PATRIARCH FOWL
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Casual Heroing, Chapter 130
🕑 Added 2023-06-24 14:57:26 +0000 UTCNext chapter comes out Sunday, June 25th!
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Chapter 130 – Sacrifice
Plinius looked at Appius with a dark expression.
“And you have been working on it the whole time?” He asked his [Corporal].
“Yes, [Sergeant],” Appius stood straight, swallowing. “I knew you would come around.”
Plinius had had it with the Human in Amorium. He knew that Appius had been scheming—it was in his [Corporal]’s nature. He wouldn’t have expected anything different. Now, Plinius was pressing him to make sure that whatever plan he had hatched wouldn’t come to bite them in the ass.
The [Sergeant] clenched his jaw. The stakes had never been this high, sadly, but he couldn’t take his own sister cheering for a dirty Human. It didn’t matter that the Human was a [Baker]—he could have been a [Saint], and even then, he should have been banished from the city.
There was no place for filthy worms in here!
“Appius,” Plinius said, taking out a truth-stone against all military protocol, “I need you to swear on your grade that this has been carefully planned so that it will not affect our respective careers. Mine and yours.”
“[Sergeant],” Appius spoke solemnly, “I have made sure to craft something completely by the books. This won’t affect our careers. It might affect our reputation in the short term, especially with those who like the Human, but that’s it. My plan is not illegal, and, if anything, the [General] will get a big, fat laugh out of it.”
“Go ahead, then,” Plinius waved his hand.
“Thank you, [Sergeant],” Appius smiled maliciously, “I won’t let you down.”
“Good, you are dismissed.”
Plinius was then left to himself, thinking about the fight he had had with his sister. It had been ridiculous. Why had she defended the Human? Did she actually know him? Plinius would have to be killed before he allowed a filthy Human to be in the same workplace as his sister!
…
I look around the bakery. I have my hand on the huge bread mixer. It’s around 6 AM, and everyone is still pretty quiet. This one’s going to be the last batch of bread.
I’ve managed not to look too weird today. Agostina gave me some more of that calming tonic she had drugged me with. It helped a lot. Much better than any benzodiazepine.
I still had to come up with some excuses before figuring out what I needed to tell Antoninus. I just told my [Guards] that I had a sort of panic attack caused by thinking about my own mother. If they tested it under truth-stone, it would have turned out to be true too. I didn’t want to lie, but I can’t just tell them what cancer is and that Antoninus’s mother might be in a fatal condition.
First, I need to understand if that is indeed something that cannot be cured by a [Healer]. That’s my first directive. If it can be healed, then I don’t need to be worrying about much. If it cannot…
Well, that’s a scenario I’m not sure I’m ready to explore.
But you know what?
Agostina’s words still resonate with me.
My brain still recalls them with crystal clear clarity.
…they found out Mauser was using the same high-level troops he commanded on the battlefield to empower his Undead.
…the Vanedeni, who were true to their roots, were disgusted by those practices. [Princess] Valarith herself broke the marriage vow and rallied troops to stop him.
In the end, [Princess] Valarith sacrificed herself to kill Mauser.
She was barely a child by our standards. And she killed the strongest [Necromancer] we have records of. She did not wait for the class; she did not wait to grow stronger. She just dived for it. And died for her people.
She died for her people.
I look at the bread mixer.
I don’t need my hand on it to keep it going, but I told them the flow of Mana was a bit unstable today. I needed some time to myself.
And as everyone shuffles around, I keep thinking about that one sentence.
She died for her people.
Sacrifice is construed as something quintessentially Christian in the West. ‘Jesus Christ died for our sins,’ and all that.
However, it’s a part of culture, and it has been since the very first stories we have knowledge of. Sacrificing yourself for the greater good of your community is simply part of our history. It’s not a Christian value. It’s a universal value.
It’s us, I tell myself, shaking my head.
It’s always been us.
