I sat alone on my heavenly throne, contemplating my glorious victory. Except that by 'heavenly throne' I mean 'piss-drunk ass', and by 'glorious victory' I mean 'making everyone hate me'. I got up from the chess table, clumsily knocking a few of the pieces over. As I put them back in order, I discovered that all the pawns and most of the minor pieces had names written on the bottom of their bases.
Famous heroes? Old chess masters?
I spent the next indeterminate amount of time phasing in and out of conversations, stumbling into walls, and generally observing the Apis-folk in their natural environment.
They didn't disappoint.
A barrel-shaped man made out passionately with the tap of an actual beer barrel.
"In nine months, they're gonna open that barrel, and it'll be full of little barrels!" I said to a young couple.
Inspired, the guy turned to his girl. "Will you be my barrel, sweetie?" he growled.
"Stop it!" she squealed as he advanced on her, waggling his tongue suggestively.
Before they had a chance to conceive, a fight broke out in the middle of the room: two beefy men were playing tug of war with an exasperated woman.
"Git yer hands offa mah wife!" shouted beefer #1.
"No yeeu git yer hans offa mah wife!" beefer #2 riposted.
"Babies, please! I married both of yeeu so ye have ta share!" shouted the woman in vain. The men came to (what remained of) their senses and carted her out of the hall like a log.
Okay, that was it. That was the stupidest thing I'm going to see all nigh-
No.
At the far end of the hall, a band of musicians were hard at work on their instruments, dropping the hottest fire since Dresden, and there, dancing maniacally on one of the tables, was Mr. Briswell. He had no shirt and no shoes, but a voluptuous woman (hopefully his wife) was still giving him plenty of service. Turns out that grinding works exactly the same way in Alterra as it does on Earth. It brought a tear to my eye.
Another woman (hopefully also his wife) got up on the table and joined in on the fun. They briefly attempted a half-dignified conga line, but it quickly devolved into animalistic twerking.
The town doctor, everyone. The most educated man in town.
I looked away quickly. More than three seconds would be staring, and more than ten seconds would be an invitation. A large, muscular man sat alone at a table, wearing nothing but a cape, tattered trousers, and a golden crown that looked more like a burger king crown than the real deal. He was surrounded by a graveyard of empty glasses. I sat down opposite him, gesturing at all of them.
"You've slain a lot of enemies! You must be a great warrior."
The man looked up, and I could tell that the battle had been hard-fought. "I'M THE KING OF THE HARVEST!" he announced.
"I can see that! Why'd they make you the king?"
"I'M THE KING OF THE HARVEST!" he repeated. Then his eyes momentarily cleared. He looked like a man who had suddenly remembered something of terrible importance.
"Listen..." he said, urgently clutching at my lapel. "My name is..."
Then he turned to the side and vomited all over the floor.
"I think you've had enough, your majesty." I turned around, looking for help. And there he was, the most helpful person in Apis: John Harvestar.
"Hey John!" I shouted, waving him over. "We're gonna need a cleanup in aisle seven."
John put a hand up dismissively. "Leave 'im. Dirk's a big boy. He'll survive."
"We could at least prop him on his side or-"
"You met my son already?" John asked. "What'd you think of 'im?"
"He was... cool. Confident... strong-looking."
"He killed that monster to death earlier. Kid's gonna be a real dragon slayer. Hope he still wants to come back here after that year of study..."
"About that John..."
"Don't worry, I've got a plan for you, kid. Here's how it's gonna be. You and Stella are going to Castella in a few weeks for your year of study. Actually, you'll be going with my son and his friends since they're all your age! Ain't that perfect!"
"Lucky me... and after that?"
"Well, see... the teachers in Castella aren't really there to teach. They're there to find out how much you already know, what you're good at. You can still choose whatever job you want, but folks usually do what the teachers say."
"And... if I'm not good at anything?"
