Type: Original Kingshot-style short story Subject: DeathTax's "pantsless charge" combat philosophy gets adopted as official RIP doctrine by Bob, forcing Ryze to intervene and walk it back Created: 2026-09-02 Added to archive: 2026-09-02 Source: Drawn from real RIP alliance chat screenshots (DeathTax/Ryze exchange), 2026-09-02
It started, as most disasters in RIP did, with a joke nobody thought needed a disclaimer. "Depends," DeathTax typed into alliance chat, mid-argument with Ryze about hero development priorities. "Ryze doesn't feel that me dropping my pants and charging straight at the bad guys is a serious developmental path for my heroes. What do you think?" Ryze didn't even dignify it with a full sentence. "That is not a strategy, DeathTax. That is a cry for help." "It's tested," DeathTax shot back. "Multiple engagements. Consistent results." "The result is always the same. You get hit. And now everyone in this alliance has seen more of you than they signed up for." DeathTax sent a single crying-laughing emoji and let the matter drop. Bob did not let the matter drop.
Bob had been quietly hovering at the edge of alliance chat all day -- technically present, mostly ignored, the way he usually was until he wasn't. But something about DeathTax's words had lodged itself directly into whatever passed for Bob's strategic cortex. A serious developmental path. Consistent results. Bob read it three times, nodding slower each time, the way a man reads a prophecy meant only for him. By the time anyone thought to check on him, Bob had already renamed a blank strategy document: DIRECTIVE 1: TROUSER LIBERATION PROTOCOL. He unveiled it to the alliance the next morning with the gravity of a man presenting a unified field theory. There were diagrams. There was a troop formation chart labeled "THE FULL MONTY FORMATION," with little stick-figure soldiers mid-charge, pants rendered as small triumphant flags trailing behind them. There was a section titled "Morale Bonuses (Self-Assessed)" that included entries like +15% Enemy Confusion and +infinity% Commitment to the Bit. "This," Bob announced, "is now official RIP battle doctrine."
DeathTax, who had intended the entire exchange as a bit, found himself unable to object on principle. Someone had finally gotten it. He read through Bob's diagrams with the quiet, moved silence of a man watching his life's work finally receive peer review. "He understands," DeathTax said, mostly to himself. "Ryze, he understands." "He understands nothing," Ryze said. "He understands it less than you do, and you don't understand it at all." Nobody was listening to Ryze. This, too, was consistent with established patterns.
Bob, never a man to let a doctrine remain theoretical, insisted on a live demonstration. The original plan was modest: charge a training dummy near the barracks, pants optional-but-encouraged, purely for morale-building purposes. This plan lasted approximately four minutes before Bob spotted movement near the alliance border and decided the training dummy "lacked stakes." What followed was less a demonstration and more an incident report waiting to be filed. Bob charged -- pants abandoned somewhere around the second guard tower -- directly at what he was almost entirely certain was an enemy scouting party. It was, upon later review, a friendly patrol from an allied kingdom, mid-conversation with two RIP members about a trade agreement. The patrol did not initially register Bob as a threat so much as a problem, which in some ways was worse. Diplomatic messages had to be sent. Apologies were issued. Someone from the allied kingdom asked, not unreasonably, whether RIP had "a policy about this." Ryze, watching from the wall, did not say anything for a long moment. He simply looked up at the sky, the same sky he'd stared at once before after a stolen measuring stick had ruined his entire afternoon, and felt the specific, familiar exhaustion of a man who had been right and gained absolutely nothing from it.
Cleanup fell, as it always did, to Ryze. He found Bob afterward, still glowing with the unearned confidence of a man who believed the mission had been a qualified success. "Did you see the confusion bonus?" Bob asked. "It worked. They were very confused." "They were confused because you were not wearing pants and screaming, Bob. That is not a tactical achievement. That is a warning label." "DeathTax says it's a developmental path." "DeathTax," Ryze said slowly, "was joking, Bob. It was a joke. A bad one. That is different from an actual doctrine, which requires things like planning, and pants, and not causing an international incident with our allies." Bob considered this. He looked down at the crumpled Trouser Liberation Protocol document, now smudged with what was probably dirt and was hopefully not anything worse. "So we're... walking it back." "We are walking it all the way back. We are walking it back to before you ever read that message." Bob folded the document with visible reluctance, the way a man surrenders a flag he still believes should have won the war. "Directive 1 is rescinded," he said, mournfully, to no one. "Thank you." "...Directive 2 is a similar plan, but with shields." "Bob." Somewhere in alliance chat, DeathTax posted a single crying-laughing emoji, followed by: "I can't quit either of you. You two get me." Ryze did not respond. He was still looking at the sky.