Chương 7: [1-1] TriHarding

Hague left the summoning chamber feeling good. Great even. Clotilde? Forget that noise. He won. That's the best-in-the-world diff. Debuff him straight out, give him bullshit skill descriptors, make him act out his own orders, whatever. He still won. How's that, goddess? No goddess answered. Hague took that to mean she was seething too hard to show her face. Regardless, he hoped not to run right into another fight.

So despite his fine mood he kept a cautious eye open as he, Addy, and Eggman hurried through what he could only imagine was the interior of a palace. It had a million rooms at least, rooms and rooms and rooms. He started to wonder how many rooms there could possibly be, especially since none of them seemed to serve any actual purpose. No kitchens or bedchambers, or even hallways. Only perfectly square museum gallery-like spaces, decked out with art and uncomfortably high ceilings.

He tried to imagine the floorplan from above and only produced a giant grid, like the map in his glasses but way bigger. Why was it like this? Why so uniform? Did the architect have OCD? The weirdest thing though, what Hague couldn't get out of his head, what started to drive him crazy as he became more and more certain of it, was that the floor was subtly tilted.

It felt like it couldn't be real because everything else adhered to mathematical precision bordering on obsessive, but each step he took seemed to be on a slope. Maybe his nerves were just fried after the fight. He put it out of his mind.

"Where we going?" They entered a room with towering bookcases against every wall. Gaspar grunted on without a word, Polymath Truth slung over his shoulder. But Adelheid answered grimly:"Ulrica. My fatherland, now fatherless. There to wage battle against my cousin the usurper, more than kin and less than kind." She nodded to herself in approval of her pithy line.

"The battle shall be treacherous and long. All scope of possibility confined to two: victory, or brilliant death—""Yeahyeah of course, and it'll be victory for sure if I'm there. But I kinda meant like, where are we going in the immediate short term. Where we going right now, Addy." Her face went blank.

"Adelheid?"

"Addy. Addy? Addy." A shy smile spread and her pale face actually blushed a little.

"Yes. I'll be Addy now. As you like it, my Hero." Chat, scrolling in the corner of Hague's shades, weighed in: brave_lakche: cute tulsasiivat: CUTE Z3zol: cute. Argonautic: My Bloodthirsty Goth Princess Can't Possibly Be This Cute? Okay, sure, it was kind of cute. But Hague's life was on the line here. If they ran into more soldiers with no potions on hand, he might actually die.

"Where we going? Simple question." Adelheid thought for a second.

"To meet Signy."

"Who?"

"Sieglinde de Leyosa," Adelheid announced officially.

"Younger sister of the Duke of Leyosa. Friend of the crown. My friend." Quieter: "My only friend."

"Sieglinde. Is she a twin?" Adelheid looked surprised.

"You know?"

"Just a hunch." And they say you can't learn anything from video games. She stopped to wheel around and seize his hand, which she held clasped in two of hers. Unusual for her, she stared him right in the eye: long, intense, and after several seconds a smidge awkward.

"You're a fan of Wagner too?!"

"Huh?"

"Der Ring des Nibelungen? Siegmund and Sieglinde? Die Walküre? A tragic tale! Of death! Adultery! And incest?!"

"Incest?" Jesus, this really is Fire Emblem.

"No, I meant." Adelheid realized she was griming his hand with her bloodstained ones and let go immediately.

"Signy of course never. I just meant. The cycle of epic operas. You know. You recognized the name. Sieglinde. From The Ring. The Ring. Right?" She looked up at him painfully puppydog hopeful. Gaspar checked the next room for guards, though he kept glaring back to make his impatience clear. Hague decided he didn't want to stand around either.

"Look I saw The Ring once but I don't remember any of that. I got it from Sacred Stones is all."

"Sacred Stones?" Adelheid's pep returned as she hurried to keep up with him.

"Is that new? Who wrote it?"

"Uhhh. Maeda I think. Definitely not Kaga. Chat who wrote Sacred Stones?" The_Nuremberg: Maeda"Got it in one. So what's the deal with this Signy?"

