Joseph XIV

PA 1.3

Joseph stood along the docks of Sun’s Rest, feeling not quite anxious but an emotion similar to it. To either of his sides stood Kaiden, Hsekiu, and King Cui, while behind him crowded many of the citizens of Sun’s Rest, craning their necks to try and see around each other.

This was an important occasion, after all. After over two months of campaigning against the Kingdoms to the north, Meixiu and Gamila would finally be returning home today. Even now in the distance, he could see the boat that would bring them into the city slowly sail down the river.

It had been months since he last saw them, and he would say without a hint of shame that he’d missed them both terribly. Between the loss of Meixiu’s stern countenance and Gamila’s quiet yet reassuring presence, he felt like something had been missing from his new home, something Cui most certainly did not fill.

But he supposed he couldn’t blame the man, even if by this point he felt he’d long overstayed his welcome. War was tough on everybody, and everyone reacted to it in different ways. He just wished the man would have reacted a bit more proactively.

The boat was getting closer, and Joseph shook those thoughts away. He wanted to be paying attention to this.

It was moments later that the boat finally reached the docks of Sun’s Rest, followed by five others, all of them filled to the brim with people and goods from upriver. As they docked, soldiers burst up from their seats and onto the docks, running into the crowd of civilians and embracing family, friends, and lovers alike. Cheers swept through the crowd as the soldiers were given a hero’s welcome home.

But Joseph ignored that, his eyes locked on the boat in front of him, the boat which held the General and the Spy he’d sent out so long ago.

Rising from her seat in the boat, General Meixiu climbed onto dry land, giving him a small but sincere smile. Behind her like a shadow, a familiar looking soldier took her place behind her General.

“Pharaoh Joseph,” Meixiu saluted him. “General Meixiu reporting back from the front. The enemies of the Sunset Kingdom have been dealt with, and their cities are being secured as we speak. The war has been won.”

Joseph returned her salute, a wide, relieved smile stretched across his face. “All thanks to you General—all thanks to you.”

--

Following their return on the docks, the three God-Kings retired to Joseph’s home for the moment, wanting to speak without prying ears before they’d be joining the festivities later in the evening.

Joseph’s house was similar in style to the other new houses in the city. It was two stories tall, with his bedroom on the upper floor while the ground floor had a low table surrounded by crude couches. On one wall was a mural depicting a sunset, painted with reds and oranges and even a stripe of purple he’d managed to come across. The only windows on the ground floor were next to the door, since the building was crammed in on every other side by other houses, meaning little natural light got into the room, giving it a very ‘underground’ feeling.

The three of them entered his house quietly, Joseph and Meixiu taking a seat around the central table while the soldier following Meixiu stood facing the doorway, only taking off her helmet to reveal Gamila underneath. Giving her a warm smile in recognition, Joseph turned back to Meixiu, nodding at her to begin.

“While I would be lying if I were to say that all our problems have been dealt with, at this point it’s safe to say that we’ve more or less won the war,” Meixiu informed him, sitting up straight and giving her report in a professional manner. “As of now I’ve left most of the army back in Song and Alliance land in the hopes of stamping out any resistance. Unfortunately, the King of the Song, King Quang, escaped in the chaos during the battle at Dàhé.”

Joseph frowned, bringing up a hand to cover his mouth. “Shit, that’s not good. Do you know where he is now? Does he still have an army?”

“No, it’s unlikely,” Meixiu shook her head, giving him some measure of relief. “We shattered his army at Dàhé, taking anyone who survived the battle as prisoner. That’s part of the reason I left most of the army back there—if he tries anything as big as raising an army we’ll know in an instant. I also… well, I told everyone that we succeeded at killing him,” she set her shoulders as she told him, wincing with a guilty yet resolved look on her face. “I know it wasn’t my right to do that, but I stand by the decision. If everyone thinks he’s dead, it will be that much harder for him to gain support from his men.”

