Season 1, Episode 6 - The Tree Plot XVIII - "The Six-Chamber Palm"
----------------------------------------
One border crossing and train ride later, Isaac and Reed arrived in downtown Russet. Malls and parks surrounded them as walked down long, wide avenues, the latest automobiles out of Brazil passing by. The remnants of yesterday and this morning’s rain could still be found on the sidewalks and streets in the form of puddles and wet patches dotting the ground. The sky remained gray, though at least the weather warmed up a little bit.
“You ready?” Reed asked when the two arrived in front of a six-story building, with Narragansett Publishers listed as one of several businesses using the office space inside.
Isaac cracked his neck. “Born ready.” He looked back at her. “And who’s better than us?”
Reed slapped a fist against her chest. “No-body.”
Curious onlookers watched the two start chanting words of encouragement and general hype to each other, along with a few ape noises. A mother steered her child clear of them.
Their blood pumping and hearts racing, Isaac and Reed entered the building. It was important to be confident in these kinds of situations, so they power walked right through the lobby, all the way to the elevator. They both nodded at each other, then hit the elevator button in unison.
When the elevator door opened, they both nodded and entered. A few other office workers joined them in their ride; crackly cassette recordings of smooth jazz played as the elevator ascended upwards. And a full minute of sterilized-sounding jazz can do a number on your hype levels. The goal of the music was to calm them - it worked too well.
When the elevator stopped on the fourth floor, Isaac and Reed tumbled out, both looking green. “Why is this more stressful than the sewer fight?” Reed whispered as they decided to look busy rather than enter the Publishers' office. They pretended to gaze at a list of novels published by Narragansett Publishers proudly displayed in the hallway outside the elevator, ignoring the workers passing them by.
“We know for a fact we’re good fighters,” Isaac answered. “Or at least competent ones. Well, we both lost in the Combat Simulation. And I’ve never actually defeated a non-microwave opponent on my own since Alfie.”
Isaac stopped talking. Both of them pretended to take great interest in an advertisement for My Restaurant and I Got Reincarnated as the King’s Cook?!
“I guess we’ve been trained and tested on fighting before,” Reed supposed. “But we’ve never gotten feedback or guidance on our writing. So it’s a big unknown.”
Isaac slapped his cheeks a little. “Alright, no more moping around then. The unknown will stick around until we actually go and make it known.”
“We’re geniuses!” Reed proclaimed. “Born geniuses!”
Definitely not using bravado to hired their nerves, Isaac and Reed high-fived and then power walked down the hallway, right into the doors of Narragansett Publishers. Isaac blinked as he stepped on something.
A carpet?
Come to think of it, Isaac had never actually been in a non-school related office. When Harriet gave her whole spiel about office working, Isaac had never actually considered what it actually meant to work in an office.
He had seen sitcoms and newspaper comics about it though. Just as they depicted, there was a secretary up ahead to greet them. She looked bored, sitting behind her desk, her thick-framed glasses appearing heavy on her head.
“Can I help you two?” she asked, her eyes glancing over the office behind her. Isaac followed her gaze and saw people scurrying about rows of desks, most of them having huge stacks of papers on top. The papers in some cubicles even overflowed onto the ground, and upon closer inspection, the windows looked a little dirty and all the employees exhausted.
The secretary continued. “Are you two interns, cleaners, painters, custodians, fans…”
When she paused, Isaac and Reed spoke clearly with all the confidence they could muster.
“Writers.”
“...uh-huh,” the secretary said, her eyes now on the papers in front of her. “You two Isaac and Hibiscus? Tatsuhiro should be ready to meet with you soon.”
That’s the editor who wrote back to us, Isaac recalled.
But before they could sit down on a nearby bench, a well-dressed man in a suit with graying hair emerged from an office.
“Isaac, Hibiscus, I’m Tatsuhiro,” he greeted, his voice sounding kind yet on-edge at the same time. He shook both of their hands; Isaac mentally repressed a groan from how sweaty his hands were. When Tatsuhiro finished his handshake with Reed, she immediately started wiping her hand on her skirt with a blank look.
“Right this way,” he said, leading them into his office. Unlike the cubicles on the floor, Tatsuhiro had an office to himself. After they entered, Reed let out a low whistle until Isaac cut her off with an elbow. She had good reason to whistle, though.
“Sorry about the mess,” Tatsuhiro apologized. “As you can tell, we’re pretty busy here. There’s always work to be done and so little time.” Manuscripts and drafts completely covered his desk, with several more stacks piled up against his walls. The windows behind his desk had actually been blotted out by the stacks of paper, the gray color of the outside world just barely poking its head in here and there. The whole room had a somber atmosphere - did this reflect the mental state of its owner?
