Orphan is ecstatic.  Dark sorceresses are spoken of only in whispers, in her little village, but even the whispers are enough to make it clear that dark sorceresses get to have a lot more fun than peasants.

The seasons turn twice again and Orphan is dressed in the fine clothing of a merchantess whose last crime was to wear clothing that looked to be in Orphan's size.

Her sorcery is still instinctive, unlearned, only a little less crude than it was the day it first ripped forth from her, but she is powerful enough to shred through a fancy academy wizard's shields before he has time to scream.

The seasons turn, and Orphan has slain five barons and two counts.

Orphan wishes she knew how to take and hold their territory, not just their gold; but she has a sense there are unknown and mysterious arrangements you are supposed to make about that, if you don't want Dukes and Grand Dukes and maybe the Bleak Emperor himself arriving where you've conveniently set yourself up in a castle to be killed.

So in place of permanent territory Orphan has her own little bandit-army.  She doesn't really need them to win battles, but they're helpful at the rounding-up and the looting; and also she doesn't have much else on which to spend the loot; and also, how does anyone know you've come up in the world if you have no castle and also no army?

The seasons turn, and Orphan's story ends.

There hasn't been anyone powerful enough to contest Orphan head-to-head in all her experience.  But her sorcery is crude for all its power, and her shields don't extend through every dimension known to arcana.

Orphan runs out of gold one day, and her army rides to the nearest castle.

The baron there, in seeming folly, sends forth his own forces to meet her.

Orphan's first casually-tossed inferno disperses to the carefully prepared counterspell of a wizard, for such are the hazards of having a predictable signature spell.

The wizard doesn't survive for long.  Orphan is more powerful than he, by far.

But by then Orphan's army is already riddled by an archer's salvo, and the baron's elite knights have come to within a dozen paces of her.

And in the midst of those knights, a man who's skipped his dark robes today to clad himself in armor indistinguishable from the surrounding knights; a student of arts that some might call ill-advised, and powers that some might consider unnatural.

The baron's hired necromancer rips out her soul.

And right at that moment, in some totally other world, Opalyn Miller gets run over by a (subtly different) truck.

WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT AHHHHHHHHHHHH

You are in a new healthy body, with a brief lifetime of memories of peasant life followed by magical banditry.  Your first few attempts at accessing them will probably be confusing because your main self has not integrated any of the context.

You have some entirely new sensory percepts, related to magic.

There is a big stone castle in the background, and some pleasant-looking mountains in the distance.

You are in the middle of a fight with too many armored knights to subitize without deliberate counting.

One of them is swinging a mace at you right now.

a MACE --

Opalyn ducks, hard, with her whole body, and trips and lurches as she does so. She's a ball-shaped human scream and she's rolling into the shins of the man with the mace.

Huh.  He was kinda expecting to get ripped apart by the dark sorceress's magic, there.

But if he's getting presented with THAT much of a golden opportunity, then sure, he'll reflexively kick hard at her head with a metal-booted foot.

Opalyn will wake up some time later with a really really bad headache, in a rolling wagon, with chains of bitter dark metal clasped around her wrists.

Ow ow ow ow ow ow.

Her head is throbbing. The wagon lacks any sort of suspension, and she can feel every pebble and rut in the road.

She starts to shift her body into a new position but regrets it immediately as her muscles and nerves shriek with outrage.

Where is she?

She tries to reconstruct what happened, as best she can with her head pounding.

It was her friend's birthday. She was on the way to the bakery to pick up the cupcakes. It was raining. There weren't any good parking places. She pulled into a very sketchy half-spot that was probably not quite far enough from a fire hydrant, grabbed her purse, hopped out of the car, looked to the left, started to dart across the street...

Oh shit.

Opalyn died of stupidity. That's just great.

She passes out again.

When Opalyn wakes up again, she will no longer have a splitting headache, or any other visible sign of battle damage, and be in a fancier wagon with a better suspension.  She will also be chained in chains of more-ornamented bitter dark metal.

The absence of pain is almost palpable, the same way you really appreciate being able to breathe through your nose again after a long illness.

This time, when Opalyn tries to shift into a new position, her body doesn't complain about it, and the stretch actually feels good.

Can she see anything out of this wagon? Is it enclosed or is she basically just in the back of a rustic pick-up truck? What's the weather like? Can she see any other people? Are there guards or other prisoners?

There's a barred window, though it takes a bit of an uncomfortable stretch to see out of it.

Oh, wow, that's a big impressively wealthy-looking village they're randomly passing right now (according to Healthy-Orphan's memories).  And the town is right along a river!  She's looted fancier castles and passed through bigger towns, but her Oldoria memories have never seen fancier peasant dwellings.

(To Opalyn's Earth memories, it looks like a hundred or so crude-looking wooden log cabins.)

Weather:  Sunny.  No guards in immediate eyeshot, but she can hear the clopping of what... don't actually sound quite like horses.

Okay what is UP with having extra memories?

She looks at the village again, switching between the two sets of memories. It's like being at the optometrist. "Which one is clearer? One, or two? One, or two?"

Through Opalyn's memories: rural, poor, dirty, rustic, run-down.
Through Healthy-Orphan's memories: big, impressive, wealthy, investment, looting, grab, want, take

One: POVERTY
Two: WEALTH-GREED

One: DIRTY
Two: IMPRESSIVE

Ahhhhh. Opalyn squeezes her eyes shut and tries to take deep breaths, but her shoulders are shaking a bit.

With some effort, Opalyn shoves the Healthy-Orphan memories into a box and slams the lid shut.

Now she's just Opalyn. It's a dirty, poor town and there's nothing there that she wants.

She starts to cry, a little bit.

Where in the world IS she? What is happening? Did she die and go to a medieval afterlife?

Better than hell, probably?

The crying isn't helping, so she stops.

What do the not-horses sound like?

She opens the Healthy-Orphan memory box a tiny crack, ready to slam it shut again if it starts to make her feel crazy.

Oh, those sound like Hexapodes (her brain offers as a potential key insight), giant bugs that can be harnessed like horses!  They have six feet instead of four feet so they can travel 50% faster.  They're what medium-fancy nobles or very high merchants would use, if they had enough guards to not fear any bandits short of Healthy-Orphan herself.

