Chương 48: [That Time I Told a Pun and the Universe Didn't Reset So I Had to Deal with the Fallout]

In any good story, cities, towns, and other hubs of civilization were all characters every bit as deep and rich in personality, drive, and texture as the people who occupied them. Which is why this story has made a point to avoid talking about them for so long. You could sue me over any number of things, but probably not false advertising. But as it so happens, this particular city — the city that hosted the adventures guild I just stepped out of — did, in fact, have a history. A history I will now tell you.

And if you don't want to savor some nice ambient worldbuilding then just go ahead and skip a few paragraphs. I won't be mad, I promise. No, really, I mean it. It would be totally fine. I wouldn't be mad. I swear.

I would just think it was funny, y'know, how you'd skip this bit of worldbuilding because it kills the pacing and takes time away from the characters you're here to spend time with, but at the same time when someone like Tolkien or Victor Hugo spend, like, several pages going into this stuff everyone talks about how they're legendary and can't miss y'know LOL. See I'm laughing because it's funny. It's funny you think I think I'm jealous of Mr. Bored of the Ring! Now go ahead and skip it if you want.

I'll just be here laughing about how funny it is. Long, long ago, this enormous city was little more than a small plot of land owned by a farmer. Now, he was poor and often struggled to feed his family, but it was his land. He properly owned it, which was most unusual at the time. And this time. Because fantasy worlds are all technologically locked around the European medieval era which meant the political and technological landscape never changed.

But the point was that it was weird and everyone looked at him like he was weird and threw rocks at him when he tried to poop outside (because medieval era). In fact, they threw so many rocks at him over the years that he started to become psychologically conditioned by it and one day, to his surprise, a thrown rock was all it took for him to immediately crap his pants.

This was because his mind had created an unbreakable Pavlovian response that linked rocks to using the bathroom, and also because the rock hit him in the back of the head so he died. But before passing on to be reincarnated as a E-girl's footstool, he divided his land between his eight sons so they all got exactly 680 square feet of land. Not quite enough for a farm. Or a home. Or anything useful.

So it was clear to the eight sons that the only child who would inherit this barely-functional dilapidated shit barn was the brother who killed the others, as they all had each other in their will. The War of Eight Sons lasted nine terrible minutes, and by the end, the fifth-born, a man named M'lein'linibiaslw'eewee inherited seven of the eight plots. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Only seven.

Because one brother betrayed the others and sold his land before the War could take place. He only fought in it out of sheer love of fratricide. Now, the land had been split pizza-style because their father wasn't very smart, so now a big ol' triangular chunk of the land wasn't technically his. This included a big ol' triangular chunk of the house, which was removed to help maximize the grazing area for the sheep who now owned the land.

At first, M'lein'libblesnigraggie was willing to endure this compromise, as he still had most of the land and enough house to accommodate himself and his growing family of werewolves, but come the first full moon he came to learn why werewolves and sheep don't historically share living spaces. So with his family dead, M'lein'livbonboa had to make a choice: either to die in a hopeless crusade to avenge them or to repurpose his property from the ground up for revenge, Monte Cristo style.

He chose the latter, and instead of growing wheat, grains, and other nutritious vegetables, he transformed his land into the world's foremost roundworm breeding facility and single-handedly orchestrated a plague that caused all sheep to go extinct. Lots of people have been wondering why there have been no sheep in this story and now you know. I had been setting up for this from the very start.

But a lack of sheep was bad news for the roundworm business so M'lein'livlookalike had no choice but to shut it down and use the vast fortune he gained from killing all those sheep to develop the land. He built hospitals. Roads. Universities. Roads. Apartment buildings. Roads. Adventurers guilds. Roads. He poured his entire fortune into creating a thriving, walkable city. Walkable because it was still only 4760 square feet total with an odd wedge taken out of it. But what an efficient 4760 square feet it was!

You could get a lot done if you could strain your eyes and weren't afraid of heights. Because naturally the only way he could fit everything in this space was to build up. So now you know why the city was a constantly-teetering stack of buildings with wedges cut out of them. And now you know why it's called The Barber's Pole. With the Dicter leaving the scene their usual way — via eagle — myself, Elara, Elara 2 and Belle, and Also Elara 2 had to climb down like the miserable peasants that we were.

But navigating the scaffolding gave us plenty of opportunity to get to know each other. Opportunity we wasted because we did it in complete and unbroken silence. When we reached the bottom, Elara 2 spoke up.

"I kinda assumed The Dicter was the party leader."

"Feh. I'm a rebel. I can't be controlled. Given that, do you think I'd ever do anything… by the book?" The universe didn't undo itself for that one, we just had to sit with it.