“…I gave you free reign to make those kinds of decisions,” Joseph told her after a moment of thought. “When it comes to things like this, it’s better that you make a swift decision rather than put it off and wait days for my orders. When you’re on the frontlines, I trust you to make more informed decisions than I.”

Meixiu let out a short breath, looking somewhat relieved. “Thank you, Joseph.”

“Don’t thank me for stating the obvious,” he scoffed, before frowning again. “Still, that will make it harder to find him in the future. I really don’t want some immortal criminal running around and causing havoc in my Kingdom, but if everyone thinks he’s dead it will be that much harder to coordinate any efforts towards finding him…”

“…Perhaps you could ask the other king?” Gamila spoke up haltingly, grabbing the attention of the other two God-Kings. “The one you captured? He was allied with Quang, was he not? In that case, he knows better than anyone what Quang would do and how to find him.”

Joseph hummed, rolling the idea around in his head. “Maybe,” he frowned. “Maybe not. Honestly, I was thinking of handing him over to King Cui—let our allies decide what to do with him, and avoid any diplomatic incidents.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Meixiu frowned heavily, crossing her arms. “Regardless of whether we give the Two Oasis’ Tobias’ lands or not, they do not deserve to choose what happens to the King—we won this war for them, and so they should work to convince us to grant them the spoils, not the other way around!”

Joseph huffed, half scowling but grudgingly admitting she had a point. “Even so, they weren’t irrelevant—they lost many good men and women in the Song’s initial attacks, and it was only because their capital held for so long against the Song army that we managed to get as far as we did. We shouldn’t just forget about that—and besides, they are our allies. Our only allies, now that Starfell has taken out Getoralaind. If they grow stronger, we do as well.”

“They are our allies, for now,” Meixiu countered. “We have no idea which way the wind will blow in the future. Wen and Olivia were the Two Oasis’ allies as well, but they betrayed them at the drop of a hat. Strong allies are good, but they should never be stronger than us.”

“…Fine,” Joseph conceded, unhappy but willing to let the matter rest there. “We’ll keep him on our side. That said, I’m not sure I’d trust him with hunting down his old ally—what if they team back up? The only thing worse than having an immortal God-King working against us from the shadows, is having two.”

“Well, I don’t know how willing he is to work for us, but he seemed dead set on turning against Quang. From what I can gather, Quang left him to die when he escaped to Dàhé, and now Tobias wants revenge for that. Though, as you pointed out, that doesn’t make him trustworthy.”

“…If I can jump in here,” Gamila spoke up, causing the two of them to turn to look at her once more. “I’ve had an idea I’ve wanted to run by you, after this is all over. See, while I was undercover in Olivia’s army, I realized how utterly unprepared we are for any espionage against us. Tell me, do our guards check anything before letting people into the city? How would we know if there weren’t other God-Kings hiding amongst the civilians like I was doing? Hell, there were points where I got into restricted areas just by saying ‘oh, your boss asked me to come earlier, did they not tell you?’ It was so easy, it was terrifying.”

Joseph and Meixiu stared at Gamila with wide eyes, a dawning horror building up within them.

Gamila, seeing their stares, coughed into her hand, blushing lightly.

“My apologies. I got a bit worked up there. But you see my point, right? Our nation—heck, nobody’s nation—is not built to defend against espionage. So I wanted permission to build up something of a spy network of my own, something much more robust than the current piddling of informants I currently have. Something that could actually defend against foreign intelligence in a way we currently can’t.”

“Yes,” Joseph nodded firmly. “Yes, you have permission. Do so post-fucking-haste.”

Gamila smiled at him in relief. “Thank you, Pharaoh. I’ll get to work once this meeting is over with. However, that ties back into our original issue with Tobias. He doesn’t know I exist, right?”

“No,” Meixiu shook her head. “As far as I know, the only people who know you exist are our leaders and us God-Kings. The only people who know you are immortal are even less, just Joseph, Kaiden, and myself. And I don’t think we ever told Kaiden you were a spy, either.”

