to rule, the king on campaign, and the princess missing... Now's the perfect time for the rightful king to take the throne, don't you see? I did it for you! I did it all for you! Aren't you listening?!"

I ceased my onslaught of atonal warbling and adopted a deadly-serious look. "Mother, I have something very important to tell you," I said. "I'm a cat. Meow!"

0.

Prince Milton was far too strong-willed and clever for how stupid he was, and I had completely failed to adjust the flow of his dream. (I believe I would require the assistance of an expert, some kind of Subliminal Seducer, if I were to do it and do it right.) None the matter — his simple waking was enough to collapse the waveform so that I could proceed forward. I had time, now, time enough to alter the course of events before Mary arrived in Meadowlands (which, it turns out, is not actually Felus' work at all, but is naturally-occurring.) I would able to make a tenth path, the final draft.

You see, Mary is... incredibly stressed. It's the weight of the crown finally coming to bear on her, it's having died and come back, it's the looming threat of Nothing, it's the death of the woman she loved before they admitted it. She's become much more terse, more brusque, more violent over all her stressors. All this has led Commun not to trust her or even particularly like her.

Now, if she lightened up, they'd get along just great. Mary would take the fingerpaint when offered the first time, and Commun would tell her she was beyond dead, and so, armed with that knowledge, events would play out much differently.

Luckily, destressing someone is exactly my purview (or purr-view, if you will.) But how exactly could I get Mary to relax en route to Meadowlands?

Omg i got tricked

What's more relaxing than an unexpected appearance by MILTON (the beloved family cat)

What's more relaxing than an unexpected appearance by MILTON (the beloved family cat)

The obvious answer popped into my mind. Humans were always calmer in the presence of a feline, and as the new God of Comfort, naturally I would be even more comforting. Not that I saw a need to reveal my new identity; given Mary's encounter with the previous Felus, there was far too much risk that something might go wrong.

So, I suddenly manifested myself near Mary and Commun, where I would surely calm their nerves.

"Oh, look," Commun said suddenly. "A cat. It's adorable, isn't it?"

"Huh, looks just like Milton," Mary said. "Our cat Milton, I mean. Not my stupid half-brother..."

Suddenly, Mary didn't look very relaxed.

"Milton," she growled. "He's had weeks to scheme some way to take the throne."

"Probably months, actually," Commun piped in. "Though it's hard to say, the days are hard to keep track of. I don't think there have been 1,030 of them, though."

"Well, we can't let him get away with that. I have to address the gods as a queen. So we'll have to get the army and march on the castle to make sure they know I'm in charge now."

"Will you at least put the fingerpaint on first?" Commun sighed. "There's too much at stake not to."

But Mary had already rushed up the mountains, and Commun simply ran after her.

Omg i got tricked

I just sat there, trying to process how my plan had failed so thoroughly. I knew Mary and her brother didn't get on well, and I knew I shared a name with him. I should have been able to predict this reaction, yet somehow I hadn't. At first, I wondered if I had been confused by all the realities I had simultaneously observed. But then, when I tried to recall just how it was I had come to the idea of manifesting before her in the first place, I was struck by a startling revelation.

I had been tricked.

The wool had been pulled over my eyes. I had been double dealt and played for a fool. Whether I had been swindled or misled, bamboozled or hoodwinked, the fact remained that I had been taken in and taken for a ride. Someone had deceived me, defrauded me, and deluded me by giving me this idea. I believed that I was trying to achieve one thing, but instead I had done the opposite. It was this outcome that I had achieved instead of the goal that I thought I was accomplishing. The reason for this was that I had been caught and thrown by a hoax.

Whether I felt flabbergasted by how I'd been flimflammed or dumbfounded by how I'd been duped, rocked by how I'd been rooked or confounded by how I'd been conned, now that I'd been outwitted into thwarting my own plans, I had to admit that I had been set up and had one put over on me.

