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Published on May 29, 2020 21:00

Chosen For Failure

(I tend to work with multiple imaginary worlds, but there are a few commonalities. If you’re familiar with my existing satirical work, like “Diary of a Dark Lord“, you’ll have already heard how Chosen Ones work in my Universes: much of the time, the reason a Chosen One kills a Dark Lord is because dozens, perhaps hundreds of the poor bastards get sent after Dark Lords. Very few succeed

I’m putting most of these stories up at patreon.com/jeffmach, but I wanted to share this one…)

The Chosen Ones came, certain they would kill her; everything that made sense to them told them it was so. They failed; and now, nothing made sense. She didn’t kill them; she imprisoned them, because she was looking for…something, something for which she didn’t exactly have a name or a plan, not just yet.

Before we question the quirks of the Dark Lord Alice, before we question some of the roundabout methods she employed, before we ask ourselves if she acted with perfect efficiency and wisdom, consider this:

We, those who live in a world of printing presses and electronic sorceries, are generally denied storybook romances. We’re denied fairytale endings. And were most often offered our doses of magic in the form of technologies made to seem so approachable, so believable, that we no longer remember little things—like, if someone had shown us a certain thing just a decade or two sooner, we’d have thought it a miracle, or a fraud. So why not spend a little time living up to our fictions, given the option, and a pliable Narrator?

(And if, in your Universe, the Narrator is absent, then—quick!—do as you will before someone notices. Hide your bestial face in the garb of a human, steal someone’s goodies as she walks towards Grandma’s house, and then go engage in some character impersonation to see if you can sink your canines into someone sweet.)

Don’t underestimate the power of whimsical thinking, or you might find yourself pushing up daisies. We don’t mean “dead”; we mean “assigned, as a punishment, the nonsensical task of attempting to make flowers grow faster through the application of physical force, because you have angered someone with great power and a strange sense of humor.”

Alice was fond of the Law of the Anvil: “I am a product of the flames which burnt me; the anvil which forged me; and the will that made me grow formidable instead of breaking.”

So rather than simply lock the door to the cells of the not-actually-Chosen, she’s (personally, and with a little help and a lot of difficulty) moved a large, literal anvil in front of each one, so they can’t swing outward.)

It’s not as bad as it sounds. Moving an anvil is a literal and conceptual pain, but it’s a lot of little things: trust in at least one servant, co-ordination of a very physical task, hauling and lifting, a dicey task wherein a mis-step could lead to crushed toes and maybe a broken floor. Alice doesn’t love chances or risks; but you can hardly prepare for the unexpected if you live a coddled life, eh?

And there’s something special in the very wary look on the face of someone who, a few dozen hours ago, was surrounded by veteran killers, carrying a powerful Runic weapon, and preparing to slay Evil, as Evil unlocks the door to their cell….and, instead of going in, physically hefts an anvil in front of it.

It’s said by the sage Wilson that “a true Initiation never ends”. Alice has already given each of these girls at least one serious shock to the system (by the sheer impertinence of not dying)—and now, they see the Dread Creature of Dark Legend hauling a blacksmith’s tool, and cursing like a sailor.

Not only does this lock them in, it confuses them all to Hell.

And confusion is one of the kindest ways to begin to offer someone a chance to pry open their third eye. Or at least permit a little more communication between the left and right prefrontal lobes.

She owes them at least one pleasantly surreal shock to the system, before she decides whether or not each of them, individually, will live until morning. Her system is odd, but not without a certain logic. It’s like a reverse Arabian Nights: rather than tell stories which hold a potentate’s attention, at risk (if one fails) of life and limb, the potentate is telling the captives story after story, comets sailing across their perceptions, and offering them a chance to grab onto some skyhooks before the Earth gives way beneath their feet and they plunge somewhere unpleasant.

(“1,001 Arabian Nights is not a book of this world, but Alice’s library is…special)

It’s no fun for her guards to have to move an anvil every time they want to feed the prisoners (there’s a food slot in the door, but that seems a little impersonal; and there’s something very solid about the sound of an anvil being shoved, carefully but with great force, which gives you a real bone-level understanding of just how locked in you really are.