"Then I'll look forward to seeing you back here." John said, giving the universally understood thumbs-up. "We'll get you set up as a farmer. If you're good at it, and you work hard, you might eventually become THE HARVEST KING!"
"I'M THE KING OF THE HARVEST!" Dirk shouted, eyes crossed, gunk spraying from his mouth.
I'll let you in on a little secret - something that has gotten me through the most trying times of my life -
The One True Hangover Cure
Everybody knows that dehydration is what causes the headache. But you can't just drink water. You have to replenish your electrolytes, otherwise you'll just piss all that water away and still feel like shit. Enter Campbell's Chunky Chicken and Sausage Gumbo. It's a soup, so plenty of water. It's processed food, so plenty of salt. There's a healthy dose of fatty meats to soak up the alcohol that's still in your gut, and on top of all that, it's spicy, which pairs well with milk, and I think I've made my stance on milk very clear. Campbell's Chunky has saved my job on multiple occasions. I've gone to bed absolutely wrecked, only to wake up four hours later and recover miraculously thanks to a healthy, nutritious breakfast. I might stumble over a few words in a boardroom meeting, but I'd avoid the deep shit, like passing out at my desk or hitting on big-titty coworkers.
Maggie's morning-after feast was eggs and milk, with some spiced beef thrown on top. Way better than the usual orphanage rations. Apisfolk clearly knew how to party, so of course they'd be masters of recovery. Except maybe Dirk... I didn't expect him to evolve bipedalism until the evening.
Despite the good food, my head was still splitting - it felt like a banshee was shrieking into both my ears. My vision defogged. Stella was in front of me. Her mouth was moving, but by the way her eyebrows slanted in a violent clash I could tell I wasn't missing out on much.
"- came and found me she assumed that we were hooking up. I asked her who told her something that ridiculous, and she said -"
I wish you were still a dog
Stella paused, shocked.
"Wait, you weren't supposed to hear that..." my mouth thought aloud. "Ah, fuck..."
"You're such a fucking prick! I really thought that we could be friends, since we both came from the same planet, but it looks like somebody's mother didn't teach them basic fucking decency! How did she raise such a -"
My mind wandered as her episode reached its crescendo. Something about me dying alone?
I wonder if the women raised in Apis are any less annoying... because the traditional family structure and -
*SMACK*
"I really need to stop talking, don't I?" I thought sheepishly.
Stella stormed out of the room, sobbing.
My head cleared up considerably after Stella made her tactical retreat, so I decided to hit a quick workout at the church. After a few sets of pushups to get the blood flowing, I gritted my teeth, set my jaw, and approached the weighted bar on the platform. I gripped the handle on one of the weights tightly and lifted with all my strength - adjusting my stance to push with my whole body: Glutes, legs, arms, core... deadlifting hits it all. The weight trembled reluctantly, but then... that tsundere bitch left the ground!
Finally, a breakthrough!
I stood fully upright, pausing at the apex of the motion to familiarize myself with the weight, and at long last dropping it with a decisive BANG.
I'd only lifted one end of the weight, so I was only at the halfway mark to lifting the entire thing...
But still... progress. Next stop: Five reps! Then ten!
"LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" I shouted as blood rushed to my head.
Laughter rang out through the chapel. I whipped my head to the source and saw... John.
"And on this blessed day, in the eyes of Tevveshian and his infinite descendants... you are officially half of a man." He said it solemnly, but my instincts told me I was being made fun of.
"What?"
"Ah, that's right, you're not familiar with the Church of Iron. I'll spare you the details, I'm not one of those door-to-door religion salespeople like the moor men... oh, but you don't know who they are either..."
"No, I think I've heard of them." I responded, cringing as my mind filled with visions of clean-pressed white shirts, black ties, and 'get off my fucking porch'.
"Amazing! Even though you're from another world! Those moor men sure do get around."
I shrugged. "So would I, if I lived in a moor."