But who could be responsible for this nefarious act of trickery? And what was I to do about it now?

it was none other than chwoka himself

it was none other than chwoka himself

no wait i bet it was that dude greg. fucker's itchin' for a fight, cruisin' for a bruisin'

it was none other than chwoka himself

no wait i bet it was that dude greg. fucker's itchin' for a fight, cruisin' for a bruisin'

i'd guess it was sir nose but it's chwoka's turn to update. that makes him a good guy and he's right out of the whodunnit

can we just lynch chwoka mafia already though guys

it was none other than chwoka mafia himself

so uh, is it fogel's turn to update now? cause this post is my suggestion

Yeah I think it's Fogel's turn to update now. Chwoka used his turn.

Yeah I think it's Fogel's turn to update now. Chwoka used his turn.

dragonfogel sat down to write the order and chaos update, farting and sucking his thumb, with his butt.

"phbbbbbbbbbt," said dragonfogel's stinky farts. they smelled bad

"i agree farts," said dragonfogel, pulling his greasy unwashed hair onto a fork he was spinning and then eating his hair with his mouth that he was also talking with. "let's write an update." he laughed. it was horrible

as he began to type he mouthed along to the words he was writing, at first loudly, but then his eyes scabbed over and he started growing new perfectly-square teeth that pushed the old teeth back further and further until he accidentally chewed open his own throat and after that it was mostly gurgling and when it reached to his upper intestines which were literally cooking themselves thanks to the combination of crystal meth and tums he had taken hours earlier his mangy dog feasted on the entrails that spilled forth and still he kept writing and writing and writining and writing and writng and writing and wirnthng and writing and writng and writing and a writing and writing and writing and writing and witing and writing and a writing and writing and writing and writing and writing and writing and witrting and writing and when he was done he had written the whole entire update you are reading right now, including this part here

no wait i bet it was that dude greg. fucker's itchin' for a fight, cruisin' for a bruisin'

Greg stood up from the bushes he was hiding in and spat at me venomously: "Felus!" (I had no way of knowing this, but Greg had been the saboteur.)

"Milton, actually," I said.

"You sure act like a Felus," he said, and threw a pebble at me. It missed. "What's the big idea, spoiling my big fight like that? Someone's gotta take out the young Vindictus!"

"Maybe I'm still upset about the apocalypse! Maybe I still have some sympathy for my caretaker's half-sister, huh?"

"The apocalypse was called off weeks ago!" Greg nearly shouted. "De never wanted it and now she's the Goddess of Gods! Think, man! God, I nearly had my fucking hands around that Mary Lee's little neck..." Greg leaned on a tree, downed the rest of his Miller Lite, crushed the can, and threw it in the river. "You know she killed her soulmate?"

"Really?"

"How fucked-up is that? Chick had stab wounds and neck bruises. Next, you saw, Mary's just gonna straight-up kill 3,053 ex-military citizens in cold blood. Now, it's not exactly my jurisdiction, but nobody's doing shit about shit about shit about this princess gone wild all over De's say-so."

"Queen," I said.

"Hasn't been fucking crowned yet," Greg said, then burped. "If you wanna fucking help, use your comfort powers to trap her so I can finish her off. Just got the lightning beat." What a dumb idea. I saw Mary take out that army, but Mary couldn't have offed her soulmate.

"Look, I'm sure we can head this off without more violence," I said, diplomatically. "Let me try my strategy one more time, with a little more finesse now, and I'll whistle when I need you, okay?"

"Roger dodger," said Greg, who disappeared.

Little did he know, cats can't whistle.

2.

The trail had gone cold. Once Mary was determined to shake me, there was just no way my aged self could have caught up with her, and judging my the footprints, she had abandoned the riverbank leading straight to what-I-don't-know-is-called-Meadowlands and run into the forest, where pine needles covered her tracks.

But if she was so determined to go rally the army and march right into death in her father's bootprints, why did her own veer off that-a-way?

I wandered through the forest, taking in the sights and sounds, but trying to get into the mind of the queen, so as better to find her.

