Chapter 9: En Passant
“So DM, did Emperor Noah grant you the right to punish Karen Burger as the reward for your role in preventing the rebellion over there?”
DM had the morphling shake his head back and forth at the king’s question. “…No, I do not believe it was intended to be a reward. He did offer to reward me for my assistance and asked what I wanted.”
The king took a deep breath. “What did you request?”
“…Two things. The first, he readily granted. …The second, he has not decided yet as far as I know.”
“And they are?”
“…Control of the Empire’s dungeons to establish training facilities for adventurers as well as exemption from taxation. …The second is…”
The king raised his eyebrows, waiting for DM to decide how to word his answer.
“…To change the name of many of the Empire’s cities.”
“Change their names…?” the king trailed off.
“…Yes. Many of their cities have overly similar names, and they sound dumb.”
A few people in attendance laughed, likely familiar with the Empire’s strange city names.
“I… I see.” The king recovered quickly. “As for tax exemption, I know you previously expressed interest in such matters. How about this: If you defeat me in chess, I’ll direct the Prime Minister to make the arrangements.”
“…And if I lose?”
“Oh? You’re so worried about losing? Have you been monitoring me, perhaps, and keeping track of my progress in chess?”
“…No. I have no idea what to expect.”
The king turned to the Prime Minister. “Tell him.”
The Prime Minister cleared his throat. “His Majesty has been shirking his responsibilities in order to practice chess all day long every day.”
“Wha!?” The king pointed at the Prime Minister and turned his head towards the guard captain. “Off with his head!”
“Before or after the chess match?” the captain asked.
“Gods, before please,” the Prime Minister answered on behalf of the king.
“Bah.” The king shifted in his seat. “As you can see, DM, there’s no need to worry about threats from me. I’m not strong enough to hurt you and my subordinates won’t listen to me anyway. Just play your best.”
DM had a feeling he shouldn’t take the king’s word at face value, but he also doubted the king would seriously punish someone just for losing in chess. “…Very well.”
The king nodded to a man standing near the entrance, who exited the room and returned a few minutes later with a small crew carrying an oversized chess board and matching pieces. They set up the display in the space between DM and the king. “By royal decree, matches between the king and his guest shall be conducted via announced moves.” The board wasn’t quite large enough to use actual people as the pieces. Perhaps the idea hadn’t occurred to anyone yet.
DM noticed the white pieces were facing the king. “…Do we need to choose who goes first?”
“Hm? Does it matter?” The king turned to his Prime Minister who shrugged.
“…The player who moves first has a slight advantage, although I’m fine playing either role.”
“Ah, that does make sense. Very well. Let us think of a method for choosing—”
A small group of men stormed into the throne room, inadvertently interrupting the king.
The king just tilted his head, waiting for them to announce their intentions.
“Sire, you asked us to report as soon as we finished our investigation of the gift!”
“Investigation!?” the king barked back. “Choose your words better, fool! I did not order an investigation of our guest’s present. I merely instructed you to inspect it closely so you could return here and describe it to me in detail! Since it’s too large to bring into the throne room!”
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“M–My apologies, Your Majesty!” The man and his several aides all lowered their heads.
“Well? Now that it’s cleared up, explain. Choose your words a little more carefully, especially in front of our guest.”
“Yes, Sire. As originally reported, it is a horse-drawn plow. Its construction is unlike anything I’ve seen. Before returning here, I spoke with a few of my colleagues, but they all answered the same way. From a blacksmith’s perspective, it is remarkable. Not only is it complex, but we are eager to test its effectiveness because we think it will excel.”
The king nodded. “I see. Thank you DM for the thoughtful gift. May I ask how you obtained it?”
“…I was able to construct it using tools in my dungeon. If provided with adequate iron, I may be able to make more in the future, at least until your blacksmiths gain the ability to reproduce it.”
“Well, first we should test it. After the blacksmiths have had adequate time to inspect the object at length, I permit bringing it to a nearby farm for testing. Is that of concern to you, DM?”
“…No. In fact, please accept this document.” The morphling removed the pages from his pocket and handed it off to a guard. “…It contains suggestions for how to use these plows. My hope is that the new plow design will allow you to expand your farming regions to places previously unsuitable and become a large exporter of surplus crops.”
