Saga Of The European King

Once the city of Ric was completed, with running water and everything, so the King asked Colonel Glowfist where exactly they had landed. Colonel Glowfist could read the stars. Astronomy was an important part of being an archmage. Back then, they reckoned that most magic came from the stars. They were wrong, but they figured out a lot of useful stuff anyway.

The King and Glowfist rode up to the peak of a mountain one night, where the smoke from the fires of industry would not cloud their sight. While Colonel Glowfist interrogated the stars, the King gazed up at the Moon. He couldn’t help but think of Leonard Cohen all alone up there, sadly singing to the Moon to keep Love together. But then he remembered that Leonard Cohen had gone home, back to his little hut in the mountains to write new songs. He wondered for a moment how both these thoughts could be true, then turned his attention to the landscape. The mountains in the distance were dark and jagged. There were castles in those mountains. Hundreds and hundreds of castles. He knew where they were. Colonel Glowfist hadn’t even told him yet. He knew where they were because his father had told him of this place. It was the scariest place in the world.

“We’re not in Europe,” said Colonel Glowfist, sick to his enormous stomach at the thought of being away from his beloved homeland.
“I know.” Said the King. They both swallowed.

They descended from the mountain in silence. They had seen a lot from up on that mountain. They had seen beasts moving around in the darkness. They had seen the unearthly light coming from those castles. They had both sworn they had seen some kind of giant snake exit one of the castles and slither into the cracks of the mountain. The King wasn’t scared, of course, but he was worried about his friends and about the nightmares that David would have. Colonel Glowfist was pretty scared. He would look like a pretty desirable hunk of food to the creatures in those castles. Turns out that everyone had pretty much figured out where they were anyway, as they had been attacked by werewolves while the King and the Colonel were away. It was okay, though. Sally got killed, as usual, and almost everyone got bitten, but Axe and Ba’al got the wolves smashed right into pieces. The King and Colonel Glowfist returned to the camp to find sizzling bits of werewolf everywhere and everyone looking at them with this look, you know.

“We’re in Romania.” Said Axe Axewound to the King. “Draculas live here.”
“Yes.” Said the King. “We are in Romania.” He was embarrassed that this had happened. They took turns to keep watch that night and in the morning, Michael had packed up his things and his two hot Jerusalem girls and was ready to leave.
“I’m sorry,” said Michael, “but the girls really, really want to get back to Jerusalem. They nearly got bitten by werewolves last night. They aren’t Adventure Friends. They’re not into it.” The King understood. He knew that Michael wasn’t scared of Romania because he himself was not scared. Everyone hugged Michael and he left. He promised to come and find them once he’d got everything sorted out in Jerusalem, but for now, he was gone.

The King wondered for a moment if he should take his Adventure Friends and just leave Romania. True, half of them had been bitten by werewolves and would need to get the curse revoked, but the King reckoned that he could haggle a good spell out of a priest for cheap. But then again, there was the European Law to observe that all adventurers and badasses had to kill at least one Dracula when wandering through Romania. His grandfather had personally written that law. His grandfather and his father had hated Draculas. When the King had been little, he had often been told by his father and his grandfather’s ghost that he would have to kill at least three dozen Draculas just to keep up. He had never figured out if they had been teasing.

The King’s decision became easier when Roxy Tripfoot came up to him. He was meditating in a tree when she approached him, but he had sensed her presence waiting around under the tree for quite some time. Roxy waited a full ten minutes under that tree before she coughed, and then the King jumped on her for a joke. She laughed. He laughed. It was funny the way he did it. He pretended to be a monster.

When they had stopped laughing, they got serious. Roxy told the King that she had been Queen of Romania at the time when the Draculas came. She had been killed by a Dracula, actually. The King had known this already. He had looked Roxy Tripfoot up while he had been on the Astral Plane. Everything she had said about being Queen Of The Gypsies had been true. What had happened was that the Roma had been really great guys. They hadn’t been part of Europe, but they spoke European and generally did their part to make Europe awesome by not messing with it. Everyone liked them. But then there was some deal with a demon or an alien or something and suddenly there were these Draculas everywhere, sending rats and frogs and bats and gorgons out at people and killing everyone. When they had killed enough people, the Draculas would build a castle and would fill it up with monsters and just hang out. One or more of these Draculas had enslaved a good portion of the Roma people and turned them into horrible monster-people. The King at the time had cut Romania away from Europe with his sword, so that he wouldn’t have to be responsible for all these monsters. He then led his massive armies to wipe out the Draculas. It took a hundred years, and they nearly did it. The former Roma who survived were scattered across the country and banded together into little groups and tribes. These roving bands became known as gypsies. The Draculas kept to their castles where they were basically unstoppable and eventually the King at the time grew old and became bored with sacking Romania. So the castles and monsters remained. A few abandoned towns on the outskirts became repopulated by pale, scared people. Every so often, a gang of adventurers would run into a castle and kill a Dracula and steal all of his gold. A new Dracula usually took over the castle within a few years.

Roxy told all this to the King, who knew it already. Then she got to the point: she wanted to lift the curse on the Roma people. She wanted to set the gypsies free. She said that she could find the Dracula who had turned the Roma evil and slay him in a particular, magical way and undo all of the spells he had cast in his lifetime. She wanted the King to go with them. ‘Them’ being her and Colonel Glowfist. They were going to do this together. The King raised his eyebrows and meditated for half a second. Then he said,
“It will still not be enough. The people of Europe have been terrorized by the gypsies for long enough. They will demand a political answer to this too.”
“I am still prepared to marry your son when he comes of age, Your Highness.” Said Roxy Tripfoot, with a heavy heart.
“Good! Good!” said the King, laughing. When Roxy heard his laugh, she couldn’t help but feel happy. She thought about how great it would be to free the Roma. She thought about how strong a female character that would make her. She thought about Colonel Glowfist being all thin.

That night, the Adventure Friends rode off on Gappy towards the nearest Dracula castle. Everything was going to be cool.

End Of Chapter 44