Thirteen turns ago, Vinny had woken up beside her and said, "Hey. I think we should go meet the neighbors."

Jitterati had recently taken White Castle, a Transylvitian outpost. Don King admitted he lacked the air power to contest it; arming Faq was taking every resource he could spare (and some he probably couldn't). So he was planning to let White Castle slide. Vinny didn't like that one bit.

Jillian, for her part, was quietly going insane. The pressure of managing this kingdom was getting close to unbearable. She'd flown out to the gap every time Gobwin Knob poked around near there, but they only sent a few little scouting forays. Her forces could handle it. She hadn't swung a sword since she put on the crown.

Vinny knew it.

Because, okay, maybe her process of going insane hadn't really been all that quiet.

They had popped five Noble warlords, and no casters. Though there was no way to intentionally pop a caster, usually a new side would receive one among their first few warlords. But it was said that the Titans read the Ruler's heart, and their Fate. Jillian's heart was armed for battle. Surely the Titans sent her what she needed.

Two of her warlords had made level 2. She left one of those defending the gap and the other in the capital, where Vanna would stay to keep handling unit production. She and Vinny took the rest hunting, along with two thirds of the air force.

Vanna had been the perfect solution. Having a Turnamancer reduced the production of an heir by twenty turns, and with funds coming in from Transylvito, Vanna was able to boost Otoh and Kibo's production drastically. Don King was very happy, though he would not be if he ever found out it was Charlie who had funded Vanna's contract. Even Vinny didn't know about that.

Mmm. Well, there was a lot that Vinny didn't know about.

Though the Royal heir would not pop for thirty turns yet, there was no talk of the Queen staying home on this outing. When your side has only three cities, you trust the Titans to preserve you no matter what you're doing. She went. She led. And most of the way through the mountain peaks to their first target, all she did was grin into the gusting wind. Free, free, free. Battle!

They didn't go after White Castle; it was too far and would have been too well defended. Instead, they chose to hit the two mountain cities closest to Faq. Besides creating a strategic buffer, sacking them would help boost the pathetic Faq treasury. It was a fund-razer.

Kona was pitifully defended for a Level 3. Jitterati had not even been aware of Faq's existence, that much was obvious. With five warlords, seven knights, four megalogwiffs and twenty-one gwiffons, they dropped the city in minutes. They croaked every defender in every zone, sacked the city and left it burning, boosting Faq's coffers by almost twenty thousand.

Jillian personally planted her megalogwiff on the city's only knight and lopped his head clean off while he squirmed. Satisfying. But her Warlords looked at her askance, even as the head was still rolling around.

"Oh right. Um, sorry." She had to remember to hold back and let them level.

Their second target was Valdez, a Level 2 built in the bushy green shade of a volcano. Valdez had been warned of trouble, and was prepared. Besides the Jitterati infantry and one warlord, it was full of Western Giants, natural allies of their side. They stood as tall as Woodsy Elves, but strong and beefy. Heavies, all. They wore spiked shoes, and black helmets with a thin bill in front and a flap that covered only one ear. They were armed with long thin clubs, which they wielded with deadly accuracy. It was rumored that their power was magical, and that like casters, they used juice.

She led the stack in and seized the undefended airspace, letting the gwiffons take the arrows from the sparse archery while she surveyed the layout. The town was made mostly of black and gray stone, a peculiar mix of slate and obsidian, with bright green moss growing in the cracks. There were at least two hundred men in the Garrison, and dozens of Giants. The tower, a squat round turret, was covered with Giants, as well. At their center stood a mocha-skinned bald man, hands on hips, wearing white armor emblazoned with a circular green crest. The city's warlord.

Vinny flew up to her as an arrow sailed between them. He scratched his nose with his thumbnail. "You wanna skip this one? Looks like we'd lose more than we'd gain here."

Jillian stuck out her jaw, looking down at the tower top appraisingly. "You know what I wanna do, Vinny? You'll never guess." He shook his head as she grinned at him. "I want to talk. C'mon."

They spiraled down toward the force atop the tower. "Do not engage!" she ordered. "Parley! Parley!"

The four huge megalos pulled in beside the tower, while the gwiffons hung in the air above them. Vinny floated beside Jillian's massive mount. The Jitterati warlord held his sword low and puffed his chest, which looked a little ridiculous among the towering Giants.

He scowled at her. "If you have terms, I will hear them," he declared, raising his sword, "but we stand ready to fight!"

Jillian held her sword of to the side and arched her eyebrows at the man. "Yeah... I did come to discuss terms, actually." She lifted her gaze to the solemn face of the Giant standing to the Warlord's right.

"Terms as arranged," she said.

The Giant nodded. "Agreed, Highness."

The Jitterati warlord looked up with sudden panic as his stack broke without his order. To his credit, he understood immediately, said nothing, and bolted for the tower entrance.

"Capture!" Jillian shouted to her stack. Her mount took it as a command. It flew her in fast, shouldering its way between the Giants, and planted itself on the fleeing warlord. The megalogwiff pinned him in the doorway and enveloped his body, leaving only his head exposed. This time, she did not swing.

Sudden shouts and clangs of battle immediately rose up from the city below. Here, and all over Jitterati, Faq's new natural allies were inflicting heavy losses. Jitterati would be left too crippled to bother Transylvito or Faq for a very long time.

When Vinny finally caught her eye, his expression was priceless. Wonder, admiration, amusement, bafflement. She knew at that moment...in his eyes, she was good enough to be Queen. It felt brilliant.

On the trip home, he was burning to know how she had done it. She refused to say, and he kept asking, until they had another huge fight about it.

He could sulk as long as he wanted, though. There was no way she was ever going to tell him this was Charlie's idea.

