It was toward midday when the gentleman’s matters had all been settled that he finally met up with Sir Ganelon near the castle’s gate. The preparations had been completed; the Grave of Emperors was ready to be unsealed. Such a shame that none of his companions were allowed to tag along, but perhaps that was for the best. Lucius had a feeling that a simple jaunt underground wasn’t all that the High Tribunal had planned.

  “Sir Lucius, you appear to be in high spirits. Excited, aren’t you?” the dandy man said to him with an irritated smile.

  “Indeed, indeed! It is not every day that I am allowed the privilege to enter such holy grounds,” Lucius replied. “However, I must say that you seem to be a bit under the weather, my Frankish friend. Is everything alright? Do inform me if you’d like to postpone this trip for another date. I wouldn’t want to force a busy fellow such as yourself if you were, somehow, stressed.”

  Ganelon’s eye briefly twitched, but he quickly hid his annoyance under a layer of very strained civility. “Whatever do you mean? Everything’s fine. Everything is… perfectly fine. Let’s just get this over with, hm? No doubt we both have much to do. Besides, I have a feeling my mood will positively soar after this business is concluded.”

  “Glad to hear it! May this experience serve to enlighten us both.”

  After a moment, a troupe of paladins arrived to guide the newly-formed pair far away from the city’s marketplace. The avenues Lucius treaded on were much more quiet here, more pensive. There were no hawkers selling food or material goods. Instead, a district full of marble buildings and pious priests greeted the gentleman’s eyes, and he took the chance to enjoy the scenery as marvelous decorations symbolizing the Franks’ faith dotted the old, but hallowed, district.

  Eventually, they arrived at their destination and stopped before a shining chapel made entirely of crystal and stained glass. The roads were noticeably more barren due to the evacuation order, but had the gentleman visited in the past, he had no doubt the place would have been the busiest in all of the capital. For this was the Venerated Sanctum, headquarters and main church of the Holy Order.

  With a heart full of delight, Lucius entered the exalted halls of the Sanctum. Ganelon ordered for the guards to disperse and soon followed after, his face struggling to hide a more dubious complexion. Now, amidst this colossal structure, there were only two. Alone.

  Lucius paid the man’s clear hostility no mind and carried on with his tour. The view inside was no less stunning! Rows upon rows of marble pews laid before a gigantic altar, the light above bathing them all in hues of twinkling gold, and toward the back was a statue of the Franks’ God, its figure perhaps ten times the size of the one back in Burgundy’s church. The three-headed deity towered before them all and rose high up to the Sanctum’s very top.

  “How beautiful,” Lucius said, running his fingers along the benches of aged white.

  Ganelon, despite the sight, trudged on with a bored look. “Yes, yes. Very pretty. The old farts in robes love to show off this section of the Sanctum. They’d polish this decrepit place the entire day if they could, all the while spitting nonsense about honoring the ancestors or whatever past glory they feel like obsessing over at the moment. Ridiculous, honestly…”

  “You have many grievances with the clergy, I see.”

  Ganelon uttered an amused laugh. “Grievances? No, I have none. In fact, I adore the current state of those miserable fools. Watching them slobber and fight over the faint crumbs of power I dangle over them brings me nothing but joy. The age of Chivalry and noble intentions have long passed, you see. All that’s left are the putrid remains yet to be cut off.”

  At this point, the High Tribunal wasn’t even trying to put on a cordial facade anymore. What Lucius saw now was his genuine, authentic self.

  “How peculiar that you would abandon your ruse so soon,” Lucius said. “Are you not worried about revealing all of this to me?”

  “Oh, come now. Let’s be honest here; you know exactly what I’m like. Maintaining this stuffy act would just be a waste of effort.”

  Ganelon slowly strode over to Lucius, raised his finger, and then poked the gentleman’s chest playfully.

  “I don’t like you,” he said. “And you don’t like me. We could go through this song and dance for days on end if need be, but the end result wouldn’t change. Our factions can never coexist. So, let’s drop all this tedium, hm? I am too tired to deal with this constant war of wits.”

  Lucius regarded the man for a moment, before replying enthusiastically, “If that’s what you wish, then who am I to refuse? Although, I would like to refute one point you’ve mentioned.”

  “What would that be?”

  The gentleman smiled. “You are wrong about me disliking you, Ganelon. In reality, I am rather fond of you. I am fond of everyone. Everyone in this world, in the far off galaxies, and even farther beyond… I love them with my whole heart.”

  The High Tribunal stared at Lucius, his mouth opened wide in surprise, and he stammered out a few jumbled words as if to call the gentleman out on his obvious lie. But no. He couldn’t answer because Lucius was well and truly sincere. Ganelon saw this, and yet he couldn’t comprehend it. He took a few steps back in horror and shuddered, treating the man before him as some incomprehensible deviant.

