A Gamer's Guide 397 (Patreon)

They began hearing shouting even before arriving at the proper floor. Not a good sign. Though, surely, defenestration must have been an exaggeration on Prop’s part. She had never thought of him as the dramatic sort—not that she thought of him often—but it was seldom right to judge a book by its cover.

And so it came to be that Rafiloe, upon entering the supposedly civil discussion chamber, found herself absolutely startled by the scene taking place within. The archjudge was being held most contemptuously above the heads of a small crowd of pro-hope officers, who were shouting about deception and Bramtown quarter, all the while attempting to move the non-poor fellow towards the window overlooking the lower walls. In response, Prop—alongside a group of deicidist verdites—were barring their approach to the window with their bodies, holding the group off, shouting about how if only general Ieruit would answer their messages, then this whole conflict could surely be solved in a civil manner, without involving any windows or twenty-meter drops. 

…Was there actually to be a defenestration? Rafiloe felt something flutter within her chest. To be witness to the first defenestration of Kingfist… Or perhaps more had come previously? Ones that might have inspired this event, and could possibly inspire even more similar ones down the line of history?

Abruptly inspired, she turned to the goblin closest to her—some well-dressed goblin who didn’t seem to know whether to run or barricade the room—and asked, only mildly intoxicated by autism, “Is this the first time someone has been…” but she had never learnt the word for defenestrated in Aetongue, so the terminology had to be simplified into, “thrown out a window in this city?” 

“What?” the man asked. “What are you even—” Upon turning to her, his gaze happened upon the previously missing—though not missed—god in the room, now returned. “Good lords! My God, You must—”

“Urrgghhh…” Kitty groaned, drawing back and out of the open doorway. “Um, Gecko, they seem to have things under control here, can’t we go elsewhere…?”

“Why?” Rafiloe asked, not because she was particularly worried about anyone dying in here, but mainly because who in their right mind would ask to leave a historically significant moment like this? It was absurd. Though, if he didn’t want to be there, it was okay. Using her magic, she could simply wave here and there, and then they would have to put him down, and she could sort this out, and there would be no defenestration, only…

She looked down at her hand. The pretty, useless spellstones on her rings gleamed up at her. Oh, right. Then, she looked at the situation again.

“Kill me if you please; your filthy anathema will die with me, as will you!” the archjudge slurred between large swigs of… two bottles. Who had given him more bottles? “My name will be etched in—urrpp—the walls of history as… as the greatest judge to ever judge! And you will all be nothing but hopeful… hopeless… peons!”

Over at the window, Prop shook his head. “He doesn’t mean that,” he said, which was a fairly inaccurate plea, all things considered.

“Right,” Gecko muttered. There wasn’t much progress towards the window, though, and it had been a while since Prop asked for backup. Hence, still holding Kitty’s hand, she made her way into the room, elbowed her way over to the window, and looked out. 

Even though the castle looked out over the city, she couldn’t see much. The large trees in the garden shielded much of it from view, making it impossible to tell whether they still had any chance to escape or not. At her side, Kitty made a visible effort of straining his eyes, to no avail. “Hmm. Let me just…” He spent a moment surveying the locking mechanism on the window, and after failing to comprehend how it worked, he simply sliced the metal with his claw before opening the window wide.

A gust of cool, fresh air displaced the stuffy, breath-choked air of the room. However, the wind carried many other things with it as well: the stench of gunpowder, the sound of screaming, and a hot, gas-like smell that Rafiloe was certain must have been dragonfire, despite never having smelled it before. However, no houses were on fire, and there was no smoke in the sky. In that case…

Kitty leaned himself out of the window a bit, smelling the breeze. “About… Forty thousand attackers. Three dragons? Worrying. They’ve already breached the gates, now swarming inside… Very fast. I’d wager they’ll be here within the next quarter or so. Fast drakes!” He turned to her, quizzical but not especially worried. “What do you think we should do, Gecko?”

“Huh?” Rafiloe blurted out. “What do you mean, what do I think? I’m not exactly—”

A crowd of people pushed themselves between them, and then the archjudge went flying out the window, tossed like a bag of potatoes. 

For one, glorious moment, Rafiloe saw him soaring in perfect clarity. The billowing of his clothes, the half-emptied bottles still clutched in his hands, the weightlessness in his jewelry, and the oddly surprised look on his face, as though the concept that they might actually defenestrate him had never crossed his mind. It was comical. She almost burst out laughing right then and there.

But then the moment passed, his body exited the window, and she found herself inexplicably reaching out, snatching a hold of his ankle just in time for him to not plummet, but merely to smash against the castle wall exterior. Though he was far from heavy, the abrupt addition of over fifty kilos of weight—almost as much as Rafiloe herself—pressed her against the wall, her body straining to continue holding on to… some fucking guy? An asshole who had tried to trick her into fighting on her side? A tyrant who refused to pay the fire tax even if it meant his whole city would burn? Was she seriously fighting life and limb to keep a waste of space like him from falling to a just death?

