A quick sword-slice through her neck, or split straight down the skull, or cleaved diagonally from collarbone to waist, or impaled through the heart from behind, or force-fed the sword from mouth to bottom like a human spitroast, or two tasteful zig-zag chops from each side, or a switcheroo from the sword to an extended dagger humiliation by repeated stabbings to the face, or dragged by the dreadlocks around the sand of the arena while being kicked to a pulpy, toothless death by a knight’s cruel boot…
The defeated Third Gate waited kneeling at the arena’s edge, but these deaths she fantasised, the gory send-off secretly desired by any religious martyr, never came.
Confused, she turned.
Behind her, the knight had stalled. He had his zweihander raised at a measured distance - not too close to steal, not so far that he couldn’t strike her down before attempting any other tricks.
She inspected him with wonder as to why he hadn't finished. His eyes through the visor of his helmet were concentrated, his posture fidgety with adrenaline.
Suspicion? Her instructions may have triggered suspicions. Not his fault - she was, like any student of The Cripple's duelling art, prone to exhausting repetitions of false defeats hiding turnaround victories.
–FuzzyGirl35: No tricks this time, brother knight. You won. Finish this bitch-ness in style!
She turned back again, reassuming her posture of prayer. “The Gates no more obstruct your path, O Chosen One! Divide this servant’s metal limbs corroded by the storms of duty! Divide them, and be admitted!”
But her amateur stage partner, again, missed the cue.
Justinian, not relaxing his guard until the end, finally addressed her. “If this is your submission, Lady Sorceress, then satisfaction has been filled. I can do without the additional glory of smiting an unarmed woman.”
The Third Gate snapped back, a lightning flash of hatred blazing in her eyes.
This absurd response, refusing her proper send-off—not even a quick, tasteful prick through the spine—threw her into an internal fit and panic.
So much effort to salvage her loser story, yet this bastard knight was still spoiling it. A mercy ending, in 2050 - no audience cared for this PG-7 garbage. These had been outdated and lame even coming from Uncle PLH, heavens bless his friendly heart. The collective had long moved on to a more righteous era, in which it was understood by all that one’s foes should be euthanised just like the flea-infested dogs they were.
A memorable death - this was basic etiquette for a roleplayer. It didn’t matter if his character abided by some chivalric knight code. She was owed her death, and Justinian’s failure to deliver would subject her to even greater humiliations. What was she supposed to do now? Stand up, brush off her knees, and keep sermonising about the apocalypse as she walked away politely, as she passed through security inspections to exit, as drunk morons in the crowd pelted her with sandwiches?
What a toad, she thought. Maybe The Cripple had really converted him into an anti-roleplayer…
While fuming thus, she covertly checked about her. The corner of her vision landed on their officiator in a high-chair overlooking the arena. They should have been announcing her defeat - the five minutes of their match had expired, and she’d lost by points. But this dickwad, this oblivious flick of The Cripple’s snot, wasn’t watching either. Their head was stooped over a stream of their master’s duel.
A small bite of regret stung her upon discovering this - she could’ve won by cheating.
The knight didn’t seem to have noticed that their match had ended yet. Wondering if she might cheat before he did, she made a quick mental review. Alas, all seemed impossible from her current kneeling position. Our heroine was still a certified loser.
Irritated, she rotated from her posture of prayer to face Justinian, and she placed her hands upon her thighs like a devotee listening to the wisdom of a master. Her movements were cautiously monitored by the knight, ready to impale her at any suspicious moment – yet, most frustratingly, not doing so.
She demanded an explanation in mystical sarcasm. “Humble be the martyr to receive her death and torture, then humble must she be enough for the greater curse of life and tenderness. Very well, Dispenser of Immortality, Charitable Knight,” she emphasised the starting letters, “as I am to stay a captive in this unwanted flesh, then so be I your captive audience. Weasel through those bars, once of The Gate but now a cell, the wisdom from Above that seems to me Below, this higher virtue you’ve discovered in the murdering of one’s own vows yet not one’s enemies. Reveal the obscure mercy in your mercy, O Beneficent Imprisoner, O Torturer with Christly Heart!”
By encouraging him to blabber, she hoped to buy some time for brainstorming how to redirect this flop-show into a proper ending.
Resource-wise, everything necessary to fraud a death was available. She always kept a couple bloodpacks tucked around her person, as recommended for any improviser. In addition, in the manner of The Strategy, she had three daggers and several vials of poison.
The main challenge was how to weave these into an organic demise. She strongly preferred it to appear as if the knight had killed her - suicide endings had gone out of fashion in Saana II due to the realisation of their fundamental narcissism, a more socially-conscious individual preserving their body for friends to murder glamorously.