Firefighters diving into buildings on fire to save people they have never seen before. Doctors doing the longest hours in a surgery room when the person they are taking care of isn’t even aware of their existence at that moment.
Is that what it is? Is that the answer?
Sacrifice.
All those years ago, when I chose not to become a doctor – is that what I refused? To sacrifice a part of myself?
How very young American of me, huh?
Suddenly, my brain conjures a text for me. It’s not the whole thing, but it’s already surprising enough that something came to me.
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step across the Ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the Earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide.
Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap—let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.
And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.
That’s young Abraham Lincoln.
And yet, here I am, years later, in a different world, grappling with the same concept of sacrifice.
I stepped away from most altars of sacrifice throughout my life.
Was it that bad that I envisioned having a tough life in medicine?
I think about Antoninus and his mother. I think about Agostina and the people of Amorium. I think of all the men and women back at the park…
But what can I really do for them? They deserve someone who’s ready to make the sacrifice needed to cure something as terrible as cancer, to end something as miserable as poverty, to keep a stretched-out hand as it keeps getting battered.
Am I willing to give it all up for them? My comfort? My safety? My life?
The bakery around me continues to bustle with activity as I wrestle with these thoughts. I know I need to make a decision, but it's a difficult one.
Would I be able to live with myself if I chose to walk away from this? I could just ignore what Claudia is suffering from, and there would be nothing they could blame me for. I could just contribute a bit of money to the homeless and be better than most people will ever be. In the end, I could just ignore the most unpleasant people and let them rot by themselves.
Would I be able to look at myself in the mirror, knowing that I could have made a difference but chose not to?
Maybe. I already took a decision like that, in a way, haven’t I? I’m still surviving pretty decently.
I take my hand off the bread mixer and wipe the sweat from my brow.
That Lincoln speech I just remembered is about sacrifice for the sake of the law, for the sake of one’s country’s most sacred values.
Is that what that [Princess] Valarith did? Avoid the looming corruption that could have swept away the spirit and true soul of her people?
I take a big breath.
Jesus Christ, I feel like I’m about to have a stroke.
But you know, things can always get worse.
“What are you doing?! You can’t go there!”
In the midst of the relative morning quiet, a shout spreads through the bakery, followed by a laughing man.
The fact that it’s a man makes it easy to understand it cannot be someone from Happy Bakery.
“Hello! Hello! I’m here to talk to the worm! Does he work here?”
I see Appius entering the kitchen floor of Happy Bakery.
“Rotten roots!” I hear Flaminia swear out loud.
“There we go,” he says, slowly approaching me. “Hello, worm!”
“What the fuck is this?!” Quintus drops the bowl he was working with and immediately goes for Appius with a knife in his hands.
Oh, shit.
“Quintus! Christ, put that knife down!” I sprint and tackle my own [Baker] before he can do anything stupid.
“Let me go, Joey! Let me go! I’ll shut that bastard up! How does he dare—”
Appius comes to a rest just in front of me and Quintus wrestling on the ground. Other than his racist words, he has pretty amiable behavior. He looks around the bakery with a big smile on his face and keeps his hands behind his back.
“Someone call Clodia!” Flaminia shouts.
“Fuck—don’t call Clodia! I’ll take care of it!”
“I just wanted a word with the worm and to perhaps commission a nice cake, [Soldier], no need to get riled up for me,” Appius says calmly.
“Tiberius! Christ’s sake, get this idiot!” I shout to the only other man currently present at the bakery. Lucillus and Antoninus usually come back to escort me home, but no one ever thought a [Soldier] would have the guts to come up to me inside Happy Bakery.
As Tiberius starts wrestling with Quintus on the ground, I can finally stand up to square it up with Appius. He’s a few inches shorter than me, the disgusting man.
“What do you want?” I say, huffing.
“Not seeing maggots run around Amorium and taint my food would be great,” he says. And although he smiles, his words drip with poison.
“Tough luck, right?” I say with a smile. “Do you have any sisters, Appius? Because, in that case, I could spawn a few more half-maggots and let you babysit them.”