Giant horse-bugs! Gahhh! Opalyn hugs herself, sort of, though the chains aren't helping.

This is not a standard medieval afterlife! So again, where IS she?

Does this weird extra memory bank have anything to say about that?

The largest region she's ever heard of is "Oldoria"?  Her mind offers no hint as to whether that's a country, a continent, a planet, or maybe even a galaxy for all Orphan knows any such difference.  It's ruled by the Bleak Emperor, a wizard said to be able to take any other wizard in a fight, and Orphan had never heard about any other Emperors.

"Wizard." Hmm. Opalyn wants to double-click on "wizard" but feels a strange sense of apprehension, like she's tried that before and it didn't go well, but that doesn't make any sense, nothing like this has ever happened to her before. She shakes it off.

"Wizard." Okay, memories, what is a wizard?

Somebody with SUPER MAGICAL POWERS who is AWESOME just like Healthy-Orphan herself!  Except wizards know more stuff because they go to SCHOOL, and are also (in her experience) WEAKER AND LESS AWESOME than ORPHAN, who can SET PEOPLE ON FIRE WITHOUT HAVING LEARNED ANYTHING ABOUT HOW.

The Bleak Emperor is said to be much scarier than the sort of wizards that Orphan used to crush, though.  Scary enough to rule Oldoria.  Orphan feels on a deep sense she never thought to think about in words that Orphan herself cannot possibly be THAT scary or awesome.

Healthy-Orphan's memories are adorably enthusiastic about magic! For the first time since -- whatever that was -- happened -- Opalyn feels a sense of warmth and amusement.

Until she gets to the part about setting people on fire! She shoves that part of the memory back in the box to take back out again later when she has more room to process it.

Okay, so: she's in Oldoria, or at least this other set of memories is from Oldoria. Maybe she should double check that. Hey memories, do we appear to be in Oldoria right now? Or are we maybe in some third place, to which neither of us are native?

Healthy-Orphan's memories have never contemplated the thought of anything existing that is not Oldoria?  If the stars in the night sky were also suns, Healthy-Orphan had never been told anything of it.  The village out the window looked unusually wealthy for peasants, but didn't give any sense of weirdness or foreignness.

All right then. Working theory:

- Opalyn died.
- She's in an ?afterlife? or some other plane of existence.
- It's Oldoria.
- She has a set of memories she can access when she has questions about Oldoria.
- It's very confusing to keep the memories fully online all the time, it's better mostly to keep them in the box.

Hey, Healthy-Orphan. What's your deal? Why do you live in my head?

???

She has always been here.

Healthy-Orphan was not much of a metaphysicist.  Or a thinker, really.

Hmmm. Wait a second.

Opalyn got hit by a truck.
This is not Earth.
Healthy-Orphan has always been here.

Opalyn looks down at her body. Is it? Her body?

Well, it's her body NOW.  But her skin seems visibly younger and she's got larger boobs now n' stuff.

Can she... get a look at them? Despite the cuffs? Nobody can see her, right?

Opalyn tries to pry the top of her dress away from her chest a little bit and see what's in there.

Oh. Nice.

The wagon begins to slow to a halt, and almost at the same time, a sharp military voice cries out, demanding someone state their business.

Their business, apparently, is: transporting a magical prisoner-bandit, very powerful but taken alive, to the Bleak Emperor's court.

Oh, crap, they're arriving, and Opalyn hasn't figured anything out yet! She should have spent more time orienting and making some sort of plan, and less time looking down the front of her own dress!

Within a minute or so, some scary-looking individuals in well-kept but incredibly Bleak armor will open up the cage-door of her cage-carriage.

Yeesh, this cannot possibly be good. What do they seem to want her to do? Can she just do that, and not get hurt?

They'd like to tap her lightly on the forehead and thereby render her unconscious.

When she wakes up again, she'll have been dressed in sorta-modest doompunk clothing befitting a possibly-penitent young sorceress.

She will be in a kneeling position in an emperor's throne room, or at any rate some sorta huge-ass doompunk meeting room.

There will be a crowd of fancily-dessed nobles around her, and scarily-dressed mages.

One of the guards she saw before is drawing back his finger from Opalyn's forehead, and stepping back.

Wow. This is impressive. Opalyn is impressed.

Opalyn was not really the church-going type in her life on Earth, but she's toured some of the fancier cathedrals and mosques. She wonders if there is going to be some sort of religious service, and if she is supposed to sing any hymns. She doesn't see pews or a hymnal. Maybe Healthy-Orphan will know the words.

Hey, Healthy-Orphan, do you think we're going to have to sing, and if so, do you know the words?

Healthy-Orphan would be pretty terrified if she was still in here and doing her own sorta-thinking.  Her mind never really tried to figure out what might happen to her if she ever got caught and hauled up before the Bleak Emperor; she'd just decided that wasn't going to happen to her, more or less.

Opalyn will take that as a no, they are not going to have to sing, and so she is not going to need to know the words.

Can Healthy-Orphan's memories help her model what is actually happening here? She's been... 'hauled up?' What for?

She really doesn't know!!  The justice process for captured dark sorceresses was not a well-known topic of discussion in peasant villages!  She knows three songs about this, and in one of them, the dark sorceress gets seduced and poisoned by an incredibly handsome noble-hearted peasant boy who gets a barony for it, and in the second one, the dark sorceress turns aside from her dark ways and marries a count and lives happily ever after as his obedient housewife, and in the third one, the dark sorceress gets captured and shipped off to the Bleak Emperor and that's it, that's the end of her story.

Oh, so... there might be singing after all?

Healthy-Orphan's memories would not ASSIGN THIS A HIGH PROBABILITY!

Also, wait, back up, is Opalyn in trouble for being a DARK SORCERESS?

Does it count for anything that Opalyn is completely innocent of this ludicrous charge?

Er, what?  Healthy-Orphan has totally been running around setting innocent barons on fire and taking their stuff!  Would Opalyn like to review any of those memories?

It does seem sensible to have a quick review of the facts of the case prior the trial, yes.

Healthy-Orphan is an UNSTOPPABLE INVINCIBLE DARK SORCERESS who does not seem to have much contemplated any other options in life besides this meaning that she got to take whatever she wanted!  She killed anyone who got in her way!  Nobody could stop her!  So yeah she's looted a few castles, killed some nobles, wiped out their armies, that sorta thing.