  “You’re deranged,” he eventually spat out. “No wonder Roland and Renaud were twisted by your words. Even now, you’re enjoying this.”

  Lucius bid him a fanciful flourish. “Guilty as charged. But make no mistake: the two fellows you mentioned chose to pursue their path all on their own. I merely… encouraged them to see what dwelled within. How about you, Sir Ganelon? Do you believe your current self to be the truest version of you?”

  “I don’t know, nor do I care. The only thing on my mind right now is how to deal with a dangerous variable like you. Haha, isn’t it absurd? I talk of such blunt schemes, and yet the one I would have killed merely listens on with a dumb smile plastered on their face. To think it’s because of you that everything has gone wrong.”

  Ganelon turned around and threw his arms out toward the giant statue. “Seriously, just how did it end up this way? My plans were going along just swell before your people arrived. Roland’s influence was waning, the priests were wrapped around my finger, and the emperor would have ruled this nation as it should have been.”

  “As it should have been, you say? I am quite curious to know what you mean by that.”

  Ganelon paused and lowered his arms, before facing Lucius with a sly smirk.

  “And just why, pray tell, should I tell you that?” he mocked. “Enough of this. Any more and I’ll burst a vein. Come now, come along you… creepy thing. I want nothing more than to rid my sight of you as soon as possible.”

  With the High Tribunal unwilling to reveal any more, Lucius diligently obeyed and followed the man to the back of the altar. The room they were in was but a display for public view. Behind, hidden behind an indistinct door, was the entrance leading to the true headquarters of the Order. The chambers of beyond were much more frugal compared to the glittering opulence of the church, and yet there was an aged splendor in them, in the libraries and studies filled with books worn by the passage of time. It was warmer here, a place of study and quiet worship.

  Of course, Ganelon didn’t seem to care much for these passages either, but he also carried not the same disgust as shown in the church. Lucius tried to engage him in conversation whenever he could, only to be sadly met with a stone-like glare and a silent stride.

  After a few more twists and turns through the Sanctum, the pair eventually arrived at a set of chained doors. Ganelon needed only to lazily flick his finger before the lock exploded from an invisible force. Lucius would have to watch out for that.

  Thus, the two waltzed in and were met with an ancient stone staircase that descended underground where none could see. The passage was deep, dim, and gave off an ominous foreboding.

  “Hm? That’s odd,” Ganelon said, rubbing his chin. “This round of demons should have already been cleansed. Oh, curse it all… nothing ever goes my way.”

  Right on cue, Lucius heard the demented laughter of his familiar foes rising up from the darkness. It wouldn’t be difficult to eliminate them, but now was the chance to witness the High Tribunal’s might in full view.

  “After you, my good sir,” Lucius said, waving him forward.

  “You’re not going to help me, are you?”

  “Not even a little.”

  “And if I were to abandon you now?”

  “You will not, because you need me down there for your scheme to bear fruit.”

  Ganelon sighed and reluctantly took the lead. “Fine, fine. You think you’re so clever, having figured everything out, hm? But you’ll soon regret this, Lucius. I am not a man to be underestimated.”

  “We shall see, my friend.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  With that jolly exchange out of the way, the two gradually descended the stairwell and into the murky, secluded halls of the Grave of Emperors. The Franks call this place a sepulchre, a place of burial for religious figures, so the gentleman had expected it to be just as grandiose as the architecture of above. He was sort of correct.

  What Lucius didn’t expect, however, was for a vast cavern to open up before him. This realm was massive, quite possibly as large as the capital itself, but instead of the typical use of marble and shining crystal, flickering blue torches hung above and illuminated an interconnected array of tombs—each one uniquely modeled after the corpse buried within. It was as if this was a city where the dead still yet roamed.

  A rush of cold air blasted Lucius’s face as the duo emerged onto a platform that overlooked the sprawling haven. Navigating it would have taken an ordinary person the entire day, but fortunately Ganelon seemed familiar with the passages and blandly continued on.

  No sooner did they touch base at the very bottom that a gathering of demons clumped up, attracted by the new visitors, and pounced upon the two with a manic giggle. Ganelon’s expression didn’t change; he didn’t even pull out a weapon. The man simply raised his finger as he did before, swiped it mid-air, and then watched as the demented beings were soon ripped to shreds and tossed aside like a broken cotton-filled plush.

  Lucius understood it now. That invisible force was none other than the wind.

  Ganelon continued these simple movements as the two progressed farther into the tomb. Any demon that passed by was unceremoniously mangled, pulled apart, and dismembered into colorful chunks. To the naked eye such attacks appeared to be unavoidable. Lucius would soon prove that statement wrong, when the object of Ganelon’s ire soon turned toward him.