Justinian actually did have something to say to her, for which reason she’d been spared in addition to his code of chivalry. Still wary of stunts, he replied only after a lengthy deliberation, and, when he did so, it was not in the usual tone of knightly command but—clashing with his avatar—in the deferential voice of an Indonesian teen.
“There is a point,” he said, speaking in a choppy fashion with micro-pauses for monitoring between each utterance. “But I can’t express it in character. The multi-tasking’s too much.”
The reply also clashed with his sword and his gaze. Both were still locked in absolute concentration, like someone defusing a bomb. In the knight’s head ticked the bodily threats of his opponent, the placement of her hands, the telegraphing muscles of the waist and shoulders.
The Third Gate's instinctual response was one of horrified disdain.
Yes, the multi-tasking was difficult. And if she’d just broken character herself whenever the acting had become too burdensome, she would never have lost this series. But what would be the point of such a hollow victory? A medal in some stupid amateur tournament would not redeem one after losing the deeper, more substantial battle of the soul. Hell, her entire RP beef with the knight had been about the short-sightedness of this trade.
That was her instinctual response. Beholden to a higher cause, beholden to the drama beyond herself and to its iron law of ‘Yes, and…’, she prostrated herself forward and kissed the soil on which this undeserving traitor spat.
“O Preferred Uniter, O Kindred of Everywhere, it is not just as these knightly feet that I do bow. All twenty toes of yours are chosen to step through The Gate and to stamp to dust this world’s despotic shadow, and it is likewise both your voices that are chosen, for only with the volume of our cries conjoined might we stir awake the sleeping Light of Revelation! So, speak loud against The Night, O Knightly Friend! Speak loud with either tongue, for, in The Day You Rouse to Come, they both are One!”
Justinian listened to this waft in confusion. He couldn’t understand the mystic’s original narrative, let alone this bizarre turn into praise. What registered was only the derisive undertones, which he attributed to the resentment of defeat.
“Yeah, well, Lady Sorceress,” he said, some character habits too ingrained, “there have been a lot of heated accusations thrown around. Regarding the sword. Accusations of betrayal.”
The Third Gate repeated her bow. “Of all accusations, this wretch confesses her own guilt alone, for their untruthfulness I now have glimpsed!”
Justinian, puzzling over this random agreement, gripped his sword tighter.
The Third Gate—pausing in case of a suspicion kill, not receiving it—explained. “As your master and a former sage once taught, ‘It is proclaimed in the East that “Only truth is victorious”, yet a sage proclaims that “Only in victory is truth”. From the sage who silenced both these hyper-noob sages with an EZ beating, I say, “For you who wish to proclaim immortal truths, first claim immortal victory.”’ And so to you—Knight of The Immortal Victory, Knight of The Immortal Truth—I bow, as one day must bow all beaten sages.”
Justinian still wasn’t completely getting it. “Ah, yeah, well, that sounds...hmm. All respects to the sages - that’s a terrible basis for determining facts. Anyway. To me, those accusations have been quite unfair and hurtful. It’s not so much that the sword has been ‘betrayed’. I’ve just come to a recognition that the situation around the sword is hopeless. That my vow to it has been obstructing me from things of much greater priority. Although, recognition, might be the wrong framing. The problem is something I’ve understood. For a while. At some level. Hard not to, stuck here, repeating my embarrassments for months.” He slashed with his sword, severed her hand as it snuck out a dagger moved during her earlier bowing, golf-whacked the falling weapon out of the arena, retreated to his guard, and resumed his thread. “Due, in much part, to the inability to admit that the sword is a lost cause. Recently, when God was directing me on this new arena path, the problem seemed cracked. My clinging against all logic to the sword lay in what it’d granted access to. To opportunities for heroism. To the meeting of many new companions. To this symbolism of their defence represented by the sword.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
The Third Gate—roleplaying the pain of her regrown hand, frustrated at not losing more—wondered if this kid was an autistic savant - all reaction speed no brain. He’d only just realised that the main point of their hobby was socialising. Uncle PLH had gifted the world this teaching aeons ago, revealing how the quest for friends lay in the heart of all mankind’s most desperate actions. To not know such a basic truth, this knight really was an apprentice of the socially-infirm Cripple.
But she bowed humbly again. “Higher than The Way of Solitude is The Way of Friendship, higher and more obscure. Even in solitude is Friendship higher. Should ever we discover it beyond the mists of material attachments, we’ll learn, to our distress, that we are only one.”
Justinian, vaguely, understood this as agreement. “Yes, well, this focus on the positive externals of the sword is still incomplete.”