Sometimes she saw a handsome man or pretty boy and then she'd kidnap him and order him to satisfy her sexually!  To be fair, it doesn't seem to have occurred to any of the half-dozen victims that their fate was an unusually gruesome one; though, it's not like Healthy-Orphan wouldn't have hurt them for saying so, but still, they didn't seem unhappy.

So Healthy-Orphan is in fact a terrible dark sorceress who did terrible dark things and is not at all sorry about any of that, and she did it in the body Opalyn now shares with her?

And so if she's about to be put on trial and maybe sentenced to death or something, that will be actually extremely fair and just?

UGH this BLOWS.

It is not the man on the dark throne who speaks.  The man on the throne looks like he's playing an invisible tuba (possibly engrossed in some magical experiment, but it looks like invisible tuba) and not paying much visible attention to ongoing events.

Instead, it is this guy, who stands before the throne, who steps forth to near Opalyn and addresses her.

"So.  A young lady brought before us on charges of unaggrieved noblecide, banditry without a duchal license and without payment of the corresponding tax rate, and practicing dark sorcery without a diploma."

There is some laughter from the surrounding nobles -- the few of them who seem to be paying ongoing court events any attention, anyways.

Why are they laughing. Are they laughing at her? None of this is funny at all.

Should she lie? Seems unlikely to work. But saying "yep, that's all true," does not seem wise either.

Oooh, maybe she can promise to change? She would even mean it.

Is she supposed to speak right now or is she supposed to remain quiet? Can she figure that out?

"Hm.  Too terrified to speak, or wise enough to notice that you weren't asked a question?"

Opalyn takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and looks her accuser in the eye. She tries to project solidity and respect rather than defiance.

"Greetings, your, um," Excellence? Majesty? Healthy-Orphan isn't helping.

"I'm so sorry, I don't know the proper way to address you."

"Anyway, I sincerely apologize for any past misdeeds I may have committed, I would like to make amends, and I would like to live according to the law from now on."

"Oh?  And here I was about to say that the reports of you showed little management potential or ambition, and write you off as someone's future kept creature.  I admire your nerve, if nothing else, to turn over a new leaf instantaneously upon being caught and brought before justice.  There is a brazenness to it that an ordinary judge would not take well in an ordinary criminal, but as for myself, I find it worthy of some little interest."

"I have had a deep and sincere change of heart today."

And also mind.

He smiles, then.  "Of course you have.  And if you were to find yourself free, unchained, and unopposed once more, you'd experience just as instantaneous a change of heart in the other direction."

"Your heart is black enough to be my own protege, even, if you were smarter and had shown yourself far more capable."

"She is a delightful thing, is she not, oh courtiers of our bleak master?  Perhaps not trivial to keep corraled, but it might be fun to try."

Opalyn transmits DELIGHTFUL as hard as she can at the courtiers.

"But they will not take you as more than a plaything, you know, unless there is some prospect of a benefit worth all your trouble."

"So how powerful are, you, exactly?  By reports you've won victory over pissant barons and minor counts."

Hmmm, sounds like being more powerful is an advantage at the moment. What can she say about this?

Quick appeal to Healthy-Orphan for data?

Well, it wasn't at all hard to beat up those innocent nobles!

...also it may be significant that Healthy-Orphan did it entirely using brute force against people who were actually trying, like, visibly intricate spell constructs that Orphan never much cared to investigate at all, since fancy constructs couldn't beat HER.

Okay, she's going to try to strike a haughty tone and see how that plays.

"How powerful am I?" Opalyn scoffs.

"It's true, those opponents were weak. I obliterated them. I don't think anyone's really tested me yet."

"And yet here you are."

Yes, well, that's a fair point.

"I had my change of heart in the middle of the battle. I suddenly realized I wanted to --"

What. What is the thing that will play well here? Doing good? Probably not that exactly.

"-- contribute to the wealth and well-being of my world, and that this wasn't the way."

"Really.  And was this sudden change of heart contemporaneous with encountering your first wizard who was more potent than yourself, in some little baron's personal court?"

(It was contemporaneous with being sucker-punched by a really weird-looking spell that didn't look any more powerful than normal weak wizard magic, but went right past her shields, the last thing Orphan ever saw as herself.)

"He wasn't more powerful than me. He used a kind of magic I hadn't personally encountered before, and caught me by surprise. He was still puny."

She wants to say that his magic didn't cause her change of heart, but she's not actually sure that's true. How did Opalyn's consciousness get here, anyway? Could have been related to the spell.

"Oho?  An interesting claim.  I suppose it has a certain plausibility on the face of things.  Someone brought you down, and it could have been through their cleverness and your stupidity, more than their might and your weakness.  No young hero aspiring to Dukedom has stepped forth to claim your defeat, after all."

"But be it clear, young lady, this is not a place for idle bragging.  You will be tested.  If you claim to have slain counts without much contest, you are claiming at least a duke's power.  That is worth a little trouble from one of us.  But if you lied and so waste the time of the highest nobles of this Bleak court, you will be found out very quickly.  And your future will not be as pleasant as it could have been, for we will not be amused."

Opalyn is not sure if she has the goods to back up her claims --

(we do, we do! shouts Healthy-Orphan from inside the box)

-- but there is no way that backing down now helps this negotiation go better. Because it is a negotiation, Opalyn is pretty sure.

"Then let me be tested."

"A nontrivial administrative problem, when what we are testing is a dark sorceress of unknown power who claims to be able to shred her way through barons and counts.  I hope you see why we can't just ship you off to a mage academy, take off those manacles about your wrists, and have you pour power into a calibration battery.  You might just slaughter all around you, and vanish again."

"More generally, young lady, you've as yet shown no valuable quality about yourself except your magic and your ability to have very swift changes of heart.  And to make good use of your magic, we'd have to take off those manacles suppressing your power -- not just for testing, but on some more regular basis."

"Most criminals are not worth the trouble to keep them under control, if they will slaughter all about themselves and vanish at their first chance.  It is simpler to just kill them."

Ah, yes, that is a difficult logistical problem, now that Opalyn thinks about it.

Her brain is generating ideas -- Putting the prisoner into a transparent, magic-proof box! Asking the prisoner whether she's good and then zapping her if she says no! Getting ten prisoners almost as powerful as she is to vote on whether she's going to do something bad! -- but the ideas are all obviously stupid.

