Hey guys! Since I've got some serious writer's block concerning Games of Chance and can't figure out how to even start the next chapter, here's a fun short story about the original Project PROB (the medieval heroes who were the inspiration for Juliana's superhero team). Hope you guys like it!

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September 12, 1347

Mary Arminstoff VanderSchee, Queen of the Indivisible Nation of Arcana, shifted uncomfortably in her seat in front of the palace's largest window. No matter how much she tried to keep them focused on the worn, leather-bound book in her lap, her eyes continually drifted to the square below her, awash with palace guards, merchants, beggars, and every other sort of person one would find in the center of Arcana's crowded capital city.

Finally, she could take the tense silence no longer and stood up from her chair, closing the book and placing it face down where she had been sitting just a few moments earlier. "Lady Abigail, when will our husbands return? It has been weeks since their last letter."

The lady in waiting who stood faithfully behind her sighed, as if she had been waiting a long time for the Queen to ask this question. "They're due this afternoon. Your Highness should be able to spot them riding up that hill any moment now," she replied cheerfully, gesturing to the small mountain that separated the Arcana City proper from the farmlands surrounding it. Queen Mary knew that Abigail Hewkin was only being her usual optimistic self, and hence her words did nothing to quell her nervousness. 

It had been seven weeks since King Darian and three of his most trusted Ministers- Horace Evarbor, Drosi Nebulik, and Norman Hewkin- had left for Constantinople, leaving only Lord Catorn Serpentine and what meager fraction of the army he commanded to defend the tiny kingdom of Arcana from the Mongol hordes that poured in from the East. 

Until that point, the Arcanese had been spared from the frequent strife that was common in that time by the simple fact that their lands were too small and insignificant in the larger scheme of Eurasia for great conquerors to pay them any mind. But of course, Mary thought, Arcana's greatest treasure was neither her fertile soil nor her modern armories. 

An image of the Alpha Box, locked up in an ancient wooden chest under her bed, filled Mary's mind. She shuddered at the thought of a Mongol general's greedy hands tugging it out of its casing and tossing it in a sack of war spoils as if it were nothing worth more than a piece of diamond jewelry. 

"Your Highness must come to the window- the King has returned!" Abigail lifted her skirts as she scurried past the Queen to peer out into the street below. The guards were beginning to form a barrier between the masses of peasants who lined the streets and the four majestic horses that made their way wearily toward the palace, visibly spent from their long, taxing journey. 

But Mary was in no position to heed her call. The thought of the palace being ransacked by nomads had instilled in her an insatiable urge to see the Alpha Box- just once, just a glimpse to assure her that it was, in fact, where it was supposed to be. She rushed to the bed in the center of chambers, dropping her knees and brushing her voluminous emerald skirts out of her way as she dragged the chest out from under the raised bedframe. 

"My Queen! It appears that High General Nebulik has not returned... I see his horse crossing the drawbridge without a rider!" Abigail exclaimed, but her words were obscured by Mary's high-pitched shriek. 

Alarmed by the Queen's scream, another lady in waiting poked her head through the slightly open doorway before stepping quickly into the room. Imogen Nebulik, a graceful Venetian noblewoman who had caught the High General's eye during his extended travels across Europe three summers ago, was so much younger than Mary and Abigail that she acted as a daughter to the two older women, always ready to help at the slightest sign of their discomfort. 

"Abigail! Imogen!" Mary's hands went up to her face, tactfully obscuring her unpleasant expression as she stared down into an empty chest. "The Alpha Box... it... it is..." she stammered, unable to complete the unthinkable thought. Ever since they kept it in caves and protected it with little more than sticks and stones, the Five Bloodlines had valiantly defended the Box from all foes greedy enough to covet it. Alexander the Great. Julius Caesar. Genghis Khan. All of these and more had tried and failed to wrest the Box from the Order's grip, and now...

For a few moments, all Mary could hear was Abigail's shaky breathing. Any minute now, the King and his men would return, and the women would have the despicable task of delivering the shameful news. 

Turning around, Mary solemnly rose to her feet, pulling Abigail into a silent embrace. 

