"History is the poisoned well, seeping into the ground-water. It's not the unknown past we're doomed to repeat, but the past we know. Every recorded event is a brick of potential, of precedent, thrown into the future. Eventually the idea will hit someone in the back of the head. This is the duplicity of history: an idea recorded will become an idea resurrected. Out of fertile ground, the compost of history."
-Anne Michaels
-To War by Jingo-
-New World, Same Sins: Chapter 2-
“I’m not going to have the Kingdoms and Duchies of the Empire raise their levies and spend their money to deal with dogs on boats. If the merchants of the south are so convinced that their wealth makes them entitled to the same privileges as the nobility, then they should be fully capable of defending their lands like the nobility.”
“Very good, sir. I will send the word, the electors will be most pleased to hear that.”
Charles waved his hand dismissively, and the diplomat left with a bow. As the guards opened the throne room’s door for him to exit, someone else barged in- a well dressed woman in her mid to late twenties. Just the sight of her already had the Emperor sighing in exasperation.
“Father!”
“Yes, Isabell dearest, what do you need?”
The princess stepped up to the foot of the throne, and looked up at him with a barely concealed scowl.
“You had the mages summon the champions! I told you I needed to be where they were summoned! I need them on my side!”
“There are other people you need to be concerning yourself with, more than the heroes. The Prince of Bavaria, the Duke of Verms, the Marcher Queen of Saxon, the-“
“The electors, father, yes, I know, for Aelina’s sake I know. Would it kill you to go a day without bringing them up?”
“I will stop bringing them up when it feels like you’ve made progress!” The old man snapped. “You disappear over the mountains for months at a time, on those diplomatic visits of yours, yet support seems to get thinner and thinner every year. I do not have many years left, and I refuse to let my legacy be as the last Bohemian Emperor! I will not let the crown slip to the damned Hapsburgs again.”
“Father.” Isabella said, her voice calm and chipped. “I want to reestablish the standard of Bohemian rule over the Empire, as much as you do, but I need something to put me above the other candidates. The heroes-“
“Are useless to anyone in the long run. Every batch has had promising successes to start with, before eventually dying horribly to some beast- or worse, turning on our forefathers. Not to mention that each recurring summoning ritual seems to bring worse fighters than the last. One of them is a scribe, Anabell, a scribe! She didn’t even have the competency to attempt to lie.”
Charles waved her off with a haughty scoff.
“Three years ago, I would have permitted it, but my time grows short. You cannot waste what little we have left on gambles that may not even live long enough to sway the elector princes. I have warned you for years that you would make more enemies than you could scheme your way out of, and now the bell tolls for your mistakes.”
“Just because you are too old to see it, doesn’t mean it’s not the right move. If the heroes really do live up to the legends, then having the backing of such powerful individuals would guarantee my ascension. All I need is one. One dumb or trusting enough to underestimate me, and let their guard down. Once I have them wrapped around my finger, no one would have the guts to oppose my right to the Imperial crown.”
“Just because you’re an insolent brat who thinks you're too intelligent for my wisdom, doesn’t mean you actually are, it just means you haven’t failed enough times yet.”
The Emperor scoffed.
“At least your younger brother seems to be taking this seriously.”
Isabell bristled at the mention of her sibling, but kept her politically appropriate smile on her face.
“I assure you, father, I'm taking this as seriously as I possibly can. It’s not my fault that you have consistently stonewalled my best plans, and-”
“The schemes most likely to spark a diplomatic incident between the kingdoms, you mean?”
“-and I would greatly appreciate it if you assisted me with this, for once.” The princess pushed through the interruption with an increasingly more forced smile. “Host a feast in the hero’s honor, help endear them to me, and I will wield them against the enemies of our house.”
Charles stared down at her from atop his throne, with a deeply unimpressed look on his face.
“No.” He answered bluntly. “The heroes will go south, and likely die after dealing with the problem. You will go north, with your brother, and do whatever you need to do to secure more support. Knowing you, that will be by coin and knife, rather than marriage and diplomacy, but I cannot bring myself to care anymore.”
He tapped his fingers on the armrest of his seat. “The feast isn’t a horrible idea, however. It will cost us little, and make a good impression. You will have to be satisfied with that.”
