The Chessiad

Mrs. Peacock says excuse me, but it is rather rude to have a conversation in front of somebody as if they are not there.

The White King says ...is it? We did that all the time on the Chess Board.

The Kingsknight says well those were cramped conditions.

The White King says, well, I'm sorry. His voice sounds like he is trying to figure out how to say I'm sorry in a commanding and authoritative tone and not succeeding.

Mrs. Peacock says that's quite all right. Might I inquire as to exactly what you are talking about? It sounds like you're in the middle of a rather important Chess game?

The White King says we are. Are you on White's or Black's side of your Cluedo game?

Mrs. Peacock blinks.

Kingsknight says that's uh, not really how Cluedo works.

Mrs. Peacock says what is Cluedo?

Kingsknight says it's the board game you're from.

Mrs. Peacock says oh I've never had much of a head for games. What exactly do you mean by that?

Kingsknight says have you noticed that instead of a human being you are actually a blue pawn?

Mrs. Peacock looks down at herself before noticing she does not have a neck. She says goodness. That puts some of the odd events of today in perspective!

Kingsknight says yeah, you're a game piece. The goal of your game is to figure out who killed Boddy Black but based on how things have been going over on the Chessboard that's probably been shot to hell for you.

Mrs. Peacock says oh. What happens when we figure it out?

Kingsknight says then the game's over and whoever figured it out is the winner.

Mrs. Peacock says ......well what happens when you win?

Well, says Leftie.

Um, says Addie, I haven't totally been following everything that's going on but it seems like the Chess game is in danger from a lot more different things than just Scarlet!

Sevensknight says we don't do something the Dragon probably kills everyone in the fucking mansion. How much longer do we think the truce can hold?

Addie says is the truce even still holding? We haven't checked up on the board in a while.

Sevensknight says yeah, someone should head over to the Billiard Room to see what's going on.

(Addie says wait, how can we see the Chess board from the Billiard Room again?

Leftie says because the Mansion is recursively inside itself. It's sitting on the Billiard Table next to the Chess Board, but the Billiard Table is in a room inside of the Mansion.

Addie says so...... what's outside of the Mansion?

Leftie says the Billiard Table is!

Addie says ........okay.)

Leftie says they'll want to know what's going on out here too. And we should make sure Scarlet doesn't cause any more trouble.

Addie says Scarlet seems okay? It seems like she was just confused before.

Leftie says you're so sweet~ but you have to be careful. You never know what's going on in somebody's head!

Pawn Seven says honestly I got the same impression - I bet she'll want to help us about the Dragon. Honestly I think we should probably go after the Dragon first thing, did you hear it talking? It wants to eat everybody. And we have no idea where it is now.

Leftie says we don't want the truce to disintegrate. Letting people know we're making progress might prevent things from devolving too far before we get back for sure.

Professor Plum says Mustard, old friend, are you all right?

Mustard says we're not old friends. We didn't exist before today.

Plum says I still care about you, chum. What say we try and figure out how to get you back to your regular size?

Mustard says it doesn't matter.

Pewter makes a sad puppy sort of noise and tries to indicate bodily that Mustard is free to ride around on her back some more.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK oh that was quick.

Some time ago...

Now, it remains so stuffed.

In the interior of the Risk 2210 AD box, a fierce global conflict is underway.

Green bastards absolutely infested this place with mines, the Red platoon leader says. Somebody's gotta go in and clear them out.

The White King says who or what is the story with this blue pawn is doing here. That sentence kind of got away from him but you know what he means.

Kingsknight says it looks like, uh, she looks like a Cluedo piece.

The White King says what's Cluedo.

Kingsknight says Cluedo is another board game, like Chess is a board game. It takes place in a mansion. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of board games that all exist recursively inside each other. Our Chess game is just one of them. Every piece or faction in every board game is trying to win their own game, the way you and I are trying to win Chess, theoretically according to their game's rules. But when pieces start cheating, like Black's been doing, and like it looks like the Cluedo pawns are starting to do at Cluedo, everything goes to hell.

The White King says so what do we--

The White King stops.

