In damp, dimly lit halls of natural and twisted stone, they came. They had rushed in, armed with ornate blades and fine armor. Their azure cloaks flowed behind them, the crest of the Alliance on their backs.  

The regiment of army soldiers poured into the dirty cavern, led by a young woman. Her pristine uniform and brilliant blonde hair were dirtied by the mud surrounding them as she trudged through the caves. 

“Are you sure this is the right place, seems pretty empty to me… is this really where the Goblin King’s forces retreated to all those years ago?” she complained, pushing away a large spider web with her sword. 

The man next to her nodded, checking their map once again just to be sure. This was indeed their destination, but something felt off, this cave did look lived in, but there were hardly any signs of life, had they seen them coming and retreated already?

But then, they found another cave deeper in, the sound of those disgusting creatures clearly heard behind the poorly constructed barricades. She ordered her men to smash down the gates, and then they swarmed into the nest.

The goblins were unprepared and unarmed, and they fell one after another. Her soldiers slaughtered them before they had a chance to regroup. Until all that was left was a single young goblin, barely more than a child. Her dirty red hair stood out among the others, the same shade as the Goblin King’s mane. 

“Die, monster!” the female soldier cried, thrusting her sword forward towards the goblin frozen in fear. But the blade missed, the goblin having fallen over at the last second. The silver sword cut through the air, severing only a few strands of the goblin girl’s hair. 

“P-Please… I don’t want to die… Fiffil is a peaceful goblin!” she held up her hands, pleading for mercy. The swordswoman hesitated for a moment, having never seen a goblin surrender before. 

It was a scene I remember clearly, but my point of view was different before. Now, I watched the scene of my death from the outside. In just a few moments, I would tumble down the crevasse at the far side of the village, and that was where I met Beelzebub for the first time. 

My voice echoed into the mind of that girl, enveloping her body… my body. Time seemed to freeze in the scene, except for Fiffil, except for me. 

“Yo, mind if I borrow your body for a bit.” I asked… myself. The piece version of me I was looking at stared off into the distance, unable to see the source of the voice that just asked her a bizarre question. 

“W-Who’s there?! What’s going on? Why’s everyone frozen...” Fiffil asked me, worriedly looking around the time-stopped cavern. 

Things are going to get confusing if I keep calling her the same name, so from now on the version of me within the board shall be called Fiffil. Anyways, I should probably answer her before she starts freaking out too much.

“I’m… well, just call me the Red Queen for now. Think of me like a god or something.” I gave a somewhat cryptic answer, as the reality was probably too much for her to handle. “I know you’re in shock, and soon you’ll fall into despair when you realize everyone you know just died… but if you stick with me we can fix this all.”

“W-What are you talking about? What’s happening?!” she shouted, unable to keep up with the idea that she’s talking to a godlike being, of course, I was in the same position a short time ago. 

“The woman in front of you will kill you, and then you’ll suffer an even worse fate than death I’m afraid. Made a plaything of a devil, manipulated and tossed aside when he grew bored. But if you agree to work for me, we can try and free this world from the twisted rules that make others suffer.”

“I-I don’t have much of a choice then, do I?!” she shouted angrily, but she was correct.

“That’s right, your choices are to walk a doomed path again, or attempt to go down a new road. I can’t guarantee you that this path doesn’t end in tragedy, but I can assure you the first choice most certainly does.”

Fiffil gave it some thought, then sighed. She looked defeated, but there was that fire in her eyes, the determination I also possessed. 

“A’ight, ya’ win, Red Queen or whatever you said yer’ name was, I’ll play along with you for now.” 

“I will lend you the power to defeat this invading force, and once you’ve done that… head for the Alliance city of Bridgehelm, it’s a starter town for adventurers.”

“Wha’?! Ya want me to go to an adventurer town?! Ya tryin’ ta save me or not, huh?!” Fiffil was obviously confused, and I couldn’t blame her, it did sound like an illogical request.

“You’ll have to trust me, this is important. Once you reach Bridgehelm, seek an adventurer named Akira… he’s kind of an idiot, but he’ll listen to reason unlike the others.”

“Tch, fine, I’ll do it.” she responded, clicking her tongue in agitation that I refused to fully explain anything. 

I reached out, not in reality, but conceptually. Placing a mark on the left hand of this piece, she yelped in pain as the brand etched itself into her green skin. A symbol of a playing card, a queen, but the suit was replaced by a symbol of a jester. 

“I can grant you only one ability, this… my Queen’s Authority.”

Slowly, the time around Fifill began to move again. The world stirred in slow motion, but it sped up with every passing second. Very shortly, time would flow normally once more. 

“Your Authority is over ‘Azure’, use it as you will.”

And time moved again. 

Seeing that Fiffil wa sno longer right in front of her, the swordswoman moved to strike her down, forgetting about the goblin girl’s surrender just a second ago. Her blade arced, ready to separate the poor goblin’s head from her neck. 

“S-Stop!” Fiffil shouted, and the swordswoman’s body froze, her blade an inch from Fiffil’s throat. “W-Wha?”

-

“Interesting, ‘Red Queen’, very interesting.” Beezlebub watched the first move unfold from his seat, a glass of blood red wine resting in his off-hand. “Claiming your piece as a separate entity, rather than how Vi embodied it herself… how unorthodox.”

I wiped the sweat from my brow, panting heavily. The role of a player was more intense than I expected… Vi had commanded how many pieces… when I could only manage to empower a single one before I felt like I was at my limit. 

I knew this wouldn’t be easy, I wasn’t foolishly thinking I could defeat a god in a few moments. But the reality was setting in, I wasn’t even sure this was possible anymore. Beelzebub knew I didn't choose to leave my piece as her own entity, I was simply too weak to properly enter the board.

“Heh, if I was on the board, I couldn’t fight ya’ properly… and I don’t wanna kill myself if you picked her as yer’ piece either.” I put on a false smirk, revealing my sharp goblinoid fangs. 

“Indeed, that would certainly be awkward.” he replied, reaching over for a piece deep within the demon lord’s controlled territory. It was an area of the game I had never reached before, as the petty fight between Beelzebub and Vi over the goblinlands was not even remotely important to the overall battle. It was a distraction, he ground Vi’s willpower to dust with pointless skirmishes, not allowing her to break his defenses, he had never intended to win or to lose, but to delay the game indefinitely. 

But now, he showed no sign of holding back, and his first move was to use a piece he had never touched while I had been aware of the game. He smirked, looking at the piece in his fingertips. 

“You weren’t there for the early days of our battle, Vi would be familiar with these final pieces of mine… but as you are not, allow me to introduce them.” he said, placing the piece back down, advancing it away from the demon lord and towards the human civilizations. “The Thirteen Apostles of Beelzebub, those are my remaining pieces, as well as the Demon Lord incarnation of myself as well. Fourteen in total, and I shall not replace or add another… with these fourteen pieces, I shall defeat you.”

“With my single piece, I will defeat your fourteen and end this fuckin’ sick game once and fer all!” I shouted, picking up Fiffil’s piece and slamming it back down on the board, making my next move. 

Rakushi

I feel like most of my chapter titles are completely arbitrary and half of them are variations of saying this is the beginning or a restart.