This article is two of seven in Phase I of a sort of novel, the “Pentagon of Pandemonium”, which outlines the history behind an entire universe of lore that I’ve been creating since seventh grade. (Back in 2022, way before this blog started!) I’ve only posted one article about the complex world of Magicae since I founded Inside A Wandering Mind, when I was a freshman in high school. At the time, I was given an assignment to write a short story in High School English, and I chose to write about something that was part of the lore. Since then, it’s just been something I’ve spent my free time doing— finally, after years of working, my friend Tristan and I have decided to work together to create a novel on the newest additions to our world lore that we’ve been obsessing over for years. We hope you enjoy!
CONTENT WARNING – Some of the scenes in this novel may feature violence, profanity, or references to other mature topics that may cause discomfort for certain readers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the authors’ imagination or used in a fictitious manner to serve the narrative. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Chapter 2 (1980) – The Little Brownie
“LET’S GO PLAY! LET’S GO PLAY!” The children ran across the schoolyard of Wedsun’s Academy for their daily twenty-minute recess; a crowd of hundreds of children split into groups of dozens that further split as kids ran down towards all the play structures, pushing past one another as they asked each other what games they’d play and who would be on whose team and what might happen.
Above the innocent school was not a vast, blue sky, but a roof. This school was located in a subterranean world; still a part of Magicae’s vast universe, but far away, thousands of miles from where Natrist had grown up all those years ago safely in his parents’ home. This region was known as the Miner’s Society, a place where the human race survived in large, underground crystal caves with bright-white city skyscrapers illuminating miles of what would otherwise be darkness. In all directions was nothing but rocky walls, illuminated dimly with glowing gems. A great many of these skyscrapers were still under reconstruction; the battle had only taken place two years ago, after all. The inhabitants known as Miners lived in their city, each day trying to wipe out the images of battle from their postwar minds.
But the fighting had moved to new fronts, and was now far away. It was safe to be outside again, and the children enjoyed it, running up and down the schoolyard and racing to claim the play structures for their groups.
One of the children was a seven-year-old named Joe Brown; he was a relatively shy boy— he hadn’t gotten in well with many groups, and it had taken him time, but he’d found his playmates now: a small group of kids who largely only knew one another because their parents were close friends. His closest friend of all, though, was another introverted boy named Satsun Frimon. Neither got along well with anyone outside their little friend group, mostly because the other boys in school seemed to laugh at them whenever they thought they weren’t watching. Neither of them understood why.
Little Joe Brown was rushing straight toward his favorite play structure when a group of other kids approached him; all of them had at least six inches and two years on Joe and Satsun. “Sorry, kiddo. This one is reserved for our game today,” the lead Miner Bully, Monwed, announced.
“What do you mean, your game? That’s not fair! Let me play here too,” Joe Brown squealed, raising his voice, pointing out the hypocrisy of it all. “It’s not like you own the place.”
The Miner bullies didn’t budge, but a few of them seemed to be thinking of a different idea. Monwed leaned back towards his stupid group of friends, and they muttered something in his ear that he couldn’t make out; they all shared a mischievous laugh, and Monwed turned back to Joe. Monwed whispered to him, “How about this? You losers can play here, but you have to join our game too.”
Joe Brown rolled his eyes. Would he have to play their stupid game just to have a chance at the play structure? The bullies got the fun structures to themselves nearly every day. He looked around at his other friends, one being Satsun Frimon. “Satsun? What should we do? These guys are hogging the structure all to themselves.”
Satsun grumbled in annoyance. “We can’t do much; these are the top Miner Society kids in our school. If you get on their bad side, apparently they bully you till you can’t even see the light of Miner Street lamps… Maybe we should give their game a shot…” The two of them turned to Monwed, who was staring right back at them with a penetrating gaze and grinning, like he had something planned. The two of them got the feeling the only reason the bullies hadn’t beaten them up yet was that they were hoping the two would play with them, whatever motive they had behind it.
Joe Brown narrowed his eyes and scowled at the Miner Bullies. “F-fine. We’ll play your dumb game. What even is it?”
Monwed’s eyes widened in excitement as he grabbed Satsun and Joe Brown by the necks and dragged them towards the play structure. “Well, let’s go then, losers! Today, we’re playing Societies.”
Societies? Really? That was the worst game out of all options; Joe’s father had always told him it was made up to shame the wealthy class. Seven-year-old Joe didn’t know what any of that meant, and he had never taken a wealthy class before. He just knew his family didn’t like the game, so by default he was offended whenever he heard it. Before he could let out a sigh of annoyance, Satsun leaned forward, asking, “What game is Societies?”
Joe Brown turned towards Satsun. “You really don’t know Societies? Well, if you’ve never heard of it, it’s a stupid game that only dumb people play. You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t really… I’ve never really gotten to play on the play structures at all, so I mostly just played by myself.” Satsun admitted, his cheeks going red.
“Okay, that makes sense.” Joe decided. “Societies is a game where each of us is part of different social groups, and we simulate stuff, like economic collapse, Miner War, and whatever things people in the group want.”
Joe Brown explained the game to Satsun before being interrupted by Monwed’s ear-piercing voice. “ATTENTION! We will assign the groups now for the game.”
Everyone in the group, a total of eight people, gathered around Monwed. Monwed then began to assign groups to people, pointing at them and telling them which group they’d be a part of before moving onto the next person.
“You’re Impoverished, Impoverished, Middle-Class, Upper-Class, Impoverished…” Monwed went on until eventually his finger pointed at Joe Brown, who went red in the face, expecting he’d be assigned something humiliating, like Prisoner or Exile. “And finally, Joey! I’ve got just the role for you.”