She stays silent.

"Have you any ideas, young lady, about how we could go about solving our problem?  Suppose a carefully supervised test proclaims you as powerful as a duchess -- what then?"

"Most of the ideas that I had immediately are stupid and won't work."

Opalyn takes a moment to make sure she really wants to say this one out loud, but probably the best way to come across as good and cooperative is to be good and cooperative. There's always time to turn on him later.

"It seems to me that the only way to be sure you can control something powerful is to put something even more powerful in charge. And you don't want to be wrong on the weak side. So if you're determined to try to keep something very powerful, you must have an even-more-powerful management infrastructure on top of it. Nothing else that I can think of would reliably work."

"So... if I'm as powerful as a duchess, then I guess you'll need... " -- consulting Healthy-Orphan's memories -- " a grand-duke or grand-duchess to manage me."

"A sensible first answer.  The difficulty is if they must be in your presence at every moment you are unchained, that any benefit is being derived from you --"

An interesting, and reminiscent, way of reasoning and speaking.

"Take off those manacles.  I will test her myself."

...he is immediately obeyed.

Oh right. Opalyn had sort of forgotten about that dude.

Without his rising from the throne, as soon as Opalyn's manacles are removed, a kind of sheer, naked power begins to gather in the air around her.  Orphan's memories will not find that power strange; it is not far from the kind of sheer brute force she used to overwhelm wizards.  But it is more powerful than any wizard she's ever met.

"Resist as far as you can," says the man on that dark throne, who is no longer playing an invisible tuba.

Quick, quick, Healthy-Orphan, how do I "resist"?

It's like arm-wrestling but with magic!  You just push back!  It's like you're arm-wrestling but with a third arm that you totally have memories of using though.

All... right?

Okay, there's the third arm, how does she flex it... okay, there, she found the mental motion. So far so good.

Did he start pushing yet?

Yes.

Then she'll push back! Is it working?

He pushes harder.

This is fun! She pushes back harder too!

"Good enough."  The pushing begins to fade, though not cutting out abruptly; if Opalyn were suddenly left to push unopposed, it wouldn't be healthy for nearby buildings.  "You, girl.  Tell me of your name, your parentage, and where you were born under my rule."

(The courtiers of the chamber are now watching this interaction a lot more closely; to the point of their collective interest being visible, if anyone is paying attention to them.)

Hmm. It seems like a bad idea to say, "Opalyn Miller, born in Moscow, Indiana, to a pair of high school teachers." Opalyn's goal right now is to come out of this negotiation intact, with some kind of reasonable local future in front of her, and some resources and bargaining power she can parlay into better circumstances later. Explaining that she died in a different universe this morning seems like it only makes the entire negotiation far more complicated and more likely to leave her disempowered, imprisoned, or more fundamentally dead than she currently is.

"My name is Healthy-Orphan, and as you can tell from my name I am of uncertain and unimportant parentage. I was born in a tiny town a few days' ride west of where I was arrested."

"Tell me what you do know of your mother, and your father, and name me the village and barony of your birth."

Little help, Healthy-Orphan?

She was told (once old enough for memory) that her mother was named Su'an, she has never been told anything at all about her father, and she was of Anton's Village that was of the dominion of Baron Bluecore before Orphan killed him.  (Quite unpleasantly, there was a lot of genuinely personal animosity there about Baron Bluecore's marginal tax rates on villages, namely their being higher than zero.)

Opalyn will dutifully relay this information.

"Mm.  And this Su'an -- was she said to be pretty?  Did she always stay within her village, or travel?"

"Vizier, bring forth the records of my entourage and its travel from fifteen to twenty years ago.  At once."

(There is an audible, if quiet, intake of many breaths.)

"... Father?"

Opalyn tells herself that she's not feeling any particular emotional impact from this relevation; this man is not her father in any sense of the word. No sense in wasting the moment, though.

(Is Healthy-Orphan feeling anything?)

"Perhaps, and then again, perhaps not.  I do not have many acknowledged children at all -- my sorcery being a little too strong for my flesh.  No daughters that I knew.  Not a one of my sons inherited even a fraction of my power.  I knew not my own mother in this world.  I have never seen how a womanly relative of mine should look."

"I could be your father of the blood.  Or your grandfather.  Or we might not be related at all.  If this Su'an traveled, it might be impossible to ever say."

"I shall see what my records have to say of the matter."

(Healthy-Orphan doesn't have much in the way of relevant memories of emotions about this situation!  She always took being an orphan for granted, and never thought that things should be otherwise.)

Opalyn is inferring that magical power is hereditary -- do Healthy-Orphan's memories agree?

Not particularly!  Being a noble is not hereditary!  Wizards aren't said to be born from wizards!

Then why in the world does the Emperor suddenly suspect that Healthy-Orphan is his daughter or granddaughter? If it's not the magical power, then what is it?

Opalyn can't think of a way to ask this that doesn't seem impertinent under the circumstances, and remains quiet.

Some time passes.  The Bleak Emperor seems perfectly content to wait as long as it might take, for records to be brought forth, and does not speak if he is not spoken to, nor will anyone else dare.

Opalyn wishes she had a book.

She does not have a book.

If this were a book, what would happen next?

She'd be the Emperor's daughter, of course. No reason to bring up that possibility unless it's going to be true.

Will she move into a palace? Will she get a pony?

Oh crap. She might get a hexapode. She doesn't want a hexapode. Shudder.

There's nothing wrong with hexapodes!  They are a mark of wealth and status and Orphan would've totally had one if a dark sorceress didn't have faster ways of flinging herself around than that.

It better not be catapults.

You don't need a catapult to fling yourself wildly into the air when you are an untrained sorceress!

Before very long, somebody comes rushing back with a folder in hand.

He peruses the folder without much visible emotion.

Then he snaps it shut.

"Plausible.  Not definite.  To inherit some portion of power happens rarely, but not never.  It is the sort of thing that could happen to one easily enough, after a few centuries.  Or also the sort of coincidence that might happen, after a few centuries."

"I find that I have little taste for playing the part of your father, little one, especially when matters are not certain.  Do not expect much of me.  But on the basis of possibility and probability I appoint you now a Princess of this court, and we shall see what becomes of you in a few decades, perhaps."