***

That level 6 Jitterati warlord, Duncan Scone, was now her best fighter. Vanna had done some good work to turn him, but the dungeon didn't much interest Jillian. Vanna didn't really know how to play right.

Giants were still coming in, nine more this turn. They were the perfect natural allies: mountain-capable heavies. With these guys in the cities and on patrol, she could pop nothing but air units and warlords. Not that she'd been making much infantry anyway, but the point was, she had made enough. Enough, and in time...for Charlie's other plan.

Vinny was upset that she would not take him, and at all of the things she wouldn't tell him. It started to build up. It went to shouting, it went to threats, and it went to silence. After much longer than usual, almost too long, it went to apologies and make-up nookie.

They both knew it had to. Maybe she would croak on this mission. Maybe they would never see one another again.

Vinny had his feet on the tower as she lifted skyward. She saw her armada filling the sky with yellow death, and thought it would almost be easier that way.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

CharlsNChrg: People are talking.
LordHamster: Are they?
CharlsNChrg: They are talking about talking. About the talking you're doing.
LordHamster: Me? I'm not talking to anybody.
LordHamster: I'm not even sure we're talking right now.
LordHamster: What are you talking about?
CharlsNChrg: I'm talking about the talking your Prince Ansom has been doing.
LordHamster: Um, it's just "Ansom" now. He's pretty touchy about that.
CharlsNChrg: Yes...
CharlsNChrg: Anyway he's been talking. As in, not fighting. That's very interesting.
LordHamster: You know what's interesting? Twolls can make parchment.
LordHamster: And if you tell them to make it really, really thin, you have a pretty decent Kleenex.
CharlsNChrg: If I understand correctly, you haven't taken a city in more than ten turns.
LordHamster: Not to mention toilet paper. I'm so HAPPY! XD
LordHamster: Yeah we haven't lost one, either.
CharlsNChrg: What I am saying is, your Chief Warlord Ansom has ceased to conquer, and has been looking for allies.
CharlsNChrg: It seems he is trying to drive a wedge in the Coalition.
LordHamster: That would be smart, but no.
CharlsNChrg: No?
LordHamster: I mean yeah we're up against the diminishing Shmuckers point, so it's a good time to pause and do diplomacy. But Ansom's not about that.
LordHamster: He's trying to convert the entire Coalition to ...Toolism or whatever you'd call it.
CharlsNChrg: Ah. I see.
CharlsNChrg: Even after Unaroyal?
LordHamster: Yup.
LordHamster: Can't let something like that stop the Good News, brother!
LordHamster: You should be happy, though. Right? You're a Tool.
CharlsNChrg: I'm nobody's tool, Parson.
LordHamster: Oh? Not even the Titans?
CharlsNChrg: ...
CharlsNChrg: We'll see.
LordHamster: So you really don't buy into this big idea that attuning is a "new Titanic mandate?" Even though you're attuned.
LordHamster: That is interesting, Charlie. Almost more interesting than toilet paper.
LordHamster: Though my ass would disagree.
LordHamster: Stanley and Wanda seem to have this feeling that they're doing the Titans' will. But you don't think you are?
CharlsNChrg: It's possible. I suppose.
CharlsNChrg: But it seems at least as likely that they are choosing their own meaning. Writing their own narrative.
CharlsNChrg: It seems entirely plausible to me that attunement to an Arkentool has nothing at all to do with the will of the Titans.
CharlsNChrg: It is a dubious claim, in my view. And it is falsifiable.
LordHamster: Really? How?
CharlsNChrg: Simple. Croak a "Tool."
CharlsNChrg: If an attuned wielder of an Arkentool were to croak, it would seem to be pretty compelling evidence that the Titans were not on their side. Don't you think?
CharlsNChrg: Perhaps it's an experiment that ought to be carried out.
LordHamster: Oh, Charlie...
LordHamster: I know business sucks, but that's no reason to start talking about suicide.
CharlsNChrg: ...
CharlsNChrg: Parson, is it actually your goal to make me hate you more every time we chat?
LordHamster: Me? I'm just talking.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

Chocula was a Level Two city, with walls of speckled brown sandstone and thatch-roofed buildings of clay brick and timber. Most nights, it was dark and quiet. But this night, it hissed and rumbled softly. This night, the faces of the block houses flickered with the orange light of the still-burning Garrison.

Lying in the matted reeds atop one roof, Caesar Borgata stared up alone at the plume of smoke smudging and blotting out the moon. He listened to the snaps, crackles and pops of the nearby fire. Half of the shaft of a Carpudlian arrow protruded from his ribs. It rose and fell, bobbing slowly and agonizingly with each breath. He held his lips tight and did his best to ignore it.

The archer who had put it there was croaked or in chains, Caesar couldn't say which. Likewise with the one who'd put another arrow through his right boot and foot, which he had pulled out. But the swordsman who had split open the heel of his left palm, that guy was croaked for sure.

He was the only talking unit of Transylvito's to survive.

He'd had better battles.

The sweet voice in his mind soothed him. She listened. She cared. He forgot the pain as he thought about the events of this day, spinning them into a story for her, and for himself as well.

It was a kind of ambush, see. Taking Chocula was the first part of a two-part plan to sucker our leadership in. Maybe me specifically.

I gotta talk to Don. We can't be leakin' all these resources to the crazy broad, and a war that don't make a profit. We're losin' our flanks. We can't hold this city, even. Not with what Don's willing to send out here. It's gettin' completely--

The call faded.

Caesar sighed, wincing at a sudden new awareness of his wounds. Whatever spare juice Bunny had at night, she usually burned it with a voice call to him. These lasted as long as they lasted. They kept him sane.

He was left with his own thoughts now. A little meaner and a little darker than what he was willing to share with his secret lover.

