"...A crime, a crime, a crime, a crime, a million crimes he shan’t refute!” Justinian swung his knight's sword, awaiting the next decisive move from the audience, who'd finally heard the shocking confession of His wickedness.

The crowd, who'd been listening attentively to the exchange on stage, were absolutely shocked.

Why, they wondered, had The Tyrant conceded a round to such an annoying roleplayer? Inexplicable. No matter how many of their neurons they combined, they couldn't find a logical reason for forfeiting instead of beating the kid up again. Where was the avant-garde answer to this duelling conundrum?

A couple players, still giggling after the previous duel, burst into another round of laughter at the knight's absurd acting🤣. Others yawned, the tiredness catching up to them after studying so many duels – even with these whacky challenge breaks, The Tyrant’s workshop sure had been exhausting.

“How shocking,” one drowsy spectator said to their friend. “How does he still have the mental stamina to follow this roleplayer's jargon?”

The friend shrugged. “Exercise from the battlefield, maybe. Lot of multi-tasking, I’ve heard.”

Laughter sprang from a small group, rewatching the match to study the combat-gags.

Justinian’s confident expression faltered, crumbling into another type of shock at their horrid mass of indifference. “My brothers, my sisters...why does silence hold your yelling tongues? Why does calm cloud your wrathful eyes? HE!” The Crusader stabbed his finger at Sir Henry and the weapon with which he'd perversely cut his own throat, “He has entered the light of judgement with his fingers clutching His wicked dagger! Gaze upon it! You can see the stains of guilt upon its blade! The criminal has confessed. Now, it falls to us to deliver the righteous sentence! Rise, in wrath, my kin, ye downtrodden shepherds finally acknowledged, and fling David’s anointed sling at the brow of this goliath of shadow!”

In the crowd, a Farmer player, who was in the challenge queue because he’d been blacklisted from The Company’s shipping network simply for enslaving a couple dozen NPCs, raised a hand. “Yo, Tyrant, this knight roleplayer is more obnoxious than you. I will give up my slot for you to revoke that forfeit and do the joke weapon thing twice more.”

“Mine, too. I need to log off soon anyway.”

“Me three.”

Many in the audience were in agreement, annoyed that their duelling study with only a week to go would be interrupted by this bizarre medieval charade. Others were insulted at this gold-clad clown making a mockery of their own much more rational reasons for challenging The Tyrant.

“What....what trickery is this...” stammered Justinian, so aghast that he committed one of the knight’s greatest errors, his sword falling from his grip.

As his zweihander clattered on the grass, he was overcome with horror at the realisation that this truth he’d crusaded so stubbornly to expose had, upon its revelation, not amounted to anything, it mattering not one iota whether the ugly secrets sat in the shadow or the sun. He could not comprehend the absence of their rage. Why were their holy blades still sheathed? Why didn’t they storm the stage and tear down this despot and his throne of filth?!

“RAGE!” the knight begged his cowardly brothers and sisters. “RAGE, MY FRIENDS! RAGE, YE MEEK, AND INHERIT THE STOLEN EARTH! RAGE!”

He continued to shout exhortations to rebel. All he received from the crowd, however, were boos and laughter, their callous response causing him to fall to his knees as the despair of this miserable world smashed the last strength from his knightly limbs.

Henry was watching this kid—still roleplaying—with rising disgust. The flailing of the myopic, out-of-touch character offended his deepest sentiments. In his messages, the Lieutenant Colonel leading his security detail had been begging for permission to execute Justinian personally, and Henry was struggling quite deeply not to grant the man’s request.

However, for this tournament, he’d promised his enemies they could speak their piece without consequence. That commitment, he planned to uphold to the end. As much as the satisfaction of beating them up, he’d also wanted to confront his critics and their grievances, unjustified or unjustified. Through these minor trials, he would shed whatever small amount he could of the weight he'd once carried. A bit lighter, he could then accelerate his flight down the path of moving on.

With that goal in mind, he chose to answer to whatever part in Justinian’s roleplayed distress might be sincere, knowing himself the bizarre pathology of a man and his acted roles fusing over time.