Isaac couldn’t tell, because he and Reed were currently engaged in a full-blown elbowing session while Tatsuhiro had his back turned to them as he cleared some space on his desk. When he finished - by dumping that stack on the ground - he looked back; Isaac and Reed changed their tunes and immediately behaved like angels.
Tatsuhiro groaned and closed his eyes as he sat behind his desk; Reed used the opportunity to elbow Isaac one more time with a smirk. Isaac just shook his head and joined her in sitting in the two chairs in front of his desk.
“It’s rare that we get to speak with Rddhi users,” Tatsuhiro began, trying to get things organized on his desk (it was a losing effort). "Most of the time, the Rddhi schools restrict the ability of its students to converse with the media."
Huh…I never actually considered that. The Academy never said anything about communicating with the newspapers or anything like that.
“Either the Academy has been monitoring us and thought our story was harmless,” Reed surmised, her arms crossed, “Or they’re stupid. I always thought the Academy was a little on the stupid side. Dropped on its head as a baby like you read about.”
Isaac cut her off before she could start rambling. “What we’re trying to say is that we’re happy to be here.”
Tatsuhiro smiled. “I’m happy to have you here. Being a Rddhi user gives you access to new experiences and perspectives normal writers don’t have. We have a whole genre of books about Rddhi users - but most of it is just speculation and make-believe. We don’t usually have access to actual information about the Rddhi.”
Isaac rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh…so should we have set our story here in the real world rather than an alternate one?”
Tatsuhiro shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter. Sometimes seeing the real names of places throws people for a loop. But other people like seeing stories set in their own homeland. Your story has an odd mixture of real names and fake names, so I guess everybody wins…or everybody loses.”
Isaac and Reed swallowed at that.
“Nevertheless,” Tatsuhiro continued. “I took a long look at your story and circled some particular passages I’d like your feedback on.” He pulled out a thick manuscript and Isaac and Reed’s eyes widened.
There it was. All the work they had done in the past month and a half - all sixty pages of it - rested in Tatsuhiro’s (sort of a nasty level of wrinkly) hands. They got a brief glance at the first page; the first passage was marked up in red. No, not just the first passage - red marks covered the whole first page. And if that was the case - their entire story must now be mixed with a cold, mechanical red (that’s what those markings felt like to them, at least).
“Well, let’s begin,” Tatsuhiro said, pointing a finger down at page 1.
----------------------------------------
The Six Chamber Palm 1 - “The One With the Record Scratch”
"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you." - Ezekiel 25:17, The Bible
I stood alone in the giant chamber hall in central Elysia City, scratching my head, wondering how it came to this point.
“SIEG HEIL!” Supreme Leader Carl Schmidt screamed from his podium, giant red, white, and black banners behind him, thousands of his people before him.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
“SIEG HEIL! SIEG HEIL!” came the response from the crowd. Reluctantly, I joined them; I couldn’t blow my cover, after all. Because today was the day we were going to take this bastard down.
A record scratched in my head.
I suppose you’re wondering how I got into this situation. Well, there’s a saying among mice – when you’re staring down a tall piece of cheddar, better start from the top.
Fifteen years ago (or some amount of years ago – the timeline gets kinda funky when you reincarnate), I was pissing myself in diapers – woah, not that far!
Fifteen years later, I was just your average kid who no one understands. I couldn’t even afford a radio, for crying out loud! I spent my days at school and nights at the factory just so I could keep a crappy apartment over my head. Both my parents are dead, so it’s not like I really got anybody helping me out.
I tried my best, of course. But after you’ve made your fifty-fifth thing of cloth for the day at the mill, knowing you got homework to do afterwards, you sort of start to wonder, what’s the point?
I did have one hobby – shooting guns. Sunday nights were time for me and me alone. I had a great pistol, a hand-me-down from an uncle before disease (more specifically, syphilis) got to him. And yes, I did wash the thing before using it.
But it was nice. Strip the gun, assemble the gun, shoot. I was calming, for those few free hours I had.
Then it was back to the grind.
I had no parents or siblings, I had no time for friends, so it was just me. But that was alright. It had always been just me, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
I mean, the last time I looked out for someone, I died, for Christ’s sake.
It was late after midnight. I was walking home from the mill under a clear night sky, but then, as I approached the bridge over the town river that would take me home, I saw her.