  It was inconspicuous, at first. A passing flick here and a subtle yawn there. Sir Ganelon pretended to aim at somewhere else before ‘mistakenly’ sending his whirling gusts right at the gentleman. Lucius of course avoided each attempt effortlessly and, most importantly, stylishly.

  When an attack came sweeping from above, he leaned forward to inspect an inscription on one of the tombs. When Ganelon tried to skewer him with a spear-like gale from below, Lucius tap danced away and acted none the wiser. No need to be concerned over such hostilities when acting with whimsy and grace infuriated the High Tribunal more than physical blows ever could.

  “My, oh my, there certainly were a fair number of rulers in Francia’s past!” Lucius said, swerving his head to avoid having his skull shattered from a hammer made out of wind. “Just how many of these fellows were there?”

  Ganelon wheezed and stopped to catch his breath for a moment. “Hah…hah… ninety-two if you include his current Holiness…”

  “Hoho, a long and storied history, indeed! May the Franks prosper for many more years to come.”

  Lucius waited patiently for the man to collect himself, before pulling out a handkerchief and wiping his sweaty brow. It wouldn’t do to leave a man of his age in such an exhausted state.

  “Fancy a cup of tea?” Lucius said, offering him a refreshing dose of orange-spiced black tea.

  Ganelon looked at the cup with what Lucius could only describe as complete and utter defeat. That didn’t stop him from accepting it, though, and his eyes soon brightened up, no doubt energized by the gentleman’s timely assistance.

  “To hells with this,” the man bitterly mumbled. “I haven’t been, haha, this humiliated in a long time. You’re not even going to acknowledge it, are you?”

  “Acknowledge what, my friend? I haven’t noticed anything particularly out of the ordinary,” Lucius blatantly lied.

  Ganelon raised his hands up in a sarcastic display and then clapped as if to salute the gentleman’s victory. “Yes, keep up that facade for all I care. It doesn’t matter. I was just kidding anyway! Hooray for… jolly cooperation.”

  The High Tribunal held out his arm and bid Lucius for a handshake, seemingly to call for a truce. Of course—being the gentleman he was—Lucius accepted, only to then jump into the air as he avoided, yet another, attempt on his life.

  Lucius pretended nothing happened afterwards as usual and patted Ganelon’s shoulder. “Are you in an agreeable mood, now? I’d love to hear more about the prior rulers of this grand nation.”

  Ganelon slumped over and sighed, before raising his head back up and waving Lucius off. “Fine, fine. I know when to cut my losses.”

  “Splendid! Do you perhaps have a favorite amongst these tombs?”

  The High Tribunal pondered to himself for a bit. Eventually, he began to wander toward a far off section at the underground city’s very end. The structures and monuments around this area appeared much more recent compared to the others; and as Ganelon silently strolled on, he eventually arrived at a large, dull, and nondescript mausoleum that lacked any noticeable identifiers save for a bloody fist carved into the stone.

  It was also here that Lucius discovered the strange transparent barrier mentioned in the prior meeting. The thing was composed of all sorts of nonsensical substances: jellybeans, balloons, glitter, paint, and other materials that shifted constantly one after the other. It was childlike, yes, but Lucius could sense something undoubtedly horrific hidden behind the barrier.

  Ganelon also felt the same, though not for the same reasons.

  “You asked which one was my favorite?” he said with a bitter, spiteful laugh. “Then here we are. Shame you can't see the details fully; I spent quite some time building it, making it as shabby and derelict as possible. If you ask me we should've just dug a hole and be done with it, but no... the priests wanted a tomb, said it was tradition, that we'd be dishonoring our ancestors were we to break tradition. Haha. Can you believe it? In life there was not a single person who didn't want him gone, yet in death they venerate his corpse and enshrine him with all the other of God's chosen."

  "Apparently not to great extent, if they allowed you to construct such a meagre crypt."

  "Oh, believe me, it took a lot of arguing before I got them to step back. They wanted to decorate it in pure gold, use all the riches we obtained during the war to give him a lavish burial."

  "That is curious. Why pay him such respects if they abhorred his actions in life?"

  "Because they're afraid," Ganelon spoke blandly. "No matter what they thought of him or what he did, he was still the descendant of God. He was still the nation's emperor. They thought doing a sloppy job with his burial would make the Lord angry with them, when in reality if they bothered to use their heads for just a moment, they'd realize such a man wouldn't have been born in the first place if God was truly a kind and loving Mother. Bah, it's not as if I expected any different."

