She knew I was from another world.

Crap.

I should have been relieved to find out she was Lilandra Rose because her survival had been something that fans had speculated on ever since Weis had refused to refer to her as anything but the Great Mother. However, the fact was that Garland's mother was probably not someone who would be happy about me running around using her late son's identity. I wasn't voluntarily doing so but people tended to be irrational about these sorts of things.

Ania leapt to my defense. "Aaron may be an overly idealistic, kind of goofy, trivia obsessed idiot but--"

Okay, kind of leapt to my defense. "Ania..."

"But he's a hero!" Ania said, as if the words had a taste. "Sort of! That's because I don't believe in heroes, not because you're not one, Aaron. You're the closest thing we've got."

"Damn," Jon muttered. "I could have done better than that in describing Aaron's virtues. Like, at least mention the guy is a grandmaster at Pwiffle and a good lover."

"He is those, yes," Ania said, embarrassed.

I stared at her. "You don't defend people much, do you?"

"I'm a lifelong cynic," Ania admitted, lowering her head.

Bloodstorm snorted.

Sparky just looked unhappy. "My knight is awesome, and you guys should be good to him. He's like my dad, too, now that he's killed my previous dad."

"I don't think that's how it works, kid," Jon said.

"It is with dragons," Sparky said.

"Great Mother..." Agata started to say something, but I could see it was physically painful to try to talk good things about me. Agata had been married to Garland, despite his being raised beside her (and her cousin-ick), so she held her own biases about the fact I'd usurped his place in the narrative.

"Aaron does not need to justify himself to me," the Great Mother said.

I blinked. "I don't?"

"He doesn't?" Agata asked.

"No," the Great Mother said, looking at me intently. "You are not my son, Aragorn Bartkowski of Michigan, but you rescued me as well as my sisters from the forces of Valentin as well as slew the avatar of Chernabog. You are a Dark Undermaster even if you came by your status as one unconventionally."

"Then I am a Jedi," I muttered.

"First you must confront Vader," Jon muttered. "Only then a Jedi will you be."

Ania clearly heard my statement because she pinched the bridge of her nose as if she was getting a migraine.

"So, the Dragon Queen is dead and replaced by one of Veles' corrupted champions," I said, trying to bring us back to topic.

Futile effort as that may be.

"I'm not sure she's corrupted," the Great Mother said. "It may simply be that the Dragon Queen fell, and she assumed her identity to try to carry on her work. You may know something about that after all."

I wasn't sure I had a response to that. So, I just said, "Yeah."

"Unfortunately, she is blindingly incompetent," the Great Mother said, confusing me.

"What?" I asked, surprised.

"The Great Reversal," Ania said.

"The what?" I asked.

Ania sighed. "It's something after the third of the Wise Man's books. Remember, I've read them. Basically, not long after Garland died but after Valentin turned, the Dragon Queen disappeared for a few weeks. When she returned, she was incredibly reckless and lacking her previous military genius."

"Yeah, we thought she must have bonked her head while flying," Bloodstorm said.

"She alienated allies, burned towns, overextended her supply lines, and succumbed to decadence," Ania said.

"The Mad Queen managed to recover much of her previous strength with the Empire's help. The Imposter Queen would have lost the war within a year if not for the intervention of Francine."

"Francine Dubois," I said, blinking. "One of the other women Garla...err, champions."

Francine "Frankie" Dubois was my former supervisor at Epic DungeoneeringTM and someone I could easily see getting selected to be a fantasy heroine. She was French Canadian, a former college women's basketball player, and a natural leader. A bit on the butch side, Frankie had managed to stand up to the bosses several times and not get fired. I still had a photo of her cosplaying as Sailor Saturn with her girlfriend at the Halloween party five years ago. Frankie's disappearance had been something that had devastated the audience even if we'd all assumed she'd just gotten laid off. Now I was wondering if Epic DungeoneeringTM had been screwing with our heads.

Later, I'd learned from Ania that she had been one of my predecessors as a champion. Indeed, Frankie had apparently made such an impression that she was one of the only previous champions that Ania remembered from before she'd broken the Wise Man's spell. Frankie and Valentin. I got the impression they'd been close, but Frankie had apparently abandoned the quest to slay the Old Gods to join the Dragon Queen full-time.

"Yes," the Great Mother said, "Dame Francine has been her military commander for years now and managed to prevent the Dragon Queen's defeat, at least until now. The city of Kalizov will run out of food in another month’s even with rationing. Then the dream of a more equal society will die with its queen."

"Wait," Jon said, pausing. "Do you know what this means?"

