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unpeumacabre · 5 years ago

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my kingdom for a horse: chapter 1

the year is 1601, a messenger has been sent to dongnae, and he has not returned. lord cho-hak-ju advises the joseon king to send crown prince lee chang to dongnae to investigate, but the plot he unravels there threatens the safety of the entire kingdom, and the stability of the dynasty.

a rewriting of kingdom, and lee chang finds love.

Rating: Mature

Relationships: Lee Chang/Yeong-shin

Read on AO3 (bc tumblr might mess up the formatting)

Count: 7k

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A/N: ummmmm so basically i wanted to rewrite kingdom... with a yeong-shin/lee chang twist... and it turned out as a massive lee chang character study lol. the plot borrows elements from the drama but is quite different - i wanted to bring out certain aspects of the characters and tone down on some of them a little more. the story is mostly complete, i'm just in the midst of editing, so updates will be weekly. enjoy~

Survive.

Lee Chang gathers the reins of his horse in his hands, and looks out towards the horizon. The sun is waning, and Mu-yeong is complaining about the flies, and Lee Chang still feels the heat of anger and injustice scorching his skin.

He had been there when the King had sent the messenger to Dongnae – a routine check it had been, nothing more. Apparently, Cho Hak-ju and his spies had heard murmurs of a rebellion in the South, and he had whispered his foul poison into the King’s ear, convincing him to send a messenger to Dongnae to put the magistrate on his guard.

Lee Chang had also been there when the messenger’s horse had returned, bereft of its rider, and bereft of its message.

“Why not send the Prince to investigate?” had been Cho Hak-ju’s answer. “We must send someone reliable this time, someone who will not shirk his mission. And the Prince must have been so bored of late. There is little to occupy his scholarly mind in recent days, what with everyone being occupied preparing for the new prince’s birth.”

“Why not send Beom-il? Surely your son is more experienced than I am at these matters,” Lee Chang had answered, and he had felt the strain of his smile stretch tight against his cheekbones.

“Of course, but Beom-il is indisposed at the moment. He has been sent to oversee the setting up of the new regiment at Haeju, and will not return for a few days more.”

He was an odious snake, he was, Lee Chang thought bitterly, but still the King had acquiesced.

His only modicum of hope lay in the words the King had said to him that night, as they took their private dinner together – a rarity, now that most of his time was occupied with the queen and her increasingly-rounded belly.

“It pains me to say this, but…” the King had picked at his food. “There is something brewing in the south, although I do not believe it to be the rebellion that Lord Cho is suggesting.”

Lee Chang personally thought there was nothing in it, but then again, he didn’t have the extensive network of spies the King and Cho Hak-ju seemed to have. He could not – and probably never will – understand how one can trust men who live in the shadows and trade secrets – and lives – for their livelihood. Perhaps it would not make him a good king, but Lee Chang wanted to believe that it would make him a better one instead.

“I want you to investigate what the Haewon Cho clan is up to in the south,” the King had then said, and Lee Chang had almost fallen from his seat.

“Father, why?” he had asked, a perfectly reasonable question. He well remembered the times in his youth when Cho Hak-ju had said something insulting to him or done something to side-line him, something so serious that he had felt the need to go to the King for recompense. Every single time, he could recall being brushed off and told “Lord Cho thinks only of the good of the nation” and “you would do well to heed his teachings”. Never had the King shown even a hint of resentment or suspicion of the Haewon Cho clan’s leader, and Lee Chang had always thought his trust in Cho Hak-ju unshakeable.

Not so unshakeable, it seemed. A shadow had crossed the King's face then, and he had turned away as if to hide his face.

“I did not believe it when first the Head of the Royal Commandery brought it to my attention,” the King had said then, “but Cho Beom-il has been implicated in several – well, shall we say, unsavoury deals, and Lord Min’s investigations point to Lord Cho at their head. But he has been very careful to cover his tracks, and the evidence is, while convincing, mostly circumstantial.”

Lee Chang had taken a sip of his wine, his throat suddenly dry. “And of my role in all this?” he had managed. “Why send me? Surely by doing so we are playing precisely into Lord Cho’s hands.”

“I do not yet know what he plans,” the King had replied, shaking his head. “All I have are ominous tidings from my spies in Sangju and Dongnae that there is something nefarious being planned, but Lord Cho – if it is indeed he behind it – is an intelligent man. He has not yet let anything slip. If we must play into his hands, at least for now, just know that you go as my envoy, my emissary, and not the messenger boy of the Haewon Cho clan. I trust only my son to carry this through for me.”

“I wish to see my son, and I miss my wife,” Mu-yeong complains, and it snaps Lee Chang back to reality. He huffs out an exasperated laugh at the familiar refrain.

“At least she will be well-taken care of while you are gone,” he says, letting the amusement thread through his voice. “Where did you say she was staying while you are with me?”

“With her aunt, in Naesonjae. Her brother has found work in the queen’s palace, so they have enough money to put her up at least until I return,” Mu-yeong answers, and punctuates his answer with an enormous, put-upon sigh.

“That is good,” Lee Chang says absently. “At least you need not steal desserts from my table any longer to feed her.”

“Your Highness – you said you wouldn’t - ” splutters Mu-yeong, his face turning beet red, as he spins around in his horse to check on the entourage of three guards following them. Thankfully for him, they are bickering among themselves about something inconsequential, and Lee Chang dismisses them as not having heard anything.

“We must find somewhere to make camp soon,” he decides, looking back towards the horizon, and the sun’s fading rays colouring it red.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Mu-yeong replies, and he slows his horse to tell the guards.

Very quickly, they find a clearing in which to make camp, and Lee Chang grooms his horse while the guards and Mu-yeong start the fire. When the fire is sufficiently large, he sits by it and unwraps the jangguk mandu prepared for him that morning by his chefs. The smell of pork and kimchi wafts like sweet perfume from the wrappings, and he catches the guards looking at him enviously from the corner of their eyes, as they dig into their mieum. The gruel splatters over the grass as they eat.

One of the guards’ voices drifts over to him on the wind. “Royals are lucky,” he says, a thread of envy in his voice. “Jangguk mandu and tteokguk for dinner. What I would do for some meat.”

“Hush,” Mu-yeong says, glancing over at Lee Chang, but he pretends not to hear their conversation, and Mu-yeong returns his attention to the guards, reassured. “You know meat is a luxury us peasants cannot afford, especially in these trying times.”

“Yeah? You’d think the royals and the lords don’t know of the ongoing famine. The other day, I was on guard for Lord Park, and he left a whole dish of goldongban untouched. Untouched!” There is a collective groan from the group.

“What I wouldn’t do for some beef and eggs,” agrees one of the others, fervently.

“My mother died of illness last month. She wasted away,” comes the quiet voice of the last guard. “And when you think of all the food that’s left on the royals’ tables…” He shakes his head, and fumbles in his pockets. “I only have my daughter and my dear wife left, and the little girl’s so much like her grandmother. Worries about me all the time. She made me this talisman to keep me safe.” He displays the charm, and Lee Chang can vaguely see the childish drawings on the blue fabric, accompanied by words he is too far away to read.

He looks down at his mandu. Suddenly, the dumplings no longer seem as inviting.

Lee Chang thinks of offering them his food, then. Thinks of unwrapping the rest of the packages tethered to his horse, and sharing the food among the guards, because, if he’s honest, there was far too much food packed for him alone.

But something holds him back. Pride, perhaps, or irrational fear, that they will hate him even more for what they might construe as his pity.

And now it is too late. Before he could come to a a decision, the guards had finished their food, and now they are standing up, stretching, and sorting out the watch schedule. Mu-yeong comes over to him and notices his untouched meal.

“You must eat, Your Highness,” he urges, his tone teasing.

But when Lee Chang turns his face up to face him, Mu-yeong must see something in his face, for he squats down, his eyes turning liquid and understanding.

“Your Highness is different from the rest of the nobles,” he murmurs, under his breath so the other guards do not hear. “You did not execute my family when you caught me stealing from your table to provide for my wife. You did not execute the maid when she ruined your second-best coat with her shoddy washing skills. You did not execute the chef when he cooked you kongguksu for dinner, forgetting soy beans give you sleepless nights. That mercy is far above what any other noble is capable of – ah, now, don’t blush, Your Highness – you know it to be true! Don’t be embarrassed.”

Lee Chang scoffs and turns away. “Be quiet, or I shall execute your whole family,” he mutters under his breath.

“Isn’t it about time you stopped joking about that?” Mu-yeong cries, aghast. “Such a threat from the Crown Prince holds more weight than you think!”

Lee Chang glares at him out of the corner of his eye, then sighs, and turns his attention away. He begins unpacking the linens with which he is to make his bed, and tries not to smile; but he is sure the way his lips twitch, gives him away.

Satisfied that he has restored his prince’s spirits, Mu-yeong returns to the rest of the guards, who have been watching their exchange with some curiosity. Lee Chang strains to hear their conversation as they welcome his guard back to their side with a comradely clap to the back, but it is late, and the hard riding of the morning has driven all the energy from his bones.