He was seriously considering the chances that he might have been set up here.

He turned his head and watched the lone remaining firebird flitting happily through the flames it had made. Another large chunk of wall flaked away and showered bricks down into what had been the city's courtyard. That was Transylvito he was lookin' at, right there.

He and Don used to see eye to eye. He used to have long talks with his Ruler, and count himself lucky to be working for a guy like that. But he hadn't had anything he could call a good conversation with Don King since they brought home that one-wing bat and he made her a queen. He didn't want to believe he understood what Don King was up to. But he thought he did.

Don bought into this Royalty crap now. Don was fighting a crusade. 'Specially since Unaroyal.

And that left barely-Noble Caesar where? Well currently, it left him five turns' flight from the capital. Half croaked on a rooftop, in a burning city they should never have given up. How far gone was Don? Did he send Caesar out here to get rid of him?

That was his big fear.

***

The next day, of course, his wounds were healed and gone. The arrow in his chest had vanished.

But the news that Transylvito had begun popping a Royal heir felt very, very similar.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

That evening's discussion with the Archons ended up going a lot smoother than his first two attempts.

For one thing, there were only ten of them this time; the rest were off on various missions. For another, they were all in standard raiment, which was a relief. He was there to learn Charlie's secrets. Victoria's could wait.

They led him to the common area and brought him a cup of hot tea with milk and honey, and a piece of archonfood cake. They didn't mob him, they didn't giggle, and he managed to form full sentences. They got down to business with a kind of social, professional distance. They started to actually talk.

But it was still odd. Odd for him, and odd for them. They didn't quite know how to deal with Parson, he learned. And this was because of one simple, eye-popping fact:

Charlescomm had no warlords.

Before being decrypted, they'd only had three kinds of people to deal with: clients, Charlie, and each other. From what Parson gathered, the Archons respected each other, worshipped Charlie unconditionally, and were out to screw the client as much as possible. (Charlie's Rule #3: We are in the business of solving problems for our clients. Corollary: Creating problems for our clients creates business.) They'd never had a warlord on their own side. Charlie didn't even use infantry.

Faced for the first time with the question of how to deal with one, they had elected to treat Parson and any other warlord of Gobwin Knob as clients who had paid for "full service." This was an incredibly expensive option that few of Charlie's customers ever went for. It amounted to "the Archon(s) will act as if their Duty is to the client, and will follow any orders, including attacking Charlescomm units." There was also no penalty clause for losing them in battle. The client paid only while the Archons lived.

Charlie offered various options and clauses that could be added to his contracts, including the no-return penalty waiver. So most clients who paid for "full service" did it because they wanted to make personal use of the Archons, before sending them off to die.

Yeesh.

He couldn't get a sense from them about how they might feel about that. They had their professional faces on now. He didn't feel like getting into it, anyway. He worked through his list of questions, and they answered him plainly and pleasantly. This was more like a corporate meeting than a slumber party. He jotted down notes in the eyebook as they talked.

How many cities did Charlescomm have? One, a Level Five capital with truly murderous defenses.

How many units? At the time they had been decrypted, a little over six hundred Archons. About eighty percent of these were out in the field, either serving clients or standing by to be hired near hotspots. They ranged farther out into Erfworld than most sides imagined the world existed. Another 700 or so golems of various types (mostly cloth) guarded the city.

Did Charlie have casters? None, as units of Charlescomm. He would frequently hire casters from the Magic Kingdom for specific work. He had an excellent reputation as an employer there.

Did Charlie pop anything but Archons? No. The capital could pop one every turn, or three every two turns if they had hired a Turnamancer. Few other cities could pop Archons at all, and all of those required multiple turns. This might or might not be a function of the Arkendish.

What was an Archon, really? A flying knight-class unit with a random special from the set of: dance fighting, leadership, and limited forms of Shockmancy, Thinkamancy, Dollamancy and Foolamancy. As Archons leveled, they could gain additional random specials from that set. There were four of them with the dance fighting, leadership and Foolamancy abilities at the Battle for Gobwin Knob, and these were able to lead the Coalition's dance fight. Charlescomm did not volunteer this strategy, but Ansom knew to ask.

So what was Charlie like? None of them had ever physically seen him. He had a special personal guard of Archons who lived with him in the main tower, but those were rarely seen either. All contact with Charlie was by Thinkamancy via the Arkendish, which was apparently a rush for them when it happened. None of them knew where Charlie had come from, or how he had acquired an Arkentool. All living Charlescomm units had popped during his rule. Charlie did not permit questions about himself.

What did the Arkendish do? Many things, most of them connected to Thinkamancy. Charlie could handle an unlimited number of Thinkagrams, and extend some of his abilities to his personal Archons in the tower. Any commander in the world could get those Archons' attention by concentrating hard enough, for long enough. This could take hours or even days, but Charlescomm would establish contact eventually. This allowed him to hire out to any side or barbarian in the world, and probably provided him more revenue than mercenary work. He was the telecom giant of Erfworld. This was the main thing he used the Arkendish for, but guessing its other powers was a favorite topic for the Archons.

What did Charlie want? Money. More money, more reach, more security, more information. Archons were expensive units, costing a minimum of two hundred Shmuckers per turn for the weakest. The strongest were closer to five hundred. Everything Charlie did seemed to be in support of growing a larger and larger fleet of Archons. Not one of them could remember him stating any kind of ideology or purpose beyond that. (Charlie's Rule #15: Some things are more important than money. COROLLARY: Most things are not more important than money.)

Parson talked with them for several hours, until he felt like he needed some time and sleep to process it all. Though he was becoming more comfortable, these little women still had a creepiness that kept him on edge. The questions he really wanted to ask them were psychological. How did they feel now? About being decrypted? About Charlie? About Wanda? About Stanley?