"That we have to rescue Francine?" I asked.

"No!" Jon said. "The Dragon Queen who killed me was probably one of my coworkers! The indignity! For hitting on her, no less! A simple no or even call to HR would have been enough!"

"You hold it more against a coworker at Epic DungeoneeringTM for killing you than a queen," I said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes!" Jon said.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I sighed.

"Francine put the political concerns of the Southern Kingdoms over the survival of humanity," Ania said. "As we say in Ledziania, she's made her bed, she can sleep in it."

I blinked. "Yeah, I don't think that's a purely Ledzianian saying. The thing is we'll need the Dragon Queen's army if we're to fight Veles forces. It's not like we'll be able to convince the Mad Queen to help."

I was possibly being biased. The forces of evil weren't one big happy family, so to speak. Veles had his agents riddling both the Empire and Mad Queen's courts, but he had them in the quote-unquote good guys too. The Mad Queen's forces were, in every way, a superior military in both size as well as training. They also, presumably, had no great loyalty to the god who wanted to kill them all. Convincing the Mad Queen to betray Veles and turn her forces against him would presumably be no harder than getting to turn against her other allies (which the books showed her doing constantly).

But it felt like a crappy thing to do.

The Dragon Queen's armies were made of dwarves, elves, ratkin, and displaced humans who wanted a society that wasn't quite so awful. Slavery was outlawed in Ledziania since the day of the Demigod Kings, but it would be reinstituted if the Southern Kingdoms all became vassals to the Empire. Allying with Stalin to fight Hitler had been the right thing to do but hadn't exactly worked out perfectly for Poland either.

"The Mad Queen must die for Ledziania to live," Agata said, her voice a slow murderous whisper that took me off guard.

It was a reminder how the Mad Queen had tortured Agata during the years after Tomas Rose's murder. Agata had been a prisoner in the capital city and served as the Mad Queen's handmaiden while babysitting the psychotic Prince Cesare. Eventually, the Mad Queen had married her off to her allies.

Agata's forced marriage to Ivan Crookback, the Queen's hunchbacked brother, hadn't been so bad. At least in the context that Ivan refused to touch her and was as much a victim of his sister as anyone else. However, that had not been the case with Radu the Impaler. We didn't need to get into that but you could fill in the blanks about how that had gone.

Ania looked away. "Fine, let's kill her after we use her to win the war."

"Look me in the eye when you say we should help her win," Agata hissed.

"We don't need to help her, she's going to win," Ania said. "You heard it yourself, the Dragon Queen is dead. She's probably in the Hall of Heroes with Garland now."

Agata's stare could have killed Ania.

Even Ania seemed to realize just how awful of a statement that was to Garland's wife. "Dammit. I’m sorry.”

"There may be a third option," the Great Mother interjected. "The Dragon Queen's heir. My granddaughter. The Pontifex or Holy Father of Mithras."

Everyone was suddenly paying attention to her again.

"What?" Agata asked.

"Yes, what," I said.

"Is this a pronouns thing?" Jon asked. "Or a 'titles are male gendered even if the person is a lady'? I can go either way but I need to have it clarified."

Ania knocked Jon off his perch with a smack.

"I thought it was a fair question," Bloodstorm said. "Also, I think it's the title one."

"Yeah, this isn't in the books," I said. "Even as a fan theory. I know that Princess Celestyne had a baby with her husband, Temujin, but they died in childbirth."

"They did not," the Great Mother said. "The midwife witch, Malat Zul-Barbas, stole the baby as hags are wont to do. However, realizing she was a quarter of Perun's blood, she sold the child to Lords Centurion and claimed it was stillborn. It was lucky for Celestyne despite Malat's eventual betrayal, because the child shared none of Temugin's features."

"I have a niece?" Ania asked, still thinking of Garland as her brother.

The Great Mother ignored her. "The child was raised in a convent of Mythras' Warrior Sisters and displayed the ability to work miracles from an early age. This was before the Emperor banned women from practicing even white sorcery. Last year, the Old Pontifex named her as his successor on his death bed. It was affirmed by a slim majority of High Priests furious at the Emperor's decrees. The Emperor immediately declared the appointment invalid and named an Anti-Pope in young Joan's place. Joan and her followers escaped to Ledziania with the help of the Sisters despite our historical antipathy."

"Joan?" I asked, blinking. "She's Pope Joan?"

That's a historical joke that would take way too long to explain. Google it.

Jon looked bored. "Can we get back to slaying monsters and leveling up? I'm getting bored with all this needless backstory and politicking. Especially since Weis ripped off like ninety percent of it. The remaining ten percent is probably stolen too but I just don't recognize from were."