"Signy, right. She's." Adelheid temporarily forgot how to talk, then remembered.

"Signy is arranging a route out of the city. We knew if we summoned you we'd need to escape quickly. It was Gaspar's plan. Each our own task. Accomplished simultaneously." A flicker of pride creased Gaspar's stony face.

"We'd never get another chance, so I made sure we didn't waste it."

"Just so I'm on the same page here," Hague said, "you guys basically abducted this pope or Polymath girl and forced her to summon me?"

"It was her desire to summon you," Adelheid said quickly. Hague could believe that, more or less. She did ask him to save the world before she checked out.

"But it was not the desire of her guards, rendered unreasonable by fear of the last Hero," Adelheid continued.

"Thus the need to steal the Polymath away from them. That was only possible thanks to the intervention of my cousin, the usurper."

"Okay. And this cousin is the one who killed your dad and took your throne?" Adelheid nodded.

"But he helped you summon me?"

"Unwittingly. He surely has no inkling what I've done. Yet he provided the necessary distraction." Hague wanted to ask more about this cousin, but needed to hash out the basics first.

"So I take it everyone in town wants me dead, not just the welcoming committee?" She tugged the corners of her cape around herself, despite them being damp with blood.

"It's unfair. It should not be this way. The Heroes are the foundation of everything right in this world. You ought to be celebrated like those before. They held parades, Hague. I saw it in The True History of the Hero Bobby. Act I, Scene ii.

Bobby enters and the whole stage from end to end is filled with people cheering out and the audience cheers too and the orchestra swells and you couldn't imagine how in that moment the theater of San Bartolo trembles and in the trembling you feel it you feel this connection to everyone and Bobby and history and this world and Sophia herself and oh! Oh! That's how the world ought to be, Hague." The item description of his glasses: They allow one to see the world as it ought to be.

Unfortunately, he never saw any cheering crowds during the fight. Well—except chat.

"There must still be those who will cheer for a Hero," said Adelheid.

"But not here. Not after the last one's cruel deeds." Great. Awesome. Just barely missed the Hero worship train. Even the goddess bitched about "the last one," so he must've really fucked everything up. Whatever. You roll with what you get, that's Fire Emblem.

"We've been lucky so far dodging more trouble at least," Hague said.

"Never seen this many empty rooms in my life." Then Gaspar opened the door onto a room crammed full of people. The room had the same square shape as the others, the same high ceiling, but its arrangement was that of a church. Everyone gathered before a high altar. A silver censer steamed with an overpoweringly potent earthy incense that sectioned the room into its own holy dimension, if the top-heavy alabaster statue miraculously clinging to the wall didn't set the mood already.

Hague recognized the face of the statue instantly, despite it wearing a serene expression he struggled to picture on the real deal. His bitchy goddess. Maybe it was meant to be Polymath Truth, but the proportions looked more adult. Speaking of Polymath Truth, she was of course draped unconscious over Gaspar's shoulder, which made her the first thing the hundred-odd faces packed into the room saw when they turned to see who slammed open the door. Nobody reacted at first.

It fell so silent Hague made out for the first time the muffled sound of a commotion somewhere beyond the walls, either elsewhere in the palace or maybe—assuming such a place existed—outside it. Hague focused on the crowd, though. He scanned for one thing only: weapons. A fight with one hundred people and no potions and it didn't matter what tactics he used, he was dead. No swords or spears as far as he could tell.

But if this was a religious service like it looked, and those white robes weren't for show, there might be holy mages among them. How did magic work in this world? In Fire Emblem, mages read spells from books. The only book he saw sat open on the altar, a big old tome. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Still, he couldn't make assumptions. What were his options? Talking didn't help with Marpasia, but he knew a bit more now.

Or should they shut the door and run? The place was a labyrinth of branching paths, it'd be easy to escape.