The ground is hard against his back, and it is with the unhappy feeling of rocks digging pinpricks of pain into his skin, that he finally drifts into a restless slumber.

***

He is in the King’s study, staring at the irworobongdo behind the King’s desk and thinking to himself, “I will never be king.”

The King’s great-grandfather, his great-great-grandfather, had had the folding screens installed behind his desk in his room in Gyeongbokgung Palace during his reign, to emulate the irworobongdo behind the royal throne where he held court. Lee Chang had been told by his nurse as a boy that the former King, his great-great-grandfather, had used the paintings to intimidate whoever was unlucky enough to be called to his study for an audience. After the Second War of Jeong-yu, three years ago, Gyeongbokgung had been razed to ashes, they had moved here into Changdeokgung as the main palace, and the current King had decided to adopt the same practice as his great-grandfather.

It makes a majestic sight for sure, the five peaks rising above the head of the King, flanked by the two moons, conifers, and streams running down from the mountains. Lee Chang had often been called here in his youth, and one of his earliest – and most vivid – memories is of standing before the King, only nine years old, on his knees and crying. He remembers having been summoned for some small prank he had played on one of the guards. He remembers the King’s back, tall and stately, looming above him, his arms crossed behind him, and his voice: “You are the Crown Prince, Lee Chang. Such childish frivolities are beneath you. You must always act with the maturity and dignity required of your station.”

Yet he cannot remember the King’s face.

So now, he fixes his gaze blankly on the third and middle peak of the irworobongdo, as the King strides leisurely across the room, watching him.

“Did you hear me, Chang?” he says, and his voice is quiet.

“Yes,” Lee Chang manages. “That is wonderful news. You have informed the ministers, then? That Her Highness is with child?”

“Yes, yes,” the King replies, waving his hand airily. “They have given their best wishes, of course. I am sure he will be a beautiful baby boy.”

Or a girl, Lee Chang’s mind whispers, but somehow he knows in his bones that it will be a boy. Cho Hak-ju is not known for his errors.

The King is still watching him. Lee Chang does not know what he is expecting to see.

Then he turns his head away, sighs, and gestures imperiously towards Lee Chang, beckoning him forward. Lee Chang steps forward and kneels at the King's feet. He feels like that nine-year-old child all over again; but the difference is that, in the years between then and now, he has learned not to cry.

“Chang,” the King says, and Lee Chang feels a hand in his hair, a gentle touch which catches him by surprise. “You have survived, as I commanded you to. And you are all that a father can ever ask for. All that a nation can ask for in its prince. When this child comes, you will no longer be destined to be king. But you will still be a prince, and that is all that matters.”

“Is it?” Lee Chang whispers. “I have been brought up to be a king, with the expectation that one day, it was to be I who would sit on the Phoenix Throne and command the kingdom of Joseon. And now I realise that all that will have been for nothing.”

The King sighs again. “Not for nothing,” he amends. “Your brother will need you as he grows. You are experienced both in scholarship and military command. Do not dismiss yourself so easily.” The hand in his hair disappears, and Lee Chang finds himself strangely bereft.

When next he looks up again, the King is sitting at his desk, reading. The third peak glimmers in the light of his lamp, directly above his head. Lee Chang takes it as a dismissal.

“Chang,” the King says, as Lee Chang turns to leave. He turns back to face him, and the King’s eyes are molten gold.

“Remember,” he says. “Survive.” And he opens his mouth, and emits a piercing scream.

Lee Chang is jolted from his slumber and scrambles for the handle of his sword. He whips around and the blade points directly at Mu-yeong’s throat.

“Your Highness,” Mu-yeong gasps, his hand still on Lee Chang’s shoulder, where he has clearly been trying to rouse Lee Chang from his sleep. “We are under attack!”

Lee Chang’s mind immediately flies to Cho Hak-ju’s miserable face, but he quickly dismisses the notion. There is hardly any legitimate reason Cho can find to hunt him down, after all – Lee Chang’s plans had not been ready to set in motion before he had left the capital.

“By who?” he roars, instead. “Who dares attack – “ He is cut off by another piercing yell, this time of pain, and he turns in time to see one of the guards fall to the ground, a man covered in bloody rags clinging to his throat.

Immediately he leaps forward and buries his blade in the back of the attacker. The blow is harsh, and carves a deep line to the bone. The man jerks and convulses, falling off the guard and rolling onto the ground. Lee Chang is repulsed to see that his face is covered in blood, and that his teeth had been buried in the guard’s throat.

Quickly he bends down and shakes the guard. “Are you alright?” he asks roughly, scanning the wound. It is a bad bite, it is, and the attacker had torn out a good chunk of flesh when he had fallen off the body. It needs bandaging, and so Lee Chang rips off a piece of cloth from the hem of his coat. He pulls the fabric around the guard’s neck, making sure not to pull it too tight and obstruct his breathing, then he ties it off with a quick bow.

It is only Mu-yeong’s reflexes which save him from certain death, in those next few moments.

The man who had been lying on the ground – who had clearly been dead, no one could survive such a blow and live – had sprung up from his supine position and leapt for Lee Chang’s throat. He is too slow to react, and when he turns, the man’s breath is hot on his neck, in the instant before Mu-yeong’s blade whistles past him and separates the attacker’s head from his body.

Lee Chang falls back in disbelief, his bottom hitting the ground, and stares unseeingly at the head on the ground, its teeth bared in a foul approximation of a smile.

“How?” he asks, blankly. “He was dead. I buried my blade in his back myself. I severed his spinal cord. He should be dead.”

Another scream of pain attracts his attention, and he looks away in time to see the other two guards fall, and descended upon by more raggedy attackers. Lee Chang feels his stomach roil as he realises one of the smaller figures among the pack, is that of a child. His hand flies to the handle of his sword, and he is about to rise to his feet and run to the rescue, when he feels the body under his other hand begin to tremble.

“Your Highness,” Mu-yeong says warningly, but Lee Chang hardly needs his words to recognise the mottled colour spreading across the downed guard’s face, and the milky film descending over his eyes. He recognises that face, for he has seen it just moments before – on the head that is now sitting, eyes unseeing, among the blood-stained blades of grass.

Purely on instinct, his body leaps back from the guard, and he watches in horror as the guard begins to writhe and shake, as if caught in a fit. His neck arches backwards, beyond what is humanely possible, and his mouth falls open, froth drooling from his jowls. It is the most terrible thing Lee Chang has ever seen.

“Are you alright?” he calls, urgently. No answer, as the man continues to fit.

Then, suddenly, eerily, he stops moving.

“We must get medical help for him,” Lee Chang says urgently, glancing up at Mu-yeong. “He is on the brink of death!”

But Mu-yeong is not looking at him. Lee Chang follows his gaze, and although his body is screaming at him to run, he finds he cannot move. The sight before him is so horrific, it is beyond anything in his worst nightmares.

The other two guards, with their throats torn out and blood gushing from numerous wounds all over their body, are also convulsing on the ground. One of them – the one who had been, only just last night, bemoaning his lack of meat and the royals’ frivolity – has had his eye torn out. The eyeball dangles, almost comically, from the empty cavity of his eye socket, except that there is nothing laughable about this situation at all. Lee Chang turns his head to the side and retches.

As he wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, he hears Mu-yeong suck in a sharp breath. “Your Highness,” he says, and his voice is small. “Your Highness!” he repeats, this time louder, and with more urgency. Lee Chang lifts his head, and the group of attackers is looking straight at them.

“They see us,” hisses Mu-yeong frantically. “Your Highness, we must run!”

Lee Chang springs to his feet, but something catches his ankle in a vice-like grip, and he almost falls. He turns, and the body of the third guard – who he had thought stone-cold dead, after his fits! – has roused itself. He is leering up at him, teeth bared grotesquely, and its claws digging into the skin of his ankle.

He is no longer human, some primal instinct of his tells him, and so he does not hesitate.

Again, his blade strikes honest and true, and cuts deep into the body’s abdomen – a blow that would fell any normal man. But the body does not falter, and rears upwards, sword still buried in his stomach, intestines spewing out, his jaws gnashing and aiming straight towards Lee Chang’s face.

Lee Chang yanks the blade from its stomach with a motion that jars his shoulder, for how deep it is buried in the other man’s abdomen. The movement hoists the creature up towards him, and Lee Chang feels its fetid breath against his nose for one terrifying moment – makes contact with its sightless eyes for barely a second – before he swings and takes the body’s head off.

He can’t hear the thud of the head as it hits the ground, and belatedly he realises that the ground is shaking.

“Your Highness, we must flee! Now!” Mu-yeong yells, and grabs his shoulder. Lee Chang springs up and grabs his pack from the ground, where it is lying next to him.

And so they fly, the pursuers hot on their heels. Lee Chang has never run so fast in his life. He feels his heart beating a thousand miles an hour, thrumming through his ears, counting out the beat of his steps as they sprint over the dry grass and across the plain.