“I… I see.” The king accepted the document while most of the observers in the room looked wide-eyed. “Hm.” The king skimmed it. “This looks promising. Here.” He handed it off to the Prime Minister. “Read it and give me your thoughts later.”
The Prime Minister nodded and accepted the document. As the king prepared to resume the chess match, DM noticed the Prime Minister reading the document much more carefully than the king had. The elderly man narrowed his eyes and scrutinized the content quite carefully.
“DM, since you brought such a wonderful gift, I’m delighted to allow you the benefit of going first. Let us turn the board around.”
Once the board was repositioned, the king wished DM good luck and welcomed him to announce the first move. Fortunately, the kingdom seemed to be using similar notation for announcing moves as DM was familiar with and had taught to Daphne and her party all those days ago.
“…D4.” DM opened with the queen’s pawn opening. A helper moved the chess piece to the square DM announced.
“D5.” The king responded immediately, symmetrically matching his opponent’s pawn. The crew scrambled to keep up with the rapidly-announced moves.
“…C4.” The queen’s gambit. A famous opening in chess, but probably not one that had seen much use yet in this world.
[https://i.imgur.com/BCwuITI.jpg]
Of the multitude of people watching, a few seemed to be quite familiar with chess already. Several of them gasped. DM wasn’t sure if their overreaction was because they had never seen a serious player offer to sacrifice a pawn so early in the game or if they were surprised by how DM made the unusual move without even needing to pause and think.
“What is the meaning of this?” the king asked.
“…I mean no offense. The intent of the move is to increase control over the center of the board, although I temporarily yield a material advantage to the opponent.”
The king crossed his arms and stared at the board. For a good five minutes, the room was silent as he thought about his move. After all, there was no timer. “I won’t take the bait. E6.” The king chose to defend his pawn rather than capture DM’s exposed pawn. “What do you think of that?”
“…A solid choice. Declining my gambit is a valid move. …The only drawback is that your pawn is now in the way of the light-squared bishop, but the game is even at this point. Knight F3.”
As the helpers worked to lift DM’s knight over the pawns and place it at its new home, the king frowned at DM’s last answer. He asked another question.
“Why are you able to choose your next move so fast?”
“…I consider this opening sequence to be a standard opening and have the moves memorized.”
More murmurs from the chess-knowledgeable observers.
“I see. Knight F6.” The game continued evenly. Neither player gave an inch until late in the game, specifically on move 32.
DM captured his opponent’s pawn to prevent it from making it all the way to the back rank and promoting; however, the pawn was backed up by the black queen. When the queen captured DM’s pawn, it checked DM’s king as well. DM was forced to move the king out of the way and yield initiative.
The king did not fail to capitalize. He improved the positioning of his remaining pieces while DM pushed forward on the kingside. Then, the king made a pawn move which surprised DM.
“G5. Check.” The flesh-and-blood king had launched his pawn forward two spaces, attacking DM’s king.
[https://i.imgur.com/THG7qfP.jpg]
DM’s choices were to retreat with his king, attack with his king, or one other seldom-used move.
“…F takes G6. En Passant.”
The crew moving pieces around turned to stare at the morphling, unsure of what piece to move or where to move it. “Sir, what is the move?” one of them asked.
“…Pick up the pawn on F5 and move it to G6. Remove the pawn on G5 from the board.” Essentially, DM was describing a pawn capture like this:
[https://i.imgur.com/xWTcla8.jpg]
The king gestured for the chess crew to wait. “DM, that is not a legal move.”
“…En Passant is a legal move to prevent a player from bypassing an enemy pawn by jumping the pawn forward two spaces.”
“Hm.” The king brought his hand to his chin. “I see some logic in that, although that information was not provided by the Twin Cities.”
“…It is necessary for the move to be legal.”
“DM, if the move is so important, then why do none of us in Ereacht know of this move?” The king looked around the room and several people nodded in agreement.
“…Probably, the adventurers I first taught the game to forgot this rule when they conveyed the design of the game to the Twin Cities.”