Below, after a moment’s indecision, the judge let go of the bottles of liquor in order to clasp his hands in prayer, letting them both go tumbling into the pits below to find rest in a small patch of grass only a few dozen meters down. That wasn’t so bad, was it? It was only a twenty-thirty meter drop. Surely, the judge could handle that. The third defenestration of Prague was about a similar drop, and the catholic delegates had made it out without a scratch! Mostly, at least. The judge would be fine. There was no need for her to strain and grunt and listen to his inane mumblings to the goddess of law. He totally deserved falling, so…

“Oh, shoot, sorry,” came a voice next to her, and now Kitty reached out, took a hold of the archjudge’s other ankle, and with only a single hand, effortlessly reeled him in through the window. 

Rafiloe, in turn, stumbled at the sudden relief of weight, falling onto her ass. From the floor, she watched how Kitty held the archjudge upside down above the floor as though he were a particularly big fish. Kitty genuinely didn’t seem to know what to do with him, and the ring of pro-hope and deicidist officers and verdicts around him didn’t appear particularly interested in informing him either. For his own part, the archjudge was busy keeping his eyes squeezed tight shut, hands clasped in prayer. 

“Um,” Kitty began, and then said nothing more, as the archjudge failed to notice that the sound was meant for him. Pleading for some kind of assistance, Kitty turned to look at the people around him: first Leion, who was too much of a zealot to tell him what to do; then to Prop, whose shock kept him mute and motionless; and then finally to Rafiloe. His countenance had shifted into that of a puppy with a splinter in its paw. “Gecko…?”

Her arms ached and trembled. Outside, the sounds of marching and screaming and drakes yipping approached, closer and closer. A million ways her life could end in the coming thirty minutes did a roll-by through her head, each one more absurd than the last. But, at this very moment, she knew exactly what Kitty ought to do.

“Maybe, uh, let him down…?”

“Oh,” Kitty said, looking down at his prize catch. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, you’re right.” With neither ceremony nor respect, he dropped the archjudge straight down, letting the highly respected leader land right on his head with a sound that was eerily similar to that of a gavel banging. The archjudge then fell, arms and legs splaying out, leaving him face-down on the floor, no longer praying to himself. Silent. The entire gathered group of people watched the noiseless, prone archjudge before turning to Kitty. She was surprised to not see any sweat beading on his face as he muttered, “Well, shoot.”

At her side, someone clicked their tongue, and when she turned to look at them, she found that they—an officer?—were holding a notepad and piece of charcoal in hand, the paper itself containing a loose sketch of Kitty just now, holding the archjudge like a big fish. 

The sight was too absurd for her to comment on, so instead, she stood up, grabbed Kitty’s hand, and led him out of the room. 

“Wait, um, don’t you think we should…?” 

“We’re screwed,” she said, putting the whole situation mildly. “No, sorry, we’re so screwed it isn’t even funny. The whole city is being overrun by… How many did you say? Forty thousand soldiers? And then Lajon’s army, and then the army that’s already here, not to mention the civilian populace at seventy thousand… Fuck. Fuck.” Pulling him by the hand, she led him up the stairs, higher and higher. Once the stairs ended, she began searching for another staircase. “If the battle had been kept outside of the city, then maybe there might have been the possibility of surrender, but like this, inside the city…” She shook her head. Though she’d never been as interested in the individual battles as she was in the people who conducted them, she couldn’t recall any battles that took place within cities turning out well and normal. Outside the city gates, it was far easier to tell friend from foe, which was saying something, since this was notoriously difficult. But in a city? Combined with the civilian populace, and four dragons, and… 

Realization struck her like a bolt of lightning and she stopped, paralyzed, right in front of a staircase leading up. 

Maggie. Cold shivers ran up her back. Oh, God, Maggie. Please let her be okay. Maybe she’s still in the attic, waiting for me to come back? God, I hope so. Otherwise, she might… She could… Maybe even now…

“Gecko, please, where are we going? Shouldn’t we try to, I don’t know, talk this out with them? Like civilized people?” Kitty said, squeezing her hand a little. 

Turning to him, she could only hope that she didn’t look as wild as she felt. “We have to get up high,” she said, her mind working to make up for the stiffness of her body. “Then, you can tell Garath the Pesticide to come grab us and we can go and survive.”

“Oh. Oh? Um…”

Animation returned to her and she pulled him into the staircase, up the winding, spiralling stairs. The higher they got, the better. Then, even if they got shot at, it wouldn’t reach them. And if we do it fast enough, we can pick up Maggie, too. We can all be okay. We can all be fine.

“I’m not sure if,” Kitty began, only to pause before reaching any sort of point, his body stopping in place and his head swivelling around to face where they had come from, as astute and ready as a bloodhound picking up the scent of prey. “Wow,” he breathed, sniffing deeply through his nose. “They’re already here. That was fast. They must have been heading for this place. I wonder if…”

Her grip tightened on his hand and she forcefully pulled him out of his state, practically dragging him the first few steps. Up, further. Even as her legs ached and soured with milk acid, even as her feet bled freshly from the harsh stone, even as her chest burnt with panting and her head began to feel as heavy as a bowling ball.