"Out of the fucking way, you damn sniveling Sophists," Gaspar said. Without hesitation, without the least worry, without caring he toted these guys's loli pope on his shoulder, he strode into the room. And every single person inside jumped—literally jumped—to get out of his way. They didn't shout, they didn't speak, they didn't even gasp. They crushed so tight against the walls they created an avenue through the room broad enough the three of them could've walked it shoulder-to-shoulder. Adelheid followed.

Only Hague paused in the doorway. Forget a fight, if they decided to charge as a mob they'd crush him to death. And he was supposed to walk right into the middle of them?

"Hurry up, Hero," Gaspar said. With enough emphasis to ensure everyone in the room heard.

"If any of these shavelings were worth their till they'd be out on the wall, not hiding in here."

"Not a Knack among them," Adelheid said.

"It's safe." Hague took their word for it, though the lingo whizzed right over his head. Of course the moment Gaspar said "Hero," it prompted the stony silence of the crowd to break; when Hague walked into the room and they got a good look at his obviously not-from-this-world dragon print shirt and single-lens reflective shades, they set to whispering. It reminded him of Marpasia's soldiers before she whipped them into attacking. Gaspar better know his shit.

Though some of the crowd were old graybeards, there were more than enough able-bodied men. From within their whispers an aura of fear, or maybe malice, emanated.

"Things might get ugly chat," he muttered under his breath. He nearly stumbled on the awkwardly tilted floor but managed to avoid rolling his ankle. Krantzz: Oh shit Krantzz: Another battle? Argonautic: Be careful, Hague! Don't die for real! KagasHypnoFetish: if hague dies does argo get the channel? Hague strongly considered replying to that question ("Don't expect to find out"), no matter how crazy it made him sound to the people in the room.

If he did get into a fight, he needed to make sure chat was engaged as possible. He hovered on the knife's edge, 520 viewers. Even a normal fluctuation might drop his stats at this point. He was halfway across the room, right in the middle of everyone, when a voice rasped:"O Wise Sophia, deliver us from these perils." A voice like a death rattle. It came from behind the altar, elevated by a stepped platform. The dude who presided there, who'd been preaching from the big open tome before they came in, was old.

Really old. His beard dangled to his waist in oily gray curls, helped by his stooped back. He wore priestly vestments like the others, but more grandiose: a hierophant, in a brilliant brocaded cope. Atop his head rose a three-peaked miter, marked by a symbol in gold: a semicircle with radiating lines, like a rising sun or an eyeball with lashes. Beneath big tufted brows, his eyes fell on Hague.

"Hero," he said, unimaginably mournful. He extended a bony, trembling finger ready to snap off and skitter like a jumping bean.

"Hero, please. Listen to this old man, for but a moment."

"Let's move," said Gaspar. Instead, Hague stood there. On one hand, yeah, he wanted out and quick. Something screamed at him to hurry for the door. But on the other hand. He felt those eyes on him. He felt an audience. In his head turned the question: Could I have stopped the fight with Marpasia and Clotilde if I just said the right words? Could I have won them to my side? He had no idea how the goddess—he'd call her Sophia for now—set all this up. How "on rails" it was, so to speak.

She wanted him to play a game, so she probably expected him to fight. But these were real people, not machines. At least he hoped so. They acted lifelike and responsive, at least. He could reason with them. Maybe goddess magic made perfect AI constructs, maybe Hague had no power to alter his course at all, but fuck that. If he didn't have free will, then nothing mattered, he could dance the macarena and who cared as long as he managed the map good. In that case, why would Sophia make these people to begin with?

For flavor? No. Hague had to assume he could influence events. Could influence people. The last Hero, his predecessor, made them hate Heroes. But Hague liked the sound of Adelheid's parades and applause. He thought, I can win them over. I can make them like me. It was the thought that made him who he was. 2015. Fire Emblem as a series was popping off. That sleepy little fandom of forty oldheads on a forum was now everyone and their mother and everywhere too.

And since Hague's mentor got sick of the franchise's new anime direction and dropped off the internet, Hague was now the de facto best Fire Emblem player in the world. It was only natural they invited him to Games Done Quick, the biggest speedrunning event in the world. But he was 21 and it was his first time going anywhere and he didn't know anyone.