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

I worked my way through the forest towards the young woman's voice, until I finally pushed through some bushes and found her. She was sitting on one stump in a large clearing of stumps, wearing clothes (a full outfit, ostentatiously enough,) and tearing her hair out of her head in large clumps.

"What's wrong?" said I.

Mary suddenly snapped her gaze to me, eyes like diamond-cutting diamonds. Then she slouched. "Nothing," she sighed, letting her hair slip through her hands and mix with the needles. (She didn't actually mean the Celest and was just being cagey, but then, I didn't know of the Celest and took it the way it was intended in the first place.) "There's just ſo much to worry about. I'm ſuch an idiot — nobody wants to be queen. Especially Milton."

For once, I let the pedantic quibble that Milton would be king, not queen, slide. "Don't you?" I said.

Mary sighed again. Damned moody teenagers. "Maybe I'd like the common life." Frustratingly noncommittal. "I juſt want my ſweet Adeline back..."

Adeline? Was that a girl's name? Boy, was she ever her father's daughter. Gods, did this scene ever bring me back to my own teen years, mopey mood swings and all. Still, I needn't jump to exciting conclusions... It could just be a childhood sled or somesuch?

"Adeline?" I pried.

Mary nodded. "ſhe was —"

"Stop," I said. "That's all I need to know." I sat on a stump and slung my bag over my shoulder, onto another stump, and began to rummage through it. "Now, here's what we're going to do, okay? First, you tell nobody else what you just told me."

"What?" said Mary. "I didn't tell you —"

"It was written all over your face. You were extraordinarily lucky I caught it first." I couldn't think of a way to adequately explain just how lucky it was that it was me, not without telling her about her father... "Scratch that, the troops over in what-I-have-no-reason-yet-to-know-is-called-Meadowlands have always been okay with this sort of thing. It's safe. They can keep a lid on it."

"Keep a lid on—?!" Mary huffed.

"Second," I pulled out a dagger, "you're going to shave since you hate that royal-white hair so much. We'll mud up your eyebrows." Mary accepted the dagger and set it aside next to her. "Then," I pulled out my fingerpaint and brush, "you're going to stop running around naked everywhere." Mary was a little more confused by this, but obligingly applied the fingerpaint. "Then you're gonna take off all your clothes. I'll disguise myself and —"

"Now YOU ſtop for a ſecond," said Mary. "Doing my nailſ and cutting my hair is one thing, but a queen ſimply doeſ not debaſe herſelf like that!"

"Exactly, didn't you say nobody wants to be a queen? Didn't you say you wanted to try the common way? The Commun way, huh?"

There was that icy glare again. I had said something, somewhen, and we were right back at the old Mary. (Maybe it was the pun.) Shame. I could teach her so much if she'd only let me...

"And pray tell, why ſhould Her Majesty hide her love and grief, besides from irritating know-it-allſ like you? Hm? Who doeſ ſhe have to be afraid of? My authority is abſolute!"

"You really like throwing that around when it's convenient," I said. (Now it was just getting nasty.) "But it's not that simple. There's a social contract, a give-and-take with the populace and easily-scandalized nobles that must be appeased, not just threatened, or else you'll be screaming about your authority into a void. It's called FINESSE. You can't just throw a hammer down on every problem and do whatever the hell you like, especially without the manpower to back it up. Even with! Even Malcolm understood this." With my help, naturally.

Mary chewed on nothing. "Malcolm underſtood... what, exactly?" She raised an eyebrow. Shit.

"Politics," I dodged. She laughed. I cringed.

"You're hiding ſomething of your own," she said. "Give it up. Give it up or I won't finiſh painting my nails." She sat down the brush and paint, smirking.

I rolled my eyes.

"Give it up, or I won't go along with the plan," she smiled.

I calculatedly raised my eyebrows, then glanced over to the side nervously. Then, I spoke. "You died a short while ago, no?" I had to give up SOMETHING now.