“Father, please! This isn’t fair!” Isabell snapped, her restraint cracking and heartfelt emotion pouring into her voice. Pricks of tears began pooling in the corners of her eyes. “Ever since James was born, you’ve always favored him over me! I didn’t choose for your eldest heir to be a girl, I didn’t choose to not have the talents you wanted me to have! Please, give me support just this once, please, it’s tearing me up inside and-”
“Save the dramatics for someone who doesn't know you, Isabell. Your tricks get less effective every time you use them on the same person, it’s almost pitiful.”
The princess sneered, the act slipping for a brief second, to show an ugly anger beneath that was quickly locked away behind a porcelain mask of dainty smiles.
“Of course father.” She said with a stiff but posture-perfect curtsy. “Thank you for your time.”
She would just have to make the feast work.
-To War by Jingo-
Will flipped the page of a random book he had picked off the shelf of the guest room he had been provided. Then he turned it back and flipped it again.
The words on the page were alien to him, the letters only vaguely familiar, but when he concentrated on them for more than a second, the entire page fuzzed over and shifted to American standard English in an instant.
He glanced at the musket sitting on the desk next to him (barrel and bayonet facing away from him), and at the strange gem buried into its side that seemed to gleam slightly in its core.
It was something of an odd guess to make, but there weren't exactly many other suspects.
“Fascinating. What are you?”
A knock on the door interrupted him, and a castle servant stepped in.
“Sir hero.” The butler bowed.
“Please, just call me Dixie.”
“Sir Dixie.” The butler corrected himself. “His royalty has arranged a feast in honor of your arrival.”
-To War by Jingo-
When you wanted to expand into a new industry or field, in order to be successful there were two things you needed above all else.
Networking, and information.
Parties and sponsored celebrations were great places to do this, because they simultaneously draw in useful people, and loosen them up with food and drink.
Sadly the Emperor had seemingly restricted the party solely for the Heroes, meaning there wasn’t any nobility or royalty here. There wasn’t any of the people he could think of that would be influential in a medieval-fantasy timeline. No nobility, not even any of the hooded people that had (presumably) used magic to summon him. There were only various castle servants, and some guards.
Which was unfortunate because networking with important people was slightly more difficult when no important people were present. Will had also been morbidly interested in seeing if nobility were as incompetent and corrupt as the movies made them seem, or if they were as relentlessly self-interested like the business tycoons back home.
Without that, this was just a big room full of food he couldn’t eat, filled with servants too afraid to talk to him straight, and, well, let’s just say watching David attempt to bench press a long wooden stool with three maids sitting on it (and somewhat succeeding, impressively enough) wasn’t his preferred form of entertainment.
“It’s actually a bit disappointing.”
“Is the food not to your liking?” One of the servants asked worriedly, almost desperately. “You haven’t eaten anything.”
“It’s nothing to do with you, stop fretting.” Will dismissed the butler, looking out over the feast with a frown.
He was starving, but held himself back to only some crackers and cheese slices. He wanted to give his body and immune system some time to start adjusting to the new environment, the last thing he wanted was to get food poisoning before he was sent off to fight who knows what.
“Ahh, what’s with the long face Willy?” David laughed boisterously as he came up with a pint of ale in one hand, and slapped Will on the shoulder. The southerner was taller than most people, but David made him feel short just by being in proximity. There was a joke about how the 6’7 titan should have been named something else instead, but Will couldn’t blame the parents too much- babies tended to come out much closer to the “David” end of the height scale than the “Goliath” end, after all.
“Do not call me that.”
“What’s the problem Dixie-Dude?”
“Stop.”
“C’mooon man, spill it!”
“My problem is that everything about this is fishy. Presumably us getting summoned here was a big deal, but it almost seems like nothing was prepared ahead of time. Even this party feels like it’s a last minute thing.”
“Nah, dude. I get what you mean, but relax a bit. Not everyone has things planned out three years in advance, sometimes you’ve gotta just roll with the punches and make up things as you go. Don’t assume something’s malicious when it could just be an honest mistake.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“…yeah, I guess you’re right.” Dixie sighed and massaged his forehead. “I’m sorry, I’ve been stressed and under a lot of pressure recently, and getting pulled here has me overwhelmed.”