He wasn't a streamer then—unless you count streaming camless to 10 people—just an awkward tall guy who posted world records to category after category because his mentor already did most of the routing. They gave him a dogshit 4 AM slot between Shenmue II and TRAG: Mission of Mercy (Fire Emblem was big but still an RPG, not exactly primetime material), so he showed up a day in advance to make sure jetlag didn't dick him.

His fatass roommate at the hotel ordered and ate five personal pizzas while watching a DVD box set of South Park so Hague went out to wander and he wandered into the audience of the main stage right as the event kicked off. Jampacked. Bodies crushed into chairs like sardines, bodies and bodies and heads and bobbing heads, exactly like the heads bobbing here now. Hague never knew so many people cared about speedrunning. They were watching Trihex, of TriHard emote fame, play Yoshi's Island.

And then Hague was watching him too. The other thing Hague assumed about speedrunning was that everyone who ran was a weird awkward nerd. But he was wrong about that too. At least wrong about Trihex, there opening the event to like ten thousand eyes and fucking up the very first level but playing it off, laughing, cool, chill, no problem dude, we got this, how's it going, I'm your friend, you like me, everyone likes me. And they liked him. He told jokes, the crowd laughed. He took off his shirt, they clapped.

He pulled off a brand new trick like nothing and they roared. And Hague thought: I want them to like me, too. The 4 AM slot was a graveyard, even his couch commentators were asleep. But the entire time he thought: I can make them like me. I can make them like me. I can make them like me. He went home and changed how he did his stream, bought a webcam, got a new overlay. He workshopped jokes, bits, he rehearsed his delivery in the mirror. War crimes, war crimes.

He researched the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute and Kony 2012 and more. Most of all he put on the shades. And though he already had the name, that was when he really became the Hague.

"My name," he said to the old man, to the crowd, "is the Hague."

"The Hero... Hague." The old man cleared his throat so abysmally Hague expected a creature to rise out the phlegm. Instead only the dolorous voice: "O Hero Hague, we know that you are powerful; we know that you are mighty. We dare not doubt, for we are but the Common people of this world, helpless save to pray for succor from the inevitable end. And so we pray. Together! We pray." He extended his arms and the entire crowd bowed their heads in sync.

Hague opened his mouth to get a word in, but the guy went on:"O Sophia, Wise and All-Knowing, Omnivorous of Knowledge, Infinite Polyhistor; we pray to you now to imbue this Hero Hague with your prudence and your wisdom. In this world mankind is stricken to the edge of infinite death by his own cruelty, cupidity, lechery, and ignorance. The learned grow vainglorious but see only shadows, the lords foreswear faith in favor of worldly ambition; even now, an army gathers outside the gates of your most holy city.

I am an old man. I remember the Hero who came before. Please, Sophia, we beg of you! Fortify us from another calamity. Heal our sickly world; bring it not yet more harm. In Goddess's name, amen."

"Amen," the congregation said. You know, Hague got the impression their great goddess didn't give a rat's ass about them. Not that he intended to tell them that, it was just that the longwinded footlicking irked him given he kept imagining her cackling her tits off in limbo. But he could tell they were deathly serious. These people were scared, worried. What did the old man say about an army outside the gates? Was that like, literal, or a religious metaphor? Hague mustered a tone.

Not the casual one he used with Marpasia, which didn't work anyway. He tried to sound more official, more Hero-like. It went against his instinctive impulse. He kept thinking, When it's serious, tell a joke. Take the air out of it. That's what he did with Mom and Dad and Seth. Especially Seth, especially near the end. But did it work then, either? He said:"I promise." Oh god he sounded weird.