"For the most part I mean to leave the rest in care of my Vizier."

Well, that's a weird and unexpected outcome.

It's great if she gets to be a Princess, presumably. That's probably about the best possible outcome she could have hoped for.

But getting rejected kind of sucks, even by a person she never heard of until an hour ago. It's wild how fast daddy issues can spring up. It was very Dad energy that the only interaction they've had so far was magical arm wrestling.

She'll show none of that. "I understand, thank you," she says, and she bows a little, because it seems to be the done thing.

"I should... show concern, should I not, that you have been brought to all this so suddenly?  You may go, and rest and be taken care of, unless it is your own wish to stay here and observe this court to which you are come."

Awww. That's really sweet, actually.

"Thank you kindly for the choice. If it is left to me, I will go and rest and make myself more presentable before I return to this court."

She's not particularly interested in the court, but there's no sense in insulting them.

This guy seems as imperturbable as before!  No outward sign of visible distress!  Except for the part where he is suddenly behaving more respectfully and less dismissively toward Opalyn.

"I will see you to your quarters then, Princess.  Would you follow me?"

"Certainly."

Opalyn totally doesn't smirk at his change in attitude.

She is conducted through a maze of twisty passages, which, if not all alike, are sufficiently similar to be disorienting.

"What sort of quarters should I be seeking, for you?"

Opalyn usually demurs at this point, not wanting to be a demanding guest. She rarely sleeps well away from home so there's no point in being fussy about it.

This is different: this is home, apparently, and she's a newly appointed Princess. She might as well ask for what she really wants.

"I like a relatively firm bed, pillows that are also firm but not too thick, a cold room, and a heavy blanket. The room should be completely dark and silent when I am trying to sleep. I'd appreciate light to read by and a selection of books, both fiction and non-fiction. I like a hot bath before I sleep and a hot shower in the morning. When I wake up, I want a hot, stimulating tea to drink."

She peers at the Vizier to see if this seems to be extremely extravagant and demanding or if she should press on and ask for even more. She can't tell what counts as an over-the-top luxury in this place.

"I expect we can provide that without too much trouble."

"If you were able to have that for yourself while living the life of an itinerant bandit, you may have far more logistical talent than I previously imagined."

"You can do a lot with magic," Opalyn theorizes.

"Apparently!  I wouldn't have thought it!"

Opalyn's quarters look like bedrooms in a fantasy-magical-pseudo-medieval setting!  If you are very interested in magitech bedrooms then it's sorta like this, but substantially lower magitech.  We're not writing this again.

Opalyn is satisfied with her quarters, and grateful to get on with the more interesting parts of the story!

"Based on your previous criminal record, I'll be assigning you servants and subordinates who shouldn't be too picky about matters of sexual consent.  Not judging you, we're all evil here.  This will be your primary maid."

"My lady."

Opalyn threw herself on the mercy of the court and promised to reform, and now they're enabling the sexual abuse of powerless workers?

This is a very strange world.

Opalyn can reform it later, maybe. Right now she'll just NOT abuse her new maid. BE the change you want to see in your new world, as they say.

"Pleased to meet you."

"My pleasure is irrelevant."

"If you're into actively nonconsenting victims, I can arrange those but they require some special administrative treatment within our system."

"That will not be necessary at this time, thank you."

"I'll have some bodyguards scrounged up for you as quickly as possible.  Meanwhile it'll be some of my personal retinue, which, from your perspective, you can trust around as much as any bodyguards I'd assign.  Do not take sexual advantage of them, my people are allowed to develop their own complex relationship structures and I garden them carefully."

Opalyn appreciates that the Vizier is being explicit, mostly? But this continuing emphasis on whom exactly she is and is not allowed to sexually violate is troubling, both about Healthy-Orphan's history as well as about this culture in general!

Opalyn will try to change the subject.

"Can you direct me to the castle library?"

"At your will."

"And we shall follow."

Oh, fantastic, a culture of book-lovers!

"What kinds of books do you prefer to read, Pilara?"

Stories about maids who get treated much more harshly than this mistress is likely to actually treat her, stories of more interesting historical periods than this one, books of math puzzles that are just barely too difficult for her to solve and make her feel maximally stupid.

"Romance novels, historical novels, sometimes some more educational stuff."

Saying 'math' in front of the Lady might possibly make the Lady herself feel stupid, as is not at all the mission, here.

"Wonderful! Let's find you some of those."

And Opalyn leads her retinue to the library -- or rather, she tries to, until she realizes she doesn't know the way, and then falls in behind the bodyguards.

The library itself is completely satisfactory! Opalyn finds a book called The First 100 Things to Know about Sorcery and borrows it.

After finding that book, Opalyn realizes she's starving. She hasn't eaten since... before leaving to pick up cupcakes for her friend's birthday party, in an entirely different universe!

"How does food work around here? Can something be brought to my rooms?"

"You mean... bring the food to your rooms, am I correct?  We can bring all kinds of things to your rooms, I just need to know what, exactly."

"Yes, food! To eat!" Opalyn is not sure what exactly the disconnect was, there.

"Would it be more typical to eat in company with the court? I'd rather eat alone but I don't want to give offense."

She could have meant to bring a cook to her room, or baking tools!  Pilara has by now learned to notice very carefully what mistresses do and don't say in their requests.

"I have no idea what's typical for Princesses, besides doing whatever they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want.  I don't think anything intrigue-like will happen if the Court realizes you're eating alone."

"One of us should be present, at least, until you are more learned in the sorcerous arts of self-defense."

"Self-defense against... my dinner? Is my dinner likely to attack me?"

Opalyn needs to look more closely at the table of contents of her new book to see if "Dinner Self-Defense" is one of the first hundred things, or if she needs to look for a sequel on the next library visit.

"Assassins, would be the more primary concern."

"Also we could get you the kind of dinner that fights back, if you're into that."

Pilara is so accommodating, in such worrying ways!

"How frequent are assassinations around here?"

"Maybe once every three days?  But those under our protection, rather less often."

That's a lot of assassinations!

"One person dies to assassins every three days? Out of how many people, covering what territory?"

Let's establish some base rates!