About...him? *cough*

He didn't think he was up to getting into all of that right now.

Among the Archons currently assigned to the city, he noticed that one was a flashy redhead named Ginger, and another was a sweet, mousy brunette named MaryAnn. Erfworld never stopped throwing jokes at him.

Or did he create the joke by picking them out? Chickens and eggs, trees falling in the forest...

At any rate, he asked the two of them to join him on his rounds tomorrow, and continue the discussion. "Should be about a three hour tour," he told them with a smirk.

Nobody laughed. But he was pretty used to that.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

By his own choice, Parson had taken up residence in one of the little houses near the Garrison, at the corner of Thin Mint and Moe. It worked better than his tower quarters for rounds, and Stanley was less likely to drop by and bug him. But it did mean that getting called to The Tool's office for an ass-chewing always involved a long slog and a million stairs. That was the trade-off, and it was inevitable.

The new Tower of Efdup was nicely decorated and brightly lit. Parson thought it was kind of stuffy and fru-fru, but an improvement over the creepy-ass one with the body parts theme. It was possible to walk through the carpeted hallways and marble staircases without feeling stared at, or in danger of being groped by a light fixture.

Today, he had reached Stanley's office without even getting all that winded. His legs were tightening up, and some of the double folds in his gut were becoming singles again. As a deeply wise man named Hamstard had once said...hawt.

The Tool had wanted to bitch about the usual: their situation with natural allies.

It was a weird problem. All the Gobwins and Hobgobwins were croaked in the eruption, of course. Wanda decrypted most of those, but they no longer counted as a separate tribe. They were just units of Gobwin Knob's side now.

As tribes, natural allies could pop new units if they had extra Shmuckers. So Stanley had used the intervening turns and a notable chunk of the treasury to repopulate the Hobgobwin tribe from the lone remaining Knight to around two hundred units, about forty or fifty of them Knights. But there were no Gobwins in Gobwin Knob.

And for some reason, they couldn't find any, anywhere.

Sizemore had been busy, sending out parties of tunnel-capable units to look below ground. Many of the nearby mountain hexes had tunnel systems, and it would have been normal to find a feral Gobwin tribe mining for upkeep in there somewhere. They had found only a lot of Marbits, though, and Marbits and Elves would not ally with a side that used Gobwins, Hobgobwins, Witches or Daemons.

His bracer put it at a 98 percent chance that the Archons should have spotted some Gobwins in the mountains or Sizemore found some below ground by now. They'd either rolled a critical fumble, or something weird was going on.

Stanley blamed Parson of course, because of the volcano. Parson had stopped arguing that point (or any) with Stanley, if he could help it. He simply shrugged his way through another pointless meeting about it, got some dumb and conflicting orders, said "Yes, Tool" a lot, and got out of there.

One thing he never volunteered in these meetings was that the bracer gave a 78% likelihood that there was something fishy going on with the lack of Gobwins and prevalence of Marbits.

And if there was, then there was a better than 92% chance that the agency behind it was Charlescomm.

If Stanley knew that, he might go after Charlie immediately. Parson couldn't think of a worse idea. If you had a guy like Charlie undermining you for some reason, you did not let on that you knew about it. The thing to do was to figure out what Charlie's game was, and play him from there. Stanley couldn't do that.

Parson wasn't sure he could either. But if he wanted to try, he was going to have to take Maggie's advice and talk to Wanda's Archons.

Oh boy.

It had been several weeks since he'd asked any of the Archons to go with him on rounds. Besides the Gobwin problem, Parson had developed a laundry list of other questions about Charlie during his strategy sessions with Jack. But he'd been putting off taking those questions to the Archons because, well...

His dealings with these perfect little flying women had started out awkward, and only gone downhill from there.

The Archons shared a barracks-style accommodation that took up half of the second-topmost floor of the tower. It was like a sorority house in there. Two dozen bunk beds, each separated by white curtains, took up the space nearest the main wall. The center of the room was walled off as a kitchen/larder/dining area, and the rest was a commons area with at least as good a view as Stanley's office. Large double-plated windows on all sides could be pulled inward, allowing direct access to and from the city's airspace. The Archons kept it all neat and tidy.

The first time Parson had gone up to visit them, it was like walking into an 80s sex comedy. It was nighttime, and they were all wearing satin pajamas and teddies. A couple of them were walking around in less. Some of them were actually pillow fighting. They were all enthusiastically happy to see him.

He'd watched a season or two of "Beauty and the Geek," which was a reality show in which a group of socially hopeless nerds share a mansion with a group of intellectually hopeless hotties. In the first show, each contestant must walk into a room, alone, with the whole opposite group.

He couldn't remember if any of the Geeks had done worse with the Beauties than he did with the Archons that night, but he didn't think so. He was pretty sure at one point that the word "hummina" literally came out of his mouth. Literally. Weak.

They'd taken him by the arm and shown him around, but it never got anything like comfortable in there. He'd tried to explain that he was up there to find a volunteer or two to accompany him on his rounds the next turn and talk strategy or whatever.

He then spent fifteen minutes trying to explain the concept of "volunteer."

Charlie didn't do "volunteer." Wanda certainly didn't. Nobody asked for volunteers in Erfworld. You ordered your units or you didn't.

And with that, he suddenly got struck with the creepiness of it. As they'd gathered around him in their lingerie and hung on his every word, he had started to entertain the idea that their friendliness to him might mean they...liked him? Were interested in him? Wanted him? And they were so impossibly hot. Short and small, yes. But women. Women built like little Playboy models. God.

