PROLOGUE: AN UNEXPECTED PARTY
He checked his letter for the final time.
"Dear Mother,
When His Majesty the King Yoshirus of the Seven announced that he will celebrate his thirty-eleventh Day of Ascension with a feast of unusual extravaganze, there was much rumour and anticipation in Great Egg City. However pleasant such a festival may be, though, I myself have found the news most unfortunate, as His Majesty now expects me to finish the stairway before the fateful day's arrival. I am thus forced to postpone my journey homewards until the work is done, for which I must apologise.
Other than the excessive nature of His Majesty's demands, which a monarch of His stature should feel justified in making, life in the Royal Egg has been kind to me. Even a lowly painter such as myself is treated to the most opulent of luxuries. When your health permits it, Father and you should travel here. The food alone is worth the trouble-and my frescoes more so!
Please write me back as soon as you find the time.
Your secondborn Vincent van Yogh, son of Theodorus"
For the largest part the letter seemed fine, but that pretty 'z' in the second rule, with curving edges like the house of a snake-it didn't seem right, somehow. Perhaps his grasp of His Majesty's tongue was not as developed as he liked to imagine. Still, if parchment costed a rib and a lung his salary was maybe a single strand of hair, so he had to make do with it, mistake or not. He folded the letter into a rough and creased rectangle and put the parchment into his pocket, promising himself he'd put it on the post later that day. Or later that week. I am a busy man, he thought, and I cannot waste my time on so menial a task.
Vincent van Yogh had grown up as the son of a humble farmer. His parents discovered his talent with the brush early on and had him make the usual cursus honorum, working for masters of ever-increasing prestige until he had ended up in the Royal Egg. His style was unlike anything the world had ever seen before, but his ego was too; he was not particularly liked by anyone and even the King himself mostly avoided him, only putting up with his oddities out of admiration for his work. His broad strokes played the heartstrings like a bard his lute. He could forge the darkest of blues into gardens of colour and the brightest of reds into looming depression. If he hadn't been so cocky about it, he'dbeen a rich man by then.
He heard a knocking on his door-three times, to be exact. A visitor? At this early hour?
"Do you have business here?" the painter asked.
"If I hadn't, it would be peculiar indeed to bother you," a muffled voice answered. It was old and creaky, not unlike the door it came from.
His brand of logic is unusual, but not incorrect, Van Yogh reasoned. "Come in, then," he said.
The voice sighed, though it was hardly audible. "What a foolish young man you are. The door is locked! Do you want me to bash it in?"
No, Van Yogh didn't. He already had a… slight difference of opinion with the palace's stewards and it seemed pointless to escalate it further. Sighing, he searched for the key-it had to be hidden in the mess, if he only knew where-and when he had found it at last, he put the golden thing into its aging lock. Without a hand to move it, the door swung open; at the other side was a shrunken and withered figure, with a giraffe-like neck and a tall, ill-fitting hat, the brim of which fell over his eyes. His skin must have once been purple, but had now decayed into the same cheerless grey as his robe, and on his chin he sported a beard at least as long as his wooden staff.
"Hello, Vincent van Yogh," he chirped. "Would you mind if I invited myself inside?"
"Who are you? What do you-how do you know my name?" the painter stumbled, but the old man took no heed and strode into the apartment, as if its tenant didn't exist.
The stranger took a quick look around and exclaimed:
"How bright your chamber looks! His Majesty the King must like you very much to give you a room such as this."
Van Yogh's patience was being stretched to its limit. "Listen, I don't know who you are or what you are trying to do," he said, harshly, "but I do know that you are a guest-my guest! I request, no, I demand that you either behave as one or show yourself the door!"
The old man's eyes retreated further into his hat. He softly spoke: "Friend, while I fail to see what I did wrong"-Van Yogh steamed when he uttered the F-word-"it must be known that there is no better guest than myself. Could I have a seat?" he asked.
"State your business first," Van Yogh commanded.
"I feel like we should get to know each other a bit before we dabble in such heavy matters. You know, have a pleasant talk with a cup of-"
Van Yogh cut him off. "Either state your business or leave. What is this, some sad attempt to con me out of what little I have?"
The old man laughed. "Well, in a way, you're not wrong," he said. "I have come to inform you that you have a very real chance to be a hero." The painter seemed unfazed. "May I sit down now?"
"And to fulfill my destiny, of course, I'll have to give you some object of value," Van Yogh filled in the gaps.