The White King says so the objective is the same, we're still trying to Checkmate the Black King. The board just got a lot bigger.

Kingsknight says yes and no. Now that Black's started cheating as much as they are there's nothing stopping them from cheating their way out of Checkmate. The rules are supposed to be enforced by mutual honor and respect and each side wanting the other side to play fair. But that's pretty much been shot to hell. Uh, hell is nothing, it's a figure of speech. Anyway if we're going to achieve victory for White we need some way to enforce Checkmate other than mutual respect for the Rules, because Black sure as hell doesn't respect the Rules any more.

Where the heck'd this printer come from.....

Huh, somebody is printing out a list of alternate ways to play chess. She skims the list. Lots of them need alternate boards or pieces... but some are just alternative rules you can play with a standard chess set.

The Bishop sidles over and reads over her shoulder. Whatcha lookin at it asks. Scarlet shows it.

Huh, it says. Oh, cannibal chess looks interesting, anyone could become any other piece. I could be a queen.........

Scarlet says I wonder if we could set up a chess game that worked by some of these alternate rules...... how did you guys determine what rules your game worked by?

The Bishop says iono, everyone just kinda knew. And you could kinda do whatever you wanted anyway, if you broke the rules....... except when I was captured I did kinda go off the board on my own, I didn't have to walk off.

Scarlet says so to some extent the rules are like, cosmically enforced, but you could break some of them too?

The Bishop thinks about this.

It says yeah, in theory I think any of us could walk around on the board the way we walk around off of it, if we thought to do it? And if we were brave enough. And pick each other up and jump on top of each other and so on. But then there are special chess things, like capturing - and castling, I saw our King castle - that we could do because we were on a chess board....... and a while back the White Rook tried to capture one of us when we were all meeting up in the mansion, and it didn't work.

Scarlet says so maybe the rules of the board you're on can add capabilities while you're standing on them, or while you're part of the game, but can't take capabilities away except by mutual agreement to abide by the rules...

The Bishop says maybe?

....Well, as long as the study is safe now....

Hmm. Solitaire's a no go, but:

Well that didn't work. Time for plan B.

As in the Billiard Room, none of the furniture will budge! But The Rev. Mr. Green has a rope, a laptop, and an alternative abstract representation of his location within the mansion.

He picks up the laptop,

transitions from slow-roasted photograph to 2D game board location,

and puts the laptop back down on top of the secret passage. By occupying the space, he prevents any other pieces or entities from occupying it simultaneously, and thus prevents the Dragon from following him. Or at least, that's the hope!

Good idea!

Well, maybe. Mr. Green is NOT VERY GOOD WITH TECHNOLOGY. He hits some buttons almost at random in an attempt to noodle his way onto his favorite email client.

Failing spectacularly, he instead accidentally hits CONTROL P. In the Billiard Room, the other door of the long-forgotten BOARD GAME CUPBOARD is pushed open by the emergence from a printer of a lengthy printout of a Wikipedia article.

With no knowledge of this, he continues to fuck around and eventually succeeds in attempting to load a new web page.

But it's no use! The laptop doesn't have a working internet connection after all. The wikipedia page must have been loaded up previously, when the laptop was connected to the internet, and then simply left there with no one attempting to navigate away once the connection was interrupted.

The unity council votes.

The Green Messenger returns to the foot of Mrs. Peacock and says, we've decided that we would like you to put United Carcassonne in your inventory.

Mrs. Peacock says of course darlings.

The Rev. Mr. Green flees from the Great Red Dragon through the SECRET PASSAGE to the STUDY.

the Carcassonnian Unity Council of former scorekeepers convenes on the sacred Zero Points Space.

The Red Scorekeeper has escaped! Giants have been seen looming around the outskirts of Carcassonne. The Strike Team's progress to whatever lies beyond the Yellow Void is slow, trudging.

The Green Ex-Scorekeeper brings a message: one of the giants, a polite blue pawn, has expressed condescending but sincere affection for Carcassonne and its people, and has offered to pick them all up and hide them in her Inventory. Some people are in favor; some are nervous about it. The city largely agrees that the most appropriate thing to do would be to put it to a vote: