#( gale's random story times fill me with so much joy )

[seluniite-archived]

Eira will always try to fill awkward silence whether it's singing, humming, or telling you some random anecdote that relates to something she spotted over your shoulder. Between her and Gale, the party will truly never know peace or silence.

[thedailyscourge]

Preface

Once upon a time in the town called Brookland there lived a young(ish) squire who was nearly finished with his er… squiredom! BUT LO!, there was in those days a great Scourge upon the town and in the greater realm of New Pork to which the town belonged, and beyond that, in the Divided Realms of Amen!-ia (DRA) and beyond that, well there were some kingdoms or something but no one in Amen!-ia really cared about what was beyond that anyway.  

The squire was betrothed to a young(ish) lady known throughout the land for her quick wit and questionable taste in textiles embedded with colorful squiggles.  The Lady was from The Land of Angles named that by the people who lived there (who were not angels by the way) which made it sound nice and it was nice but also smoggy and full of carriage traffic.  Anywho, the Squire and the Lady loved each other very much and they were going to get married and form a family band and tour the countryside… etc., etc.

Where was I? Oh yes, the Scourge! The Scourge loomed over the land and threatened to cause death and destruction to 2% of the general population which doesn’t sound like a lot but it was a lot because there were over two and a half million people in the town of Brookland.  Now, the Squire just happened to be in a very specific type of apprenticeship called a “Tiny Human Plague Squiredom” in which he was paid very little but was taught by an aging band of knights how to protect the tiny humans from a variety of plagues.  The Scourge however was a brand new type of plague and none of the knights throughout the Divided Realms knew quite how to fight it.  In fact, they were barely able to test for it because the tests were about as rare as toilet paper which as you might imagine was very hard to find in those days.  That was a problem because the Scourge was spreading quickly.  So quickly in fact that the Governor of New Pork told everyone they couldn’t leave their houses anymore except for emergencies and to buy cocktails to go from their local taverns but only if they also bought food at the same time because that makes sense.  Everyone in Brookland and New Pork felt very anxious and sad.  They could no longer meet in groups bigger than 10 people and had to use electric Windows and Apples to see each other's faces and talk (all the cool people used Apples). Meanwhile, some very smart knights at the Plague Control Place (PCP) and the World Health Assessment Team (WHAT) were working very hard to figure out a plan to fight the Scourge.  Unfortunately, those very smart knights had to take orders from the Emperor.

The Emperor of the Divided Realms of Amen!-ia was a former court jester and wasn’t very bright but he won the election to be Emperor because he was a racist. But also because he fooled a lot of well meaning folks.  This Emperor famously was orange and had no clothes. He also liked to send out little angry messages by carrier pigeon to anyone who would listen to him, often as he was pooping.  This was not at all in the job description of an emperor, this is just something he liked to do while he was supposed to be working.

The Emperor was one of the people most responsible for protecting the humans in the Divided Realms from the Scourge.  However, it took him a very long time to care at all about the Scourge as it did not affect him personally and the Emperor was born without a heart.  He did eventually react to the Scourge but only when it started to affect the Fish Markets which he cared very much about.  

An abbreviated timeline of the Emperor’s comments about the Scourge:

Day 10 of the 2nd month: “Now, the Scourge that we’re talking about having to do — you know, a lot of people think that goes away in the 4th month with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in the 4th month. We’re in great shape though. We have 12 cases — 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.”

Day 14 of the 2nd month: “There’s a theory that, in the 4th month, when it gets warm — historically, that has been able to kill the Scourge.  So we don’t know yet; we’re not sure yet. But that’s around the corner.”

Day 24 of the 2nd month: “The Scourge is very much under control in the DRA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant kingdoms. PCP & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Fish Market starting to look very good to me!”

Day 27 of the 2nd month: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”  

Day 7 of the 3rd month: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it.”

Day 10 of the 3rd month: “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

On Day 11 of the 3rd month the World Health Assessment Team declared the Scourge a pandemic.

Meanwhile in Brookland, the Squire continued to train and work at two castles across the road from each other: Brookland’s Best Castle and Jester’s Court Castle.  These castles were filled with wonderful people who were training and preparing to fight the Scourge.  However, like many castles around the Divided Realms, they were worried that while fighting the Scourge, they would run out of armor.  You see, their armor was such that it needed to be thrown away after every dangerous encounter (I know, not a great system).  They were also worried that they were going to run out of experimental weapons to fight the Scourge.  Each day, the Squire received a scroll in his mailbox detailing the amount of weapons left in Brookland’s Best Castle.  The scrolls were very sad.  Next to the name of every weapon it said “back order in place” and it showed that the supply of weapons was dwindling as more and more people came to the castle seeking help to fight off the Scourge.  

All around the Divided Realms of Amen!-ia the story was the same. The knights were running desperately low on armor.  In fact, many of them started a thing called a “hashtag” where they tied a little tag of paper to carrier pigeons' legs and sent them to their friends and even random people.  On the tag was written: #Barter4Armor! And many town crier’s heard about it and started...er crying.

Through all of this, the Emperor remained unmoved except for being secretly scared about how the damage done to the Fish Markets by this Scourge business was going to hurt his bid for re-election. The knights from around the country were like, “hey, did you even read our clever hashtag? We need armor!”.  But the Emperor ignored them and told the people every day from the balcony in his palace that everything was fine even though he really shouldn’t have been going out to address the people from the balcony because everyone agreed he was rather bad at it.  One time he was on the balcony, a town crier asked him “What do you say to Amen!-ians who are scared?” and he responded, “I say that you’re a terrible town crier, that’s what I say”.  

Although the Emperor had the power to order many of the blacksmiths and foundries around the Divided Realms to make armor for the knights, he decided not to which made no sense to anyone.  Some of the blacksmiths and foundries even started to make armor out of the kindness of their hearts for the knights.  But it wasn’t enough.   And it would never be enough unless the Emperor decided to stop worrying about the Fish Markets and help the knights.

So where does that leave us? Well, the handsome, young(ish) Squire (did I mention he was handsome?) saw that all of these problems were going to reach a pinnacle around the start of the 4th month of the year, at the same time as he would be starting his very last official month of on the job training with the knights.  In fact, for a variety of reasons, the Squire would be pretty much autonomous during that month so it was extra troubling that it appeared all chaos was about to break loose at that exact time.

BUT HARKEN! What is that coming on the wings of a crisp gale at dawn?! The miraculous 4TH MONTH!  Yes, the 4th month of which the Emperor spoke so fondly.  A MIRACLE he said.  Everything would magically go away he said!  What joy!!! Surely this whole Scourge business will come to an end this month.  Surely, it could not get worse! We are saved! We must only wait for the heat.

Here, we should make one final note: The Squire was not scared.   But he was about to get very serious.