They are running too fast to stop, however, when they reach the cliff. There is barely a split second as they see the water loom before them, Mu-yeong looks at him, and his mouth forms an ‘o’ – Lee Chang would laugh, at the surrealism of the entire situation, if he weren’t working so hard to keep from breaking down. He says some words his wet nurse would have shook him upside down for.

And then they hit the water. The impact is like hitting a wall, and it drives all the air out of his lungs. He feels himself begin to sink, his heavy silk clothes quickly absorbing the water and lending him the weight of a stone, and the water bites cold frost into his skin.

Desperately, he kicks towards the surface, feeling his head throb with the pain of his lack of air. The moonlight is bright above the water’s surface, so near yet so far, as if the moon itself is taunting him. His limbs are a leaden weight, and he barely feels himself move. He cannot breathe.

Then suddenly he breaks the surface of the water with a gasp, and air – blessed air – rushes into his lungs. The cold air stings his reddened cheeks, and he already feels the ache of bruises beginning to form, from his intimate contact with the hard surface of the water.

“Mu-yeong!” he yells hoarsely, when he does not see the guard’s head. Moments later, the man breaks the surface, gasping and flailing, his sodden hair and clothes clinging miserably to his skin. Lee Chang knows he looks no better.

“They are too afraid to jump!” Mu-yeong calls to him, his voice bright with relief, pointing at the cliff’s edge. Indeed, the attackers are gathered above them, staring sombrely down at the two of them paddling in the water. There is one unlucky man who evidently was unable to slow his run, and is now clinging to the cliff face.

As they watch, he slips and plunges into the water. He does not come back up.

“It is a miracle,” Lee Chang says in disbelief. “They are afraid of the water.”

“Probably afraid of freezing to – well, death, if that’s even an appropriate word for them,” Mu-yeong says grimly. “And so will we, if we stay here much longer. The sun is rising, and I can see lights over there – there must be a village, or a camp of some sort. We must make for it before we freeze to death.”

With a nod of assent on Lee Chang’s part, they paddle dolefully to the opposite shore and haul themselves up. The wind is cruel and relentless, and Lee Chang feels his teeth begin to chatter. They lie prone on the ground, chests heaving in tune, arms spread akimbo, and staring unseeingly up at the beautiful night sky.

“C-c-c-curse this autumn wind,” cries Mu-yeong. “I am only thankful that it is not winter. We w-w-would be dead by now, if t-that were the case.”

Lee Chang laughs. But halfway through, it devolves into a sob, and he somehow finds the energy to sit up.

He barely makes it up before he feels his stomach revolt, and he throws up all over the ground. The remnants of meat in his vomit remind him of the chunks of flesh the creatures had torn off the guards’ bodies, and the memory makes him heave again. This time nothing comes up.

He turns, and Mu-yeong is shaking with quiet sobs, his jaw clenched and his eyes blinking furiously as he tries to hold back tears. It is the first time Lee Chang has ever seen Mu-yeong cry.

“Mu-yeong.” Lee Chang calls his name, and the gentleness of his voice surprises even him. The guard turns to him, eyes glassy with unshed tears, and his fist stuffed in his mouth to block his sobs. Lee Chang tries to find the right things to say.

“They were good, honest men,” he says, at last. “I did not know them very long, but I could tell that they were good men. We will honour their memories and their bravery in the face of unholy evil.”

Mu-yeong chokes out a laugh, and it is an ugly sound. “They were bloody awful at times,” he says, casting his eyes away. “We always quarrelled. They begrudged me my role as your guard, and always teased me for only passing the exam in my forties, when they had done so in their youth.” He pauses to wipe at the sides of his eyes, and when he continues, his voice is quiet.

“But they were good men,” he says, and his voice is full of affection. “You are right, Your Highness. They were honest, and hardworking, and brave. They did not deserve the death they received.”

The sun is rising, and the heat of its rays takes the edge off the cold. Lee Chang tries to ignore the sour stench of his own vomit, and stares off into the horizon. Their attackers are no longer gathered at the cliff’s edge, from what he can make out.

“They were ungodly abominations,” he says lowly, recalling the dark patterns that had been spread across their faces and exposed skin, and the rotting flesh that had been falling off their bodies. “I do not know how it is that they were able to sustain blows that would kill any normal man, nor why they were feeding on human flesh. But they are still on the other side of the river, and I fear for the villages we passed on our way.”

“What will we do, Your Highness?” asks Mu-yeong, and some semblance of normality has been restored to his voice. “Do we still ride – well, walk to Dongnae?”

“Yes,” Lee Chang says decisively. “We must go to Dongnae, and light the signal fires to warn the other cities in the region. We do not know how many of these people are out there, nor what they want. It will be good to prepare everyone for an attack.

“And Mu-yeong?” he says, almost as an afterthought, but as quite an important one. He manages a small smile when the guard turns to face him.

“We will return for your friends’ bodies,” he murmurs softly. “Their bodies will not be left to rot, alone and with only the crows for company. We will return them to Hanyang, for an honourable burial, and for the peace of mind of their family.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Mu-yeong says quietly, and he is about to say something else, when they are interrupted by a loud cacophony of clattering.

“Who are you, and what have you come for?” comes a voice from their right, and when Lee Chang turns, he comes face to face with the barrel of a musket.

It is a rough-looking man, smaller in stature but no less fierce for it. His hair is carelessly tossed into a bun, and sweaty strands of it stick to his tan skin. The bags under his eyes speak of countless sleepless nights, but still the hand that is holding the gun is steady and true. A pile of bamboo poles lies by him, the origin of the clattering sound.

“Put down your weapon!” Mu-yeong cries, and hefts his sword. The man spares him a glance out of the corner of his eyes. “Do you know who you dare lift your weapon against? This is the Crown Prince of the Joseon kingdom!”

The stranger’s brows shoot up, but apart from that, he does not move an inch, and the barrel of the musket is still pointed straight at Lee Chang’s face. Lee Chang feels himself begin to sweat.

“You did not answer the question,” he says quietly. “Why have the Crown Prince and his guard emerged from the banks of the Nakdong River, soaking wet and covered in gore?”

“We were attacked,” Lee Chang finds his voice. “By men who ate human flesh and did not balk at our blades in their back. Three of my other guards were felled by the attackers, and we had to flee into the river, which they dared not enter.”

There is a moment of silence, as the man stares at them, his eyes wide, and Lee Chang thinks he does not believe him. Honestly, were he the opposing party, he does not think he would believe his story either, outlandish as it seems – but every word of it is, unfortunately, the cold, hard truth.

“Then they did survive,” the man says abruptly, and his arm drops back to his side. Mu-yeong’s stance relaxes minutely, his blade still drawn, but the man pays him no mind and turns to the river.

“We must return to the other side,” he says urgently. “You must show me where the monsters descended on you.”

“Monsters?” splutters Mu-yeong. “What the hell – beg pardon, Your Highness – what do you mean by that?”

“Those men were dead,” the stranger says ruthlessly. “They frothed at the mouth and fitted to death, but at night they rise again and crave human flesh. They cannot be killed by normal means – only by fire, deep water, or beheading. And if we do not dispose of their bodies by tonight, they will return to kill once more.” He turns to them again, his eyes ablaze. “You must show me where they found you. They will be hiding from the sun, somewhere nearby, as they fear the daylight. We must burn their bodies as soon as possible.”

“We were on our way to Dongnae – “ starts Mu-yeong mulishly, but then he stops as Lee Chang holds up a hand to stop him. If, indeed, these men will rise again tonight to attack more unsuspecting folk… Lee Chang thinks, again, of the villages they had passed on the way, and the playful cries of children that had arisen from those settlements. He cannot let the innocent people in those villages die, not when he can prevent it.

“We will show you the way. Dongnae can wait.”

“Your Highness – “ Mu-yeong says sharply. “What reason do we have to trust this – this stranger? He could be lying. The story he tells – of the dead rising and killing for human flesh? It is a tale that is nigh on impossible.”

“You saw what we saw last night, Mu-yeong,” Lee Chang says quietly. “I do not believe those men were human. Besides,” he says, with a weak smile, “I did promise you we would return to retrieve your friends’ bodies – although I did not expect that we would do it as soon as we are choosing to now. Dongnae can wait. If we find these bodies and destroy them, it will greatly thin the number of monsters out there.”

“As you wish, Your Highness,” Mu-yeong accedes. Although it is not without a final glare towards the back of the man, who is standing by the riverside a little ways away, glancing restlessly back at them as they make their decision.

He brings them to a bridge further down the road, where they cross to the other side of the river, and they retrace their steps in silence till they reach the remains of the campsite.

The ashes of the fire Mu-yeong had lit are still smoking, and the bodies – even those of the guards – are nowhere to be found.

“They must have carried their bodies off,” Mu-yeong mutters, in disgust. Lee Chang watches as the man squats down and examines the ground.

“Do you see any tracks?” he calls, as the man picks up a piece of dirt off the ground and sniffs at it. He spares Lee Chang a glance, then stands up and brushes his hands off on his trousers.