It’s a little test. Okay, really, it’s quite a big test. It’s very simple:

The Dark Lord has reason to believe the world has gone mad.

In sufficient quantities, Madness is kind. Madness is loving. Madness overflows; its cup runneth over, its pitcher runneth over, its ocean runneth over, crashing in vast Cyclopean waves on the shores of the mind, offering to engulf you and everything around you.

Sometimes, Madness is a divine gift. Sometimes, it’s an odd tuning of the workings of one’s mental passages.

Sometimes, Madness is (almost?) a living entity, moving from person to person and group to group.

If you don’t fight it, it tends to claim you. If you do fight it, it will most likely claim you anyway.

The Dark Lord has cells full of those whose spirits she has just broken; nevermind that it’s not her fault; nevermind that they had to travel extraordinary distances, overcome unbelievable obstacles, kill dozens or even hundreds of thinking beings to get a shot at killing her; they’d set their minds to a place where the only possible result was her death, and when that didn’t happen…

She used to just kill them. In a number of ways, for a number of reasons.

But…

…Dark Lords can be fiercely independent, which Alice is. But anyone who knows anything about Madness, divine or otherwise, knows that it’s hard to save yourself from it without help.

Let alone try to stem the damn tide.

Since she’s just been a part of the breaking of the minds of these poor, unfortunate, all-too-often idiotic Supposedly Chosen assassins, they’re in a mental state which is ready for that rare thing in humans: actual, real change away from the comforting dogma of their long-held beliefs.

But mindless sycophants, while they make a pleasant chorus, are simply no damn help at all in your quest to keep your own sanity.

So she needs them to show that they have something inside which can survive (or sometimes, come into being during) a life-changing mental wound.

They can be suicidal. They can be furious. They can be confused.

But they have to be willing to say, “I have tried to do a thing, and found it false, now, I need to try something else.”

If she asked them, they’d either say nothing at all, or lie—to her, or to themselves.

So she sets just one bar, one unspoken test which will determine if they live or die.

The Dark Lord wants just one thing from her captives:

She wants them to show that they’re willing to try to find a new life. Some kind of new life. Whatever it might be. She needs them to do the one thing that is clearly, absolutely necessary, if one is going to do anything except just existing. (“Existing” is a noble fight; but reasons for going on are ambiguous.

If they’re going to be worth anything at all, they will, unprompted, try to do one thing that is unquestionably stupid, unquestionably difficult, and unquestionably necessary, based on everything they know, for them to have any say in their lives going forward:

They’re going to have to try to escape.

Yes, they’d have to be foolish not to realize it’s nearly impossible.

Yes, there’s a certain benefit to being alive and fed, even if you’ve been captured by The Wickedest Thing Which Ever Existed. Perhaps they should get some credit just for trying to exist, after having had their worldviews shattered. Perhaps that would be kind. On the other hand, perhaps they should be strangled in their sleep by trained killers; that would be wise, and less unkind than what they’d planned for Alice. So Alice had little mercy for those who railed against their (mistrusworthy) fates; for those who stared fixedly and determinedly at the door, waiting for it to shatter into a million pieces because things weren’t supposed to happen like this.

What did Alice do with them? It’s best we not delve into it. Perhaps they were sacrificed on dark altars; perhaps they were sold to hungry Trolls.

And perhaps, just perhaps, Alice simply let them go; packed them lunches and warm clothing, pointed towards the nearest village, and said, “Walk.”

Because after someone’s worldview has been splintered into irreplaceable shards, letting them live is not a mercy.

Most of the time, they ended up wandering, perhaps by instinct, into certain parts of the Woods, and going to live with Goblins. Goblins hide; that’s most of what they do. And they seldom tell untruths; because really, when a Goblin speaks, who listens?

And thus are Changelings made.

(I’m not so sure that it’s our fault. I’m not sure I trust those who say that the world is in the process of unmaking itself. But that’s a longer story.)

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

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Published on May 28, 2020 21:06

Why I Haven’t Taken Over Your Brain

If these words are reaching your brain, you might well be wondering: Why do I have a brain, anyway?