“Don’t worry about it, bro. You’re all good.” David gave him another pat on the back before letting out an appreciative whistle as something caught his eye. “Whoow! Check it out, but don't be too obvious. Total bombshell has entered the building, due north. All guns at attention.”
On the farside of the hall, a woman entered through the pair of ornate doors, earning bows and curtseys from the people she passed by. She had silvery platinum hair that was braided in patterns far too intricate to be done by yourself in a mirror, with a black feather tucked behind her ear. The clothes she wore continued this color scheme of silver and black, with an occasional flash of crimson red that matched her eyes.
She wore a sleek, floor-length gown made from shimmering silver silk that seemed to catch the light with every movement, giving her an almost ethereal appearance. The gown was fitted with subtle black embroidery in the shape of curling vines, and had a modest neckline, with a slight curve. And the long, fitted sleeves ended in elegant points over her hands, edged with delicate red stitching.
She walked with poise and purpose that had David floored.
In comparison, Dixie’s attention was mostly on the older man hobbling along behind her. He was wearing fine clothing, but his wrists were bound in iron clamps with faintly glowing runes etched into them.
“I say we swing over and talk to her. I need you to break the ice, I’m bad at starting conversations, but once I’m in I thrive.”
“I don’t think I’ll need to do that. She’s coming over here.”
“Hot bod? Rich clothes? And she’s on the beeline straight to us?” David shook Dixie’s shoulder. “This is our break, buddy, play it cool.”
“I think we have remarkably different expectations for what’s about to happen.”
“Only if you have bad tastes.”
The woman approached them with a soft smile and sparking eyes.
“Greetings champions. I am Isabell Varuse, second heir to the Kingdom of Praguen, and candidate to the Imperial throne.” She curtsied with the grace of royalty, her smile warm and inviting. “Are you enjoying the festivities?”
David seemed to stumble over himself at the mention of royalty, causing her smile to deepen, before he collected himself with a grin. “We’re loving it, but personally I’d be loving it a lot more, if you could join us.”
Isabell looked between Elyra, who was off huddling awkwardly by the drink table, Dixie, who was glaring at her the same way you would a roach, and David, who happily laughed as he knocked back his pint of ale to the cheers of the guards.
Her decision was easy.
“Well of course, I would be thrilled to spend time with the great champions.” She purred as she stepped towards David, wrapping an arm around his.
“Your core chose to imprint itself directly onto you instead of on an item?” She asked, running a thumb over the red gem stuck in the back of his hand. “You must really be something special.”
“Hauh, thank you for the praise, but please, I don’t deserve it. I’m not half as special as someone as flawless as yourself.”
“Hmm, well then I guess I’ll hold my praise until you earn it.” She said as she fluttered her eyelids at David. “Though I suspect I won’t have to wait long. Can I interest you in a drink? I would be thrilled to help guide you through the mess that is the wine culture that developed in the capital of such a wide reaching Empire.”
“Excuse me.” Will bluntly cut into the shameless flirting, earning an annoyed look from David, and stopping him from being wheeled off alone.
“Oh, my deepest apologies, Sir Hero.” She tilted her head, her voice a perfect mix of innocence and contrition. “I didn’t mean to leave you out. It’s just so easy to get swept up in the moment with such… fascinating company.” But while her face was sincere, there was a sharp flicker in her eyes before she looked at him. “I just got somewhat carried away.”
“I have a few questions I would like to ask. You must have knowledge of the inner workings of this nation, due to your position. Is the institution of slavery an important part of the empire, and do you support it?”
“It is, and I do.” She answered without shame. “The subhumans that are captured in battle are far too dangerous to be let free. The only options are to either kill them, or enslave them. The latter lets them help rebuild the damage they cause.”
“And the humans I’ve seen in chains?”
“Criminals serving their sentence. Law is harsh, but it is law. A farm hand deters crime, and ensures peace.”
“Dura lex, sed lex.” Dixie reverse translated the old Roman phrase with a quirked eyebrow. How had that gotten here? “Don’t you think the royalty should show compassion to their subjects? Surely there are ways for the crown to help lift these people out of debt slavery and allow them to contribute to the economy again? With the wealth displayed here, you could at the very least pay off the debts of those in the capital city, to free the human slaves.”