“They went northward,” he says shortly. “Into the forest. There must be some abandoned homes or buildings among the trees in which they can hide from the sun.”

Lee Chang nods, and gestures forward. “Lead the way then.”

They walk into the woods. The trees have shed their leaves and are bare and stark against the crisp autumn sunlight. Frost crunches under their feet as they walk, and the air is eerily still, undisturbed by the sounds of any animals. Lee Chang gathers his coat tighter around him, and subconsciously tightens his grip on the handle of his sword.

“There,” the man says, stopping suddenly, and he points at a ruined shack that lies a distance from them. They make their way over to it, and Mu-yeong tentatively opens the door. It creaks as it opens, and releases a cloud of dust that makes all of them cough.

Lee Chang steps in first, squinting into the darkness. He draws his sword, and the blade gleams dully. The floorboards groan under his feet as he walks, craning his neck to see further than one chok in front of his face.

There – there is a glimmer of something in the corner of the room, he thinks, and readies his sword for battle – then there is an almighty crash as the complaining floorboards finally give way, and he sinks downwards with a shout of surprise.

The landing is unexpectedly soft, and there is a sinking feeling in his stomach as he turns his head downwards to gaze at what has broken his fall.

Faces upon faces upon faces, bodies upon bodies upon bodies, curled up in grotesque positions under the boards. Their eyes are shut in a gross parody of sleep, but their chests do not move with breath. They are dead.

Mu-yeong hoists him from the ground, and utters a hoarse cry as he sees what Lee Chang has happened upon. The stranger is unfazed, however, and begins pulling up the floorboards.

“We must get all of them out, and make sure their heads are cut off before we bury them, so they do not rise again,” he orders. Lee Chang has a very brief argument with a voice in his head – one that sounds very much like the King’s voice - about the merits of following the orders of someone of a lesser station than himself, before he sternly tells himself off and squats down to help.

They manage to pull out all twenty-one bodies of their attackers, and Lee Chang is horrified to find out that he had been right – one of them had been a child, no older than ten years of age, with the same mottled pattern on his skin, and mouth painted with gore. He almost throws up again, then, but his stomach is protesting the lack of food, and thankfully he manages to push down the urge.

Mu-yeong finds the bodies of the guards, one headless and two others still intact. He drags the bodies and the head out and lays them sombrely in front of the porch, aside from the other bodies.

“I apologise, my friends,” he says, under his breath, so softly that Lee Chang knows the words are not meant for others to hear. “I would give you now a burial worthy of the most honourable of men, but alas, I cannot do so. I promise, I will retrieve your bodies and bring them back to your honourable families, so they can pay their respects to you as you deserve.”

The man comes up to him and stands by his side, looking at the bodies of the guards. Then, in a stern but kind voice, completely at odds with his manner so far, he says, “We must cut off their heads as well. Any man the monsters bite will turn into one of their kind.”

Mu-yeong looks torn, and splutters. “That is absurd. Whoever heard of such a thing? Your Highness,” he turns to Lee Chang, and while his voice is accusatory, his eyes are soft with anguish. “You do not believe him, do you?”

Lee Chang sighs, and inadvertently locks eyes with the man. His eyes are fierce, and hooded, but Lee Chang thinks they hold no lies – at least, with regards to his matter. He shakes his head in answer to Mu-yeong.

“We saw it for ourselves last night, Mu-yeong,” he says patiently. “One of them returned to life and attacked me, and the only way of ensuring he did not rise again, was by taking off his head. Think of this,” and he manages what he hopes is a comforting smile, “it would be the kindest thing to do, to stop them casting a blemish on their honourable record by killing more innocent people. They would have wanted you to do it.”

In answer, Mu-yeong bows his head, and nods. And later, when they are done beheading the rest of the monsters, he takes the heads off the guards himself.

“We must dig a pit to bury the bodies in,” the man says, coming out of the shack with tools in hand. He passes one shovel to Mu-yeong, then he looks at Lee Chang out of the corner of his eye, a question written clearly in his face. Mu-yeong’s eyes widen and he opens his mouth to interject; but Lee Chang silences him with a look, and takes the shovel from the man.

About an hour passes as they dig into the frozen ground to create a large shallow pit – shallow because they can go no deeper with the rudimentary tools they have, and the hardness of the soil. It is backbreaking work, and even in the cold biting air, Lee Chang feels sweat beading on his brow. The numbness in his fingers and the weariness in his bones does not help.

When they are finished, they haul most of the bodies over to the pit and try, as carefully as possible, to arrange them inside. They were once human, after all, and every human, no matter how small in stature or station, deserved an honourable burial.

When it comes to the three guards, however, the stranger squats down by the bodies and rifles through their clothing. In a swift movement, Lee Chang strides over and has his blade at the man’s throat.

The man pauses in his movements, and looks up at Lee Chang. A swallow bobs his throat, but his eyes hold no fear, and the twist of his mouth belies his impatience.

“How dare you attempt to desecrate these men by looting from them,” Lee Chang whispers. “Is it not enough that their bodies have been so profanely defiled? Do you intend to rob them as well?”

“Your Highness,” the man replies, very calmly – too calmly, for all that he had a blade at his throat – “while you have been sitting in your golden palace, eating the food of the gods, we have been starving.” Very slowly, his hand comes up and grips the pommel of the sword, right next to Lee Chang’s hand. His eyes are dark, and full of resolve.

“The sick at Jiyulheon need food, or they will die by morning,” he says quietly. “Our stocks had already been depleted before the monsters appeared, and now, more than ever, we need food. Will you let the sick and injured at Jiyulheon starve to death, for your honour and morality? This is reality, Your Highness – the reality of us peasants’ lives. This is not the first time I have stolen from a dead body to live, and it will not be the last.”

Mu-yeong is oddly silent, Lee Chang thinks, dazedly. He is able to hold the man’s gaze for a moment – just a moment more - then he can bear it no longer, and has to avert his eyes.

The man coolly levers the sword away from his throat, and returns to searching quickly through the guards’ clothes. He finds a few packets of dried meat and other trail foods, and these he packs them away in his bag.

When he is done, he makes to drag the bodies into the pit, and a small blue square of fabric falls from one of the guards’ pockets. As Mu-yeong and the stranger lug the bodies away, Lee Chang bends over and retrieves the item.

The guard’s daughter has written on it, in shaky writing; Papa, it reads, pleas keep your self safe and pleas bring back some mandu for mommy. We love you! There is a doodle of a girl sitting on what appears to be some vaguely-four-legged animal, brandishing a sword, with her father seated behind her. Lee Chang finds he suddenly has to steady himself against the walls of the shack, as a lump finds its way to his throat.

“Your Highness,” Mu-yeong calls, and Lee Chang looks up with a start to realise that the other two have already hurried some way up the slight incline that had led to the shed, and are now looking back at him – Mu-yeong with puzzlement, the stranger with badly-concealed impatience.

“The sun is setting,” says the man. “I must return to Jiyulheon – they will need help with defence against whatever monsters are left from this pack.”

“We will come with you,” calls Lee Chang, on some impulse, as the man turns to leave. Lee Chang’s words makes him spin round, his faint brows riding high in surprise.

“Why?” he says, and the twist of his mouth reads of his suspicion. “I thought you were on your way to Dongnae?”

“Staying in Jiyulheon cannot be your permanent solution against an attack,” Lee Chang argues, walking quickly up to them; and from the way the man’s eyes darken, Lee Chang knows he has hit his mark. He steps closer to the man, and they lock gazes.

“We can help with your defence through the night, and when morning comes, we will find a way to bring the people of Jiyulheon to safety. I swear this upon my crown,” he says, solemnly, for the look in those burning eyes holds him to nothing but the truth.

“Can a prince run as fast as is needed?” says the man at last, tossing his head scornfully. A sudden flock of crows ascends above their heads, bringing with them a cacophony of cawing, and their shadow runs long. The sun is setting, and night is drawing near.

Lee Chang feels his resolve set. He tucks the talisman into his pocket, and gives the man a firm nod.

#changshin #kingdom #kingdom netflix #lee chang #yeong shin #upm works #upm #kingdom fanfiction #changshin fanfiction #cho hak ju

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itsbenedict · 6 years ago

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Kingdoms and Koopas: Ep. 8

K&K is a Fate Accelerated campaign set in the Mario universe, which I’m running for three players:

Bee @thebeeskneesocks, playing Kandace Koopa

Jovian @jovian12, playing Cozmo Naut

Malky @sleepdepravity, playing Dr. Chevy Chain

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Previously on Kingdoms and Koopas, the party won a go-kart race on Rainbow Road, foiling Rawk Hawk and Dr. Moneybags’ nefarious plans to fix the competition. The problem was what happened immediately after their victory- the prize was brought out, and turned out not to be the Music Key they were after. Kandace then checked in the direction the real deal’s magical signature was coming from...

...and bumped into a giant invisible spaceship that promptly started invading the planet. Which they will now be infiltrating.