But the idea that they might want him was right out the tower window when he realized what "no volunteers" really implied. "Want" didn't enter into it. He could order them to perform any sick, twisted, perverted, demented...awesome act he wanted to. Erfworld had suddenly given him a gift to fill the awful gaping hole in his existence where internet pr0n had once lived.

And he knew, he knew it was wrong. And completely, completely not what he wanted. There wasn't a way they really could volunteer to be with him. He had absolute power, as their warlord. He also had no power to be anything but their warlord. They scared him. His power over them scared him even more.

In the end, he'd just decided to appoint a couple of them at random and gtfo. The next day, he couldn't think of much to say to the two he had picked.

He did try again a week or so later when he had his nerve up. That somehow went even worse.

And now, here he stood again. It was another two flights up from Stanley's office to the oaken double doors of the Archons' barracks. They were shut up tight, but over the bare crackle of the magic torches in the wall, he thought he could hear faint giggling.

"I can face the peril," Parson muttered, letting out a deep long breath, "I can spank the peril."

He sucked in his gut and knocked on the door.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

"I didn't think I was much of a 'routine' guy," Parson said to Maggie, as they reached the corner of Whopper and Smithers.

Parson had decided to name all of the east-west streets in Gobwin Knob after Simpsons characters, and all of the north-south avenues after foods he missed. This meant that there was an intersection of Homer and Donut near the center of town, which he called "D'oh Plaza." He'd even had the Twolls make street signs and numbers for the building fronts.

"But honestly, I'm settling into this. Breakfast, do rounds, lunch, do sims with Jack, dinner, read in the library, or hang out with Sizemore and talk magic. It's kinda nice. Needs weekends, but it's not bad."

"Mm," said Maggie, walking beside him. They turned up Whopper Avenue toward the bank on Burns Street. "Just as long as being a warlord is in there somewhere, Lord."

He knew what she was getting at. They had walked and talked often enough now. Even with a lot of his tactics and ideas getting implemented at the front, Maggie still thought he was wasting his talents. She was pretty stubborn on that point. It came up all the time.

Still, for reasons Parson couldn't put his finger on, Maggie was his favorite walking companion on city rounds. This made four days in a row that she had gone with him. She was sharp at conversation, a challenge. She could completely kick his ass with one sentence. That was fun.

He walked along, looking down at the tip of his Hamstard walking stick as it tapped the bricks at his feet. "Maggie...I'm doing what I can. You know?"

She looked up at him cooly, her gray eyes shining out like an owl's in the shade of her pith helmet. "I know, Lord."

"See that's what I'm saying. I'm kind of finding stuff out here...about myself. Like, how the hell was I supposed to know how I felt about death...about causing death?" said Parson. He didn't feel like adding, "until I did it." He was having a hard enough time just responding to Wanda's requests for tactical advice. Fortunately, he didn't have to do much but play Mathamancer, run the calculations, and say, "yeah, that'll work" to Ansom's fairly solid plans. The one time he'd said "no, bad plan" they'd done it anyway. And that was all just tactics; he wasn't planning strategy. He was off the hook, right?

"You do have some terribly unorthodox personal views, Lord," said Maggie. A strange little smile curled at one corner of her mouth. "One in particular, I find intriguing."

"Oh yeah?" The bank building came into view, and the two Decrypted Pikers at the door of it snapped to attention.

"Well perhaps I am mistaken, and I am surely well out of line in asking, but have you really had no intimate contact with any of the Archons? Are you celibate, Lord?"

Parson stopped in his tracks. Yeah. That would be one of those kick-your-ass sentences. "Hold that thought," he said tersely.

They crossed the remaining ground to the bank. Maggie followed Parson inside. They walked across the empty common area, with its bare desks and cabinets. Parson peeked in the empty vault, then they walked back and out without a word.

About a block away from the bank, Parson said, "Sorry. I didn't feel like talking about that in front of Wanda's dudes."

She cleared her throat. "I see, Lord. But they are your 'dudes,' are they not? Certainly they are our dudes."

"Um, I'm not completely sure," said Parson, frowning and looking back over his shoulder. "From what I can tell, they're like the dwagons are with Stanley. They're loyal to the 'pliers, and therefore to Cruella herself. For all I know, she can see through their eyes and hear what they hear. But if not, they'll prob'ly just tell her anything interesting when they can."

Maggie nodded affirmatively, "Ahhh. I see. In that light, your reluctance to approach the Archons for...that sort of thing is perfectly understandable. Sorry to have brought it up, Lord."

He nodded. They walked on for a bit. He knew he should leave it at that. Really, really should. But...

"It's not just that," Parson said. He stopped, and turned to look at her. "Yes, Wanda looking out of some Archon's eyes? That is...an extremely creepy thought. But it's really not what skeeves me out about it. It's more like..."

He struggled for how to put it. Maggie was a kung fu master of the neutral expression, but Parson had played a lot of poker. He could see the tiniest little smile around her eyes. It meant she was enjoying this conversation way too much.

"Okay well it's like...what I was saying before. I've never had that power before, and I don't know how I feel about it. If I understand things right, I could just like, order an Archon to take off her clothes and drop to her knees. And she'd do it, right?"

Maggie's eyes did something entirely different this time, they sort of flashed. "An Archon, or any unit, Lord."

"Okay well...it doesn't work like that where I'm from," said Parson uncomfortably. "We actually have laws against that...against people in power taking advantage of their underlings or whatever. For that. I mean I seriously would not have expected to react this way to this situation, but it feels wrong to me."

Maggie smiled at him, her eyes crinkling. "What an utterly alien thing to think. But also, utterly charming."

"Graah. C'mon," Parson said, and continued up the avenue. They turned the corner at Maggie Street (the name had led to an interesting discussion on an earlier outing), and he saw the street was clear of Decrypted. "Y'know maybe if one of them was actually interested in me... But even then, I've got another problem. One that probably trumps the other two."