"I had meant at the Court of Oldoria itself -- not only assassinations within this very palace, to be clear, but noteworthy political assassinations of those who attend here, even if it was in the dining hall of their home mansion or a courtesan's bed... I admit, I don't know how many people that is, only that I've heard of perhaps ten assassinations deemed noteworthy in the last thirty days or so..."

Pilara has been doing some quick mathematical guesswork in her head.  "I'd guess that's from around three thousand notables in positions worth targeting, some of which experience much faster turnover than others."

That is indeed an alarming level of assassination! Ten people out of three thousand in the last month... that's a 4% chance of being assassinated per annum!

"Sounds like I better learn some self-defense very soon, and I'm glad to have competent bodyguards!"

Opalyn is somewhat less afraid of death than she was this morning. Dying was a little upsetting at first, but her day is actually going pretty well overall. Even so, she'd rather not make a regular practice of it.

"All right, so... Pilara, you'll take care of ordering some food that doesn't fight back?"

"And while I wait... can anyone suggest a better way to immediately learn self defense that's better than reading my basic book of sorcery?"

"I would know who to send you for training if you were an aspiring young guard or perhaps hero, of no more power than a typical countess... I think for you, it is a matter for referring you to the Vizier, who finds you a defense trainer."

"Or I can demonstrate typical attacks at a low power level, somebody else puts up defenses, you watch," adds another one.  "But that's not going to get you to the point of holding your own against serious assassins."

"It's a starting point! I would love to watch you magically attack each other. Shall we go back to my quarters and try that?"

And she'll attempt to lead the way again, with somewhat more success at first... but these twisty passages sure are twisty. She'll let the bodyguards lead again after all.

Then she'll arrive at her quarters soon enough, and the Bleak Guards can demonstrate some low-power attacks and defenses on each other, pending the arrival of food that Pilara has gone off to see ordered.  Those spells are weirder than anything Healthy-Orphan remembers, and at least one or two would've gone right past any shields Healthy-Orphan would have had up --

-- still incredibly weak by Orphan's standards, though.

Can Opalyn make any of the same weird kinds of magical energy they can? Maybe pointing in a different direction, in case she succeeds but at too much intensity?

They would greatly appreciate it if Opalyn used only amounts of energy in the same amounts that they are using themselves!

Opalyn can put out energies that weak with a little effort.  She will not blow up anything accidentally; Orphan did understand the concept of "using less power than is required to blow a hole completely through somebody's castle because that might break valuable loot".

The weird-energy part isn't a problem, at least not for Opalyn; some of the more complicated weaves, however, may take time to learn.

And then, while they are still waiting for food, this guy will walk in.

"Verify my identity and then wait outside," he commands the Vizier's soldiers.  "And say nothing to anyone, even the Vizier, regarding my presence."

...they obey at once; and if there is any hesitation in them or surprise, it is not visible upon those faceless suits of mage-armor.

"Hello! I'm surprised to see you! I mostly had the impression that you were going to ignore me for a long time. Also I've ordered food and it might come soon but I guess the guards will keep them from coming in with it."

Opalyn is babbling.

She's nervous, she belatedly realizes.

She'll just abruptly shut up then.

He speaks softly, not quickly, once the guards are gone.  One might even call it an equivalent of hesitancy, perhaps, in a soul that has long since learned never to show hesitancy.  "Are you familiar with the notion that powerful people will very carefully control appearances, and that all they do in public conduces toward their chosen ends?"

Opalyn's mind is racing.

So... he was lying, when he said he didn't want to interact with her. To hide something from someone, or maybe just to play his cards close to his chest?

So... he does want to interact with her?

So... she woke up this morning as a very normal citizen of no particular distinction in a democratic republic and before the day is out she's hanging out with the Emperor of -- somewhere -- and...

Okay, pull it together, Opalyn, he asked you a question.

"Mmmmhmmmm? Um, yes?"

"Had I showed less interest in you, I would have marked you as a safer, less dangerous victim."

"Had I showed more interest, you would have been more of a target for assassins."

"I implied that you would change nothing, save on a scale of decades.  This will reassure the great majority of courtiers who are not intelligent enough to think through why I might want to imply that, why I would choose and speak exactly those words.  They will have heard only that you do not seem to be a short-term threat to whatever little things they currently have.  They will think that you do not portend uncomfortable changes so close in time as to feel real."

"Those are the intended consequences of my words, as I chose them."

Awww, he's being protective. That's sweet!

"Thank you for your consideration. I know nothing of the threats here and I am grateful that you have taken steps to keep me safe."

"Do you think I might change something here, on any time scale?"

"Do you want to?"

"I don't know! Do things around here need changing? I don't like to change things just for the sake of change, I like to change things for the better."

"It would be quite surprising if I had accidentally crafted an Empire that was perfect according to your own standards.  It is not even perfect according to mine."

"All right, so we can provisionally assume that there's something that could be improved."

"The next questions are: Who prefers the system the way it is, and do I have the right to change it against their will? What forces are maintaining the system the way it currently is? And do I have any of the skills or qualities that it would take to effect a positive change without causing worse problems downstream?"

"I do not, on one moment's reflection, know of a better way for you to find answers to those questions, than by being a Princess for a time.  I admit, I did not do it for that reason."

"Why did you do it, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Not, I think, because I feel for you -- what I imagine an ordinary and mortal father, would feel for a daughter.  I think I should be clear on that, with you.  I have built some grand political edifices based on lies, in my time, but I have generally come to regret the more -- personal, emotional -- edifices, that turned out to be founded on a lie."

"I have not watched you grow since you were a child.  I'm not sure I have it in me to love a daughter even if I did."

"But also I seem to have made choices aimed at your welfare.  Clearly I have ended up feeling at least some -- interest."

This is a little bit hard to parse. He seems to be saying that he did it for sentimental reasons when he figured out he'd fathered a child, but that Opalyn shouldn't expect too much Dad stuff out of him other than the title of Princess?

"I have the illusion of understanding."

"I would guess that what I feel for you is perhaps more -- what I might feel for a distant cousin.  Or a villager born of the same village into which I was born, if I met someone like that for the first time after some centuries.  I did learn of some sons of my body, after they were grown, but they were powerless and from the first moments of meeting them it was evident they were not suited to power.  I feel less for you than a father should for a daughter; more for you, I think, than I felt for my sons."