As soon as Opal dispels the UFO’s invisibility, a whole lot of things happen. First is, as mentioned previously, a bunch of people in the audience take off their Toad disguises, revealing themselves as alien bunnies and X-Nauts. Who start taking hostages. But then, well- the main thing they do with the hostages is force them to face the UFO, as if it weren’t attention-getting enough.

A screen shows up, broadcasting a swirly pattern, beginning to mass-hypnotize everyone. This could be quite bad, but thankfully, Princess Opal knows a spell to make people immune to hypnosis. Less thankfully, the spell takes the form of a cone that emits from her broom-staff-wand thing, and so she isn’t caught in the effect of her own spell. (Neither is Chevy, who’s still separated from the other two.)

Chevy, thankfully, makes a very good roll to resist- so good, in fact, that not only does she not get hypnotized, but she hears the orders being hypnotically transmitted to her, without having to obey them. (She’s supposed to report to the ship and assist “the wounded” somewhere on the ship, and has a codephrase, “Hail Tatanga”, to prove she’s brainwashed so she can get inside.)

Princess Opal, however, is caught in the hypnosis, and immediately flies into the ship, to be used for some nefarious purpose!

So, okay- in a rare fit of heroism, Chevy decides that, yes, she is going to actually get involved on purpose, taking advantage of the failed hypnotism to sneak aboard. The party works out and then executes on a plan.

While Chevy rides a handy-dandy X-Naut claw drone up to the ship (they’re being deployed everywhere to carry newly-hypnotized help on board), Cozmo and Kandace take a different route up. Cozmo, see, is already an X-Naut, so he doesn’t actually need a disguise or anything to get aboard. He pretends to take Kandace hostage, pretending to fly her broom up to the ship while Kandace secretly pilots the broom backwards. It’s a tricky roll, but they pull it off. Cozmo is able to bluff past the airlock security, and they’re in.

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The problem, is, they’re both “in” at two different points. Let me give you a rundown on the layout of this ship.

The Orbital Doom Casa is divided into eleven distinct sections- two floors of five rooms each, plus a lower floor containing a single chamber. The two floors are each laid out sort of like a Simon game. Like, uh, this:

Four rooms around the edge, plus a central hub. In this case, Chevy has been taken up to the lower floor’s Simon Yellow, and Kandace and Cozmo entered a different airlock at Simon Blue.

Kandace and Cozmo have arrived at Space Storage Space, a general-purpose supply depot for the ship. Everything’s locked behind alarmed glass cases, though, so they’ll need a passcode to get in. Cozmo might know the passcode, but it’s possible- indeed, likely- that they’ve changed it since the moon fortress days, and getting it wrong could set off an alarm. Since there’s nothing in there they need right now, they decide to go to the yellow area to meet up with Chevy.

Simon Yellow is the X-Production Chamber. Cozmo recognizes a lot of the equipment in the room- this is where new X-Nauts are decanted from mysterious chemical space soup. However, the X-Tubes are currently lying empty, and new equipment has been set up along the far wall (the same wall containing a door to Simon Green, marked “Bunny Ranch”.) This new equipment... it seems to be an array of brainwashing helmets, and a line of hypnotized racing fans are queuing up to be more permanently brainwashed. As victims come out from under the brainwashing helmets, they put on X-Naut uniforms and proceed to whatever their next task is.

Chevy has been taken to the back of the line, but like shell she’s gonna stick around to get helmeted. Instead, Cozmo and Kandace provide a distraction- Cozmo, after all, hasn’t been in the organization in years, and so the X-Scientists on duty have some pointed questions about where in the heck he’s been. This causes trouble for his lies- for instance, this ship doesn’t have brig (why would they need a brig when they have a brainwashing room?) and how come he doesn’t know that? He manages to string together some excuses about doing reconnaissance planetside, and he bluffs well enough that they forget the holes in his story.

The team, finally reunited, heads upstairs to the BarraX (a feat which is difficult but not impossible for Chevy, who is no fan of stairs.) There, they find “the wounded” Chevy was supposed to be treating- which amounts to one X-Naut (Wipe Naut, pronounced Wipe Nowt) who broke his leg skateboarding. Chevy plays it straight and attempts to set his leg using a skateboard as a splint, but, uh, fails. Because skateboards aren’t very good splints. As a stopgap measure to cover her failure, she uses a tongue depressor as a splint, which isn’t great but should at least stop the bone from setting wrong.

Anyway, they don’t have time to mess around with medicine- they need to find the Music Key and rescue Princess Opal! Kandace cajoles her shadow, Carbonado, into sneaking around and gathering some intel- apparently, the ship’s hypnotist is at the lowest level of the ship. Before they can do that, though... it’s getting tiresome having to bluff past every X-Naut they meet, so they decide to go downstairs and get some disguises.

Chevy acts as an obstruction for Kandace to hide behind as she filches an X-Naut uniform from the X-Production Chamber, and then the party is sent to the Space Storage Space to get some X-Naut logo stickers for Chevy- since, well, they don’t exactly have uniforms that fit chain chomps.

At the SSS, they meet the attendant on duty- one Nauti Naut, who both talks like a pirate and is very naughty. As Kandace fights Chevy to see how many stickers she can stick to her, Nauti interrogates Cozmo about where he’s been- Nauti, after all, is one of the old generation, moonbase survivors. Her thing was... constant attempts at mutiny. Which she’s still up to, not having yet been fired because she’s a decent employee when she’s not actively executing said ineffectual mutinies.

From Nauti, they learn that this ship is run by an alliance of three leaders: The Supreme Leader (that’s the severed head of Grodus, still up and kicking), the Supreme Master (some weirdo), and the Supreme Hypnotist (some mysterious weirdo)- plus the new supercomputer, TEC-CC, who’s helping coordinate them.

The plan, currently, is to track down the Supreme Hypnotist first, to cancel the hypnotism and release Princess Opal. The problem with that is that the Hypno-chamber is only accessible via an elevator from the bridge or the power core, and those two areas can only be accessed with a keycard. Their plan to get a keycard is to talk to (and bluff past) TEC-CC, who can print them.

So they head through the X-Production chamber, upstairs to the BarraX, and then into Simon-Green-2, the TEC-CC Server Room. And as they enter- and before they’re noticed- they overhear an incriminating conversation between TEC-CC and... someone. Someone with an unmistakable voice.

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This nefarious bowling pin is unsubtly plotting with TEC-CC to get rid of the Supreme Leader and Supreme Hypnotist, ensuring the spoils of the invasion are a two-way split instead of a four-way split.

Unfortunately, after this, Chevy crit-fails her stealth roll, and unstealth-rolls into a server rack, causing a loud noise that gets Orbulon’s attention.

Chevy, cornered, decides to come clean to Orbulon, mostly: they’re here to sabotage the Supreme Hypnotist and get rid of his influence, which is just fine by Orbulon. In fact, he gives them a codephrase they can use to command the Alien Bunnies on his authority, and a keycard they can use to access the power core (and through there, the hypno-chamber)!

The cost of this, of course, is that now Orbulon knows they’re there and it’ll make it that much harder to stop the entire invasion, even if they can deal with Grodus and whoever the hypnotist is.

Still! No matter! They head straight to the power core, where...

Well, there are several things in the power core.

There’s a couple Yux guards, for one thing- but there’s also the power core itself, which happens to be the Music Key! They’re using it to power the ship!

Princess Opal is also there. She’s there because she’s draped over the shoulder of a giant robot, being piloted by a small (and highly mysterious) purple spaceman.

Now, there’s no reason a fight needs to happen- after all, the party is there to obtain the Music Key, right? Tatanga is about to install the new, more powerful power core he just hypnotized, and he doesn’t need that old thing anymore. They can just have it! Wow, that was easy.

...But, yeah, no, they’re going to rescue the princess. FIGHT!

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Cozmo starts off by firing a firework at one of the Yux guards- but that just breaks its Mini-Yux shield, of course. Kandace follows up with a fireball to the Pagosu’s legs- yeah, it’s got legs now, it was inefficient to use flaming thruster jets to get about a spaceship with a limited oxygen supply and flammable components. It’s a good hit, but then the Pagosu fires a couple missiles that blast Kandace and Cozmo real good.

Conveniently, Nauti Naut is there and manages to finish off the undefended Yux, leaving just the one plus Tatanga. Chevy, meanwhile, anchors herself to the central stalactite-spike thingy of the power core, gearing up to start swinging around the room like a wrecking ball.

The remaining Yux attacks, but Kandace and Cozmo team up with another firework and one of them standard Magikoopa playstation-button blasts to clear it out of the way. It’s just the main boss, now! The party take a few more missile hits, but Chevy manages to huck a scalpel at one of the leg joints, restricting the Pagosu’s movement.

Cozmo tries to capitalize by firing a firework right at the cockpit- but Tatanga uses Opal as a human shield, and he’s forced to let the attack go wide. Kandace decides that’s enough of that- she weaves past his defenses and snags Opal right off his shoulder.