Maggie's tone darkened. "I see, Lord. Are you unable?"

"No! Jesus!" shouted Parson, throwing up his hands. "I'm talking about compatibility. Physical compatibility."

Maggie's laugh echoed down the street.

"What, seriously?"

"Maggie I'm about twice the size of everybody here," he said to her, in earnest. "What if I...can't? What if I, y'know hurt her?"

Maggie laughed again. "What if you cleave her in twain with your mighty broadsword?" she giggled. "What if your siege-ram is...is too grand for the gates?" Her giggle fit continued until she calmed herself with a deep, grinning breath. "Oh. All men exaggerate their stats, Lord. You all imagine a weapon bonus that isn't there. If you do break her like a...feral mount of some sort, then I suppose she'll heal fully at dawn. But the memories will last her a lifetime."

She took his arm at the elbow and smirked up at him. They continued together down the street. "I will be very busy next turn, Lord. Why don't you ask an Archon or two to accompany you on your rounds tomorrow?"

Guest art by CelebrenIthil

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

The letter was written in blackest shining ink on fine vellum, in a formal, feminine hand. It read thus:

My dearest friend Don, King of Transylvito,

Bea, Queen of Unaroyal

The sun was setting, as a tired woman with raw red eyes waved a wand over an upturned silk hat, and saw the letter inside vanish. Vanish.

She rose from the writing desk, the folds in her orange and red satin gown dropping neatly into place, straightening with perfect elegance. She walked the carpeted hallways of this empty palace, as the rainbow smears from dangling crystals danced and spun upon shadowed walls and curtains.

At the end of the hall she found the room she needed. She had been here once today already. A shimmering magenta portal stood framed by simple columns on one wall. She did not falter, not a step.

In the field there stood more than two thousand units of the Unaroyal army, camped, ready for the next day's battle, discussing and speculating why their Queen had opted to make their stand outside the city.

Then, they vanished.

The red and orange banners of the proud capital city turned a blank gray, and stopped waving.

For the Queen had destroyed herself, and Unaroyal was no more.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

"You're all business, mister," Stanley grinned. "Love that about you, seriously." He pointed at Ansom and made a clicking noise with his tongue. "But let's lighten up a little, okay?"

Ansom was again having difficulty understanding his Overlord.

He could not hate his Ruler. That would be against his own nature, to say nothing of the will of the Titans. But being alone with Stanley the Tool always seemed to put him in mind of those times when ending this man's life had been all he desired.

"I will try, Lord," he said, curtly nodding. He attempted to relax his posture, as he stood there beside the grand planning table. His broad shoulders lowered a notch, and his stiffly-folded arms now dangled stiffly at his side. He looked at Stanley, who was eyeing him with skepticism.

Oh, yes. A smile. He tightened his lips into a thin, upturned gash.

"Riiight," said Stanley warmly. "We'll work on it. But," he said, clapping his hands together, "let's go ahead and talk about taking Unaroyal. I'm really excited about that."

The war room was lit and carpeted, with a flat ceiling supported by huge columns. There were paintings of battle scenes on the walls. Ansom had been told that this war room was an improvement over Gobwin Knob's prior one. It seemed sparse to him, compared to Jetstone's, but it would do.

At the center of the room squatted an enormous planning table covered in maps and figurines. Stanley had a long croupier's rake for moving the pieces around, which he did without apparent purpose. Ansom still held out hope that Stanley was computing some complex strategy beyond his own immediate ability to grasp, or perhaps that the Titans were guiding his hand. But as he watched his Overlord move a siege tower stack onto a river, this appeared increasingly unlikely.

"The Unaroyal side would seem to have understood too late what they were facing," said Ansom. "Even as we converted their forces and increased our numbers, they deployed the wrong numbers of defenders to their cities. They should either have met us with overwhelming force in our initial forays, or ceded their cities and withdrawn their forces to defend the capital. Now, it is too late. More than half of their units are now ours. Taking the capital will be trivial."

"Right," said Stanley, "they're screwed. Everybody's screwed! Haha. You'll do that when? Two turns?"

"Yes Lord, as I said by hat yesterday." Unaroyal was more than two hundred hexes from Gobwin Knob. But thanks to this dwagon-relay system of Lord Hamster's devising, he would be able to reach the mustering point near Unabrow in a single turn.

He would not, however, sleep much. And he had pulled the same sort of long-hour day yesterday to be here. His Overlord was, perhaps, abusing this new ability to recall him from the front at will.

Still, Ansom could not deny the strategic advantages conferred by this new mobility. The replenished fleet of Dwagons now were regularly deployed and redeployed, so that a contingent of fresh mounts could take a rider to or from anywhere in the side. Because of the extravagance of dedicating so many flying mounts, such a thing had never before been tried. But Lord Hamster saw the possibilities.

Indeed, now that Hamster was dabbling in tactical studies again, his genius was apparent. And unsettling. So, too was his Mistress' faith in it; she now consulted "Parson" before every battle. He was reluctant to devise plans for her, but she took his every word of advice.

Religiously.

It was maddening, really. Until recently, Ansom had been regarded as one of the finest strategic planners in the world. And while he was still in charge of planning his side's conquests, and they were proceeding gloriously, his Mistress saw fit to vet his plans through...whatever Hamster was. Not Royal nor common, nor holy. Fish nor fowl. A deceiver in the service of the Titans, who might perhaps disbelieve in the Titans' existence. Maddening.

He cleared his throat. "I don't believe we should take it for granted that every side we face will make this mistake, Tool. I think we should resign ourselves to an inevitable massive counterstrike, likely led by Jetstone."

Stanley put his rake against the table. "Yeah?"