Some girl, peering over the bridge’s railing. I raised an eyebrow when I saw that her shoes off – why do you need to take your shoes off to kill yourself?
Wait – kill yourself?
I didn’t care for anyone, but someone killing themselves, that just wasn’t right. They at least gotta talk it out first or something. Or maybe my body just moved on its own. Either way, I hustled over to her, but she hustled over the railing, so I hustled over the railing, grabbing her with one hand. I tried to keep hold of the railing with the other, but something like that doesn’t work like it does in fiction – it's actually quite tough.
Both of us fell towards the icy waters. I supposed the least I could do was shield her with my own body, which I did. That meant hitting the water wasn’t exactly fun for me. In fact, it was the opposite of fun – it meant death.
At least she was alright. But I wasn’t.
----------------------------------------
The Six-Chamber Palm 2 - “The One with the Throne”
The goddess stood up from her throne and waltzed down to the ground level. She looked me in the eyes, then smiled. Her blonde hair shone as she spun around.
“Nice to meet you, Eric! My name’s Minerva!” she exclaimed, doing a curtsy. “You’ve died! But…you have a chance to get better! Just not in your world!”
I knew I was dead, but it was still a lot to process.
“I’m…dead?”
She raised a finger. “Your body is dead. But your soul is only mostly dead. And I can work with mostly dead. You see, I’m assigned to look over a few worlds, and one of them is in dire need of a hero.”
I pointed at myself. “Me? A hero? You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
Minerva crossed her arms and stood firmly behind her belief. “An ancient evil has appeared in one of my worlds. We need some with direct knowledge of it to counteract this army of demons. And we need somebody capable of great feats in order to defeat its demon king.”
“Me?” I repeated again, but Minerva cut me off.
“Now, time to revive your soul! You’ll just take over the consciousness of a newborn infant! Don’t worry, I’ll come help-”
“What?” I cried out. But then a blinding white light blinded me, and I was a newborn baby.
----------------------------------------
The Six-Chamber Palm 3 - “The One with the Greyrat”
“Eric!” Minerva cried out, disguised as a maid serving the young boy’s family. “Stop abusing the fact you’re a twenty-something-year-old-man in a child’s body to groom children!”
I just pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Relax. I just need my childhood friend to pick up my targets for me.”
Indeed, Rosalina was waiting on the other side of the field near my family’s farm, holding up the vaguely medieval European fantasy setting equivalent of clay pigeons (which was just magically-crafted clay pigeons).
Rosalina, her red hair flowing in the breeze, tossed them into the air. I raised my arm, listened closely, then felt the Mana flow into my right palm. The Six-Chamber Palm opened and the barrel of my magic spirit revolver emerged.
Six shots went into the air. Six clay pigeons crumpled.
“Kick-ass,” I said.
----------------------------------------
The Six-Chamber Palm 6 - “The One with Eric vs Frederick”
“No way!”
“That’s impossible!”
The crowd of students in the hallway of Arcadia City Magic Academy all gasped at my new power. The blueblood student facing down my barrel gritted his teeth.
“When you knocked me to the ground yesterday due to my farm boy origins,” I reminded him. “When you said I would amount to nothing. When you took both metaphoric and literal shits on me. I stood back up. Because I wasn’t going to take something like that from you.”
I grinned. “You said any weapons were allowed at this duel. Let me introduce you to a little something I like to call the M114 155mm Howitzer.”
I fired, blowing out all the windows in the hallway and then some.
----------------------------------------
The Six-Chamber Palm 8 - “The One with Eric vs Alfred”
The spy who infiltrated the Academy lay unconscious courtesy of my fists (and revolver (and artillery barrage)). However, something was utterly clear to me - I had not misheard what he muttered before being defeated.
I looked back at Minerva, dressed in her student uniform disguise. “You said this spy worked for the demon army, right? With its demon king?”
Minerva nodded, sweat appearing on her temple.
I threw my arms up. “Then why the hell did he call out for the Fuhrer!”
Minerva raised her hands defensively. “Ahaha...well, you see, you weren’t the first person I brought here from your world...”
“You’re telling me you brought a Nazi here?”
“I didn’t know he was a Nazi!” Minerva squirmed away. “You’re the second person I brought here. The first was a man named Carl Schmidt. He was an old man living in Argentina in 1982.”
I rubbed my face. “For Christ’s sake, you thought you could trust an old German living in Argentina in the 1980s!?”
“He seemed nice!” Minerva protested. “You would’ve liked him too. The gods that be granted me the power to reincarnate deserving humans into other universes. I wanted my first reincarnation to be perfect. I started scanning Earth for a worthy person, beginning with countries that start with the letter A. And since it was taco night, I started with the first Spanish-speaking country, Argentina.”