"I do know, because it is obvious, that there is a choice between protecting you from harm, and seeing what becomes of you when you grow, for you will not grow here if protected.  Even normal fathers must be faced with that choice.  And by making you a Princess I have already chosen the latter; that is what I seem to feel for my found tribemate, a desire to see what becomes of them when they are grown."

"I am confused. How does making me a Princess result in seeing what becomes of me when I grow? I had the impression that you were protecting me."

He smiles.  Briefly.

"Sending you off to live the life of a wealthy noblewoman far from the capital would be protecting you -- at least for a time, and if you didn't choose to return with lightning and fire."

"Making you a Princess, causing the courtiers here to take interest in you?  Making it seem to them like I would be annoyed by your outright death, but not much put out by your troubles short of that?  That is throwing you into an adventure, Princess Orphan."

Oh, great. Politics. Not Opalyn's strong suit.

The Emperor knows how to say one thing in court while he does another in private. Opalyn is a simpler creature.

"Are lightning and fire options at court?"

"Try it and see, young lady.  I won't stop you.  Although if you can and do use lightning in quantities they've only ever seen from me, they're liable to suspect you of possibly bringing about short-term political change."

"About that... what did you find, when you tested me?"

"I suspect -- though do not ask -- that you were not straining to hold me off, any more than I was straining to press you.  Had we gone much beyond that level in public, the more magically sensitive sort of noble would have started to be suspicious about how powerful you were, exactly."

"I choose not to test you exactly, and not to ask, and not to answer.  Ignorance can be undone more easily than knowledge."

"How do you suggest I get better at using these powers? I know very little about them."

Should Opalyn explain why she knows so little about them? Maybe not. Should she be defending the Emperor's ignorance on this point also?

"Well, you could do what I did when I was your age.  Wait for people to attack you or otherwise make you angry, then kill them.  It works given enough practice."  He gestures at Opalyn's library book.  "There were fewer books about, when I was a lad.  It must have been some number of decades before study started to seem to me like a more interesting use of an hour than crushing men or fucking women, who'd offended my pride."

"The battle that immediately preceded my arrest did not go well for me and I would like to prevent that sort of thing from happening again."

In the background, Opalyn is still wondering if she should bring up her very strange day. Why has the Emperor not noticed that she doesn't talk like an untutored bandit? That she wants to read library books, and thinks about systems theory before overturning governments?

Who says he has or hasn't noticed?  From his silence may be deduced only any number of possible reasons for choosing not to speak.

"Extremely understandable.  I am trying to figure out if I'm supposed to just assign you a fighting tutor whom I know to be competent, or leave you to flounder your way to your own.  I have never been not-actually-a-father to a young lady before, and have no idea where the boundary lies between offering her a helping hand and strangling her potential."

"Don't ask me, I've never been not-actually-a-father to a young lady before either!"

"I have been a mentor, and I think assigning me a fighting tutor would probably not cause magical crib death."

"From your saying that, I can only deduce that it's what you've decided I should hear.  Unless you really are a lot more naive than that, and are honestly blurting out whichever apparent truths cross your mind.  I admit this seems like quite the running possibility."

"I'll give it a try.  Should I be looking for a fighting tutor who's hot as well as competent?  I think fathers are theoretically supposed to object to this sort of thing when it comes to their daughters, but I feel nothing of the sort and don't even have much sympathy for why they would."

"Sure, why not?" That does actually solve another problem Opalyn wasn't going to ask her DAD about.

"You know, it was somehow very annoying when my few acknowledged sons wanted all of their tutors and servants to be beautiful women, even though this was objectively a perfectly reasonable thing for them to want.  Somehow it is not annoying when it is you.  In retrospect, I think I must not have thought they deserved to have nice things."

Now who's just blurting things out?

Unless... he's trying to win her over, for some reason? Why in the world would he need to do that, he's the Emperor!

"To be clear, the hotness of my tutor is much less important to me than their competence, and I would be willing to do without the hotness entirely!"

"Even if that's only a pose, it's pleasant that you know what to pretend in order to appear competent.  So few people do, really."

"The literal most competent magical fighter I can think of, who teaches at all, has more grey in his beard than I, though he still has some muscle on his bone; Jaylin, Duke of the Black March.  Duke Cornilt, as is the best teacher I can think of who's also a hot young man... is probably not significantly worse of a teacher, at your starting point.  But to demand more of one thing is almost always to receive less of another."

Opalyn should probably not explain that she's much older than she looks and that older men can be pretty hot actually!

"I couldn't agree more. As I said, competence is the most important thing, so I would prefer the Duke of the Black March, if he's available."

What else should she ask for, while she has the Emperor all to herself? Surely he'll need to attend to something else soon.

"Is there anyone here at court that I should consider trusting? Or anyone to be sure not to trust?"

"That really seems like the sort of question it'd be strangling your potential to answer.  Figuring out who to trust is arguably the sort of thing you shouldn't learn until after you've figured out the fire and lightning parts of rulership, and had your heart broken by a dozen hot people."

Ahh, but Opalyn has had her heart broken by a dozen hot people, on another world. It's not the general mechanism of trust she wants to understand better, though there's probably work to do there, it's more the particulars of this court that she was asking about. Still, she can let this go. She'll get better gossip from people who are in the thick of it than the one who rides above it all.

"Fair enough, and thank you anyway."

He still doesn't seem to be leaving! Opalyn wants to milk this precious access to the Emperor for all that it's worth. Unfortunately, she didn't have a pre-cached list of Emperor Questions, so she'll just keep blurting out whatever else she can think of, quickly before he loses interest.

"Is there any magic that helps me be strong and healthy and energetic without needing to sleep very much?"

"None comes to mind that I'd recommend using.  If you're afraid of the world going out of control while you sleep, well, it also goes out of control any time you're not watching any particular part of it, take it from me.  Ultimately the only solution to that is to have competent and trustworthy subordinates, which is to say that no solution exists."

"I think I should perhaps go, now, before you start to imagine that I can be trusted.  It doesn't seem like it could possibly be good for a young lady to trust in her father."  He inclines his head courteously to her, and rises.

Sheesh, the Bleak Emperor certainly is Bleak!

"Thank you for coming!" she spits out awkwardly. "Uh, wait, will I see you again anytime soon?"

"What is soonness?  I wouldn't trust to it."

He bleakly walks away.

