Victor

  Sometimes in life, it's good to show mercy - put Matthew 5:7 into practice and all that. Sure, I'd run into a lot of enemies that were truly evil, and even back in my old world there were some unreasonable black-hearted bastards with whom words would never have worked. But then you get those rare moments, where you see something in someone - where you see a glimmer of hope in the darkness. Someone with a chance at redemption. Honestly, if it had been any of the other suspects, I'd have marched them straight to the chair myself, but in the court jester I saw someone who'd been gaslit and groomed. Malcolm Kavian was a victim, too, I'd reasoned, and the princess agreed with me.

  I'd known something was off about him. His laughter never seemed genuine, and then the princess told me that she sensed no joy in him at all, which is why she was frowning during his comical act. This wasn't thanks to some weird power that required wearing a form-fitting yoga suit or anything, she's just a little sensitive to strong emotions and can tell if someone's hurtin'. Sensing so much sadness in the guy had made the princess sad too; God almighty she's the definition of someone who is sweet of heart. Of course I'd also seen obvious parallels between his situation and that of the late Robin Williams, which tore the absolute frick outta me when I realized what was going on; six damn years, still hurts to watch Hook and ain't no way I was gonna watch What Dreams May Come! Plus I'd be a damn hypocrite if I could forgive Vegeta and not Mal; yeah I was calling him that already.

  So where were we? Oh right, the three of us were heading to the adventurer's guild in order to register our newest party member. The connection between his name and his deeds was kept under wraps, of course, the queen didn't actually want to have him truly exiled - that lady had a soft spot the size of Alaska. Nobody would have recognized him here, anyway, since he always used to have that jester's getup on - ah right, we'd need to get him some new clothes, wouldn't we? Guess Meli and the princess can take him shopping later because the mental imagery is too damn funny. What did he look like without the makeup? Not that bad actually, though he looked like he needed to get some sun and touch some grass. He had medium length black hair with a white lock that had its roots in the middle of his forehead, a thin black goatee which came to a point an inch away from his chin, somewhat sallow skin, and the sleepy gray eyes of a world-weary man accentuated by a somewhat weak smile. Yeah, he might clean up real good.

  "Um," the princess said, "Sir Kavian?"

  "Please, your highness," he bowed whilst moving, damn that's a feat, "you can call me Malcolm, or Mal. Also I am not a sir anymore, you know, my land and titles are gone with the wind."

  Upon hearing that, and looking at my face, the princess glowered and Mal raised a "fascinating" eyebrow while cradling his chin. What I do?

  With a cock of his head and a flare of his fingers, Mal continued. "Anyroad, your highness, what were you saying?"

  "I wanted to say that I'm…just really sorry for how I acted during your performance; I didn't smile or laugh at all. It wasn't like I thought you weren't funny, quite the opposite in fact - I just…I could feel the torment raging inside your heart and it made me feel sad too. But when Sir Victor told the Queen what he suspected about you I felt terrible about it."

  Mal pirouetted, "oh, think nothing of it, highness. I am quite used to people laughing when they should be crying and vice versa. You really are a treat," he turned to me, "so what's the plan, o party leader?"

  I said, "well I reckon we gotta pinpoint exactly where the Black Order's base is - you already told me it's somewhere in the Grimdark Forest, so-"

  The princess groaned, all right what is going on - this ain't the first time she's complained whenever the name of that place came up - wait, Mal was nodding?

  "Ahh yes of course she'd react that way, old boy, don't you see? There's darkborn elves in that forest!"

  Oh. Ah. Darkborn elves. I see. So like dark elves? The evil foes of the high elves, huh? Three different types of elf came to mind when I heard the term dark elf and they all came from the model collection of a certain Japanese-American data analyst and hardcore gamer. Okay let's see. There were the pinkish skinned type who didn't like wearing clothing, the silver-haired ones with caramel skin who also barely wore any clothing, then there was that RGB (0,0,0) skinned one with the scimitars plus another of the same type also with huge knockers. Hey, I've got a pornogra-er-photographic memory when it comes to my best friends from the Army; whenever they told me something about a thing they were into I was almost sure to remember. Hell, given a year or two I might have caved and played Sakamoto's game with the goth catgirl; the soundtrack he sent me one christmas was wearing me down a little.