"Once again, correct."
"Oh, bugger off."
Though Van Yogh had given him no permission to, the old man sat down anyway. "Before you shut me out, you must consider that the fate of thousands upon thousands of people quite literally rests on this decision."
He's persistent, Van Yogh thought, but I suppose most swindlers are. "What do you not understand about 'bugger off'? If this artifact truly decides the fate of the world, surely some superior force would by now have taken it from me."
"It will, very soon."
"What kind of intrusion can I expect, then?"
"That I cannot disclose."
"Aha!" A brief flash of excitement rushed past the painter's eyes. He delighted in driving his opponents into a corner, to face them with questions they could not answer and force them to fall back on excuses. "Why not?" he asked.
The old man thought for a bit before answering. "I am bound by my oath."
"To whom?"
"That I also cannot disclose."
"Why not?"
"Because I am bound by my oath."
Van Yogh laughed smugly and opened the door, which had fallen back into its lock. "It seems like you did not prepare for a victim as clever as myself. I know enough to see you for what you are, con man."
The old man sighed. "I presume you want me gone?"
"Yes."
"Mister van Yogh, I must admit that you gravely disap-"
The painter cut him off again. "Go now. Do not force me to call the Royal Guard."
When the old man saw that Van Yogh wasn't going to change his mind, he sighed for a second time and pulled himself up with his staff. His joints were rusty and it took him long, long enough for Van Yogh to fold his arms in irritation. "Fine… fine!" the stranger exclaimed. "I shall go back to where I came from, if that is what you desire. But the weight of your conscience shall be yours to bear, and yours alone!" With those words he strode out of the chamber, closing the door in the same peculiar manner as he had opened it. Van Yogh went to see where he had gone a few moments later, but the stranger was nowhere to be found.
Later that day, Van Yogh finally dragged himself to the round-windowed, red-doored post office, and the friendly clerk threw his letter on the pile of others meant for the inlands. He would work on his frescoes tirelessly for weeks to come, until the rising and setting of many suns finally heralded ｔｈｅ ｄａｙ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ ｐａｒｔｙ. The King was celebrating and made sure to let everybody know. The streets of his capital were draped in colourful banners-not just any banners, but those fine silken ones from the Beanbean Kingdom-and carriages from all over the island ferried (a few) guests and (mostly) curious smallfolk to the premises. Neither of those was the venerable Commander of the Royal Guard, who was returning from an expedition against the pirates of Goonie Coast. He hurried to the palace and entered the great spiral staircase, for he had much to do that day.
"Greetings! It is good to have you back, sir."
The Commander was greeted by a rather unassuming painter, whom he had happened to run into on the stairway. The arch-Guard was not hard to recognise: he was always donned in full armour, his chest plate displaying the royal sigil for all to see, and on his helmet he grew a forest of tall, red feathers, the symbols of his leadership. Other Guardsmen never armoured themselves that heavily, except in times of peril.
The Commander didn't pay heed to the little man and continued his descent down the spiral staircase. Its vaulted roof was covered in freshly-painted frescoes, but he was too lost in thought to notice their rather disappointing quality.; what clouded his mind was not a pleasant sense of anticipation, as most of the court was experiencing, but rather a nagging worrying about His Majesty's safety. Public events of such magnitude were rare in the Royal Egg and he had little experience securing them.
The staircase ended and led him into a large, wooden hall, one of the greatest of the palace. Its roof resembled one of those roads in the tightly forested inlands, where beeches had grown into each other to shape a cathedral of green−so close was the resemblance, in fact, that the roof had been painted to resemble their leaves. Masters of old had pictured many scenes from the legends of yoshikind on the ancient walls, and they had sculpted them in such a fashion that they gently curved inwards as they reached higher. The room's beauty made it one of his favourites, but right now, the Commander had other matters to take care of.
"Sir! I'm pleased to report that no incidents have occurred, sir."
Fat Yoshiv had walked into the room, in his white robes as always. He had led the Royal Guard in his Commander's absence, and was on time for their meet-up for once. The Commander hadn't expected him until much later.
"I trusted that your hands would be good ones," the Commander said. "Now, how many regiments have responded? Will I get as many as I requested? And before you answer that-did you even receive my letter?"
"Many, yes and yes," Yoshiv answered. "Six regiments of about a thousand each have gathered on the bridge and await your command."
"You're brilliant, Yoshiv," the Commander exclaimed, pleased.