Pilara has no idea why she was previously barred from entering with the meal she retrieved for her new mistress.  To say that Pilara doesn't know and doesn't care wouldn't be quite right.  Pilara does not at this point feel any deep care for her mistress's potential woes, but actively prefers that Pilara's own next phase of life be more interesting.  So, yes, Pilara is privately hoping that her Lady has already been caught up in some dreadful entangling intrigue.

Outwardly, Pilara will be seen to enter shortly after the last visitor departs, expressionless as usual, escorting a maid bearing a fancy but quickly-preparable palace meal suitable for a hurried Princess.

Wonderful! Opalyn is famished.

She'll pick up the basic book on sorcery and page through it while she eats with the other hand. She realizes that this is probably not how Princesses are supposed to eat, but she's in the privacy of her quarters, and she's just going to go for it. 'Begin as you mean to go on,' as they say, and Opalyn doesn't want to set a precedent that she has excellent manners even when she's in private.

What sorts of things does she learn from the book?

Oldoria has all sorts of wonderful magic, including several more esoteric sorts of which Healthy-Orphan had no inkling, none of which will enable Opalyn to short-circuit the plot!  You can't foretell the future.  You can't read minds.  You can't resurrect the dead, at least not if they've been dead for any noticeable period of time.  You can't contact arbitrary intelligent aliens.  Nobody here has made spells act as powerful computers.

Aside from that, you can set practically anything on fire that you prefer to be on fire!

Okay, so is this sort of an elemental magic situation? There's fire and lightning, we know that much, are there also... ground and flying and water and fighting and ghost? For example?

You know what?  Sure.  So long as "ghost" doesn't let you start copying and pasting people Hansonian-ems style.  Oldoria is not actually familiar with Pokemon terminology.

So wait, seriously? Is ghost super-effective against psychic and other ghost, and weak to dark? Really? Is this what we're doing?

Suuuure.  As long as Opalyn understands that Oldoria may need to quickly look up all this shit if it ends up relevant to the plot in any way.

Super valid! Opalyn herself won't know the difference but it's probably important to get it right for other reasons!

Oh, if Opalyn herself doesn't know the difference, Oldoria will absolutely bluff its way through this to the horror of anyone who actually knows better.

That works!

One more quick question though, are there also little guys hiding in the bushes that Opalyn needs to catch, or is Opalyn herself doing the magic? It's Opalyn herself, right?

There are elementally-aligned spirit thingies that some people subdue and put into tiny containers, but none of them are as smart as a human or as powerful as a great human sorcerer.

Okayyy, that raises further questions. Like, can Opalyn do any of the types of magic or only certain ones? Does she need to catch any of the spirit thingies to unlock different types of magic? Is there... evolution? Does it happen to the spirit thingies or to Opalyn?

Opalyn feels somewhat sheepish to press Oldoria her library book on all of these points.

Sure, let's say you can do horrible sacrificial rituals in order to turn your captured spirits into more powerful and grotesque abominations!  But if there's any way to do that to a person it sure is not hinted at in this library book!

People can learn magical elements just like they can learn to play musical instruments; which is to say, you can in principle learn to play the tuba, but maybe you will not want to, because it is a tuba.

Wait, is THAT what the Emperor was doing when Opalyn first arrived at court? Practicing a particular element of magic?

Plausibly!  The Bleak Emperor is believed to have lived for centuries.  Imaginably, if you lived long enough, there would come a point in your life when you started learning to play the tuba.  Maybe this has something to do with why he's called the Bleak Emperor.

Okay! This is all starting to add up. Here's what Opalyn thinks she knows:

• There are around a dozen and a half types of magic;
• You can learn these by practicing them;
• The Bleak Emperor has probably learned most or all of them by now, even the relatively useless and dull ones;
• There are also little spirit thingies but they sound optional.

Is all of that correct so far?

Yep, that is totally what was in the book this whole time!

(Of course, the book could be lying.)

All right. So, by cross referencing between the book and Healthy-Orphan's memories, can Opalyn figure out which types of magic she already knows and which ones are totally mysterious? And can she also maybe figure out what happened in the battle when Opalyn ended up in Oldoria?

Orphan primarily lived her life according to the following important truth:  It doesn't actually matter what type your magic is, most things will break if you hit them with 99999 damage.

She mainly used what a book would call 'fire', 'force', and 'dark'.  They were simple.

...it looks like somebody whapped Orphan with a 'ghost' attack, which of course goes right through a 'force' shield and rips out your soul.

99999 damage sounds like a lot! That doesn't even need to be super effective to be super effective!

However it does seems as though Opalyn is going to need to learn some defense, or her soul will also end up shredded.

Good thing the Bleak Emperor set up some magical defense tutoring for her!

What else does the book have to say about how the types of magic relate to each other?

Hmmm. This will take further study to completely internalize.

Maybe the reason she can't actually understand that diagram is that she is exhausted. This has been the weirdest day of Opalyn's life and also it feels like it's been about forty hours long. She should find out how long days are on this planet... after she gets some sleep.

Is there anything like a toothbrush around here? Or something more comfortable to wear to sleep?

More comfortable than a toothbrush?  Absolutely!  They haven't had time to fit any clothes to her; but maids will be hastily loading a closet the size of a medium Earth house with generic evil sorceress clothing, of the sort that you just wrap yourself in instead of it being fitted.

Great. Then Opalyn will change into something comfy and brush her teeth.

This culture does not have a 'toothbrush' preloaded if she wants to stick something like that in her mouth, rather than wearing something approximately that size.  But Orphan has always been extremely healthy; magic-users usually are.  Maybe there aren't any bacteria inside her mouth in the first place?

Don't the bacteria... do something? Maybe that's gut bacteria, maybe the mouth ones are optional. Whatever. Opalyn doesn't care. Bed.

As she presently isn't shielded against at least six different kinds of weird magic even while awake, Opalyn will need to be watched while she sleeps.  However, the Vizier has efficiently located some bodyguards for her, of the sort who are unlikely to whine about sexual consent if Opalyn gets grabby!

So wait... they need to be in the room... watching her... while she sleeps? Do they need to look like that while they watch her?

Could they maybe wear bags over their heads?

No, that wouldn't help, then they'd be EVEN HOTTER in there.

This is so unreasonable!

But Opalyn is very tired, and eventually succumbs to sleep.