Unfortunately, Opal is still hypnotized. Tatanga simply orders her to return to his side, and she starts floating back to him. That said, he’s momentarily deprived of his meatshield, which gives Chevy an opening to set up a combo attack with Nauti Naut. Nauti throws an anchor up into the air, and Chevy smacks it full-force with her built-up momentum, straight into the Pagosu’s armor. It cracks it, leaving Tatanga off-balance.

Meanwhile, Cozmo is setting up- he’s running up the walls of this cool twisted-gravity chamber, and kicking off to do a flying drop-kick! He goes, not for Tatanga, but for the scalpel Chevy drove into his leg joint earlier!

With a successful kick, Cozmo severs the leg entirely, toppling the Pagosu.

Rather than attack, Kandace now tries to cure Opal. She just saw the spell Opal used to make her immune to hypnosis- surely, she can make it work! It’s a tough roll, and she spends all the boosts she can to make it work, and... she succeeds! She can now counter hypnosis! (With, as is specified in her magic-learning stunt, some kind of troublesome side-effect I have yet to inform anyone of.)

Finally, with Pagosu on the floor, Chevy lets loose, flinging herself off the spike and colliding with the cockpit full-force. The Pagosu is destroyed, and it doesn’t take much after that for the team to gang up on the mysterious spaceman within. He’s knocked right out!

So hey, they’re done, right? They rescued the princess, and the Music Key is right there, and...

...well, they’re still inside a spaceship that’s currently full of aliens invading the planet, and they can’t take the Music Key without making it fall out of the sky and crushing the innocents beneath, and Orbulon knows they’re there, and...

Yeah, this one’s gonna be tough.

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#kingdoms and koopas #mario #benedict art

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yisolbyeol · 6 years ago

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hey ya’ll just cal back at it again with this easy-going chaotic child of mine. i’ll keep this short and simple: below you can read about yi sol byeol, or sollie as i tend to call him. he’s a bb and i would love to work out some plots if ya’ll are interested. hmu either here or on discord. kthanksbye mwah !!

basics

name: yi sol byeol | sollie or yeollie or sol job: unemployed age: twenty gender: demimale pronouns: he/they sexuality: pansexual birthday: 01/29 zodiac: aquarius personality type: adventuerer | isfp pinterest board: HERE

regular order

an iced vanilla latte

aesthetics

looking up at the sky whilst standing in the rain

a blurry figure in the distance you can’t make out the details of

a soft press of lips to your temple as you drift off to sleep

theme song: to make noise (sing) by hozier

remember when you'd sing, just for the fuck of it any joy it would bring honey, the look of it was as sweet as the sound your head tilt back, your funny mouth to the clouds i couldn't hope to know that song and all its words wouldn't claim to feel the same we felt as the first time it was heard i couldn't name that feeling carried in that voice was it that or just the act of making noise that brought you joy?

positive & negative

affable ( adj ) : friendly, good-natured, or easy to talk to.

imprudent ( adj ) : not showing care for the consequences of an action; rash.

about

he has always been stuck in his own head, ever since he was a child. no matter what went on in the world around him, sol byeol remained in a day dream of his own creation. it was due to this, the dreaminess in which he moved through life, that allowed his parents to dictate and control as much of his youth as they did. it was isolating, being in his own little world, and left him without many friends. after all, who would play with the boy who couldn’t follow your conversation or seemed to be having five conversations at the same time when you only agreed to one linear one ?? it didn’t matter much to sol as he still had his older brother and that’s all that mattered to him. he would be fine so long as his brother was by his side.

it was a bit funny. regardless of the ways his parents could move him like a little pawn, they still favoured his eldest brother. perhaps it was because, despite the ease in which they could dress and take sol around, his dreaminess never allowed him to act the way they wanted him to. he never performed outstandingly in school, nor did he seem to care much about any sort of work related events they dragged the two siblings to. his teachers would write home about how he would sleep in their classes and never seemed to get along well with the other students. his parents grew frustrated and tried many ways to get him to engage. they tried tutors, violin lessons, etiquette training, etc, but nothing seemed to work.

solbyeol didn’t mind. his easy going personality and cloud filled mind kept him lost to the inter-workings of his family. he never craved or desired his parents positive attention and any scolding or punishment often failed to teach him any lessons his parents wanted to. eventually, it caused him to simply be overlooked. if he could simply be a background figure in their life then fine. it was much better than him standing out due to negative attention, as far as they were concerned.

little did they know that things were bound to change. there wasn’t a significant trigger that started or caused his quote unquote rebellion. perhaps this could be due to his lack of voice when it came to explaining his thoughts but as far as his parents were concerned, one moment he was in the shadows and the next he suddenly became his parents number one embarrassment.

little did his parents know, but it was a matter of time until solbyeol bloomed. at fifteen, there was a specific shift that they overlooked. he started reading books on gender theory and feminist theory. he delved into a wealth of knowledge that his parents would have banned him from, had they paid enough attention to him to notice. the more he learned, the more his day dreams shifted away from the fantastical and took on more of a literal/realistic tinge. so the changes started small, in regard to visibility, and progressed to the point where he dipped his fingers into make-up and fashion. his parents were completely blindsided when their child suddenly began to appear with make-up and in skirts. they were determined that this was him trying to ruin them, especially when he appeared at one of the most important events for his family all dolled up.

his brother had asked him at one point if he really was doing all this to get back at their parents. it wasn’t unusual for sol to be confused when pulled from his day dreams and yet his brother couldn’t help but be surprised at the sincerity of it when sol questioned why he would think so. it was almost comforting to his other brother, as if sol’s act of ‘rebellion’ had truly made him second guess if he knew his sibling, to find out that solbyeol was only dressing and doing what he wanted to do.

if only their parents could respect that. to be fair, many didn’t. a masculine individual dressed in skirts and make-up?? he’d get quite the looks when he went out and occasionally situations that were far from pleasant occurred, yet they never seemed to bother him and he had a strange amount of luck that allowed him to get out of any situation that was truly trouble without any penalties. perhaps that is why, when his parents eventually kicked him out and distanced their selves from him, that he still managed to stay on his feet.

it wasn’t an unexpected event- getting kicked out, that is. it also didn’t matter to sol either way. at this point, his parents either offered backhanded insults whenever they bothered to interact with him or simply ignored him. at least in this situation, his parents could pretend he was off making a living for himself rather than- well, no one was quite sure what sol did. his parents always assumed it was something nefarious and indecent, while his brother could never get a straight answer out of him.

still, whatever he managed to get up to sustained him easily. he made enough to feel comfortable packing up his stuff and putting it into storage and taking a one-way flight to l.a. to visit his friend he’d’ met online years ago for the first time. that was two months ago and he didn’t appear to have any interest in moving back to seoul anytime soon.

extra

solbyeol is currently living with jimi !! has been since he came to visit his friend two months ago. since arriving, he has been a fairly regular customer at the brew and can often be found wandering around the streets.

a bit of a quirk sol has is, well, he gets lost. he never really lost his dreaminess quality and so often gets lost in his own head that he could go out for milk and be gone five hours because he made a wrong turn or simply was pulled away by a distraction.

despite how easily he gets into strange and potentially dangerous situations, sol has some pretty unfailing luck. its something he hasn’t verbally acknowledged over the years, but if you know him long enough, you can pretty much figure out this kid is really freakin’ lucky.

sol is a very touchy and feely person. he loves platonic skinship as well so if you’re friends with him expect hand holding and kissing from his end if you’re comfortable with it !!

despite his artistic ability with make-up, sol goes in and out of phases where he dresses up. most of the time he can be found looking like a rat in a pair of sweats or skinny jeans, a battered pair of vans, bed hair and a sweatshirt he just swims in. yet, he also can look like a whole snacc when he wants. taking the whole nine years, make-up, jewellery, hair, clothes, etc. he knows how to work it.

he’s a very laid back and relaxing individual that is also kind of chaotic. he’s very easy to get along with and it’s quite difficult to make him upset. should you, however, make him angry or sad, both emotions tend to result in tears on his part. he also has no qualms with feeling freely in public so if you upset him ?? he’s gonna burst into tears in the middle of the a busy street.

kind of ,,, romantic relationship stupid. like, will have no idea you have a romantic interest in him unless you tell him.

he loves !! animals !! will try to take them home, tbh. whether they belong to him ro not and is not very smooth about it.

a little bit clumsy, a.k.a. very clumsy. not uncommon for his knees to be bruised and/or scraped.

he’s currently unemployed yet he seems to be doing just fine for himself. he has no problem spending money and although he can be found and or hired for odd jobs, it can’t possibly be enough to sustain him...can it??