"Very true! And speaking of, I was just about to come get you and your little girlfriend. We're about to take a trip of our own."
"You mean Stella?"
"I've seen how you two get along." John grinned slyly "Reminds me of when I was courting my wife."
I seriously hope not
"Alright, alright." I said, winking, "but keep it down around Stella, or she'll blow a fuse."
I liked John. I didn't want to ruin his day by telling him how bad things really were. "Where are we going?"
John's eyes lit up as his grin spread over his entire face.
"Certain Death."
I wiped the sweat from my filthy brow. A long afternoon of pitching tents and setting up camp will do that to a brow. In less than a day, most of the townspeople had hitched up their carts and left their homes by the same road that I'd used to arrive. They were still streaming into the campsite, which an advance party had spent most of the day furnishing. The camp was made up of dozens of small tents, with a larger command tent, all set up by the edge of a placid lake. I was part of the the advance party, along with John and anyone else whose pupils weren't in the shape of an X. We'd spent the day riding back across the same pockmarked landscape that I had initially traversed with Stella when I woke up.
When we arrived at the ominous signpost and turned in the direction marked 'Certain Death', I asked John what I'd done to deserve the death penalty.
"Don't worry, we're not gonna die. The name is just a kind of safety measure." John had explained. "If you know what you're doing, you'll be fine. But if you try and pass through the forest without knowing about the bees, you're not going to survive. The point of the sign isn't to be accurate, it's to get people to at least ask questions before they head that way."
"What if they're bold adventurers who would just be tempted by the promise of danger?" I asked.
John shrugged. "There's this cliff by the ocean in Aetheria with a similar danger sign: 'WARNING: Certain Death'. I figure all the boldest adventurers would die there before they make it all the way out here... but we do find skeletons in the forest from time to time."
You don't say.
The Forest of Certain Death was the home of the Apis Black Jackets: a terrifyingly large species of nocturnal bee with famously painful venom. So basically, it's a very good thing that we got the tents up before nightfall. Every summer, the bees build large, fortress-like nests around the bases of wide, old trees, and every fall, the good folk of Apis come to knock down the new outpost nests near the edges of the forest. If they didn't do this, the bees would spread to surrounding forests and become a nuisance to the Castellan nobility. Naturally, the people of Apis are well-compensated for this service by the king. The so-called Great Bee Hunt is also a chance to harvest venom for freaks like Zerch, and delicious honey for people without a pain fetish.
I strolled to the lake and gave my brow a well-deserved bath. The sun was setting, and the townsfolk would be breaking for dinner soon. No alcohol tonight - you need a good night of sleep and all your reflexes to hunt Black Jackets. That's why yesterday was such a shit show.
I'd just received my portion of stew when a hand heavily clapped my shoulder, almost sending my dinner tumbling. Of course it was Burt. He had arrived from town about twenty minutes ago with Clayton and Owen, just long enough to whack a few tentpoles and call it a day.
"Hey there, Bradley. You ready to kill some bugs?"
"Nah." I said, recovering my composure. "I'm just gonna help load the bee corpses and honey."
"Well I'm gonna be on the front lines. Dad's giving me a suit of chainlink armor, says I'm ready to fight the bees for real after I killed your Calderan friend yesterday."
"Good luck dodging those stingers." I said, trying to shuffle away. But before I could, Burt had one more item of business on his agenda.
"Oh yeah, and... I talked a bit with Allison and Stella last night. I was just wondering why you said that stuff about me and Stella? Kinda rude."
I shrugged. "Nothing personal. I don't know you. That's just what it looked like to me."
Burt's face relaxed, but his eyes didn't. "Don't worry, we're cool. Oh, and about the bees... they come out at night. So don't go wandering around here after dark. It's dangerous out there for shrimps. Kay, buddy?"
"Okay."
Thankfully, my second attempt to shuffle away was a success.
Wandering anywhere would be dangerous if it was near you...
