The Discplane

Chapter 1: A New World

There is a world that spins freely throughout the universe, completely flat. It obeys no law of physics that we, the viewers, know. There are a multitude of “Gods” that exist in this world, normal objects infused with belief and magic. 

Let me now show you a place named “Stonecity”, a place where our protagonist is now waking up…

“Hey scumshit! Wake up”

A homeless man, with blonde hair and stubble around his mouth, dressed in a tattered robe, patched up shirt and pants, and a patchwork top hat jolts awake in an alleyway covered in graffiti. This man is called Edward, and he was a part of the hero’s party as The Mage.

“Why is he homeless?” you may be asking, and it was his own choice. He was rewarded, but gave away all his money to the world at large to become homeless.

“Are you there? I SAID WAKE UP!” yelled an irate guard.

“Whuza? Can’t you see it’s too early for this?” Replied Edward in a tired voice, lifting up his hat to look at the guard’s face, which held an expression of combined anger, disgust and fear.

“Her majesty the Princess wishes you to come join her in her palace IMMEDIATELY!" The guard then spat on the ground in front of Al, almost as if to say “You are worth less than the dried up paint you lie upon.”

“Ah, so Pen’s calling me for breakfast again, eh? Lemme get changed real quick. While I go change, please tell her that I’m going to be there soon? We don’t want her getting mad now, do we?” Edward walks away into the alleyway. A burst of iridescent light comes from the darkness, and out comes Edward, but dressed in a pinstripe suit and a fedora that cast a shadow over his eyes, and a hatchet strapped to his back..

“I’m all ready, so shall we go?” Al asked the guards, who backed away nervously. Edward then remarks, “WAIT! I need a drink first. My mouth is VERY dry.” He sauntered past the guards onto the main street that is bustling with market stalls and tourists buying whatever overpriced merchandise they could get their hands on. Two are even fighting over a model of Al in his old mage getup, a greyish-green robe with a floppy hat to match, and an old, gnarled oak staff in his right hand.

A statue in the city center depicts the Hero defeating the Demon King, while below it tour guides recite the same old history to those who most likely already know it. Al wanders close enough to hear one of them speak, and they say “ Long ago, there was a great demon war that left the world shattered and broken. A Hero and his Party was chosen to go and slay the lord of these ”Demons”. It has been 12 years since this war had happened, and we have been at peace ever since”

Dwarves and Orcs bantered in the smithys and Half-Elves wandered from fountain to fountain, serenading anyone who comes by with rather lackluster music. The tramps trudged through the sidelines, invisible to anyone who was even marginally better off than them.

Edward wandered into a pub, and saw a Half-elf on stage at that moment, playing an acoustic guitar, yet he doesn’t seem to be singing anything. This is Map’le, and he lost his voice in the Great Demon War by protecting a village, and he’s a very famous musician. The bar seems mostly empty due to the time of day being “Too late for work, too early for drinking”. Al sat down at the bar and ordered water with ice. After drinking his beverage, he then finally wandered his way to the center of town, where a castle resides higher than most of the buildings surrounding it. Two men stood on either side of the gates, wielding guns to protect the walls from being graffitied.

She’s never gonna let me hear the end of this, Al thought to himself before pushing the gates open.

A butler opened up the castle’s door for him and said “She has been expecting you, sir. Shall I lead you to the dining room?”

Edward replied saying “No, I know my way around here well enough to AT LEAST get to the dining hall”. As he made his way through the castle’s interior, he wandered into a courtyard. The breeze shook the plethora of trees and hedges carefully maintained by the servants. He then continued making his way to the dining hall, finally making it there as the clocks around the house began to strike 9:AM.

“And where were you?” Said a comfortably clothed figure sitting at one end of the table. This is Pen, the princess of this castle, heir to the entire Mana StoweTM Enterprise, and Edward’s betrothed. Next to her stands her personal guard, Bush. She shares most of the same interests as Pen, and is expertly trained with the saber on her hip.

“Sorry, Pen, I woke up like 30 minutes ago due to some rather… rude guards.” Edward said as he took his seat. 

“Ooh, bacon and eggs, my favourite” he remarked, then seemingly remembers something.

“You wanna hit the town later tonight? I heard Map’le is in town” He said while looking at Bush.

Bush blushes and leans down to whisper into Pen’s ear: “Please can we go? I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long!”

Pen sighed and say, “Sure, fine, it’s not like I wanted to do anything today anyways”

Later that evening, they all went out to a bar that was said to be where Map’le was playing that night. They had a merry time, drinking non-alcoholic drinks and listening to Map’le playing his guitar with vocal backing by other patrons of the pub. Suddenly a slurred voice comes from  a very drunk dwarf “You goddamned elf ears are taking all our jobs!”