“A Way Beyond The Way of Friendship?”
“Sir Henry lectured on a missing motive. For my own issue with the sword. While anointing my equipment. The motive still, admittedly, eludes my entire comprehension. But, however shoddily I might express it, it might be of value to yourself. Trapped in what appears to be a similar state of…” he paused, struggling against an instinct, “…of hardcore roleplay.”
Hearing the word ‘roleplay’, The Third Gate sneered, repulsed by this fourth-wall-shattering faux pas, not to mention the offer of this second-hand turd of a teaching, shat out from The Cripple’s arse, consumed by this brown-mouthed knight, and now shat out again.
It tested her roleplay convictions to their fullest to bow once more.
“False!” she cried. “False may be the lessons of The Betrayer Gate, yet in your sincere heart, O Chosen of The Union, O Nobleness’s Tutor, all tin of his transmutes to gold and all poison filters into Life’s celebrating wine. Speak on, and in your wisdom, might this sinner drink and shine.”
“Right…well….how did Sir Henry describe the sword? Ah, ‘a trash mini-game within this trash game’. As in, the sword, like a game, carries with it both internal challenges and rewards. Some of these rewards are more real. Such as the victories granted by the sword’s particular strengths. Or life lessons in discipline and honour. Other rewards are more artificial. The sword creates a problem, like all the impractical fights in which a shield might help. Overcoming this self-created problem bestows a sense of relief. That relief is confused for a reward. It bundles itself with any real rewards. It makes them appear bigger.”
He took a while to process an already difficult thought, one which he’d been wrestling with throughout the weekend. “That unreality…that pointlessness of the problem is the essential lesson. Sir Henry likened it to gambling or a drug addiction. Or mountaineering – for some reason. These behaviours are inexplicable because we concentrate too much on the peak of the experience. Even the addict conceives themselves this way. Only as chasing the high. But it’s not the high, per se. From an outside perspective, we can see that the addict, even at their best, is worse off than the rest of us. ‘A half-blind, ever-declining creature’. Their sense of ‘high’ is a distortion. It’s an illusion from experiencing far more frequent and severe lows that are built into the addiction. The full condition of the addict is only apparent when the totality is perceived. The compulsion is the whole cycle of movement. Up and down. A roller coaster. The addiction’s inflated sense of a high is reached from its self-created low. The addict, in this view, is as much addicted to their losses as their wins. And the true power of the worst addictions is that. More than the high, they manufacture enthralling losses. Superior losses than what’s available outside the false game of relief imitating reward. That’s the part that’s hard to see. People seek out defeat.”
He nodded, accepting the charge upon himself. “That’s been the sword. My absurd vow to it. The tests and demonstration of ‘honour’ are nothing but an unnecessary challenge. The sword has created losses out of fights that would otherwise have been trivial. Even if…” He stopped, mentally handwaving a justification, although the sword in his grip held constant. “My vow to the sword has been a vow to lose. In making this vow, I’ve betrayed the first and primary function of the sword. That is, to win a fight. The sword has alienated me even from that most basic goal. Let alone the things beyond. The reasons a knight fights. Those become obscured by the fixation of the sword.”
His thoughts skipped several points, returning to the mystic’s accusations. “Sir Henry anointed my equipment. After explaining all that. He claimed that, whatever the absurdity of calling a shield ‘a sword’, the technique would be valuable in transitioning out of the greater absurdity. He assigned me the duty of making the absurdity authentic. Of transferring to this wider kit the aspects of the sword that I’ve been bound to." With three quick swipes, he flicked aside a vial of poison slipping from the wrist of the mystic's rags, a second vial pulled straight after from her breast, and a third from her other wrist. "Of rediscovering in them the aspects of the sword that I’ve neglected and forgotten. These are components of the first step. In this, the sword must be negotiated with and everything contrary to it accepted on its terms. Later, in a sign of reversal, the sword might be accepted on the new terms of the expanded armament. According to Sir Henry, an appreciation of that subtle difference wouldn’t click until later. Not until after breaking free from the sword’s dissent. He may well be correct. But…but my heart says I’m already beyond whatever difficulty he’s sharing from. My own re-orientation of the sword is complete. It occurred, even if I lacked the smarts to express it, when God himself first shone his radiant light of approval on the arena. The phase of difficulty, the phase of regret - these, as phases, have passed. In this fuller armament, in the discarding of false vows that the Lady Sorceress calls treachery, the fundamentals of the sword are already manifest. They’re operating at a level of action far beyond the sword’s self-defeating capacity. Yet, while recognising all this, recognising the sword as a deficient tool, I hold no resentment against it. In exchange for the period it has captured me, it has delivered me here. To this moment. On this stage. With these skills. With these people and these knightly values.