  I nodded, sighing, "sorry, princess I shoulda considered your feelings. I had no idea your people's worst enemies lived there."

  The princess tilted her head, "huh? Worst enemies?"

  "Aren't they like, evil or something?"

  The princess crossed her arms. "No, I just don't like them. That's all."

  Huh? "What do you mean?"

  Mal said, "there is something of a minor cultural, um, rivalry between them you see, nothing serious though. On the level of the dwarves and their debate with the elves over whether beer or wine is the superior beverage - in the end they usually end up knocking back a few and making up but there it is!"

  The princess was blushing, "oh stop! I would hardly call their rude habits minor! They…they…" she took a deep breath, "their women possess larger bosoms than we do and every chance they get they rub it in our faces as though it were a national pastime! They did it to me, they did it to Sylfie, they did it to Nenewyn, and even my mother when she was younger but as her powers have developed-"

  It was all I could do to not burst out laughing; she had to be kidding. Cultural friction based on boob size? No way. But I ain't the kinda guy to make fun of a gal so I decided to give her a headpat instead. When a friend needs assurance, you give it!

  "I understand. But we must persevere."

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  She nodded, cheeks still rosy, "I am aware. I'm sure that you'll protect me too."

  Gotta love a good vote of confidence.

  Mal smiled broadly and started doing a stately ballroom dance, "my my my, what a pair. And what a trio we shall make, eh?"

  "Yes! But first we need to have a powwow."

  The princess and Mal looked at me funny, Mal said, grinning, "shouldn't you buy me a drink first?" The princess turned red - wait a damn minute - with a reaction like that - oh no.

  I turned pale, and quickly explained what I meant. Today I learned that powwow is a word that exists in this world but that its meaning is somewhat shall we say "decadent" in nature. Something that might be associated with Caligula or pretentious French arthouse films. Oops.

  The princess said, "tis fine, Sir Victor, please, remove yourself from the ground," ah the formal tone, "it was fairly obvious you were using an idiom from another world, using a word from a language not your own, at that. I knew that such idioms were bound to come up, I just - well, I was merely not prepared to hear one whose exact syllables happened to be a homophone for something so-"

  Mal rolled his eyes, encircled us again, and said, "ugh, isn't Comprehension just the worst?"

  The princess said, "I'm sorry!" Wait, why is she the one apologizing? Oh right, kind almost to a fault - why do I keep forgetting that? "B-but, you have the right of it Sir - I mean - Malcolm. The spell does have limitations and quirks that limit its effectiveness."

  "Agreed - ah, but, you're able to pass it to others, yes?" Malcom stroked his beard, "am I to take that to mean that you are a priestess?"

  She nodded, "I am a priestess and a mage both. Any spell the goddess gifts me, I can use on others even if others may not."

  Mal closed his eyes, sauntered up the streets, and flapped his hand a bit, "well all is well, with time, it should improve If you're anything like your mother of course."

  Illiana said, "you know of my mother?"

  Mal nodded. "I know a fair bit about your family, actually. Varielle Astara til Anaura, high priestess of Elianora, wife of Illorend II, mother of six including Valyrian."

  "How'd ya manage to learn all that?" I put in, visibly impressed no doubt.

  Mal smiled and stuck his finger too close to my face, "quite simple! The fact that the queen of the elves of Anaura is a very powerful priestess is fairly common knowledge around these parts, and the fact that she is the mother of none other than the legendary swordsman Valyrian is easy enough to research, or even infer - that play based on his adventures even has a comical scene where she appears to scold him. As to the king, Illorend II: even forgetting the fact that his majesty is famous for having opened up trade relations with us dim-witted humans, well surely in your former world you knew the names of a few monarchs presently on the throne?"

