MEKNA GAZETTE

DAY 3 OF SPRING, YEAR 2023

ALL HAIL OUR NEW QUEEN… MOMO?

Written by Kelly Kraken

Very unusual reports have spread throughout the kingdom’s newsrooms today. Riding on the heels of what Nether meteorologists are calling a cataclysmic cloud fall comes the assassination of the Prince, and the retreat of King Jarva into the Barium Sea.

This startling retreat, first reported by our very own newsroom, was something we at the Mekna Gazette witnessed from mere feet away. One minute we were enjoying a clam brunch at the Squawking Gull Cafe, the next we were watching in horror as the Knights of the Sun raided our ports and stole off with our ships, our crew, and thousands of banknotes worth of goods and contraband.

It was an unprecedented theft by the government of its people. One never before witnessed in the history of our little sea-side town.

Which is why we, the Mekna Gazette, stand proud as the first in the newly declared Queendom of Morgana to recognize her Queenship Momo the Ripper, Disciple of Valerica, First of Her Name. She requested we simply refer to her as Momo, and nothing more than Momo – what humility! Jarva could never. What a welcome breath of fresh, necromantic air.

I know many of you out there in the kingdom do not share my sentiment. Okay, maybe is a bit of an understatement – most of you are aghast at this news. The polls don’t lie. Two days after ascending the throne, the new Queen has an abysmal approval rating of just 7%. And 5% of those votes were cast by undead voters.

She has a steep hill to climb, to say the least.

As a reaction to the new Queenship, ex-members of Jarva’s Expert Holy Knights Brigade have taken up a new banner: The Holy Resistance. The Holy Resistance has formed camps throughout the continent, riddling the land with dissent against the new Necro-Ruler. They are actively recruiting sympathetic citizens to join them in their effort to recapture the capital from Momo’s feral, undead army.

Of course, you might be wondering what this change in regime means for you, citizens of Mekna and beyond – tax breaks for not-yet-deceased workers? New regulations on if your buried relatives can be drafted into the undead army? Don’t worry, Kelly Kraken is no sell out. I remain dedicated to the truth and solely the truth, which is why I asked Queen Momo’s representative chancellor, Excalibur Bauble, the hardest hitting questions I could muster. Those answers lie… behind this paywall!

If you’d like to read the full article, please upgrade to our Deluxe Subscription package, which is by-mail only. No more stealing newspapers off the streets, cowards.

—

“Seriously?” Momo groaned, tossing the newspaper to the wind. “A paywall? I really wanted to read that interview.”

“Why? Isn’t Excalibur just your mouthpiece, anyway?” Radu said, holding tightly to the reins of his horse. “I just assumed you just told him what to say and he said it.”

Momo laughed as Nightmare trotted forward on the forest path, the dawning sun hanging over them.

“No way. The bauble tells me what to say,” she said. “He’s practically my ghostwriter.”

“You can’t seriously be letting a toy make all your geopolitical decisions.”

“Of course I am,” Momo said, glaring. “What do I know about geopolitics?”

“Well,” Radu glared back. “You just recently overtook an entire kingdom, so I’d hope a little bit.”

Momo sighed. “You know I never do that kind of thing on purpose.”

Nightmare stopped abruptly, his hooves digging into the dirt and throwing Momo back in her saddle.

“Nightmare,” she grunted, just barely keeping herself in the seat. “We’ve talked about this. Give a girl a little warning first.”

The horse sniffed defiantly. He had stopped just in front of a wide wooden fence, a mile-long circular border made of thick and gnarled branches. Coarse ropes, barbed wire, and metal spikes haphazardly decorated the barricade.

Momo slipped off Nightmare’s side and approached the wall, poking it with her finger. It didn’t budge, fastened tightly to the ground. She peered through, and could see a few buildings between the cracks in the fence: a few watchtowers, a sprinkling of tents, a bonfire.

In the center of the encampment was a tall flagpole, and at the top, a flag, waving wildly in the wind. The canvas was marked with a white circle in the middle, and eight purple tentacles sprawling out of its center.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

The flag of the Holy Resistance.

“This is the place,” Momo whispered, and took off her backpack.

Dusk slipped out of it, the oncilla’s paws dancing silently on to the ground. Momo grabbed her, slung her around her shoulder, and turned to Radu.

“You okay to climb the wall, or are you scared to rip your designer robes?”

“Shut up,” Radu grumbled. “They’re not designer – they’re ancient holy artifacts. And you’re giving me a piggyback ride.”

“These clogs were present when I stopped the universe from imploding,” she said, lifting her own feet. “You don’t see me calling the local museum for an exhibit.”

Radu groaned.

After the Oblivion Crisis ended, Radu was forced to return to Drachenheim for training. The process in which a new heir becomes The Dragon was referred to as the Ascension period, which was a fancy word to mean that Radu had to wear a lot of very hilarious clothing.

It’s like a lizard wearing a lizard costume, Momo had thought, seeing it for the first time. The shimmering pieces of red metal designed to look like scales; the fake wings that inflated like pool floaties whenever he jumped; the boots with three-pronged pieces of metal that looked like someone attached forks to a red-painted cowboy boot.