"Inevitable. King Slately will be spending all of Jetstone's energies in preparation. Seeking a broader coalition, building up toward numerical superiority."

Stanley looked at him appraisingly. "I guess you'd know," he said, avoiding the f-word...father. Ansom nodded. "So what do we want to do about that, Champ?" Lord Stanley, at least, still had unwavering faith in Ansom's strategic mind.

"I have a plan." Ansom took a few steps around the table, to a spot where none of Gobwin Knob's pieces or cities stood...where they had very little intelligence to put enemy pieces, either. "When Unaroyal falls, we suspend expansion. Consolidate the side at 14 cities, and then we prepare."

"Prepare?" said Stanley, taking his rake to where Ansom stood. His stepstool was not on that side of the table, so his nose barely poked over the edge as he looked at where Ansom was indicating.

"A strike. Before they are ready. A direct capital strike," said Ansom. And suddenly his fist came down and struck the table hard. "I will simply take Jetstone."

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

She had missed the power.

Not since her second mission as a barbarian had Jillian ridden a megalogwiff. She'd had four with her when Faq fell. She lost them all on that outing, and very nearly her life as well.

It was a mercenary gig she should have passed up. Far across the southern desert wastes, where the cities were all minarets and onion domes, she'd agreed to fight for Lord Shelby the Cobra. He was a vile man, like a fat, brown Stanley with a beard. He directed her to scout an outlying city held by Dagwood, the side he was in the process of conquering. He said to take it and sack it if she could, and led her to believe that might be possible.

He lied. The whole area was home to the enemy's reserve of natural allies. Three stacks of Sand Witches engaged her in an ambush. She shed a third of her units just to get out of the hex, but fled the wrong way.

Right into the waiting Man Witches.

Good times, right? She smirked and shook her head, and kicked her mount hard, just to hear the thump. "Yah!"

Oh, this was a fine beast. Three times the size of mount she was used to. It had popped in the capital that morning, and she saw it had the move to take her the whole length of her little Queendom and back. So she told her new Warlords, too bad; she was taking it out herself. Alone.

The river wound its way below her, and the Queen crossed over it again and again in her straight line path. As she soared over the rushes, she felt the tickle of an incoming Thinkagram. That would be Bunny, with Don King. She pulled the beast up and hovered over the water. Out here by herself, it was a good time for the call to come in. She would probably be yelling a lot.

Eh, but who knew? Maybe he was ready to meet her demands on the heir thing. Certainly his last offer had not been--

"Good day, your Royal Highness, this is Charlescomm calling," said a blue-garbed Archon in her head. "Will you hold for Charlie?"

"Oh," she said, suddenly feeling chilled and exposed. This raised so many questions so fast that all she could say was, "Sure." If it was some kind of ambush, then she was already caught. She scanned the airspace of adjacent hexes.

"Thank you, one moment."

"Your Highness," said a pleasant, male voice. There was no image with it, just a slowly changing pattern of soothing colors in her mind. "I don't mean to alarm you. I only want to talk. There are no Charlescomm units in Faq's battlespace."

"Fine," she said, with an edge to her voice. "Good. How do you know about Faq at all, Charlie?"

"Your Highness..." The voice sounded pained and apologetic. "Questions about how I know things are some of the most problematic for me in terms of providing an answer. I'm in a complex position, in which I have access to the proprietary information of many clients, and constraints both ethical and contractual governing the release of--"

"Yeah yeah. All right," said Jillian. This guy was the worst. "What do you want then?"

"In a nutshell? Talk to me." said Charlie quietly. "Look, Your Highness...no Royal side west or south of me will even take my calls, let alone hire me."

"So? Work for Stanley," Jillian sneered. "You already are, is what I hear."

"It's not true!" Charlie suddenly exclaimed. "Slately is telling people that to scare them into the Coalition!" It actually sounded like Charlie's composure cracked, at least a little bit. But Jillian assumed everything this man did was an act. She never trusted him back when he was her main competition for mercenary work. And now that he'd apparently found her "secret" kingdom...

"Right. So you're lonely, and you just want to talk."

"There's something terribly important going on," said Charlie, ignoring the sarcasm. "You've obviously heard about Gobwin Knob's territorial gains, right?"

Jillian pursed her lips. "Yeah. Six or seven cities in two dozen turns...nobody knows where they get their troops but they've got the Arkenpliers, so possibly..."

"Nine cities," said Charlie.

"...Really?"

"And more, very soon. And I have good intelligence on how they're managing it."

Jillian tried to look around at the green valley, to get her bearings. Thinkagrams were disorienting. She patted the megalogwiff's fat neck. What game was Charlie really playing at this point? You never knew. "Look, Charlie, I'm gonna be blunt here. From what I hear, everyone assumes you're with Stanley, because of your attunement. Every Royal side is treating this as the War of the Arkentools."

"Every side, Your Highness?"

"Me, you mean? I just wanna croak Stanley." Gah, why was she telling him that? Titans...

"You may want more than that," said Charlie. "I certainly do. But croaking Stanley the Tool would be a good start for both of us."

"Huh. Really." That was a surprise. Disband it...now she was interested. How did he always manage that?

"Queen Jillian, you were not the only one who lost much at the Battle for Gobwin Knob."

Her eyes narrowed. "You didn't lose what I did, Charlie."

"I lost more than you can know," he said. "My secrets have been compromised. You can't imagine what that may mean."

She mentally compared the loss of Prince Ansom to the loss of Charlie's trade secrets, and scoffed.

Charlie pressed on, though. "And you didn't lose what you think you did. Not completely." The image in Jillian's mind turned into a strange picture. It was a set of drawn velvet curtains, in deep blue. "I need to show you something. If you find this as disturbing as I do, please consider accepting my counsel and assistance, both in secret."