“Look,” Henry addressed this kid’s confusion, “these people aren’t going to attack. They know full well that they can’t bypass my guards, that despite my promises, The Company will ruin their gaming career if they push too far. However, more importantly, you need to understand that, if they were given the opportunity to attack, these reasons you’ve listed would never be their motive. Did you not listen to any of the previous challengers? Yours is not the 'tyranny' they wish to overthrow. They’d attack because I destroyed their guilds, because I removed their corrupt leaders, because I gave them basic rules of conduct that say, no, actually, within my sphere of influence, you don’t have the freedom to eat prepubescent tailor girls, even if those girls are NPCs. Greater than all of this, they’d attack me because I represent the latest fun challenge to beat in a videogame. These ‘crimes’ you’re ranting about, none of these people are bothered by those. In fact, those bits of my career, they respect, because that was the optimal way to play this videogame. I was a general, a builder of empire, and part of that role is devising the most efficient methods of slaughtering your opposition. For this aspect of my job, the sole negative feeling most of them hold is envy. Their hearts ache with a gnawing jealousy that they did not get the chance to slaughter on such a gorgeous scale.

"And here’s the real kicker, and what presumably is most relevant to your roleplayed crusade, the majority of the ‘Goodfolk’, the NPCs, who view my actions in a much, much darker light, at some level, they also respect me.”

Justinian rankled, the knight’s bewilderment paused by the ability to latch to this one solid lie, another of The Tyrant’s manipulations like the mock-fighting technique whose purpose was no doubt to strip the crowd of the proper mood and context to judge his revealed crimes. “Sir Henry, in this as many matters spun by your deceptive tongue, you speak falsely. I’m certain that those who attend your throne do warm your eardrums with the exultations you expect them to pour in. But I, more than any of God’s servants might have right to claim, have spent some time amongst the Goodfolk in this neglected slum. Like Hercules, I have laboured many years for the sake of others, and, although my feats may not tower so grandly, they have put me alongside those of much more towering hearts – brave folk, humble, diligent, honest. Sir Henry, the honest words that are whispered of you when away from your oppressive ear, I assure you that they are not respectful.”

Henry gestured to calm down his guards around the arena that no one else was noticing were growing murderous. “Justinian—whoever you are playing this character—this is a nuance about the NPCs that you will never understand so long as you remain a child imitating a child’s conception of a medieval crusader. Their ability to criticise me, if only in the semi-privacy of your presence, is, in fact, a sign of my benevolence. Genuine tyranny is rarely this audible. Whatever histories or stories you’ve read to inform the creation of 'Justinian', if you found nothing but gushing praise for ‘noble’ knights and kings, that’s because in that era even the slightest questioning of the sovereign’s power would get you killed. The troubadour singing at a dinky tavern about the beautiful face of his queen is still hiding what’s truly in his heart. He’s performing a generational survival strategy of perpetual flattery to avoid being stomped out by the bitch who will have him drawn and quartered if she catches even a whisper that he’s dared to describe how centuries of incest have deformed her hairy jaw. Likewise, if a real king invited you to air your complaints to him as I have today, you would have been suicidal for accepting. ‘Your’ era has no free speech. Just one of your accusations would warrant your execution, along with a visit to the torturer for your acquaintances and family to flush out further insurrectionists. But, because you’re too busy roleplaying a character, you've missed all this. Your eyes half closed, you have failed to see the full picture of who I am in this world. You see in me a tyranny that you haven’t seen in ‘your’ kings, and you see in them a benevolence that you haven’t seen in me.

"Look, I’m going to show you something strange now, and we’re going to examine the critical error of your perception in the scripted response that follows. Lieutenant Colonel!” Henry snapped around, addressing a man whose antsy hand was fidgeting with his sword.

“Your order, Supreme Commander!” The soldier saluted, excited at the chance to kill this brat.

Henry waved in denial, both of that and the man’s undue deference. “This isn’t an order - I’ve already retired and can’t make those anymore. My 'order' is that, if you don’t want to do it, don’t, and I’ll ask another. However, if you wouldn’t be too embarrassed, could you please show this valiant knight your pride and joy?”

“Embarrassed, Supreme Commander?” the Lieutenant Colonel laughed. “I am honoured!”

The man—in a rather strange gesture that actually did shock the audience and caused many parents watching with family at home to shield their kids' eyes—removed his armoured leggings and flopped out his penis.

There it was, revealed for all to admire, a penis.

Adding to the oddity, several older members of the guard who weren’t asked mirrored the gesture. Dozens dropped their pants and let their penises dangle free in Suchi’s scorching breeze.