And that was when she finally got a good look at Imogen. Being indisputably the most beautiful and the most accomplished of the High Generals' wives, she had always looked and acted more than a little vain, but today, she seemed to be on a completely different level of self-admiration. Chains of rubies and diamonds adorned the plunging neckline of her crimson gown and the silk strings laced down her back were drawn so tightly around her waist that Mary feared they would soon tear. She seemed dressed for a celebration, though Mary hadn't the slightest idea of what feast was to be held in early September. But that did not bother the Queen so much as the utter neutrality of her expression. After Abigail's announcement that her husband's horse was being brought into the courtyard sans rider- a telling sign that he was either lost or dead- and the sudden disappearance of the Alpha Box, Imogen looked calm... far too calm. 

The Queen's suspicions were confirmed when the doors to the chamber unceremoniously swung open to reveal King Darian, still clad in his thick, red traveling cloak and chain mail tunic. The usually placid King looked furious. He knitted his graying eyebrows, brushing past his wife without so much as a greeting even though they had spent nearly two months apart. He raised his arms, telekinetically brushing aside a wooden table, a chamber pot, and several other smaller items that stood between him and Lady Imogen. Finally, having cleared a path to her, he grabbed Imogen by the neck, flinging her against the wall as if she weighed nothing. 

"Witch!" he spat. "What have you and your traitor of a husband done with the Alpha Box? I should have known something was amiss when he disappeared one night on the trail, but it was not until the next morning that I received reports of the worst wave of Plague we've seen in centuries and put two and two together?" 

Imogen struggled in his powerful grasp, only managing to choke out a few words. "My King, I... I know nothing of a Plague... General Nebulik sent a pigeon with a letter directing me to return the bird to him with the Box tied to its leg. I assumed you had ordered this done, and so I stole into the Queen's chambers and..." 

"You thought I had ordered it, yet you still felt the need to do the deed clandestinely?" the King gritted his teeth in rage before finally loosening his grip on Imogen at the sight of her purplish face. She heaved gratefully before letting out a hacking cough. 

"Tell me," Darian VanderSchee IV pursed his lips, adopting the expression of a disappointed parent censuring his wayward child. "With what temptation did the enemy draw the pair of you to his evil? Was it gold? Status? Have I not bestowed both upon you in excess? What could those fiends give you that I could not?" 

"My husband... takes gold from no one. He is his own master," Imogen said softly before her eyes delicately fluttered shut. "He promised to keep me young forever and make me Queen of all there is... if I would promise to forget my loyalties to Arcana and swear fealty to him and him only." 

"You truly believe that is a promise he can keep?" the King chuckled darkly, looking almost disappointed Imogen's shallowness. "He has clearly been... experimenting with the Alpha Box. For weeks now, a deadly Plague has been sweeping across the land. Men, women, and children have fallen victim to a ghastly disease that would have remained confined to its Eastern origins if a treacherous tinkerer by the name of Nebulik had not gone meddling in the fundamental probabilities that govern our world! Perhaps, someday, he shall rule all there is to rule... but there will be no one to rule over but rotting corpses!" 

At this, Imogen began to tremble fearfully, shrinking away from the King in shame. "I... I knew nothing of this Plague. General Nebulik told me of a glorious conquest... not a cruel massacre." 

"Of course you knew nothing of it- I am nearly certain even he knew nothing of it!" the King exclaimed. "No man is so twisted as to intentionally engineer the death of thousands of innocents. The Plague is merely a unintentional byproduct of his interference with the Box's workings, and a prime example of the chaos that ensues when we mortals forget our place and try to play God!" 

Ending his sentence emphatically, the King was distracted from his tirade by the distant odor of smoke. Rushing to the window, he saw the square in tatters- at least half a dozen men in maroon armor rode their finest horses through it at breakneck speed, fire streaming continuously from their hands and illuminating everything in its path. 

"The Red Knights of Nebulik... they must know their master has been found out!" Queen Mary exclaimed, fervently grabbing her husband's shoulder. "Stop them! You are the King!" 

Darian shook his head. "They are loyal only to Nebulik. They follow my orders out of respect, not obligation, and their current actions suggest to me that they no longer view me with that respect." 

"Then... what will happen to us- to the world?" Mary exclaimed in despair. "Surely you will do something about this?" 

"Probability itself has been disturbed," King Darian announced with resolve. "This is a problem that only the Order of Chance can solve. Keep a close watch on Lady Imogen- I am going to call a meeting with my High Generals... or at least, the ones who have not sacrificed their humanity at the altar of greed."