Part 16: Sun Set

"Listen to me. Listen. I've got it figured out. I've got the only answer that makes any sense. Listen. Okay, I'm not joking and I'm not playing around. You know why this is all happening at once? Why Europe is being invaded from every side at the same time?

"I know why.

"Aliens.

"Hear me out. I can prove it. Trust me. Trust me."



"Speaking of aliens, take my wife. Ha! No, seriously, take her. I don't know why dad made me marry her. He was all, BLAH BLAH, SON YOU NEED TO KNOCK THIS BITCH UP. FOR DENMARK. BLAH BLAH. She just never shuts up about the world being an illusion and life being inherently sinful and the Devil being out to get us. She couldn't be more wrong, the Devil is a great friend of mine."



"They started calling him 'the Devil' at age fourteen, that's the kind of guy this kid is. I'm also pretty sure his mother didn't keep her garden from cross-contamination, if you know what I mean, because the kid is yellower than King Arnvid's belly."



"Everyone calls King Arnvid 'brave', but trust me, trust me he's a total coward. One time I heard him scream like a little girl when he walked into the King Ernst Memorial Museum. Lightweight."



"So anyway, news gets out that the Mongols have defeated the Assassins, right? Now from what I hear, these Assassins are a secret order of cultists who control the entire Islamic world from the shadows. They can be anyone, right? So that gets me thinking - how can you "defeat" the "assassins"?



"And how could a "man" so "straightforwards" as "Khan Hulagu" "defeat" the "assassins", if you know what I mean?

"No, this was a ruse, I'm sure. The assassins aren't dead, they've just moved. And I think I know where."



"I think they moved here."



"This caravan shows up, literally the day after I hear the assassins were wiped out, right? And then this fat guy starts talking to me and telling me all this stuff about the scale of the Mongol empires and how we're all fucked forever."



"He tells me how even Alexander the Great rose from his tomb and walked out to fight the Mongols, but they brained him and put him in a coma."



"And he tells me how the Golden Horde is right at the border between here and Sweden. And then he tells me that they're invading Sweden. And then he tells me about how they took Finland.



"After that, the guy sits back with this big greasy smile on his face. And he says he's got a present for me, right? And then it turns out that the present is a dude."




"He says that this brown, islamic totally-not-assassin is going to be loyal and faithful and not kill me. That's when I realised that the assassins weren't just moving - they were moving here. Islam had failed, right, so now they're going to take over all of Christianity. I expect by this point half the kings of Europe have received 'gifts' from the assassins, standing by to murder them the second they got out of line.

"I didn't say this out loud. I smiled and nodded. And I kept an eye on this "Eye-shack" because it'd give me a chance to unravel their scheme."




"Thing was, Eye-shack was actually pretty useful as an assistant. With him around, I was able to spot a bunch of dastardly fools who were plotting against me, and send them back to the mongol hordes who had dispatched them here in the first place to undermine my rule."



"After that, I got everyone together and reminded them of why I was in charge and they weren't."



"But doing that reminded me, I'd gone and promised my son to the Princess of Finland - and there wasn't a Finland any more!"




"I sent the tart on her way and married my son to some Hungarian tart who dressed like a prostitute. And that gave me an idea."



"See, why should I, Duke of all of Denmark, use prostitutes when I had so many perfectly good daughters just standing around all day?"




"I mean, it's not like they've got anything better to do. Plus it let me save money. See, that's business acumen, that is. My son needed to learn that."



"He didn't. He kept using prostitutes and caught something horrible and died. In his defense, he was too young to have daughters I guess."



"So Satan goes and calls me up and says, 'Hey, my brother's boning your daughter, want to die in pointless battle for me?' And when he put it like that it kind of undermined the feudal contract that held Europe together, but he did have a point. His brother was boning my daughter. I really didn't have a choice other than to get everyone together and march out.

"Plus if I didn't he might talk to his brother and find out I was boning my daughter as well. That'd be awkward."



"Plus it looked like he had a lock on this thing so I wasn't worried."




"But by the time I arrived, the Mongols had fucking demolished everything and suddenly I was worried. But then I had another realisation. An epiphany.

"Okay, this kid who everyone calls Satan and who basically is Satan, and who has the looks of one of these very Mongols we're fighting against - whatever else he is, he's a Christian."



"Also a cruel, angry, lying gay hunchback. But he was a christian. And then it hit me - this guy is the Devil. And he's fighting on Christianity's side. He's fighting to protect Europe from these invaders and their weird evil beliefs that made no sense.

"So what could make Satan team up with Jesus?

"Something that threatened both heaven and hell, of course. Aliens. Something outside God's plan.

"Amiright?"



"Anyway, I told my men to try and take the Mongols alive for questioning, and then I went home."



"The screwed that one up. Idiots."



"Anyway, I had better things to be doing, like reconstructing the Crown of Denmark. The Duke of Holstein went by the name "Hotspur", which I can only imagine was a reference to his background in male prostitution.

"People seemed to like him."




"Turned out he was way too old to fight in battle, because we straight up murdered him and all his friends."



"Had to negotiate with his son. Ffft, can you believe these guys were ever Kings?"



"Speaking of Kings, have you heard of the shit about two Frances? Okay, it goes like this.

"The Duchy of France is independent of the Kingdom of France. So the Duchy of France, that's like Paris, right? No; the Duke of France doesn't actually control the Duchy of France, the King of France controls the Duchy of France. So the Duchy of France is controlled by the King of France, but the Duke of France is independent of the King of France and actually reigns in the Duchy of Gascone, which is actually a title held by the Duke of Anjou. Who is a vassal of the King of France. Is that clear enough for you?"



"Oh, did you know there was a place called Azerbaijan? Not any more."



"So then this happened, and suddenly things really aren't looking good for Team Jesus. Even though we've still got Satan on-side, who actually did great work in wiping out Polish Catharism."



"But what's really confusing was that the guy who made the Mongols convert thinks he's Satan as well."



"And so does this guy, who briefly revolted against King Satan of Poland.

"So I sat down today and thought hard about these three warring Devils were about. What was the Devil's game? Was he playing all three sides against each other?

"No. See, the Devil knew something that we didn't. The Devil was hedging his bets. Because he knew what was coming."







"Aliens. Amiright?

"They come from another world across the sea, a world not created by the God of Abraham. A land where Jesus never spoke, a place that God has no power over. And they're here to end the world.

"I sure hope Jesus has an ace up his sleeve, because the way I keep hearing it is that we're all fucked, forever.

"If this is confusing, I made a diagram to help keep my story straight."