"So, she's a fourteen-year-old girl," I said. "Who is in exile. How does that help?"

"She is the heir of the Dragon Queen and the spiritual leader of the Empire's faithful," the Great Mother said. "Many of the warrior cult believe Constantine the Black overstepped his authority by interfering with temple business. If presented to the armies at Kalizov, it is probable half of them will side with her over the Mad Queen. With the Dragon Queen dead and the imposter exposed, you could bring an end to this war overnight."

It sounded like an incredibly risky plan with almost no chance of success. "I'll do it!"

"Yes!" Sparky said, stomping one foot down. I swore the entire room rocked. "Save the princess! This is real Dark Undermaster stuff!"

"I don't recall us agreeing to this," Ania said, sounding far less confidant than she normally did. "She's a tool of the Empire and probably doesn't even remember her parents."

"She's family," Agata said. "Even if she's not mine."

My bracelet pinged.

MAIN QUEST(S) UPDATED:

RESCUE THE POPE, WHO IS A LITTLE GIRL 0/1

Rewards: 25,000 EXP, Robes of the Grand Cleric, Hat of Faithfulness, Staff of Mythras

"Well now we have to," I said, pointing to the bracelet. "It says so."

"I think we should talk about you listening to magical items for advice," Jon said. "You already have a pair of evil swords."

"I'm not going to go Gollum," I said, like ninety percent sure that was true.

"That's not what I'm worried about," Jon said. "I'm seeing you as way more Peter Parker and the Venom suit. You'll get seduced by the power and instead of going evil, just become sort of an asshole and that's my role in the group."

"This is true," Sparky said.

"In the comics, the Venom suit made Peter weaker rather than stronger," I said. "This is totally different."

"Dude if you start dancing down the street and gelling your hair, I'm calling an exorcist," Jon said, "Or Reed Richards."

"She is presently a prisoner of Radu the Impaler," the Great Mother said, her voice lowering. "In Castle Bloodmoon."

A silence passed over the entirety of the group. Castle Bloodmoon was one of the less successful video games produced by Epic DungeoneeringTM. It had been pretty successful for a smaller studio, but my bosses had devoured its publishers before ruining it with unneeded multiplayer as well as microtransactions.

It was a Lovecraftian meets Gothic Horror game where the goal was to reach the castle's center to face the Vampyre King. There had been rumors that Larry C.C. Weis had been a consultant on the game, but it was shocking to find out that it was yet another "real" video game. Seriously, why were all the real video games horrible? Why couldn't Star Dew Valley or an anime dating simulator be real? I'd even accept Life is Strange and that was a hipster murder mystery franchise.

Agata stared in horror and her eyes narrowed at the Great Mother. "She's been a prisoner of that monster, and you've let us rest here for a week? Are you mad?"

The South Asian priestess stepped between Agata and the Great Mother. "You shall show respect, priestess. Especially given your oath-breaking."

Agata had broken her oaths to Mokosh, though not in a way typical of priests. Rather than Agata sleeping with someone and not being chaste, she'd broken her oath by marrying Garland and wanting to be faithful. Mokosh priestesses were supposed to spread it around and fidelity to one lover was a major no-no.

Ledzianians, am I right?

"I agree," Ania said. "If a little girl is in the hands of the Impaler, she's probably insane, dead, a vampire, or some combination thereof by now."

"Really empathic there, Ania," Jon said. "I give you high marks for reassurance. Like, 2.3 out of 10."

"Yes, even Jon thinks that was cold," I said, appalled by her behavior.

The Great Mother raised her hand as if to silence everyone in the room. "Her holy power will hold Radu at bay for a time. But you should move quickly if you are to rescue her. Do I have your oath you will try?"

"Sure," I said, frowning. "But how do you know all of this?"

"The Wise Man," the Great Mother said. "He has resumed his conversations with his allies and sharing information. Apparently, you beat Veles in a card game and reopened the long-abandoned channels."

"Who says Pwiffle is a waste of time?" Jon said, raising a wing in the air. "High five."

"It came at a price, though," The Great Mother said. "The Wise Man never does anything without demanding favors in return."

"No kidding," Ania muttered, clearly not happy with the way this conversation had gone.

"What was the price?" I asked.

The Great Mother stared. "You have to meet with him in person."

I wasn't looking forward to speaking with Weis again since my last meeting had gotten me dimensionally transported. "Alright, I guess I agree--"

I was cut off by the Great Mother waving her hand over my face. I blacked out seconds later.