She nodded apprehensively and slowly.

"And yet, you're not quite UNdead now, are you? Don't you feel better than ever, physically? Even stronger? Have you gotten tired? How long can you hold your breath? Have you even thought to eat in all the days we've been traveling? Have your wounds not healed more than can be ascribed to youth, besides that one on your neck?"

Did I ever have her attention now! "No, no, you're no zombie, no ghost, no animated corpse... Mary, you're one lucky ghoul."

"Doeſ that mean I have to... what, ſuck blood, return to my reſting place, what?"

"No, there are no drawbacks of any kind," I said, telling the complete truth. "Unless you think not aging or dying ever is a curse, but if you asked me if I wanted to be almost-20 forever — ha!"

Mary leaned back. Then, she shot up like a bolt with that glazed-over-yet-determined look in her eyes. "Put away your thingſ," she declared.

"But the plan!" I said.

"That waſ your plan," she said. "This is THE plan." I really ought to have seen that coming. But my distraction had been pulled off so flawlessly I wasn't even mad sweeping the fingerpainting kit and with it another broken promise into my bag.

---

Milton finally caught up with Commun and Mary when they got to Meadowlands.

"I am Mary Vindictuſ, heir to Malcolm! And I have come to lead you out of the falſe comfort of theſe Meadowlandſ, ſo that we may fight for a better world for uſ all. A world where no one haſ to be aſhamed of who they love, or the color of their hair. A world where there is nothing to fear but the name of Vindictuſ. A world where you people have ſome actual clotheſ to wear, goddammit."

The speech went over with a resounding thud. "What's clothes?" someone hollered, to no response.

"The firſt ſtep of any journey is alwayſ fraught with confuſion and trepidation, and thiſ one, more than many. Ladieſ and gentlemen," Mary drew herself up. "I ſay this in all earneſtneſſ: I want you to hit me aſ hard aſ you can. Even if I look dead, keep going. Hack me into an unrecognizable ſlop, you hear? I want to ſee how you work."

Everyone looked at everyone else. A wave of confusion swept through the ranks. Commun broke through the baffled crowd and hustled up to Mary's ear.

"What are you thinking?" he whisper-shouted.

"ſhortcut," Mary whispered. "I forget where I learned thiſ, but in momentſ of tranſcendent pain one becomes cloſer to the godſ."

Commun gave her the side-eye and stepped back.

"Now get to that church!" Mary loudly whispered. Commun obeyed.

"Well?" Mary shouted. "Are you afraid to fight? I promiſe thiſ iſ no manner of trick! The wool haſ not been pulled over your eyeſ! You have been neither double dealt nor played for a fool! Whether you believe you have been ſwindled or miſled, bamboozled or hoodwinked, the fact remainſ that you haven't been taken in, nor taken for a ride. Nobody haſ deceived you, defrauded you, and deluded you by giving you thiſ idea. You believe that I am being duplicitouſ, but inſtead I am being forthright. It iſ thiſ notion to which I have been ſtating plainly inſtead of the ſubtext that you thought that you were ſcrying. The reaſon for thiſ iſ that you have neither been caught nor thrown by a hoax.

Whether you feel flabbergaſted by how you've been flimflammed or dumbfounded by how you've been duped, rocked by how you've been rooked or confounded by how you've been conned, now that you've been outwitted, you muſt admit that you have been neither ſet up nor had one put over you!"

Eventually, the citizens of Meadowlands could be stirred into action. Don't you forget, though, that there were two more non-citizens there other than the gay ones. Milton was excited by his plan working in spite of himself and sabotage, even if not TOTALLY (as was in plain evidence from the half-finished fingerpainting job,) but something deep inside of him cried to protect Mary, even from her own requests for pain without death. His new job, or his old affection? And of course, there was the lurking Nothing, always scheming, probably wishing to make Mary suffer more than pain could...

How were those two going to influence the ensuing bloodbath?

chemtrails