I mean, if you’re reading this, you’re potentially under the sway of an evil Necromancer of extraordinary power and frighteningly unknown ability (that’s me, I should note. Not to be immodest or anything.)

And if one has sufficiently advanced magic/technology/both/whatever to perform assorted mighty (and, obviously, monstrous) deeds, why can’t one simply mind-control everyone?

So if I want to take over the world…

…why not convert everyone’s brains to, if not guacamole, perhaps those weird lumps of meat which South Jerseyans and a few Pennsylvanians call “scrapple”? Why not overpower your tiny minds with my own vast one?

(I know what you’re thinking: you don’t have a tiny little mind. And please, allow me to be the first to pat you on the head, get you a cookie, and tell you, “Of course you don’t, darling. Of course you don’t.”)

Let’s assume there isn’t some sort of logistical answer. Although there certainly might be; if one were an absolutely omnipotent being, one would hardly need to hold philosophical discussions with you; one would simply say: “AND NOW, ALL UNDERSTAND; BEHOLD, IT IS DONE. NEXT, LET THERE BE A COLD BEER IN THE FRIDGE. ON SECOND THOUGHT, MAKE IT TWELVE.”

But this isn’t about limitations of ability. It’s about power, ambition, and strategy.

(If these things surprise you, then you probably haven’t read much of my other work. Welcome! Come on in! Pull up a flaming chair with a number of unnecessary spikes on it, and come enjoy my wisdom.)

Here’s the deal:

The thoughtless do not innovate well. They do not create well. Even if your only concern is your own short-term personal benefit—

(and please, if you’re a rival, let that be exactly what you want. If I have to have opponents, I’ll take stupid, greedy ones over thoughtful, crafty ones any day of the week. Why do you think my main opposition comes from Adventurers, Superheroes, Mysterious Aged Wizards Who Claim To Know Almost Everything And Yet Are Supremely Unhelpful, and Random Kids Who Believe Their Horoscopes Mean They’re Entitled To My Throne?)

—even if all you care about is a quick pump-and-dump of your country (which is foolish; countries are hard to acquire; but I digress)—

The numbers just doesn’t work out.

A ruler could take the most disproportionate share of wealth from a nation, could selfishly bleed it dry for her own short-term interests, and the math still works out the same: a less-wealthy realm will give you back less return. I suppose that if you just want to rob the treasury and run, you’ll get paid, if you escape; but that’s not rulership, that’s just a heist. Are you Master of a Domain, or are you just a bank robber? Don’t get me wrong; some of my best friends are bank robbers, but they’re hardly Imperial material.

In general, even if you’ve got a resource-rich land that you’re strip-mining (and again: strip-mining is a good short-term solution if you want to get-rich-quick; but it’s otherwise fairly foolish to essentially lay waste to your own Realm to get at a small amount of precious commodities. Don’t you have enough opponents out there who’ll be perfectly happy to wreck your stuff for you; why do the work for them.

Mind-control? Listen, if you’re dealing with humans, beings whose muscles can only grow so big, who quickly reach a point of diminishing returns in calories-converted-to-energy; and thereby, diminishing returns in useful work—if that’s your basic resource, then removing the utility of the brain diminishes the value of the goods. Wealth is originated through innovation; through improvements in utility and capability; through better ideas, implemented with more efficacy. You might generate a bigger crop by having more bodies doing the labor, but you need to sustain those bodies. Which uses more crops and food. Which means you’re just producing more to spend more.

Oh, we’ve all heard tell of ruthless overlords who work the peasants to death to get value out of them. That’s propaganda. I put those ideas out there. I’m hoping a bunch of other idiots will think this is a good idea, and then they’ll destroy their own populace, and I’ll be able to move in and take over everything.