"I promise to be a real Hero. A Hero that deserves the title. I'm the Best in the World. It's not just a saying, it's true. And I intend to prove it." The best he could do off the cuff. He tried to derive a reaction from the blank faces before him, but instead he noticed chat speeding up: xosyn9914: oh hague is SERIOUS Sw33n3y: Hahaha nice speech Argonautic: Three cheers for Hague the Hero! DanTheReaper: This is a really incredible hack, did you write this story too?

brave_lakche: pog Kmarticuno3: Can't decide if it's cool or cringe to give your romhack avatar a line like that Phandelmo: @Argonautic I remember when Hague the Hero bought a hotdog at costco... Hanbo: HAHAHA ej_hurtt9: how is hague a hero ej_hurtt9: hes a war criminal Hanbo: Hague redemption arc Pringle_Attack: whats the name of the game? The_Nuremberg: @ej_hurtt9 Sometimes you're in the hague.

Sometimes you are the hague tulsasiivat: united nations will wanna hear about this Then the actual crowd erupted the same way.

"Will you help us?"

"Will you save us from MacCoor's army?!"

"Why are you taking Polymath Truth!"

"Uh," Hague said.

"Yeah, about that. She just fainted. We're protecting her." (Kind of the truth. Would they buy it?)"Is she hurt?"

"No, she's—""Please! Save us!"

"Save the Polymath!"

"Hero Hague!"

"Please, Hero Hague!" A heavy hand seized his upper arm and whirled him around. Gaspar's grimacing face loomed close.

"You've done it now. Gone and encouraged them." The bodies pushed forward, shouting. Things were getting rowdy.

"These people are parasites," Gaspar said.

"All they want is someone with real power to do everything for them. Acknowledging them is a waste of breath. They're worth less than a good ox, most of them."

"Harsh?"

"Gaspar." It was Adelheid, standing by the exit.

"Hold your tongue. It is our duty to protect those weaker than us." Gaspar didn't argue, though his expression made it clear that was only because he refused to contradict his princess. He shifted his eyes across the crowd, which thronged in a tightening circle, shouting for the Hero to save them. Not exactly applause, but better than them wanting him dead. A man staggered forward, close enough to reach out and grab Hague, though he kept his hands clasped and begged instead.

Hague stepped back when another extended his arm, though he was reaching for Truth, not Hague. Gaspar adjusted his grip on his axe. Oh fuck, did he intend to swing? Can't have that. Hague got in front of him and shot his hands up.

"Hey! HEY! Shut up a sec!" The crowd quieted instantly.

"Jesus Christ. Couldn't hear myself think." He glanced at Gaspar. The axe lowered.

"Come on guys. If you want me to help, I can't be standing around here all day. Gotta get moving." He turned toward the door, paused, and then turned back.

"You're saying some guy's got an army out there? I guarantee I'll kick its ass. I'm the Hague. I always win." Perfect. Before they had a chance to get to shouting again, he did a wheel motion with his hand.

"Let's go Eggman." They went. Made it through the door with Adelheid before anything else happened. He didn't look back to see if they followed, just sped up the pace to a cool stride. He thought he handled the situation pretty well, all things considered. But something about it left him dissatisfied. After they crossed a few more rooms, and the commotion coming from outside got louder and louder, he ventured another question to Adelheid.

"So what is this place? Where are we right now?"

"This building? The Pecknaos. Entryway of all Heroes. Starting with the very first: The Hero Patrick, summoned by Sophia herself."

"Okay. What about the city? Or country or whatever." He got the impression he was in this world's equivalent of the Vatican.

"The Floating City," Adelheid said.

"The what?"

"More formally, the Monadic See of Evergained Knowledge. Colloquially referred to as the Floating City."

"We're floating? In the sky?" The question seemed simple enough, but Adelheid fell quiet. She gesticulated, as though the words might speak themselves if she gave them a chance. No dice. Her head, defeated, sagged.

"Not anymore." Gaspar threw open the doors ahead of them. Instead of another room, sunlight streamed in. They stepped onto a broad, fan-shaped portico, past which stretched the full panorama of a city. Remember when Hague wondered whether the floor was tilted? Yeah, mystery solved. It wasn't just in his head. The entire city was tilted.