  Ganelon walked up to the closed-off mausoleum and gathered a glob of spit in his mouth, before spewing it as angrily as he could. "But no matter how much they whined, I was the one doing the dirty work in the end. They argued and bickered amongst themselves in the castle while I had to go and retrieve that monster's body, but honestly, haha, I would have done it anyways. Yes, I just had to see it myself — I needed to confirm, with my own eyes, that he was finally gone. Imagine it, Lucius: the bliss I felt when I saw him there, ripped and torn to shreds. How I hung my head back and groaned as I stood above him, lorded over him... ah, it still gives me shivers just thinking about it. I brought him back here so I could always remind him of his failure. I wanted him to turn and writhe in his grave, helpless to watch as I rebuilt this empire he so cherished."

  A manic air began to envelop the High Tribunal. In one moment, he seemed disgusted, then repulsed, then euphoric. Anger and hate and pleasure coursed through him all at once so quickly that they could hardly be distinguished from the other.

  “But, haha, who would've thought the demons would make their way here of all places?" Ganelon uttered deliriously. "Maybe they sensed your despair, the rage you must have felt knowing that a poor, wicked, miserable wretch like me is forever above you. You're in good company; mingle with those like-minded monsters all you wish. It doesn’t change that I won. I outlived you. I ended your precious reign. Can you see me now, Pepin? Then weep because the person you treated as a mutt, the one you demeaned, mocked, toyed with to the very brink of insanity, is the very one who brought you down. Do you hear me? I beat you!”

  Ganelon raised his fist and then punched the wall. He screamed with a rage even Lucius couldn’t help but back away from, and he screamed even more as he pummeled it with fist after fist after fist, his face distorting into a hideous, almost inhuman, snarl.

  “Don’t you dare hide now! I didn’t bring your corpse back just so it could be turned into the demons’ feed. No, you should remain stuck here. You need to see me gloat, and revel, and flaunt all that you can never feel again. You need to suffer here for all of eternity you disgusting piece of shit!”

  “Language, Sir Ganelon.”

  Ganelon took a shaky breath and then stared at Lucius as if he had forgotten the gentleman was even there.

  “... I apologize.”

  The man slicked his hair back and let out a satisfied groan, before turning around and pacing back and forth, his mind deep in thought.

  “You know what? Get rid of that thing,” he said, pointing at the barrier. “I won’t stop you. Hells, I’ll even help you! I just need it gone.”

  Lucius nodded and walked up to the man’s side, rubbing his shoulders and doing his best to calm him down. “I’d be more than happy to… if I actually could. Sadly, removing this barrier is beyond even my knowledge. I suggest we reconvene with the other Peers and try to come up with another method.”

  “What? Then what was the point of even bringing you here?”

  The gentleman shrugged. “Well, how was I to know without seeing it in person? Come now, my friend. I understand your emotions are currently a bit heightened, but please do understand that rash judgements will help naught in fixing our current situation.”

  As flustered as Ganelon was, he knew that lashing out blindly would yield nothing more but frustration. He didn’t become the High Tribunal by being emotional. Thus, after taking a moment to collect himself, he smacked his face and once again brandished a shady smile.

  “Alright then, Lucius,” he said. “How about this? I’ll postpone our little feud just until we tear this ugly wall down. I won’t bother Roland. I won’t even interfere with the new Saracen trade route. Consider this a… grace period. Take the time to think about who you should truly be aligning yourself with, hm? I don’t even care that you’re a cryptic freak. You clearly aren’t with Roland because you agree with his beliefs, so come work for me instead. Your fellow otherworlders are already dancing in the palm of my hand. If you care about them, then I suggest you consider my offer very, very carefully.”

  Lucius tapped his chin in mock contemplation, before bidding Ganelon a wide grin and an enthusiastic bow. “Very well. I shall, as you say, think it over. Let us depart from this drab place first, yes? I am feeling quite famished myself.”

  The man, although still doubtful, decided to accept Lucius’s answer and soon led the way back outside. Much had been gleaned here this day. With no other leads to go by, the Peers were expected to reassemble for another round of meetings, and they would continue to do so until a solution could be found. No one knew exactly how long such a result would take. Perhaps days, weeks, or even a month… whatever was spawning these demonic creatures would only grow more powerful with time. They had to eliminate the source as soon as possible.

  There was just one problem. No matter how hard they tried, they would never find an answer. Why? Simple.

  Because Lucius had lied. He already knew how to remove the barrier.

  >[Error! Error! The prerequisites have not been met. The wall surrounding the final Evil will not disappear unless the following are present]<

  *Two of the Demon King’s Fragments.

  *The emperor’s holy sword, Joyeuse.

  *A player who has participated in the subjugation of a Great Evil.

  >[If the conditions are not met within the next thirty days, the restrictions binding the Greatest Evil of All shall be removed]<

  The Esteemed Gentlepeople of the , to whom I am forever grateful

  [The Distinguishedly Dandy Gentlemen Hall of Fame]