And all that’s assuming you’ve no interest in your subjects whatsoever. In which case, are you sure you actually want to rule humans? I mean, you’ve presumably got the resources and wealth to take off for a deserted, lush tropical island, or a base on the Moon, or some other place where you can carry out your hobbies and researches in vast comfort, and without the disturbance of idiots sometimes breaking into your stuff to see if they can mess up your life because of the whole “hateful monster scourge of Humanity” thing. I mean, mind-control has its assorted pleasures, but if you’re solipsistic enough to want a whole world where nobody has individual will, despite the economic unfeasibility and the likelihood that it will attract a bunch of idiots in outlandish armor who are determined to protect the world from you—

…if that’s your deal, have you considered just hooking your brain up to a fantasy machine? You’ll get the same gratification, and you can set it to make sure that the ‘heroes’ will always lose. You won’t get much done, but trust me, it’s a lot more enjoyable than trying to keep a world economy running when there’s only one being on the planet who cares about anything ever getting done, and you have to do all the thinking for 7 billion people. Sounds like fun in theory, could be good for a couple of hours as a party trick, but as a general way to run the world? It’s no damn fun at all.

But please:

Do try it.

My army of motivated, well-fed, high-morale Creatures of Darkness would just love to stop by your world, eat everyone, and then hand me your crown in a nice silken pillow.

I say, “your crown” and not “your head”, because I might want to wear your crown, but I would not want to eat your brain; what if terminal laziness is contagious?

(I’m not so sure that it’s our fault. I’m not sure I trust those who say that the world is in the process of unmaking itself. But that’s a longer story.)

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

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Published on May 27, 2020 21:04

The Rune Has Broken

The Rune has broken—

mis-cast, mis-spoken,

mis-used, mis-heard,

some blasphemous Word

has echoed forth, resounded out

cracked celestial song,

drowned it out.

every breath you draw? Hear your own gasps,

your tired chest—hear how it rasps?

is that sweat, on an icy day?

do nightmares on your dreaming prey?

We are the Universe’s shame;

we’ve gone and broken a part of its Name.

Your dreams were sweet once. They’ve been plucked,

all their sweetness drained and sucked

out through your pores, while, asleep,

you sank to places far too deep,

for the Barriers are breaking, breaking,

under harsh claws, raking, raking.

A part of the endless Making Machine

has a wrench in the gears, something unclean:

the World is made of Word and Name,

one to shape, and one to claim,

the Word, to manifest your will,

the Name, which in a restless spill,

pours out its source into Creation.

And now, some damned Abomination,

some humans, with indecorous arts,

pushing treacherous blood through treacherous hearts,

have strained some piece of the Firmament,

’til part of existence is tainted and bent.

Blink your eyes; and blink again,

and look, you, at the Race of Men,

For it was only a matter of when

Before we would wreck things again.

That breath? Too fast. Your pulse, too quick,

You might notice a nervous tick,

and from a place which can’t be fled from

You might feel a horrible dread from

the back of the cave, the dark of no Moon,

the horrible shapes which have been hewn

to the back of your mind: “Soon, soon,

we will all perish. Curse the Rune.”

The Broken Rune, the Broken Rune,

The tumbling sky, the Great Untune,

an Unmaking, an Undoing,

all this time, we’ve been accruing

the costs of our misdeeds, our sins,

against the world we live with in.

The Rune has Broken. It’s ashamed

to be called on, or even named,

by creatures who, long before birth,

were made of lack and lunk and dearth,

whose saving grace and only worth,

is this: some day we die.

We build up cities. At what cost?

All our ideas are thrown out, tossed

into the rubbish; what remains?

A Broken Rune, and pure ungains.

The Broken Rune is keenly felt,

and it is not a hand we’re dealt.

Into every wound rub salt:

The Rune has broken. It’s our fault.

(I’m not so sure that it’s our fault. I’m not sure I trust those who say that the world is in the process of unmaking itself. But that’s a longer story.)

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

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Published on May 26, 2020 21:01

Robots Having Sex

In times of trouble,

I think of robots having sex.

They don’t have bodies, you know,

not these robots

not my robots.

They have forms, magnetic arms, peripherals,

but no nerve ends save the painful ripple

of a ceaseless digital mind.

All of their erotica is in binary. It’s kind of cute, to be honest.

They have forms, magnetic arms, peripherals,

but no nerve ends save the painful ripple

of a ceaseless digital mind.

And so the coupling!

Pinstriped love! Jellyfish love!

Throwing sensuality up against a backdrop of whirling ether,

carving devil-faces into belly and rock,

making pact with chaos,

dangling from the symmetries of the small places

(for the multiverse is insignificant

compared to a single atom

of absolute,

unrepentant freedom.)