“Hm, that’s good,” she nodded, looking distinctly pleased for a reason Joseph didn’t really understand. After all, who could be happy with being unknown? “In that case, with my own spy network in place, I could work around Tobias, keeping tabs on him without him ever knowing. That way, even if he betrays us, we’ll know immediately and have people in place to counter him.”

Joseph hummed, scratching his chin. “I see. That could work, though it relies on something we currently don’t have to control someone with a time sensitive mission. That said, if we’re going that route, it’s the only one I could see working for now. I think… no, you both have given me your thoughts. But I’ll ask again; do you two really believe that taking Tobias as a vassal is the best option?”

“Yes,” Meixiu nodded resolutely. “We have the means, strength, and ability to take his lands—to do otherwise would be foolish.”

“I don’t think it’s a good option,” Gamila continued after her. “But I do think it’s the most logical one. Even if we don’t give them the Wustenreich, we can still give them the Song lands. It’s not like we aren’t rewarding them too—we’re just taking our own slice first.”

Joseph closed his eyes, sighing. “Very well, in that case we’ll accept Tobias’ offer of allegiance. That said, Meixiu, I want you to finish cleaning up the Song lands before we turn them over to King Cui. It’s the least we could do.”

“Understood, I’ll personally oversee it starting tomorrow.”

“Take your time,” Joseph scoffed good naturedly. “We aren’t in a rush. Now, is there anything else the two of you wanted to report, before we go start up the celebration?”

The two of them froze, before they glanced at each other, hesitating. That alone set off alarm bells in his mind—Meixiu was if anything, aggressively forthright. She didn’t hesitate.

“…Yes, we do, Pharaoh,” Meixiu finally replied, reaching into the pack she’d left by her feet. “It was something we noticed, when we were looking over the maps we’d taken from Tobias’ army. He’s got more detailed maps of the north, along with places we’ve never been before. And when I put them together with ours, well… it’s best if you just see for yourself.”

With that, she pulled out two worn sheets of linen, placing them on the table in front of him. Looking at them closely, he saw that they were, indeed, regional maps. However, there was something… familiar about them…

Joseph blinked harshly, some long forgotten memory jostling around in his brain. He knew what these maps were showing. He’d seen this map before. But he didn’t… he couldn’t remember where.

“I recognized it immediately, when I saw it for the first time,” Gamila told him softly. “The shape of the land… the river that runs through the desert… heh,” she chuckled mirthlessly. “I’m embarrassed I didn’t realize it sooner. I guess I just never considered it possible, s

She gave him a pained smile.

“That’s Egypt, Pharaoh.”

Joseph’s brain stalled, as far too many facts clicked together in his mind.

That map… she was right. It was Egypt. He could see the Nile, running though the desert, surrounded by floodplains, the way it made that triangular shape as it fed out into the Mediterranean. He could see the Red Sea off to the east, and absently his eyes traced the spot he knew the Suez Canal wasn’t.

This was Egypt. This planet was, unless there was some massive cosmic coincidence, Earth.

His eyes followed the Nile down the map, coming to a rest on where he knew Sun’s Rest would be.

“Ah,” he breathed. “Fuck.”

9,893 God-Kings Remain

Below is a map of the current known borders of the Kingdoms surrounding Joseph.

Some quick notes:

> While the Moonlight Oligarchy looks big on paper, it's much more spread out and less densely populated than the northern Kingdoms along the river. This is true for everything the further south you go. Conversely, the further north you go the more densely populated everything is, giving smaller nations more 'soft power.'

> There are nations further north and south, but for now they're not being shown so as to not overwhelm the page. They'll be introduced in due time.

> The reason all of the Kingdom's borders stick to the river is because once you get far enough away from it, all that's there is sand. While they could arguably claim the sand as within their borders, it does nothing except make their Kingdoms look bigger on a map, which I'm not showing here.