“What about Andorra?” I asked.
Minerva looked puzzled. “Andora?”
“Yeah, you know, that little principality in the mountains between France and Spain? They speak Spanish.”
Minerva guffawed. “Listen, Eric, I’ve been around the block a few times. If there was a country named Andorra – it sounds like the name of a children’s television cartoon, for Minerva’s sake – I would know.”
Minerva crossed her arms smugly.
I sighed. “Alright, just get to the part where you brought a Nazi here.”
“Well, like I said, I didn’t know he was a Nazi. Carl Schmidt was an old doctor living in a poor village in the pampas. He took good care of both his own family and the people of the village. I only scanned his memories for three decades back, since that’s all I thought I needed. You would’ve liked this guy, Eric. The things he did for these people. He saved little Timoteo when he was drowning in a well. During a really bad winter, he took care of several children who had the flu. He taught the people classic literature, modern farming techniques, proper hygiene. He seemed like a saint!”
Minerva shook her head. “In his old age, he rushed into a street to push a child out of the way of an oncoming truck. She lived, but he didn’t. To give up his life for someone else...I thought he would be perfect as a reincarnated hero. Because this world needed saving, and he seemed up for it.”
Minerva sighed and her voice broke. “How was I supposed to know about his role in World War II? How can a man that nice in his old age do such horrible things in his youth! By the time I looked back at this world to see how it had done, he had jumpstarted an industrial revolution and suddenly medieval knights had turned into goose-stepping riflemen!”
Minerva buried her face in her hands. “That’s why I came here with you. We have to save this world. I wanted to do it myself, but I know I couldn’t.”
I listened intently, smoke trailing from my cigarette. “Nazis. It’s always Nazis. Alright, well, don’t just stand there. We got some Kraut ass to kick.”
Minerva looked up at him. “You’re not mad?”
I shook my head. “I’m not mad. I’m astounded. I’m astounded that my purpose here, in this fantasy world filled with magic, is to put down the Nazis. I used to be afraid and aimless…but at least I have a purpose now, derivative as it may be.”
I looked out the classroom window, a distant gaze in my eyes. “Maybe this is a metaphor for how the evils of prejudice and discrimination can be found anywhere, at any time. The fight with prejudice is a never-ending struggle.”
Minerva stood strongly. “Then I’ll be with you, every step of the way, until we get that Nazi bastard.”
I nodded. “Let’s get to work.”
----------------------------------------
The Six Chamber Palm 18 - “The One with the Six Chamber A’s”
I raised his hand. “Minerva, don’t do this.”
Minerva looked firmly at me, the Staff of Enoch in her hand. “Enoch walked faithfully with God,” she explained. “And then he was no more, because God took him away.”
She raised the staff. “With this, I can ascend, Eric. As of now, I’m just a goddess in a smoking hot, yet unfortunately relatively powerless, body. My goddess powers I have on my home plane are limited in this mortal coil. But with the power of the Staff, I can ascend, shed these mortal limits. I’ll assume a place among the gods here, and with that power we can defeat Carl!”
“But you’ll lose yourself in the ascension,” I reminded her gruffly. “You’ll cease to be Minerva and you’ll become a goddess tethered here forever.”
“Maybe I deserve it,” Minerva answered, “For unleashing this hell here in the first place. At least this way, I can always watch over this realm.”
“Enough,” I interjected, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. “We’re beating the Nazis together, as a team. Nobody needs to lose themselves. Put the staff down.”
Minerva looked down at the staff. Her resolve tightened. She pointed the Staff of Enoch at me.
“I don’t like pulling the divine card, but you stand in the way of a goddess. Wouldn’t that make you a devil?”
With no choice, I raised my Six-Chambered Palm. A holy revolver appeared in my hand, aimed squarely at Minerva.
Minerva fired first. A large beam shot out of the Staff, striking the ground in front of me. Just a warning shot. Nevertheless, the beam kicked up a fire that soon turned into a blazing inferno.
I stepped through the fire and the flames. As the phonograph played rock n’ roll, the old school kind, I spit out my cigarette and spun the chambers in my palm.
“If I’m a devil,” I said, my voice low and serious. “Then I’ll just have to use my hellish powers to get you to listen.”
“Ka-chow! Ka-pow! Krrr-sshcch!”
Reed made a bunch of fighting and explosion noises while smashing her hands together.
“And then they have a big fight,” she concluded.