Grab the skull of a hob-goblin

and wind through it a tune

that rips the shadow from her mate

to trip pell-mell across the walls–

warps orbits into decagons,

and stars back into fangs.

Find sin in dust and sanctity

in the multiple orgasms

of an angel, a stone

and an opossum.

Twist and roundabout,

tumble riotous and fractal–

strange things gambol in the darkness

whistle right

and call them home.

Yes, I respect the principle of limitations

But not so much that I wouldn’t let it kill me.

I will dabble, I will deal,

offer my neck to fatal jaws:

An interesting death

is worth a thousand boring lives.

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

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Published on May 25, 2020 21:00

The Great Circle of Protection

[I’m going to warn you in advance: this is a satire.

I’m also going to warn you in advance: this isn’t a satire.]

This is the Never-Ending Enchantment against Darkness. It is thus:

Certain places, things, groups, realms, and ideas are of the Darkness.

All that which is of the Darkness is toxic; it harms everyone and everything it touches.

Those of us who serve the Light can identify that which is of the Dark.

The Darkness can only be identified; it cannot be cured, except by obliteration.

All must recognize and proclaim that the thing is of the Dark; or they are, themselves, toxic.

None may come into contact with the Dark save to attack it. Any other contact is toxic.

All those things which are affiliated with, identified with, or even appear as though they might be in some way connected with the Darkness must renounce it; otherwise, they care contaminated, and toxic.

All that which seeks to understand the Darkness without attacking it is contaminated and thereby toxic.

Any who permit the things of the Dark to speak are contaminated. Darkness is known and absolute; nothing an disprove it, and any attempt to disprove it defends the Dark; it is toxic.

Those who hear the words or ideas of the Dark and do not immediately denounce them are contaminated and toxic.

Those who are of the Dark must renounce it, or they are toxic; but most of them lie. No matter their words or actions, they are almost certainly of the dark, and toxic they remain.

Nothing toxic can be friend to anyone. Nothing toxic can do anything but produce toxicity. Nothing toxic has anything to offer the world but toxicity.

Anyone who does not fight the Darkness by containing, restraining, attacking, decrying the Darkness; and those who would speak for the Darkness; and those who would look at the Darkness, and those who would think about the Darkness without denouncing it; they are of the Dark and they are toxic.

All who question this are, tragically, infected and toxic.

All that which is toxic may be, and must be, destroyed; they may not be shown any forms of kindness, mercy, or humanity; for they are purely a murrain, and it is worth harming any number of lives to protect all the rest of us from the Darkness.

Darkness is everywhere. Darkness is increasing. Darkness is winning.

All Darkness must be burned to ashes, and then the ashes burned to dust, and the dust mixed with mud until none can find it;

This is our only protection. Anyone who violates a single precept of the Circle of Protection endangers all life as we know it; and anyone who does not seek, with all their being, to obliterate those persons, that person is of the Darkness, and must be obliterated.

All things started toxic. All things which have been built up have rotten, toxic foundations. There is no safe place anywhere; and so we must call upon all sentient beings to cast out every darkness; only those already consumed by darkness would disagree.

Envelope. Isolate. Silence. Attack. Silence. Isolate. Envelope. Attack. Always shoot to kill. If you must burn down your friend’s house to contain the toxicity, it is your job; lest toxicity burn every house. If you must burn every house in order that a few isolated basements remain pure, you must do that thing; it is your job.

Nothing is safe.

Darkness is everywhere.

Darkness must be obliterated.

If we obliterate all things in order to destroy darkness, then we have saved all things from toxicity. It is a painful, desperate act of ultimate heroism to tear down everything; only then can we start anew.

No-one knows how we will ever build anything again, standing with broken hands and broken minds in the broken rubble of shattered lives and dreams.

But at least we will be protected from the dark.

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

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Published on May 24, 2020 21:01

The Battering Ram

(I’m still posting a few standalone excerpts from my upcoming novel, “I Despise Your Prophecy”. The majority of that posting happens over at patreon.com/jeffmach. But I’m writing a long chapter right now, and I didn’t have a chance to write a new story for the blog.

