Runescape and the Holy Grail

Chapter 3: Constitutional Peasants

Sometime later, King Arthur and his faithful servant Patsy managed to escape the horrible, pestilent hole that is West Ardougne, and return to Lumbridge. They then continued on with their quest to find members for the Knights of the Round Table.

As the pair rode westward, they came upon a crossroads, where Patsy was attacked by a vile highwayman.

"Stand and deliver!" the highwayman called, mere moments before King Arthur's blade cut him in two.

With the danger now dispatched, master and servant paused to take in their surroundings. To the west the path continued on into more farmland, and to the Kingdom of Asgarnia. To the south was the small, gloomy-looking village of Draynor. And to the north was a dank, foreboding wood at the end of which could be seen a great, dilapidated mansion.

Arthur felt that the mansion would be a good place to start, for after all, who else could afford to own such a place but a wealthy lord? First, however, he would need some information from one of the locals.

Turning to the south, Arthur and Patsy rode on a short way until they came upon a dirty-looking figure laboring about in wheat field that grew right next to the village.

"I say there! Old woman!" King Arthur called out to the figure, who seemed to be collecting mud rather than wheat. How odd.

"Man!" the figure retorted, turning about and revealing that he was indeed a man!

"Oh, er, sorry," a now rather embarrassed Arthur apologized, "But from behind you looked rather, er....Who lives in that mansion up north?"

"I'm thirty-seven!" the still-indignant man declared.

"What?"

"I'm thirty-seven! I'm not old!"

"Well I can't just call you 'man.'"

"Well you could try calling me Denis!"

"I didn't know that you were called Dennis," Arthur reasoned, "And I did apologize about the old woman thing."

"Well I object to being treated like an inferior!"

"Well I am a king!"

"Oh, king, eh?" Dennis said sarcastically, "Very nice."

"And how did you get that, eh?" the disgruntled peasant continued, "By exploitin' the workers! By hangin' on to outdated imperialistic dogma that perpetuates..."

At that moment, Dennis' rant was interrupted as an old woman dressed as shabbily as he (and who also had rather disturbingly masculine appearance) crawled up the field and, in a screechy voice, said, "Oh, Dennis, there's lovely filth up here!"

Then the old noticed the well-dressed strangers and said humbly, "How'd you do?"

"How do you do, good madam?" Arthur returned the greeting pleasantly, grateful that he was now talking to someone who wasn't so easily offended, "I am Arthur, King of the Britain's. Now tell me, who lives in that mansion up there?"

"King o' the who?" the woman asked in a puzzled tone.

"The Britains."

"Who're the Britains?"

"Well I'm British, Patsy's British, and um, well the Jagex Council's British. And since they created Runescape, then I guess that means that we are all British! I never really thought of it that way before... But then again, you are first and foremost Misthalanian, and Roald's your king. Hmmm..."

"I didn't know we had a king," the confused old woman stated, "I thought we were an autonomous collective."

"You're foolin' yerself!" Dennis laughed, "We're livin' in a dictatorship! in which the working classes..."

"Oh, there you go! Bringin' class into it again!" the old woman groaned as she continued to fill her basket with mud.

"Well that's what it's all about!" Dennis argued.

"Please good people!" Arthur interrupted impatiently, "I am in haste. Who lives in that mansion up there?"

"Well no one lives there," the old woman confessed. Then on a second-thought she continued, "Except the Count, and the ghosts; but they're undead. And the mad scientists, but they pay rent, so I guess they don't really count..."

"Then who is your lord!?" Arthur exclaimed.

"We have a lord!" the old woman replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"What!?" Arthur replied, shocked.

"Like we was sayin'" Dennis answered arrogantly, "We're an anarcose syndicous commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of weekly executive..."

"Yes, I see," Arthur nodded impatiently.

"...But all decisions of said executive must be ratified by a council at our bi-weekly meetings..."

"Yes, now be quiet!"

"...And then by a two-thirds majority..."

"Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!"

"Order, eh?" the old woman replied indignantly while speaking to Dennis, "Who does he think he is?"

"I am king!"

"Well I didn't vote for ya!"

"You don't vote for king!"

"Well how do ya become king then?" the woman demanded.

"The Lady of the Lake," Arthur responded with a faraway look, "She who guards the magic blade Excalibur, and who gave it to me, signifying that I, Arthur, was meant to have it. That is why I am king!"

"Look, friend," Dennis laughed, "Strange women lying in ponds is no basis for leading a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from the masses, not from some silly aquatic ceremony!"

"BE QUIET!" Arthur demanded, his frayed patience now running dangerously low.

"If I went around sayin' I was an emperor," Dennis reasoned mockingly, not really noticing the king's building rage, "Just because some chick in a bathin' suit chucked a scimitar at me, then take me away!"

"SHUT UP!" Arthur demanded as he violently grabbed Dennis' arm and dragged the peasant to his feet, "Will you just SHUT UP!?"

"Oh! Now we see the violence inherent in the system!" Dennis declared.

"COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM!" Dennis yelled at to the other villagers collecting mud out in the field as Arthur began to twist his arm, "Help, help! I'm bein' repressed!"

"Bloody peasant!" Arthur swore as he threw Dennis to the ground and stormed off to get away from the now staring villagers. The last thing that the king wanted to do was to have to start killing people, even if they were a bunch of loonies.

"Whoa! What a give-away!" Dennis blathered on as Arthur and Patsy rode away. "Did you hear that? Did you see him repressin' me?"

To Be Continued...