“The state represents the many, and the needs of the many come before the needs of the few. Compassion must be balanced with practicality. I would love to wipe a clean slate for debt slavery, but the treasury is not bottomless, and the safety of our people must always come first. It’s not justifiable to spend money on that when it is needed to rent armies that keep everyone safe.” She tilted her head slightly, her smile ever so slightly strained. “One must always consider the bigger picture. Don’t you agree, Sir Hero?”
Dixie looked at David meaningfully for backup, who winced and bobbed his head, mouthing “ROY-AL-TY” and “REAL-LY HOT”.
Dixie wished “you’ve known her for 15 seconds you spineless womanizer” was also short enough to mouth back.
“Do you have an issue with the way we run our Kingdom? Isn’t it a touch presumptuous to judge us when you’ve only just arrived? You haven’t even been here for a full day yet, I doubt you’ve seen enough to make an accurate judgment yet.”
“It’s not a judgment on your Kingdom, it’s a resolute stance against an inherently flawed policy. Slavery, in all its forms, is an inhumane system that corrodes and destabilizes societies over time. At its most fundamental level, it makes an entire segment of the population nontaxable, uneducated, un-economically-productive, and guarantees constant unrest and rebellion by dooming them to lives of misery and servitude in terrible conditions, with no legal way of escaping.”
“Haha, the world you’ve come from must be quite primitive in certain ways. We have very in-depth ways to ensure that no one wearing shackles will ever make any fuss.” The princess’ laugh was like a beautiful bell, despite the venom in her words. Her tone was razor sharp. “It’s admirable how passionate you are, but your ideas seem... idealistically naive.”
“As interesting as this all is, don’t you guys think it’s a bit heavy to talk about over dinner?” David stepped in between them, sounding much more confident than he really was.
Isabell softened immediately, and leaned into him with a starstruck expression.
“Ah, you’re right, my apologies. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” Isabel smiled sweetly, and turned to Dixie with cold eyes that contrasted harshly with the mask she wore. “You’re much more… opinionated than I had assumed you would be. Still, I’m sure we’ll have ample time to educate one another during your stay.”
From then on the conversation simmered into meaningless platitudes and emotionless niceties.
When it became clear there was no more to be gained here, Dixie excused himself and left the party. Leaving David to arm wrestle the guards, laughing boisterously whether he won or lost, and the princess to fake coo over him.
-To War by Jingo-
The castle library was annoyingly difficult to find, as even when he got to the floor he was directed to, it was in a completely unattached section, which required going back up a level and hunting for a different set of stairs.
It was smaller than he would have thought, but he wasn’t exactly surprised. It’s very possible that the printing press hadn’t been invented yet, so duplicating books would take weeks instead of minutes, and the price of any completed copies would reflect that.
Unless, of course, there was some magic for doing that, and oh how he hated that word.
He wandered through the shelves, unfamiliar with the sorting system, and plucked a collection of things that caught his eye. History, geography, and anything that might provide an explanation for the constant talk of “monsters and daemons”. Strangely, he couldn’t find anything explicitly written on the topic of magic, but that mystery solved itself remarkably fast.
Elyra, the only girl in their little group, had snuck out of the party without Will noticing, and had beaten him to the library.
Still wearing the puffy pajama pants and blue hoodie she had been summoned in, Elyra was huddled on the end of a desk that she had turned into a book fort with every book, tome, and scroll in the library that had anything related to magic at all.
“Howdy.” Dixie gave her a nod as he sat down across from her, and put his much less intimidating stack of books on the table, across from hers.
She offered him a small wave, but nothing more, before turning back to her reading.
Unlike David, Elyra didn’t act like they had known each other for years and were best friends just because they were summoned together. Ironically, it made him trust her more, in a way.
Slowly the time ticked by, hours passed, and the books shifted from the table to the ground, their content already read. Some had been put back on the shelf when he had realized they contained nothing of use, and others taken down as new subjects became of interest.
Most of what he had busied himself with was world history, kingdom politics, and everything that Elyra wasn’t hogging about magic, with more than a few science books thrown in the mix to get a feel where this world was at in that regard.
And this world was… well, it was definitely something.
“Hey, Elyra, can you take a look at this for a moment?” Will asked as he rotated the map he was looking at, for her.
Elyra squinted at the roll of parchment, and her face scrunched in confusion.
“Is that…?”
“This is just a poorly drawn map of Europe, right? I’m not imagining this?”