I see the man’s brows jump at me.
The whole bakery erupts into chatter around us, and I can see someone sneaking away to alert Clodia.
“Well, worm, I’m sure that given your whore mother's tendencies, you wouldn’t have any problem with mixing breeds. Why don’t you start with dogs to continue your family’s traditions?”
“What do you want?” I say, clenching my jaw. “You are in my workplace. This is trespassing, Appius. Your goons tried it when I was shopping for clothes. Do you want the same treatment? I’m sure I could explain it to the Watch quite well.”
“Oh, assaulting a [Corporal]? You attacked two [Privates], and already several [Sergeants] are starting to see you as a threat, worm. If you attack me here with so little pretext, you might not like the consequences of it.”
He’s baiting me.
I actually laugh out loud when I realize it.
“Ok? So, how come you’re here?”
He’s good. Mentioned my mother. Put violence at the front to cloud my judgment.
“I have a proposal that would help you live a better life here, worm. By now, I know you can somewhat fight. How would you like not to worry about [Soldiers] messing with you anymore?”
“I’m listening.”
Here comes the catch.
“Well, I know that worms are disgusting infestations for any Elven city, and I thought I would take it upon myself to rid my dear people of you.”
“Fuck you!” I hear Quintus shouting from the ground, still wrestling with Tiberius.
“Go on,” I gesture with my hand.
I’d be angrier if I didn’t have more serious things to think about.
“I have a deal that suits even a whore-son like you, worm. If you win, I will stop messing with you. On my class, on my military career, and on my life. If I win, on your class, on your career, and on your life, you get out of Amorium. Two weeks from now, at the Barracks’ training grounds. I hope you won’t be too afraid and run to your whore-mother in fear. What do you think? A Military Duel sanctioned by the Watch and the Military?”
As his words finished, Lincoln’s words resounded in my ears as if he was telling them directly to me.
…let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.
“Joey! DON’T—”
“I accept,” I raise my arm and shake his hand, ignoring his steel-tight grasp.
Appius has a gleeful smirk on his face and starts cackling.
“Joey!” Tiberius stops wrestling with Quintus and gets up with horror on his face. Quintus gets up in a second, clawing at his own face before grabbing me by my shoulders.
“JOEY! YOU ROTTEN IDIOT! YOU CAN’T USE MAGIC IN A MILITARY DUEL!”
“Oh, I’m sure the worm will do just fine! He has two weeks to practice; in fact,” Appius starts walking out as Tiberius and Quintus keep shouting at me.
"If someone like me can't win against someone like you, I should never be allowed to do anything ever again,” I raise my voice as Appius walks away.
I don’t say anything else until Clodia arrives and asks about what happened. By now, Quintus looks on the verge of a meltdown.
“He accepted a Military Duel!” He cries out.
“What?! He already swore on it?!” Clodia looks beside herself.
I’m still looking at the corridor that lead Appius out.
“Joey! You rotten idiot! You can’t use magic in a Military Duel!” This time, it’s Clodia grabbing my shoulders and shaking me like a ragdoll. “He probably has more than twenty levels on you! In a [Warrior] class! You can’t use fucking magic! Joey, can you hear me?!”
I suddenly erupt in a crystalline laugh, never having felt this light.
“I know,” I say to the stunned faces of those present. “I know.”
Comments
Wow if he wins this really hard duel where the stakes are exile one specific soldier will leave him alone. Super worth.
Kyle Nelson
Nah, he's got this. Joey is gonna make some Ballin enchantments to protect him since those are allowed. Hopefully something fun like a vector reversal or some other dumb bs
mathieu brassard
i feel like the military duel is not only a trap, but there is no winning it either. i feel like if Joey wins, he will be seen as the exact threat the soldiers feel he is without gaining anything since i doubt appius will stop anyway, not counting every other soldier. i like the serie a lot, but more and more feel like Joey should start getting over the MANY hangups stopping him at every turn