Oh, man, Joe thought. Here it comes.
“You will be an Aristocrat!”
Huh?
Satsun looked at Joe Brown in confusion. “An Aristocrat? Isn’t that a good role? It’s like, about rich people, right? Wouldn’t we be given the worst roles…? I thought it’d be something worse.”
Joe Brown grimaced and clenched his fists when he saw some of the other playmates privately whispering to each other, pointing in his direction eagerly.
“Ooo… look at that kid, he got Aristocrat… what a bum…” One kid whispered to another.
“Looks like he’d actually be one too… Some rich trash right there…” Muttered a second one.
“Isn’t his name John, or Joe Brown?” Another kid gossiped, tone imbued with disgust. “Ew. What a distasteful name!” Everyone was laughing as if Joe had just been given a pink dress to wear in front of the crowd. Apparently Monwed had realized that he’d get everyone to laugh at Joe by giving him that rank, but neither Joe nor Satsun understood why this was the case.
“W-what’s wrong with Brown?” Joe asked out loud, confused. He’d always heard kids whisper in the school halls like it was some big inside joke that everyone shared except him. He thought at first that maybe its meaning was quite obvious, but now he’d grown to the age of seven and still had no idea what it really meant. All he knew was that if he mentioned his name was Brown, the best he’d get was an eye-raise and the worst was an entire group laughing in his face. It felt much more like they were laughing at him than with him.
One Miner kid stepped forward, narrowing his eyes as he scanned Joe Brown. “Well, your name is Joe Brown, correct?”
“Y-yes…?” Joe Brown reluctantly answered, and everyone started giggling again. “I don’t understand. What’s funny about it…?”
“Ooh, he’s a Brownie,” One of the bullies roared with laughter. “Brownies, those rich brats, my dad says they never pay their fair share of anything.”
Joe didn’t fully understand what they were saying, but he knew that the bullies seemed to be talking about his family negatively. Like any proper family member, he found himself getting defensive. “That’s not— true—” but he hesitated, unsure of what he was going to argue; he didn’t know what a fair share was or if his family paid theirs. So he stood there, looking like an idiot.
“Look at him stuttering! He clearly knows what his family is doing! Rich little freak, good for nothing but helping themselves. So selfish.”
Joe’s friend, Satsun, shouted angrily in his friend’s defense, “There’s nothing wrong with Joe! Stop it, that’s mean!”
Despite Satsun’s protest, the other bullies remained unfazed. Each of them was caught up in the heat of the moment, continuing to spout insults at Joe.
“They’re called Browns cause they’re just like brown shit,” One of the bullies bellowed, and everyone else howled in laughter except for Satsun and Joe. The two of them stared at the bullies in evident horror; they had obviously just insulted Joe’s family. But the worst part is they’d said a bad word, too. Wasn’t that, like, against the rules? Joe found himself instinctively getting angrier, positioning himself to run in the direction of the nearest yard supervisor. “I’m going to tell on you,” He said, hoping it wasn’t clear that tears were starting to come out of his eyes.
“Running to the authorities for help?” The bully laughed. “That’s all the Browns do.” He announced to his stupid snickering goons. “They run and beg the big Emperor to save their sorry asses when things get a little hard.”
“Quit it! I don’t want to play your stupid game anymore!” Joe Brown shouted as he stomped off angrily before quickening his pace to a jog. He dug his face into his arms, and when he let go, they were wet with tears.
Joe could still hear the bullies snicker as he ran, something about him being a “rich freak running back to his mama” and some other mean comment that he pretended not to hear.
Satsun quickly scrambled after his friend as they retreated to an isolated corner of the playground. “Leave him alone!” He yelled at the bullies.
“I just… don’t understand. Why are they so mean…” Joe Brown slouched down, burying his head into his knees. “What did I ever do to them?”
Satsun attempted to comfort his friend. “It-it’ll be okay, Joe. We can report it to Mr. Wedfri. This behavior definitely won’t fly; it’s bullying.”
Joe Brown looked up from his knees, tears still dripping down his face. “B-but… what if… I don’t know… what if we do go to the teachers… and nothing happens… and they come back to us again?”
“Then we’ll tell on him to the Headmaster,” Satsun decided.
It took Joe a moment to ask him the next question thoroughly because he was crying so hard. “A-a-and what if the-the-the headmaster duh-duh-doesn’t luh-listen to us?”
Satsun didn’t have any good response to this; he just looked awkwardly at his knees. The two sat there, feeling quite stupid, until the end-of-recess bell rang over the confines of the schoolyard, and kids started to make their way back to class. Joe’s mood had improved by that point, but only scarcely. He still clearly looked traumatized, and continued to ask “But what’s a Brownie?” again and again as Satsun tried to comfort him. A few kids passed by as they sat on the bench at the front of the school cafeteria, pointing at the two, wearing expressions of mockery; luckily Joe didn’t seem to notice this.
The bell eventually let out a loud RIIINNNGGG!!! Shuffling the kids back into their classrooms.
“That’s it,” Satsun decided resolutely. “I’m done with those idiots. I’m telling on Monwed to your father.”
Joe stopped sobbing, but only slightly. “I’m going to tell him everything, and he’s going to make sure nobody ever bullies you again,” Satsun repeated. “I’ll tell him everything. Monwed’s going to be very sorry, I promise you.”
Joe beamed at Satsun, who went on. “I’ll make sure your Father knows that something bad