#hqbrew:intro #gonna have to change his theme but i'll do that tomorrow lsdkljsf

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oodlyenough · 8 years ago

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kali watches iron fist so you don’t have to: episode 1x04

the plot is getting slightly more complicated now that the plot isn’t “danny yells at people that he is danny rand”, so i’m gonna break it up ep by ep i think.

episodes 1-3, if you missed it

the plot:

when we last left our intrepid hero he was being pushed out of a window on the meachum house a la the first episode of game of thrones. this picks up with him miraculously catching on to some kind of pillar a few feet below, and then slipping off of that onto a balcony, so his death-defying fall is only a few feet

he wakes up with ward and harry meachum. harry does his whole transparently manipulative abusive father schitck by being like oH GOD DANNY YOU’RE ALIVE I’M SO GLAAAAAD WELCOME HOOOOME while ward glares in the corner. harry retells how he died of cancer but struck a deal with the sinister Hand, and they revived him but on the catch that he is indebted to them and can never leave his house or reveal that he is alive to anyone except, for some reason, his shitty son and his manservant.

he whines about how he hasn’t seen joy in ages and begs danny not to tell joy that he’s alive, which danny agrees to.. because... whatever.

he also insists that danny be given his rightful stake in Rand (a gajillion dollars and majority shareholder status), which really doesn’t sit well with jealous longsuffering firstborn ward.

so now danny is the majority shareholder of a company that he loves because he misses his dead dad but which he knows truly fuck-all about. rand wants to have him be a figurehead with no official position, just raking in the cash, but danny, who has presumably no business experience or market knowledge literally at all, wants to insert himself in everything, for some reason.

he barges into a board meeting and does one of the most embarassing things i’ve ever seen committed to screen, which is walk over to the one empty rolly chair, drag it painstakingly all the way across the room and then demand everyone budge up so he can sit next to joy. saklfhalwrhlawt the awkward, embarassing nature of this scene is the first time iron fist has truly nailed creating emotional resonance

turns out Rand is Big Pharma. they are discussing some new wonder drug they’ve developed that costs $5 a pill to make and they will sell it for $50 a dose. capitalism’s bad. danny is mad. “we should sell at cost!”

no, other people explain, we need to make a profit, and we funnel most of that money back into our research labs where we find these miracle cures, argues Big Pharma

KILLING PEOPLE IS BAD, FUCK TRUMP, SELL AT COST yells danny, and uses his majority shareholder status to make it so.

everyone is mad because they love money.

ward INEXPLICABLY decides the way to get back at danny is to leak this story to the press. Ward Meachum, Businessman Extraordinaire thinks a story in which his company wanted to make huge profit off the sick and danny rand demanded they sell drugs at cost, honest to god thought this would be good press for his company and bad press for danny. ?!?!?! surprise motherfucker?

(i think karen page writes the article but i’m not 100% sure. it was definitely not karen who came to interview him, which was disappointing.)

meanwhile, danny and joy are friends again! turns out danny didn’t STEAL the craft that had his fingerprint on it, joy gave it to him. awww she’s nice now!! buddies! ?????!

i feel like i in the audience am the only one mad about danny’s trip to “hospital”. i don’t even like the dude, really, but what happened to him there was horrific and everyone’s just fine with it??? danny doesn’t care? joy feels no particular guilt and never even properly apologized for it??? WHAT IS GOING ON. THEY STRAPPED YOU TO A BED AND DRUGGED YOU OH MY GOD

anyway, danny tells his new bestie joy some horrific story about a “job” he really wanted (implied to be the “job” of being the iron fist, whatever that means) and how he had to work for years and it involved monks beating him up, like, all the time.

“that sounds like abuse,” says joy, who can recognize abuse in some contexts. just not at a pretend hospital.

joy goes to ... the hallway for some reason and gets jumped by a bunch of ninjas with hatchets. for real. danny, of course, rescues her, then he takes her to colleen’s place for safety

CAN COLLEEN PLEASE LIVE??!?! WILL THESE RICH WHITE PEOPLE LET HER LIVE

anyway, he ditches joy on colleen and goes to find the people who attacked joy, which is apparently a triad called “the hatchet men”??? very literal, i guess they want brand recognition

the hatchet men are mad at joy because she, on behalf of Rand, bought out some pier that the hatchet men were using for some nefarious criminal purposes. danny explains that the Hand blackmailed Rand (god.......) into buying that pier, and please leave joy alone or i’ll make my fist glow and punch you

the hatchet men ... are fine with this. i mean, it is supposed to be that the hatchet men don’t wanna fuck with the hand, but lol

danny asks what they want with the pier, and what the hand wants with the pier, and the hatchet men hand him a little packet of heroin and then disappear into the shadows

the characters:

no one new in this ep who is meaningful really

at this point in the show i find things are starting to get kind of... odd... with danny as a character. what he described IS obviously abuse, but we don’t see it, and we have no real context for it to make it emotional or compelling, and danny himself is cavalier about it, not even really in the ~hard exterior~ way, just. he doesn’t seem to have noticed. it sounds very similar to what we saw in daredevil with baby matt and stick, which is kind of an interesting comparison because i’d say daredevil was less consistent about portraying matt and stick’s relationship as abusive, yet emotionally i felt a lot more visceral “ugh no” than when danny’s describing his tribulations.

saving joy and demanding at-cost pricing is the first time danny has done anything that could be construed as charitable or not self-interested. it is starting to feel like they’re beginning to try with danny as a character, they’re just ....not succeeding.

he has a lot to overcome in terms of the sympathy level of a white billionaire who corrects chinese people on their own culture, but they’re also just not hitting emotional beats that they could be hitting. it’s hard to put my finger on what exactly isn’t working.

one of his biggest issues is that he continues to be a white man written by men, and thus his relationship with women is still fucked up in ways that the writers obviously don’t realize is fucked up

a good example is that now that he works at Rand, he has an assistant. he walks over to her and is like “hey you’re my assistant right? so does that mean you do whatever i tell you?”

obviously uncomfortable, she’s basically like no, it means i schedule your meetings. danny then LITERALLY asks “if i asked you to go buy me a box of fruit roll-ups, you’d have to, right?” to which the secretary is like “...........do you want a box of fruit roll-ups...?”

but he doesn’t even want fruit roll-ups!!! he instead then veers course and asks what info she has about the pier deal. she explains she has none but can set up a meeting for him with someone who worked on the file. he nods and wanders away, handing her an origami post-it flower, and she seems charmed.

WHAT THE FUCK @ all of that. it was the weirdest goddamn scene. his actual request (info about the pier) makes total sense, so why did he (the writers) cloud it in this weird gender dynamic? why did he start by making her uncomfortable? why did he come up with an absurd fetch-and-carry quest he didn’t even want her to do? what the fuck is happening?

joy is obviously meant to be sympathetic by now, as i expected, but she’s kind of a monster? i don’t know. i can’t get over how she 1) participated in institutionalizing danny, but more importantly 2) DID NOT EVEN CARE LMAO LIKE WHAT THE FUCK. plus that scene where she auctioned off someone’s liver!!!!! i guess her giving him the craft was her absolution? but we didn’t even see it happen. i don’t know.

colleen is doing very little besides helping out danny and going to fight clubs where she kicks ass. colleen taking on two huge men in a cage fight and breaking one’s arm was the most engaging fight scene on this show so far.

#kali watches iron fist

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thelongestdamnreviews · 6 years ago

Text

Rockman EXE WS

I'm using a translation patch, so the title screen's been changed.

After going through Network Transmission, I decided to try the other Battle Network-flavored sidescroller platformer Mega Man, Rockman EXE WS. This game for the Wonderswan Color actually released a month before Network Transmission in Japan (almost to the day even), so I guess this game actually came first. For the first clear, it took me around 38 minutes, a second clear at 1 hour 18 minutes, 100% at 1 hour 23 minutes, and finally the third loop was finished at 1 hour 42 minutes. There is a translation patch that I used to understand the text and story too, thus the English in these screenshots. I'll call the game by the Japanese title but I'll use English names for characters and stuff, to keep it easier on everyone.

TLDR The Good

Great spritework - While the quality might not be equal to the GameBoy Advance, I was kind of impressed by how well-done the sprites were. Some enemies are different sizes compared to how they are in the regular Battle Network game, but you can still tell which one is which easily. Just be ready for them to attack differently than you're used to! MegaMan has a pretty big variety of sprites, from his aggressive pose becoming a regular standing animation to having a critical health pant, and every Style has one of these too! Even minor things like changing the shape of his Buster in different Styles wasn't glossed over.

Interesting concepts - Not only do you eventually get Styles that change your element as well as certain parameters, you can slot in up to four different chips for immediate use. Some chips are single-use, while others replace the Mega Buster with an infinite-use attack while activated and some others provide some sort of buff as long as they're equipped.

Replay value - Considering you need to go through the game twice to see everything due to the way the game's set up, there's a reason to keep going after seeing the credits the first time. I'm not sure if you can 100% the game in just two rounds, but three doesn't take that long either.

Though the elements change based on the Style, your charged shot will always behave the same even if using HeatGuts or WoodShield, unlike the home series.

TLDR The Bad

Please do stop the music - I'm not sure where the blame lies with this (the composer or the hardware) but it sounded like none of the songs had actual held notes, instead there was quick two-note warbling in quite a few songs. None of the songs really stood out to me, not that I played it for very long for any one to catch on, but I dunno if they'd be better if they were simply on a different system or what. Consider that the original GameBoy had catchy tunes and even the Mega Man games that didn't have ports of the NES games' soundtracks counted there too. What happened?

