The Tenth Crusade

I stared at the map before me with utter disbelief. I turned to my advisor, William, for confirmation. He nodded sagely. At that moment, a noble rushed in, dressed in an irritating colour palette of purple, yellow, and green, combined with absurdly oversized breeches. Well, that atrocity is probably my fault for cutting funding to cultural research.... Ignorant to my musings, the noble babbled out his message.

“My queen, the rebels have reached our city gates!”

I sighed, and then dismissed the man. We should have some more time as the Second Army engaged with our rather substantial garrison. I glanced at William, who seemed as deep in thought as I was. Indeed, this was a dire situation. Our army had been routed at the Tyre River, enabling the Merykan soldiers to penetrate up to the walls of our capital. My immature mistakes early in the war had enabled ‘Washingtyn’ to forcibly steal the offensive initiative from me. In order to save the capital, we would need to somehow let the relief force slip from the pinning of the Merykan First Army, and then pincer the Second Army in coordination with the city garrison. This is just like chess… but grander, I suppose.

As I heard cannon fire from outside the city limits, I finally realised that my heart was pounding. Fear? No…. I was excited. Watching these people move at my command, brutally crushing my enemies underfoot, and most of all, struggling to prove my superiority over my rivals. It was thrilling.

And I was not going to lose now.

I analysed every possibility under the sun, and then I searched the other side of the planet to find those possibilities which were hiding under the moon. At last, I found it. The path to take true victory. I explained my orders with haste. As I did, William’s eyes shone.

“Brilliant, my queen! Yes, with this those rebel louts will fall with certainty!”

William rushed off to spread the order. Yes, with this… victory was ours. Now it was merely a matter of waiting for reports.

===

CULTURE VICTORY.

Player Sarah has achieved a cultural victory.

“A degree of culture, and assuredly a very high one, is attained when man rises above superstitions and religious notions and fears, and, for instance, no longer believes in guardian angels or in original sin, and has also ceased to talk of the salvation of his soul.”

Why this little-

“Wow! That was a lot of fun, Elysia!”

I’m not mad.

“You were really improving quickly there! If I hadn’t been so close to a cultural victory already, I don’t know what would’ve happened.”

I’m not upset. This is fine.

“What did you think of those outfits I designed? I thought they were really fun to look at!”

My eye twitched uncontrollably. I wasn’t salty. This was just a learning experience about modern entertainment. I wouldn’t be playing this ever again anyway.

“You know, even though it was close, I think I would still win if we played again!”

Sarah smiled brightly, as if to reject the very notion that one could have a care in this world. Her eyes were shining innocently like an innocent, loveable, and extremely punchable puppy. Of course, at the time, I failed to pick up on the malicious glint behind those eyes. Sarah tilted her head slightly….

“Do you want to play again next week?”

“I suppose I could make time.”

Wait, what did I just agree to? But unfortunately for me, who had just been caught up in a monster’s pace, Sarah was already waving me goodbye by the time I fully realised what had happened.

“We can play with Connor next time!”

The force behind her eyes in that moment was perhaps equal to – no, greater than – the pressure that the Lord could exert. I could only swallow dryly and watch in awe as the door to her apartment closed. I looked around and realised that it was already the late afternoon.

I swear to you, Sarah Murphy: the next time we meet on the battlefield, I will strike you down without mercy. And so, I returned to the front of my apartment having achieved nothing productive in that day.

===

When I opened the door to Everywhere and walked in, however, I immediately noticed that something was wrong. It is hard to describe in mortal terms, but all I can say is that I had the distinct sense that Everywhere was no longer everywhere.

While I can’t give a direct transcription of the experience, an analogy would be that it was the difference between swimming in the middle of the open ocean and swimming in the middle of a large landlocked lake. If you look around, all you see is water, but the pool you’re in is incomparably smaller. Of course, the difference between that analogy and this situation is that some sixth sense of mine was able to discern the difference.

Within the apartment itself, the Lord seemed substantially frailer. Nonetheless, he still turned his eyes to me the moment I crossed the threshold. After getting past a coughing fit, he spoke, his voice far fainter than before.

“You do not have long left.”

Unfortunately, he was correct. Given this deterioration, my previous estimate of us having around a year left was clearly inaccurate. Moreover, my intuition told me that my use of miracles would have to be curtailed, lest I dry up the Lord’s power even more. Dammit! I just wasted an entire day while the Lord and I have such a rapidly closing deadline. This is procrastination on a cosmic scale!

While my face remained static, the Lord nonetheless seemed to sense my emotional state. While his face remained obscured, I could sense his glare. In his eyes, he could see my heart that not even I knew – that perhaps I would never know.

“You know what you need to do.”

With those words, the Lord rolled around in his bed and turned his ‘gaze’ away from me. I considered my options. It would be difficult to go straight to the coast now, given my lack of preparatory funds and a plan. I desperately needed money. Beyond that, I needed to create some kind of a stopgap to slow the Lord’s current rate of decay. I needed a believer, and I needed them soon.

That night, I couldn’t get to sleep. Missing a little sleep didn’t matter all that considering my body, so I could afford to let myself get lost in thought a little. As such, I was awake to hear rain beginning to pour down outside. While our apartment had soundproofing sufficient to block it out, both the Lord and I preferred to disable the out-to-in soundproofing system.

At this point, given advances since the Great Flood, mankind has the power to control the weather. It could erase rain forever from wherever civilisation gathered if it wished to. If it truly wanted to keep farming alive, then it could simply concentrate rain there as necessary. Isn’t it curious that they choose to allow it to fall anyway? It would make engineering easier. In fact, after the Great Flood, it would arguably be safer to get rid of it. Yet nonetheless, they let rain remain for no reason other than that they like it. Sure, it certainly annoys them on occasion, but if you asked someone if they would remove it – even if you told them that it would come with no downsides – they would certainly choose to keep it. It isn’t a matter of efficiency, but satisfaction.

Something continuing to exist purely on the merit that it has existed – in some sense, isn’t that beautiful? I suppose the rain somehow charmed humans into deciding that it was worth keeping.

With that thought, I finally went to sleep.

===

The next morning, it was still raining. After getting ready and grabbing a rain coat and an air umbrella, I left without delay. Today, I will find a believer.

To be honest, I didn’t have an exact plan beyond the vague notion that I would convert someone. Nonetheless, I set out in the direction of the library, hoping that I would work something out on the way.

The streets of Strait in the rain were a different world from it when it was dry. Of course, the foot traffic was drastically reduced. However, beyond that, most pedestrians had rain jackets, while some were carrying air umbrellas. Air umbrellas were interesting devices that through a fairly complex mechanism projected a large volume of air above a person in a pattern to disperse rain. Unlike the classical image of a handheld ‘analogue’ umbrella, these were small badge-like devices one attached to clothing. I brought one as a backup to my rain coat, but that was simply a whim. I don’t mind the rain though. I wouldn’t be here without it.

While I was pondering that, I glanced into a park I was passing and noticed a man without any coat or umbrella. He seemed to be shivering.

Could he perhaps be my next target?