"I know."
"Still as cocky as ever," the Commander said in that half-joking, half-serious tone he always used to mask his insults. "I shall inspect the soldiers' equipment and assign to them their posts. Inform the King that we will be ready in an hour or two."
Six-thousand plus the normal strength of the Royal Guard, that was what the Commander had at his disposal to secure the party. It was meagre, but it was sufficient, so on his way to the Great Gate he went.
The Great Gate was a cavernous opening in the Royal Egg. It got narrower as it curved further inwards and was closed by two massive, oaken doors. They were usually sealed shut and zealously defended by the Guard, but the times were not usual and they were wide open, though still zealously defended; a detachment of seven Guardsmen made sure no uninvited guests made use of the opportunity. A hive of odd-looking wagons with odd-looking packages had dripped out of Great Egg City's network of alleyways and was traversing the bridge towards the Gate, where their contents would be unloaded and taken to the palace's vast storerooms. They carried the first of many supplies the King had ordered for his party. The much fancier carriages of the visiting noblemen trailed at a safe distance, careful not to associate with the peasants.
The Commander passed through the Gate and stepped onto the bridge. "Brother! Let me pass!" he ordered the tallest of the seven Guardsmen, who was blocking his way and promptly stepped aside. "Let us relieve our troops of this cold and harsh weather," he spoke in a towering voice. "The inland men may march inside!"
"You heard the Commander! The inland men may march inside!" another Guardsmen repeated.
"The inland men may march inside!"
"Inside you march, inland men!"
"Men, we may march inside! Left, two, three, four!"
The nearest of the regiments, a column of lightly-armoured warriors from Koopa Canyon, slowly started marching forwards. Two others flying a set of purple wings on a yellow background−the banner of the Rex Barony−quickly followed suit; soon, the entire bridge was engulfed in the rattling sounds of moving armour. The line of wagons was cut off and forced to come to a halt, much to the begrudgement of the nobility,
While the Commander was conducting his orchestra of warriors, the unassuming painter he had met on the staircase arrived at his destination: the terrace on top of the Royal Egg. Usually, it was empty as the night, but this time around a Guardsman had been posted. It was an excellent vantage point to make watch over the capital. The Guardsman saw Great Egg City's three waterfalls, twisting and crawling their way through the busy city before pouring their contents into the lake; he saw the impenetrable jungle of wooden structures that had overgrown the sides of the crater; and he saw the Lakefall down south, with its lively flock of merchant's ships, dams and harbours. The Royal Egg itself was a rock in the centre of the lake, formed by the last eruption of the now long-dormant volcano. Ancient yoshi had through great labour moulded it into the shape of a giant egg and constructed in its hollowed innards the High King's magnificent palace. A stone bridge of slightly lesser age served as the connection to the rest of the city, which had been built on, around and against the caldera's edges.
"Oh, hello! You chaps are all over the place lately, are you not?"
Van Yogh had decided to join the Guardsman in his quiet observation-minus the quiet part, of course, because Van Yogh was never quiet. He looked at the Guardsman expectantly, hoping for a reply to his remark. The Guardsman sighed and mumbled: "You've got keen senses, Master Painter, for we are. Our patrols have been increased, on the orders of the Commander."
The painter's eyes lit up with curiosity. "Now, now!" he exclaimed. "That yellow fellow, Yoshem, he may be overbearing, but he's not exactly the panicky type. Is he preparing for something exciting?"
The Guardsman tried to disguise his irritation, but did not entirely succeed. "The Commander prefers to be referred to by his title," he said.
"Oh, yes, excuse me," Van Yogh said dismissively. "Surely your 'Commander' wouldn't summon half the nation's blades hence without good reason?"
He pointed to the bridge, where six regiments had organised themselves in formation and a seventh was in the process of joining them.
The Guardsman plainly replied: "No, Master, I am sure that he wouldn't. The fact that we have a bloody royal party going on certainly couldn't be a factor, now could it?"
Van Yogh, uncharacteristically satisfied by the evasive answer−or, more likely, bored by the Guardsman's unwillingness to converse−turned away from his companion and strode to the other side of the platform, but then froze in place, clenched his fist and turned back around. He lifted his finger and pointed it to the northern skies, exclaiming: "Master Guardsman, the black specks−what are they?"
"Oh, Master Painter, they are but goonies," the Guardsman laughed. "They are not worth your concern."