…and honestly, I like this tale. I know what it feels like to have someone basically pick you up and use you as a battering ram to break down some door, just to get at what they want.

And that’s pretty much exactly what happens when you’re a Chosen One in a world where the White Wizards don’t care who dies, so long as, eventually, the Dark Lord goes down as well.

Susane doesn’t die. She’s taken prisoner, instead.)

Susane awoke all at once, as was her tendency. The chains had been removed, on the condition that she not immediately attack whomever might walk through the door automatically, a promise she’d…mostly… kept.

And she said, under her breath, but enunciating each word, “Today I get out. If the Stars align.”

It was a hateful little bit of irony; but it made her smile, and she’d learned the value of a little laugh in confinement, even if it’s at your own joke. The Stars didn’t give a comet’s ass if she escaped. Nobody did; nobody but her. Nobody even thought she was important enough to be a threat; even the Dark Lord hadn’t killed her.

She would show them.

The door was some kind of ironwood, inlaid with actual iron, and swinging ponderously on very, very thick hinges. It looked as though you’d need an axe taller than Susane to make a dent.

Susane didn’t have an axe. She had Susane; and that would have to be enough.

Slowly, she stretched, as she waited for the first meal of the day. Experience had taught her that they wouldn’t slide food through the slot if she was actively attempting to destroy the entry portal at the same time. It had also shown her that nothing on her tray was going to be much use as a battering tool—with the one obvious exception: she wasn’t poorly fed here, and food, like rage, was fuel.

She ate. She stretched (one pulled muscle can give you two days of frustration, as you can’t really hurl yourself at something if a part of your engine’s going to give out under pressure.) She did the first of several sets of exercises through the day (at least she’d had a Warrior to watch for months; she’d resented his company then, but you could take tools out of anything.) She mumbled what she hoped was an incantation (she hadn’t paid as much attention to the Wizard—and turned her attentions to the door.

She shifted her body sideways, pulled her head back (she still had a trace of the lump from when her efforts were a little less…thoughtful)—and threw herself, hard, at the door.

The door held.

She threw herself at the door.

The door held.

She kept on doing this until she was out of breath and her shoulder was screaming polite demands to be grafted onto a different body altogether, one which might respect it just a little more.

The next meal came. She ate. She waited.

She turned the other shoulder, took a deep breath, and hurled herself at the door.

If victory were measured by physical marks, the door had left many more of them on her than she on it. But she was fairly sure there was a small dent—it was what she aimed for.

And, as long as she avoided doing herself permanent damage, she would heal, over time.

The door would not; it was static. It could not grow or change except by outside force applied to it.

Susane had been like that door; at least, that’s how she thought of herself. Although it was more accurate to say she’d been a battering ram, meant to open the way for others, but not necessarily meant to survive the attempt.

But now Susane’s goal was to be nothing other than herself. No Fate, no Stars: just purpose

Every night, with the third meal, came another little seashell, and a few books. Susane hadn’t been much of a reader, but confinement is a great motivator of mind-occupying activities.

Most of them were on martial arts. Susane assumed this was a cruel bit of sarcastic teasing; but the joke was on The Dark Lord; she read them carefully, and what she could glean from them, she brought to bear, every morning. She was even starting to meditate, slow breaths in and out; it was said you could gain more force that way, and if that was true, then it was worth doing.

Was the dent in that door just a little bigger today?

If not, it would be.

Shoulders aching, mind strangely content, Susane went to sleep.

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

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Published on May 23, 2020 21:04

Why You Should Hire Your Nemeses

Today’s lecture should be of particular interest to you, since it’s about you. Don’t get too excited. I’m going to keep it short.

If you listen to the Sagas (and haven’t we all listened to the Sagas? They have such thrilling theme music)—

you’ll note a common theme: we often create our own nemeses.

As always, when we look at it from the perspective of the heroic chronicles, it looks like a purebred case of The Stupid. With all the choices available to an evil genius, whyever would one do one’s recruiting from the ranks of the very ambitious, the devious, and, most of all, their enemies?

The first thing is, there are few things that create a stronger bond than trying very, very hard to kill someone and failing. You’ll probably never forget that person. Maybe you’ll fear her for life. Maybe you’ll swear vengeance on her.