  Huh, he was right, that did seem like common sense. Naruhito and Elizabeth came to mind almost immediately. "Well, the amount of queens and emperors I could name is one each, but, we've actually largely moved to representative government in my old world, and the two rulers I got in mind are figureheads at best. We had presidents, senators, that kind of thing all chosen by the people."

  "Reaaallly now? The Gaians had senators too."

  "Huh. I'll have to read more about it."

  "I can tell you most of what I know, which is considerable, not to brag too much. Knowing things is part and parcel of being a bard after all."

  I shoulda known that word would come up at some point, ha. Sakamoto used to call himself a "bard main", and he did show me a kinda neat game feature where you could actually perform music - still wasn't interested in playing, myself. Sorry, Kenny. Oh, Shakespeare was also called "the bard" wasn't he? Man, reading Hamlet so soon after what happened to Williams - that's probably why it hit so hard, now that I really had a chance to think about it.

  "Well," Mal sounded like he was correcting himself, and he looked like he was trying to find something, by palpating his body, "oh bother, I suppose I'll need a new adventurer's card as the crown has taken my pants! Unless I left them in my other pants pocket, but, they took those too" He laughed at his own joke, the princess laughed, I laughed, there wasn't a mimic laughing for me to shoot. It was a good time.

  Sure enough, when we got to the adventurer's guild, Mal needed to use the assessor - it was Louise, not Juliette, that took care of us today. They got him a new adventurer's card; his chip had been among the few personal effects of his that we were allowed to take, so that didn't need to be remade. Oh, he got himself a new achievement patch. Arcane Duet: while working in concert with another mage, impress an audience of fifty or more people with a display of magic. All right so when the new card got made, that was when we learned what Mal's classification was: trickster. A trickster was a bit of a jack of all trades, or I guess a joker of all trades, capable of many miscellaneous skills required for going into dungeons and labyrinths - oh yeah we'd been to neither of those yet, huh. That house we cleared of pesky monsters didn't qualify as a dungeon; but that's a story for another time.

  A thief, also called a rogue, treasure hunter, or infiltrator, is a bit misleading because it doesn't actually necessarily mean the person in question is a criminal - it just means they are well-suited to stealth, taking care of locks, disabling traps, finding secret doors, and using daggers to deadly effect. It's a role that requires deft hands and being quick on one's feet. A bard, also called a minstrel or troubador, is any sort of performer, usually a singer or an orator, possessed of a knack for knowledge and a little bit of magic (usually illusions and a smattering of others). Being a combination of a bard and a thief, tricksters were highly versatile people; announcing that you were a trickster was basically saying at the top of your lungs "hire me, I can break traps, open locks, and I can sing".

  "So how did you earn that classification, when ya didn't stay adventuring long enough to get past wood rank?"

  "Well easy, I entered with all of the qualifications from the start. Trickster isn't like a ranger where you need an intense amount of specialist training, or a paladin who first needs to receive some divine revelation from, I don't know, some scenery chewing floating head in the sky or something. I didn't need dangerous quests to sharpen my skills - the stage was my dungeon, the parlour my labyrinth; I'd plenty of practice, you see, to cultivate my qualifying abilities. I'd had some martial training, too, actually, thanks to my noble birth, and you might have noticed I've some talent with knives. Besides, I was fairly intoxicated when I signed up if you'll remember, so the details are lost on me."

  "Huh, well don't that just beat all? I thought you were doing a bit there when you said that."

  "Tut-tut, just because something is true doesn't mean that I'm not also going to make a bit out of it."

  "I'm starting to feel a bit out of it myself."

  We both laughed, and the princess groaned, "now there are two of them," she muttered.

  But there you have it, Pal Mal, court jester, was no more: in his place was Malcolm Kavian, adventurer and third party member of Red Lightning!