He heard a rattling on the bridge and observed: "The Commander is moving his troops inwards." He turned his watchful gaze southwards, to the Lakefall, but could not spot any irregularities. Great Egg City was unusually peaceful today.
"That news is terribly interesting, Master Guardsman, and I truly mean no offense," Van Yogh muttered, his eyes still fixed on the north, "but I have never seen any goonies quite like these."
A thumping noise of fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh had begun rolling through the air, joined by a softly whizzing vwwrrrrmmm not long thereafter. Both seemed to get louder as the spots continued their advance. Van Yogh could now see that they weren't black at all; most were a generic pitch-pine's brown, the faster, whizzing ones were coloured bright blue and the largest of them all was a forest's deep green, its spikes in the yellowish white of rotten teeth.
"Like I said, Master Painter, you've got keen senses−and you know much about birds, too," the Guardsman digressed. "If those are goonies, I am a spear guy from the far-away jungles of the heartlands."
The thumping and whizzing swelled ever louder.
"If they aren't goonies, what are they?" Van Yogh asked. His voice grew more distraught with every word. Even the stern look of the Guardsman began to display cracks.
"I haven't got the slightest id-"
The sight of his impending doom made him swallow his thoughts. He hadn't even time to close his eyes. He knew that his next heartbeat would be his last.
Beat.
The two men must have died instantly as an ear-shattering blast rendered all other sounds silent. Its shockwave ruptured through the bridge with horrifying force. There was another explosion, another tremor. A third fireball. crashed into the Royal Egg. Many more followed. The men on the bridge only saw the fire and the smoke. It looked like the volcano was roaring back to life. "Whatever that was, whatever that is, stay in formation!" bellowed the Commander, but it was no use. His voice was drowned by the thumping and the whizzing, the blasts and the tremors and the panicked cries of his own men.
"The volcano! It's erupting!"
A cloud of debris rose up from the shattered platform, smouldering pieces of rubble were thrown into the waters below. The warriors from Koopa Canyon managed to keep their composure and marched on, but the regiments of the Rex Barony broke formation and stampeded towards the safety of the city. The unlucky wagons that happened to be in their way were mercilessly pushed into the lake.
Other voices penetrated the consternation:
"This is no eruption! This is an attack!"
"Fall back! Fall back! War is upon us!"
A fireball missed the bridge by mere inches. The fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh and vwwrrrrmmm were deafening now. Only the constant explosions were louder. The Commander looked up and then it swerved in, from the north−a flying apparatus, an airborne galleon, with two giant airscrews where the masts ought to be. Blue contraptions he couldn't identify dived out of the darkening skies. The hysteria grew.
"Keep on marching, for the King's sake!"
The airship's shadow fell on the last remaining regiment. Dread sunk deeper with every fwoosh spewn forth.
"Keep on marching! Do not give in to your fear!"
Suddenly, it caught the Commander's eye, waving proudly from the ship's stern: a black flag, with the blood-red face of a roaring dragon. He remembered the horrors it had made him endure all those years ago. For just a second, he showed true fear.
The last straw broke for the warriors of the Canyon. A young recruit realised what he was up against, that he wouldn't be returning to his cosy farm and his loving wife if he marched on like this. Terrified, he threw his weapon onto the ancient pavement and rushed towards the west, towards the city. The others soon followed. All that remained were the Guardsmen, the sound of shallow breathing, the knocking of armoured knees and the unpleasant smell of a recruit who had soiled himself.
"Yoshar!" the Commander shouted to the tall Guardsman, who did not waver. "I have fought the Koopa King before, long ago. Trust me when I say we cannot win-our only option is escape! I will rush into the palace to retrieve His Majesty the King. Hold the Gate 'til I return!"
The airship hovered over the bridge and prepared to fire its broadsides. An armada of countless others eclipsed the sun; like rain, their fireballs crashed into the city. The flames consumed its wooden homes with the same ease a yoshi threw its tongue.
Yoshar stared at his comrades, hoping for a reassuring look. None came. He sighed, and after a few seconds he promised: "We will do our best, Commander." The airship's volley barraged the Gate, but it held. "I hope it will be enough." More ships lined up to drop the first wave of shock troops.
With a final, worried nod, his Commander drew his weapon, a fine longsword from Kappa Mountain, and disappeared into the crumbling palace. He heard the doors slam into their locks behind him, followed by the faint melodies of clashing blades. The party had started much earlier than he'd expected.