Immediately after he said that, a chair came flying across the room, hitting him directly on his head. Instantly, Map’le starts playing an upbeat, fast song as everyone in the bar yelled “BAR FIGHT!” and started leaping at each other over the tables. In a few short minutes, the bar is a mess of bodies and broken wood, with everyone fighting each other, the floor, the walls, or even their own reflections. A man tried to goad Al into fighting him, but he made a big mistake. Edward immediately pulled out his hatchet and strikes him in the head with the back, instantly knocking him out. Others looked at Al and the body, and started charging at him. Edward weaved the first man’s punches in a boxers stance, then hit him with an uppercut into a face grab and slammed him into the ground. The next man is actually a woman, who tries throwing a bar stool at Al, who catches it and carefully puts it down beside him. He then picks up the man he slammed into the ground and slams him into the stool, shattering it and his spine. He took one of the wooden shards from the remnants of the stool and threw it into the woman’s arm, then sprinted up and kneed her full force in her chin. One final man braved his chances, and tried to break a bottle over the counter. He then made a whimpering sound and dropped down, clutching his hand which is now streaming with blood.

“Nobody these days knows how to properly break a bottle” Edward remarked as he stepped over the man’s body towards Map’le. He asked Map’le “You wanna come join us at the castle? We do have an extra room for you.” 

Map’le lookef around, then nodded in agreement.

As they left the ruins of the bar, Pen apologizing profusely about the mess and promising to pay the fixing costs, and after collecting Map’le’s things, they got a random City Watchman to help, but not without a lot of grumbling from the watchman.

Chapter 2: A strange poster…

As the pub was being cleaned up after the earlier bar fight, Edward asked Pen “Did you enjoy our little AHEM escapade?”

“Kinda, just wish we didn’t have to get into fights all the time”

“Hey, I didn’t start it-”

“THAT time.”

Edward sighed, as Pen stopped to look at something. She saw a poster advertising a “BRAND NEW HEROES PARTY” (yes with the exact same spelling) “COME JOIN AS WE TAKE DOWN THE NEW DEMON KING”. The address pointed to a house just a few streets away.

It was about 12:00 PM as the couple made their way to the advertised location, Bush having gone somewhere presumably to meet up with Map’le.

The house that the couple ended up finding was no different than any other house around, besides the banner welcoming all the “New Heroes” to this house. The two looked at each other, shrugged and just left towards the castle to have lunch. Little did they know, someone had seen them leave and took that as a slight untowards them.

As the couple began to leave, talking about what’s happening in Magic StoweTM and the innovations they were making, the door behind them SLAMMED open as a rather rotund man in a shoddy getup of the hero’s armour that didn’t even fit him came barreling out toward them.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU JOIN?!” The man yelled at Edward.

“YOU COULD’VE BEEN A PERFECT FIT! I know a good mage* when I see one, and you sir are like the Great Mage made FLESH AGAIN!” The man continued yelling, spittle flying out from his mouth, buried in mounds of double chins. As the man was yelling, a few other odd people came out of the doorway to check on the noise, one of them being the Rogue from the old Hero’s party.

“Who in the hells are you?” Edward asked the man, with intense confusion on his face.

“I am Quinn, and I am the new Hero of this age!” The man known as Quinn exclaimed, drawing out an incredibly bedazzled sword that looked as if it were taken straight out of a fairy tale.

*Oh yes, magic is a force here as well. It resides in the air and the land itself, breathing life into this world. It runs on a give and take exchange system. For example, if you wanted to cast a simple magic spell like Fireball, all you would need is enough mana in your body, but if you wanted to cast something else like Levitation, you need to hold a balloon filled with helium AND have enough mana to cast the spell. Nowadays people have made a way to use magic without needing to be a mage, via a combination of runes, maths and magic circles. These people are called alchemists. These alchemists also have the strange ability to create living machines called Automationals.

“I have heard rumours that a New demon king is arriving soon, and I felt the Pull of Destiny, so I decided to become a Hero and recruit as many as I could into my party.” Quinn gestured towards the house.

“Listen man, there are no more demons, so there can’t be any kin-” Edward tried to say

“THAT’S WHAT A DEMON WOULD SAY!” Quinn suddenly swiped at him, as if trying to kill with one clean stroke. The sword bounced off his coat and the blade fell out of its hilt. Everyone just stood there as an awkward air took over the two groups.

“DEMONIC SOURCERY! I will kill you, no matter how long it takes nor what I need to do. I now know that if anyone is to become the demon king…” Quinn started shaking with rage as if he was in the middle of an earthquake, the tunic underneath his armour seemingly bursting at the seams. He then pointed at Edward and yelled for the entire street to hear:

“YOU! YOU SHALL BECOME THE DEMON KING, SO I SHALL BE YOUR NEMESIS!”

Quinn then ran back into the house, and a window at the top suddenly had its curtains drawn shut.

Yet again, Edward and Pen looked at each other, shrugged, then headed on back to the castle to actually have lunch. Suddenly Edward exclaimed “WAIT!”

“What? What’s up honey?” Pen asked.

“We forgot about Bush and Map’le.” Edward said in a meek voice

“”Oh dear…”

“”Oh dear indeed”