Level design/difficulty - I can't condense what I have to say about this to a short paragraph, so watch for the several later in the review.

The story flow is pretty messy - It seems to follow the basic plot of the first Battle Network (Lan receives MegaMan, they murder scores of viruses and Navis, they destroy the LifeVirus) but the way the mini plots of each stage are handled is jarring because there's no real transition. Like, you start one stage "investigating the net for WWW rumors" and you transition to one of the stage branches and suddenly Lan is on a train whose braking system is malfunctioning? What? But this too is tied back to the way levels are designed, so buckle up.

Didn't Battletoads have a stage where you stood on and climbed snakes ("Karnath's Revenge" I think)? That explains what the devs were going for on the difficulty!

Lan Hikari has just entered the fifth grade and receives a NetNavi of his own, MegaMan.EXE. Together, they thwart a Navi causing havoc in their oven and uncover a nefarious plot by terrorist organization WWW, and fight against their Navis and evil operators. In 2D! Again.

Though Rockman EXE WS is another sidescroller game in a series that is RPG based, it's not too comparable to Network Transmission other than a few things that are in common with both. A big departure is that the game is extremely linear--instead of picking zones to clear and having a general progression through the game, you have only a small number of stages you go through in a set order, though there are branches that determine what the second half of some stages are and this determines who you fight at the end of the stage. Because there are only two branches in stages 2, 3, 4, and 5, you need to play through twice to see the other version of those stages. You can't merely get to the end of one stage and then decide to play it again going the other way.

You still destroy viruses and sometimes get chips to use, but almost all of them are "single use and they're gone" types. The game thankfully will auto-reload any chips you use provided you have more in storage, but there is no money and no store so you're unfortunately stuck with what you find, and there is no Folder so chips are gone forever once spent. Some chips found lying in the field on their own are actually infinite-use, like the Sword series that replace your Buster with their chip, toggled on or off. There aren't any PowerUPs to find, instead some chips and all of the Styles mess with MegaMan's stats. HeatGuts increases his attack power, AquaCustom has a fast charge, ElecTeam has faster movement speed, and WoodShield has higher defense, with HubStyle having the buffs of the first three with reduced defense instead.

You can pretend you're Zero if you want, but Sword chips are a little hard to use since you can't walk and swing at the same time. You can still do a repeating two-hit combo on the ground and attack in the air at least.

There are also three "equip for effect" chips that apply their effect as long as they're in your loadout and aren't consumed on use. AirShoes increases jump height, AreaSteal increases movement speed (stacks with ElecTeam/Hub), and Undershirt increases defense (stacks with WoodShield and somewhat helps Hub). These are kind of like X series upgrades though you can take them off at almost anytime, like to keep AirShoes from sending you into overhead spikes when you need a short hop. While having any or all of them equipped takes up slots other offense/recovery chips could use, the tradeoff is almost always worth it. And since I'm on about chips, I'm not sure if there's an actual limit on the number of the ones you can carry.

A new feature of the game is your connectivity to Lan. You start with three "bars" and depending on stage factors, it lowers or disappears entirely. At one bar remaining, you lose the ability to pause and thus can't change chips or Styles, and at zero bars you completely lose the ability to use chips, even the "equip for effect" ones! All of these situations seem to be scripted so it's not tied to performance, and you gain all of your bars back in the hallway before the boss room and in the boss room too. It's not really a notable system but it can inconvenience you a little bit in a couple of places. Losing the ability to even pause is kind of ridiculous though.

Most stages start with a 'neutral' kind of theme and you then transition to an entirely different one at an arbitrary point, and this is one of the problems I had with the game. There's no warning at all when you come to a stage branch, other than there just being two ways to advance, and sometimes a branch doesn't move into a new area but is just a side area to pick up an item before you go back to the main path. Stage branches are categorized by going up or down and you're left in the dark as to what you'll face on the other side, though people familiar with the first Battle Network can probably guess who either on the Navi taunting you on entering or by the way the stage looks. It's absolutely jarring to be in an area and then it shifts into something completely different just because you slid through a passage or something. Imagine if Castlevania games had zero transition corridors or even doors at all.

Hey wait, that’s my line!

I'm not really sure how cohesive the story is if you're not familiar with the first Battle Network game. There are story segments between stages, a primary reason to start the next stage, a small story section for each stage variant, and then back to the between stage story bits--but because of the branch system, you might have characters pop up you didn't see before, or you might end up with continuity errors like facing ElecMan near the end of the game and Lan knows who Count Zap is despite not facing him before. You can actually fight him early in one of the branches, but it's not a guarantee and Lan is never directly shown looking up WWW members or anything either. It's kind of like watching a clip show, where you have these "best of" moments presented without context and you'd probably be lost if you weren't familiar with the source material.

You have nine lives (continues) in every stage, refilled to max when you start a new one. You're going to need them. I found myself getting knocked into pits by enemy attacks fairly often, or I'd botch a blind leap, or so on. It felt like X6's level of unfair bullshit as opposed to NT's pretty difficult but still workable difficulty. MegaMan is pretty slow, I guess to account for the two speed upgrades he can get, and for some reason he seems to slow down when he hits the ceiling...and for some other reason, he seems to catch on the corners of some platforms like he can jump again to save himself, but that doesn't work. The stage layouts aren't as bad once you've been through once at least, but going in blind kind of necessitates save states, which I'm not ashamed to admit that I abused this time. Checkpoints aren't always generously placed, either.

*The Price is Right game over horns*

And the disappearing platforms gimmick is probably the worst in this game as opposed to any other Mega Man game I've played. Usually they appear in a pattern of two with them 'leap-frogging' through the sequence. Here, several of them only have one appear at a time, so you need to use the block to be where you need right when the next block in sequence appears lest you hit your head on it or have the block you're standing on disappear. SnakeMan's stage is great for this, and again you'll be going in blind the first time through so you'll need to redo that section more than a few times to not only get the timing down, but know where you need to be when the block appears. Not all of the disappearing blocks are this way, but then the ones in SnakeMan's stage aren't over spikes...

You can only get some chips by having other weapon chips, like to destroy a wall. Even in stage 2, Lan will point out a wall you can demolish with GutsPunch...that you get in the next stage if you go on the correct path. Later on, there's a wall you can punch with ColdPunch, which is just an Aqua-element GutsPunch, and actual GutsPunch does nothing! And back in stage 2, ColdPunch does nothing to the wall Lan mentions. Why is the game set up this way, other than to pad out playtime? Why can't you just use either one? There's a wall that requires a specific Sword chip too for no real reason. Said wall in stage 2 is actually why I had to do three playthroughs for 100% because I apparently didn't pick the most efficient order of branches.

Because there's no grinding and because you can permanently expend recovery chips, you better use as many lives as you can to learn the boss' pattern before you go all-in since you'll potentially put yourself into an unwinnable situation if you burn everything too early. This came up in NT too, but at least you had the option to escape and save and get more chips then.

Poor ElecMan can't beat Air Man! Also, I used WoodShield Style a lot in these screenshots, but I used ElecTeam a bunch too just for the movement speed boost. AreaGrab was the very last chip I got so I needed something to get me off of the default move speed.

There are six stages but you unlock a seventh after you finish the game once. You get to keep all of your chips and Styles for the second and future loops so you'll eventually have your pick of all the Styles and all, and you can apparently unlock a boss rush kind of thing when you finish and unlock its hardest difficulty when you 100% the game. I didn't bother with this. PharaohMan kind of, uh, gave me a terrible impression given how much of a difficulty spike he is so early in the game.

I really did like the Styles though, and being able to switch at almost any time made for some nice flexibility. The Mega Buster is probably the best weapon in the game, especially if you have an element advantage. Chips on the other hand are kind of hard to use considering the WonderSwan's control setup, so you'd have to take your hand off of the movement buttons to use/toggle one of the chips or finagle a good setup in an emulator like I did. That part kind of tapers off the more equipment chips you get, but it's still kind of troublesome. But yeah, I really wish there was another sidescroller Battle Network that had the best features of Network Transmission and EXE WS and the home series. But that's just a silly dream game I guess.

The WonderSwan itself. A to jump, B to fire, X1-4 to move, Y1-4 deals with the chips. An interesting control scheme since some games could be played vertically, but would probably come off clumsy on real hardware.

Overall, I don't think I can recommend this one. There are some nice ideas but they're put in a game with a pretty haphazard plot and malicious stage design in some places. It's very hard and I can't see a reason for it to be other than to pad out the game length since it can be finished three times in an afternoon, albeit with save states. Without, you'll probably be stuck for longer and I can't see your frustration levels staying low with some of the things the game throws at you. Nice ideas, but the execution just doesn't work for me.

They seem to have moved MegaMan's left eye (his left) down a little too far for the HubStyle mugshot so it kind of makes him look crosseyed. Maybe that's where the defense cut comes in?

#wonderswan color #not recommended

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