His clothing hadn’t been the only thing to change. During the first week of the Ascension, he jumped from Intermediate to Expert, transforming into something called a Knife Wyrm.

Momo thought the class name was almost as funny as the clothing.

The level up didn’t come with any physical changes – like very cool horns – but it did make him a certified meister of all assortments of short-bladed things, which was most likely helpful for many reasons, but Momo was exclusively excited about the new party tricks he could do with his daggers, such as spin the head of one on his fingertip, or throw them with perfect accuracy at a balloon from ten meters away.

“Let’s get this over with,” Radu said, hauling himself onto Momo’s back and avoiding Dusk’s whipping tail. “I only have until seven. The Dragon is very specific about dinner time.”

Using [Death Monkey Leap], Momo soared easily over the fence. They landed in a thorny shrub, and Radu made a great deal out of picking branches out of his inflata-wings.

“Keep it down,” Momo whispered harshly at him. “They’ll hear us.”

About five meters away, sitting around the blazing campfire, was a group of three knights. Two typical steel helmeted grunts and then one peculiar little guy – some sort of bard, with a gold-encrusted mandolin slung over his shoulder. He had to be a dwarf, or at least the half-son of one.

“Aren’t you going to play another of your ballads?” one of the large knights berated the dwarf, poking at the fire with a stick. “I don’t see the use of having you around if you’re just gonna’ galavant about the place drinking our mead and eating our rations.”

“I sang twenty-four of them ballads just this morning. My throat is all dried up like a dirt road,” the bard said, coughing painfully. “And I have to save some time for my songwriting. New ballads don’t write themselves.”

“Oh, by Kyros. It’s just words,” the second knight added. “I could write one for you in a matter of minutes. All you have to do is sing it, you precious little songbird. I lost my arm to a necromancer, and you’re scared of losing your damn vocal chords.”

The bard went hot in the face, jumping off his log and thrashing his tiny fist in the air.

“Just words? Just vocal chords? You dare to speak of art in this way, you uneducated brute?”

“Settle down,” the knight scoffed. “Half your verses are just rhyming Momo with bozo, necro with hell no. It’s not art. It’s auditory sabotage.”

“They write songs about me?” Momo whispered to Radu, cheeks reddening as the two went back and forth.

“Not good ones, apparently.”

“I don’t know. I’m on the bard’s side,” Momo pouted. “Art takes time. He can’t be expected to produce anti-necromancer hits one after the other. He has to really think about his muse.”

“His muse?” Radu said, gawking at her. “And wouldn’t that be you?”

Momo frowned. “I guess so.”

“About time he met his idol, then,” Radu said. “Come on. There’s only three of them.”

With a small whine of protest from Momo, Radu stalked forward out of the brush. The knights immediately caught on, stopping their squabbling to jump out of their seats, point their swords – and mandolins – forward, and address the intruders.

“Halt, trespassers!” the knight with the reductionist art opinions bellowed. “This is not public ground. You have invaded a camp of the Holy Resistance. State your purpose, or be slain.”

“Charming,” Radu muttered.

Momo ignored him, and extended a hand towards the knight.

“Hi there. I’m, um, Momo. You might have heard my name from one of your friend’s excellent songs,” Momo said, tilting her head towards the bard, who had gone quite pale in the face. “I’m the new girl-in-office running the Queendom of Morgana. It’s my first week, so I’ve been doing a bit of campaigning. Want to change those poll numbers and all.”

Momo offered them a small, sympathetic smile. They didn’t return it – their jaws falling open, eyes going wide. The knight on the left fumbled, falling over the log behind him.

“Momo the Ripper,” the bard said, finally, his voice hoarse. “It’s really you. Gods, what an honor.”

Momo turned her body towards him and blushed.

“I don’t know about an honor,” she said, nervously scratching the back of her neck. “It’s an honor that someone’s writing songs about me. I’d love to hear one sometime.”

“Oh, please, they’re no good,” he said, speaking in a rush of words. “I’ve written so many, but can’t seem to find The One. There was Momo the Menace, Momo the Terrifying Menace, and recently, Momo the World-Ending Terrible No Good Evil Menace, but they’re just not… they’re just not there, you know?”

“Ah. Well. Art is all about the journey. You’ll get there,” she smiled. “Have you thought of shortening the song to just Momo?”

As the bard’s eyes widened in understanding, a sword shot directly at Momo's chest.

“Really?” she mumbled. “I was having a conversation with a fan.”

She ducked out of the way just as the tip of the sword flew over her head. The middle knight grunted, retracting his arm, ready to strike again.

“The entire nation will scream my name when they hear it was I, Tobias the Third, Son of Tobias, who felled the necromantic menace,” the knight bellowed, his sword arm reared. “Be on your ready, Momo the Menace. I will turn you to Momo, Ash and Bones.”

“Now that is a good lyric,” the bard mumbled, scribbling furious notes in his journal. “Perhaps I judged your songwriting ability too soon.”

“You’re right, that wasn’t half bad,” Momo agreed with a nod. “But, sorry in advance, I think I’m about to ruin the rest of the song.”

She extended her Nether-painted hands towards the two knights, and smirked.

I’ve been meaning to try this one.

“[Maladaptive Daydreams].”