“N-No, that’s what it looks like.” She said as she adjusted her glasses for a better look. “It’s different in a lot of ways, but… It does look a lot like Europe.”
The continent of “Aeurelia” was just Europe if instead of “bending” south from Germany to Spain, it was mostly straightened out. This had the side effect of turning this world’s version of the Mediterranean sea into a massive gulf for the Atlantic, rather than being its own (mostly) separate body. There were other minor differences, like Scandinavia was entirely disconnected, Britain and Ireland were mushed together in one blob, Greece was thicker, and Italy looked more like a sharp knife than its beloved boot shape, but anyone could tell at a glance that it was basically just Europe.
The statistically impossible similarity of two different worlds, also implied some inherent connections that he couldn’t put into words, but left a bad feeling in his gut.
Dixie forced himself to move on to other topics that could help him understand what exactly he had gotten himself into. Maybe one day he would circle back around to the Earth-Aeurelia parallels when he had more time and resources.
“Monsters and daemons. The single largest threat to humanity ever recorded.” He read aloud as he flipped through aged pages.“Sources claim that the first wave of ‘demonic forces’ originated from the east of Anatolia, and ‘over many mountains’, which makes me think it’s talking about either the Persian area or India. The geography here is just different enough to make it impossible to tell. Presumably the kingdoms in those areas were the first to fall, since they were at the epicenter. Aeurelian trade with the continent to the south collapsed, and we have written accounts of ships pulling into port only to find the city they were looking for completely wiped off the map.”
Dixie leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the table in thought.
“So that’s India, the middle east, and Africa, all gone. Likely Siberia as well, considering it’s nothing but a frozen tundra. That leaves knock off Europe and maybe China as the only major regions left.”
“Whatever was in Asia fell as well.” Elyra pushed an open book across the table. “The church has records of a food crisis in a border kingdom, caused by a massive wave of refugees from the far east.”
“Alright, well, no China then. No Asia, no Eurasia, no India, no Levant, no Africa- and let’s give the Americas a 50/50 chance depending on if there's a land bridge connecting Alaska, since there’s literally no way for us to know. The worst case scenario here is that humanity has collectively been exterminated from around 80 to 83 percent of the Earth’s landmass.”
Both of them sat in silence for a moment, trying to process that.
“That’s really bad.”
“Yes.” Dixie agreed, because what else could you even add to that? “Yes it is.”
The weight in his gut only seemed to get heavier as he began to grasp the situation he had been dragged into.
“Remind me what it was that we were summoned here for. Not just ‘go fight monsters’, but specifically what was it that we’re supposed to do? I don’t believe his royal majesty deigned to tell us.”
“Uhm.” Elyra opened the book she had been summoned with, the one her gem had fused itself to the cover of, and Will was mildly surprised to see she had apparently been taking notes. “I-I actually tried to talk to some of the magic users that summoned us, but, uh, I kind of never worked up the courage to say anything, and just listened to them talk.”
That was called eavesdropping, potentially even spying and espionage if this was a government employee, and was on a scale of rude to illegal depending on the subject matter. But he kept that to himself, because he would have likely done the same thing intentionally if given the chance.
“A race of beast monsters called gnolls have slowly been taking over this entire peninsula over the last few years.” Elyra pointed to the strange shaped Italy on the map, labeled ‘Ilanor’. “But a few weeks ago they raided and looted one of the richest cities still standing, and stole some kind of artifact.”
“Gnolls. I’m familiar with the concept, they’re usually depicted as bipedal hyenas in fantasy movies. Vicious fighters, but never particularly organized or intelligent. Where’s the most likely place they took the magic mcguffin?”
Elyra nervously began chewing on a tuft of her hair that strayed close to her mouth, as she flipped through the journal and reread the section to make sure she wasn’t missing something. Hesitantly she reached out a single dainty finger and placed it down on the very end of the Ilanor peninsula- specifically an abandoned coastal city marked “Sea Grave”, that was well defended by mountains on all sides.
Dixie was quiet for a moment.
“So they want us to fight our way through an entire nation’s worth of land that has been overrun by enough monsters to completely topple all the Kingdoms that used to be there?”
…
“You know, the lack of preparation and fanfare suddenly makes a lot more sense, I don’t think they expect us to come back from this.”
-End Chapter-