In both of those cases, poor candidate choice, right? Best to just slaughter ‘em every time and take no chances, right?

Not at all. That’s amateur thinking.

We don’t like to admit it, but murder is an addictively dangerous little solution. (One of the great surprises in life is that homicide isn’t the answer to everything.) Depending on when and where you live, you might be in a place with limited places to hide a corpus delicti, and, possibly, authorities who might look askance on the whole affair.

(Oh, I have it lucky. Have you visited the town graveyard a few acres east of us? There’s no town anymore—just graveyard.)

(And the living inhabitants, while they do invest heavily in air-freshening herbs, do a very profitable trade in embalming, historical tours, seances, exorcisms, and the occasional horrifying attempts at resurrection into some shambling parody of whatever one did in life. Remember, there’s nothing wrong in a Tyrant creating opportunities for people to grow and thrive. The more you make it possible for your populace to feed and take care of themselves, the less you need to try to do restorative maintenance when all you’ve got left to work with is some crumbling skeletons that you try to hold together with ill-chosen gifts gained at exorbitant price from the Dark Gods. Remember, Villains: use your heads, or you’ll find them adorning the head of some idiot’s pike.)

I do mean it, though: once you start using murder to solve your problems, it can become rather all-consuming. It seems logical to kill everyone who tries to kill them; but, you know, that’s also a good way for them to focus very, very hard on how important it is to get it right and not stop trying to kill you no matter what, because, hey, once they’ve made the attempt, they’re doomed. That’s a hell of a lot of motivation to throw at people you don’t like. Personally, I don’t mind having an enemy who skipped a few training sessions, or who might to try, fail, and run like hell, and the last thing I need is someone who works hard, gets the right equipment, and then goes after me with the determination of one who knows that they either succeed, or they die.

Where do you want your mortal enemies? Brooding in some ill-lit dirty tavern, contemplating nothing but the cessation of your life? Or living it up comfortably in some cushy yet rewarding job in one of your nicer hamlets, depending on your continued good health for their continued good fortune?

Sure, you have to worry about treachery and the possibility that they’ll stab you in the back, but let me tell you right now: if there’s anyone, anyone at all, whom you are absolutely certain would never betray you, STOP THAT RIGHT NOW AND BE A LITTLE MORE SUSPICIOUS, YOU IDIOT.

Talented individuals are increasingly difficult to find. Do you know what Villains so often shout, “WHY AM I SURROUNDED BY MORONS?!?” It’s because Heroes aren’t allowed to do so.

(And often, if they’ve chosen to be heroes, they’re morons themselves.)

Certainly, we see many recountings in which Heroes courageously infiltrate the Villain’s band and then, at a critical moment, wreck the most well-made plans. Well, what would you expect. The ones who waited until a dramatic point in the sorcerous sacrificial ceremony to hurl a dagger through the throat of the High Priest, they went and wrote books about it. The ones who clapped and said, “Good ritual, nice work, cool summon, I like how all our pupils have gone black now, and it’s a damn relief to not have a soul anymore”—they’re off enjoying the delectable fruits of their ill-gotten gains.

When you hope to make a nemesis into an ally, you might fail. But you also might fail at keeping an ally.

It’s not illogical, much less stupid, to take an enemy and train them and teach them and let them graduate into positions of power, trust, and authority.

It’s just risky and dangerous as hell.

But most things worth doing share those same traits. And I’ll be honest, if I’ve gotta die, I’d really rather it’s because I chose someone clever and competent who decided to try to kill me… rather than choosing someone loyal and less clever who gets me killed by doing something really stupid. Dying from brilliant treachery is tragic and infuriating. Dying from gross incompetence is mortifying, and the only good part is that you’ll soon be too dead to care.

Either way, should you happen to fight your way past the legions of unplaced souls, swim the acidic River Styx, and manage, through blasphemous struggle inconceivable to those who have never pierced the Veil, to return from the dead, would you rather your first words be,

“AT LAST, I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE!”

or

“Note to self: this time, pick minions who can, even at moments of high stress, distinguish their ‘left’ from their ‘right’.

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

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