She shook her head in bewilderment. Her mount shifted beneath her, nervously. "All right."

The curtains pulled back. Behind them was a still image, in full color and excellent clarity.

"The Chief Croakamancer and Chief Warlord of Gobwin Knob, six turns ago, as they seized the city of Orgchart."

Guest art by Laurel B, aka PhoenixTalion on the Erfworld forums.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

Dhrystone was a city of great enduring power, one of Jetstone's three Level Fives. A sprawling stone citadel with an equally impressive garrison, its mossy gray ramparts rose up out of the dense pine forest with serene grace.

This city was one of the few things Prince Ossomer considered beautiful enough to be worth standing and admiring for a while. It was built much as he himself was: tall, hard, chiseled, majestic, and quietly, implicitly violent.

In Ossomer's studied opinion, Dhrystone also popped the finest soldiers in Erfworld. They were the standard by which all others might be measured.

It was for that reason that the city had been popping only infantry since he became Chief Warlord. Ansom had been wasting its output on Gumps; Father had a hands-off policy where decisions of the Chief Warlord were concerned. But twelve stacks of eight Pikers and eleven stacks of six Stabbers had now popped since Ansom fell. Given present circumstances, that was surely worth more than seven Gumps.

Most of those troops had first been sent eastward, to settle the unfortunate skirmish with Haggar. Ossomer's first major challenge.

Haggar was a quarrelsome, vexing neighbor. They were Royal, but they had refused to join the Coalition against Lord Stanley. When word of Ansom's defeat at Gobwin Knob came down, they had taken it as an opportune moment to strike at Pantstown, a long disputed Level One on the Jetstone side of the River Phoenix. Even as King Slately pleaded that this was a time for all Royals to unite, Haggar had to be gauche.

Well. Ossomer decided that if they could not be made to see light, then he would make them see stars.

He took Pantstown by surprise, then blasted his way through the gap and took Toughskin and Oshkosh as well. He laid siege to a third city, Sansabelt, and sent word to Haggar's King Dickie that the days of courtly emissaries and bean-counter diplomacy over tea were finished. Unless they accepted alliance, Jetstone would march on the capital and annex Haggar into a greater kingdom, perhaps then spinning it off into a new side with Ossomer himself as King.

It was a bluff, of course. Jetstone had been crucially weakened in the loss to Gobwin Knob, and was risking nearly everything with this gambit. But Haggar quickly acceded and joined the growing Royal Crown Coalition II, along with Transylvito, Unaroyal, FoxMUD, Hobbittm, Sofa King, Hyatt (which was technically a Regency, but committed to preserving Royal supremacy), and "Faq" (apparently a small new kingdom allied with Transylvito).

As a result of all of that senselessness, Ossomer now arrived at Dhrystone at the head of a column of about six hundred units and five warlords, of Haggar and Jetstone alike. He fretted that they were not more. Every unit lost in the recent battles on either side was a loss for the Coalition, a waste they could ill afford.

Having already been announced and hailed, Prince Ossomer paused on the gravel road, and stood before the city's gates in silent contemplation. His captains knew to hold their distance, and their tongues. He stared up at Dhrystone's great tower, at the pikes and lances along the walls. Too few, too few. He might one day make a last stand for Jetstone. If so, he prayed the Titans would let it be in this place.

There was much to plan, and everything at stake.

This column would take provisions here and continue on toward Bridgestone and Firestone, cities which lay on the border with Unaroyal and were the closest Jetstonian cities to the fight. From there, they would accept Unaroyal's decision: to call for Jetstone's aid, or cede the capital to Stanley's forces and send what units it could salvage to the other Coalition sides. There was yet time to prepare a counterstrike or some kind of massive--

"Surprise!"

Ossomer raised one thick black eyebrow. This was the closest thing his taut, disciplined body had to a startle reflex. He turned around.

Hovering low over the heads of his officers was a single Unipegataur stallion wearing a large gold earring and outfitted with a gold-inlaid white Jetstone saddle with Royal radishes. Its rider, a slender man in light segmentata armor, was his older brother Prince Tramennis. The warlords and officers saluted at full attention as he landed, grinning.

"Boo!"

"Tramennis!" Ossomer smiled, but with no small bewilderment. "Were you not intending to meet us at Firestone? How did you have the move?"

"I cheated of course," declared Tramennis as he dismounted adroitly. His caligae sandals crunched the gravel. "I set up a relay through Rollingstone and Penistone." He patted the Unipegataur on the flank and nodded his thanks to it.

Ossomer approached, and was met with a spirited embrace. Tramennis hugged Ossomer at the chest plate, standing more than a head shorter than his younger brother. But then, nearly everyone was shorter than Ossomer. "Really," he chided, slapping his brother's back fondly, "that is a waste of flyers."

"Nonsense! I'm telling you, we should do it more. The enemy is." He stepped back and put his hand on his hip, beside the hilt of his rapier. "Anyway, Prince's privilege. I knew I'd want to talk to you after diplomatic rounds."

He looked around, to see that the warlords and officers still stood at a distance which allowed private conversation. His face darkened. "But now?" said Tramennis with a tense sigh, "I need to."

Tramennis was rarely anything but buoyant. This tone meant more bad news. "Oh?"

"I have learned the details," he said. "Of our brother's fate, I mean." His slate blue eyes locked on Ossomer's.

Ossomer set his jaw. "I see." He took a breath, let it out, and shook his head sadly. "You are not going to tell me his life ended well, are you?"

Tramennis shook his head. "No, I am not going to tell you that, Ossomer." He leaned forward, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "For Ansom lives."

Guest art by S. Turner. aka Cloudbreaker on the Erfworld forums.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!