“Far from a mistake, my sentence with the sword shines with a halo of destiny and miracle. A necessary trial of purgatory. It has hammered out my faults. It has refashioned of my soul a lighter, subtler, sharper weapon. The sword being born inside me aims itself at higher vows, vows that transcend mere roleplayed performance.”
The Third Gate, listening attentively, had been reflecting on this monologue from several angles.
Justinian’s concentration, closing her off throughout from several underhanded moves, had caused him to miss the exterior happenings. There’d been a sharp eruption of boos, cheers, and cackling from the crowd, as The Cripple must’ve beaten Emerson Miller in the other arena with a comedic finisher. She and Justinian had both subsequently been messaged by their unobservant officiator, apologising and inquiring who’d won. To buy time for her narrator to fill in the audience released from The Cripple’s monopoly of attention, she’d feigned ignorance, responding that they’d timed out and sending in a recording for a points review.
As for the content of the knight’s lecture, he seemed to have picked up more than just a shield and dagger from his new master. His tone reminded her of the derangement that’d infiltrated The Cripple’s recent, post-return monologues. It was rambly and cryptographic in a much less calculated way. The speaker seemed to dive so far into an obsession that they lost touch and forgot to articulate their original point.
The knight’s point, thanks to her studies of the master’s obscure writings, was still easily apparent. The sword—as much a literal weapon clung to by the knight in accordance with that bizarre, unrecognised connection between him and The Cripple—was also a synecdochical device. It substituted for the knight’s hardcore roleplay, and, through a renunciation of that ‘sword’, he was criticising her own roleplay, accusing her of likewise gaining an asinine addiction to the losses caused by the extra demands of her craft, one of which might include this very match.
A persuasive argument against the problematic vice of roleplay? Far from it. She, a better-educated student of his master, also perceived the core deception.
The absurd name change of Justinian’s equipment, and the deeper logic of transformation, happened to be a lazy plagiarism from The Cripple’s earlier Second-Gate sermons on the 1vMany. In those, a similar case had been made to his cult members, originally student duellists invited to an island bootcamp. As he’d schooled them in a radically different type of combat from what had been promised—how to ‘duel’ multiple people a.k.a. ‘The 1vMany’—he’d insisted throughout that what they were learning was not only still duelling but duelling’s superior form, the natural spiritual progression of beating up one person being to beat up multiple. Time, of course, would eventually expose the trick. The cult’s true purpose was to train guerillas in the larger schema of jihad, The Cripple having moved on from duelling in his boredom to warfare.
Justinian, convinced of his transcendence to a higher state of swordsmanship and knighthood, reincarnated that old scam, repurposed in his case to bypass the handicap his vows had posed for The Cripple’s earlier team tournaments. The knight, like everyone, was just another manipulated tool in the juggle.
Offended by the deception, offended by losing to this brown-nosed sycophant, FuzzGirl35 broke a little from her role of submission.
“For once,” she said, “I meet a paradox beyond my own, a faith that reconciles the irreconcilable. In this,” she waved her hands around the arena, gesturing, beyond the carnage of ravaged monsters, at the advertising banners hanging from the stands outside, at a group of prostitutes in bikinis rushing out for a commercial intermission, at the slobs of the audience burping and yelling to vendors to bring them more buckets of over-priced slop to inhale. “In this tournament, you, with Justice in your name, instruct is the transcendent cause that justifies betrayal. We will find a more authentic crusade upon a dressed-up stage, and the sharpest manifestation of our sword should be to let it rust, to re-vow ourselves, with fuller hands but empty souls, as swords for a crusade of coin and spectacle.”
Justinian—who in the pause of her deliberations had finally noticed the noise of the crowd, the elapse of their duel, and his victory—lowered the guard of his sword.
He gave a sigh of relief, and his helmet, desummoning, unveiled an ear-to-ear grin.
Although dwarfed by the feats of another, for himself, it’d also been a monster of a weekend. His stamina had been tested across four categories, with prior victories in the 3s, 6s, and 50s on Sir Henry’s teams after the last-minute change. Those wins, however, gifted as they’d been by another, would not equal the second medal of this solitary event, which had been hard earned after taking out first the pro and now this even tougher madwoman. He could be proud of this.
As the pressures of combat and the weekend lifted, he might’ve returned to his knightly character, but the thought didn’t even occur. His sword had passed.
“My renewed vows aren’t to a tournament,” he corrected the mystic, still embarrassing herself in her blindness.