Location: Fubar, Orkney
Time: Sixth Age, Winter 48 to Spring 49
Ramssee watched as Kaoz finish disposing of another body in the woods along the northeast corner of his estate – the secluded burial grounds for so many the bones of the forsaken prostitutes of Fubar.
“I’m going to need more land soon.” The viperz quipped as he pulled his furs closer and took a long drag on his smoke stick. “Why don’t you try chop–“
Ramssee let the thought trail off and Kaoz dropped his shovel as both of them stood with mouths agape at the sight of an apparition that had suddenly appeared before them.
“Swine!” I yelled, casting a vision of myself upon my minions. (1) I showed them a view of my Shaitan persona (2) — their God of Death figure who appeared as a skeleton covered in black robes and with the bones of my ancient skull face but barely visible under my deep cowl, making the intensity of my glowing green eyes even more impactful. “Why haven’t you returned yet with my prize?!”
“My lord,” Kaoz bowed down on one knee and then pulled Ramssee down to beside him, ripping the viperz’s furs in the process. “The snake man is worthless rat! Ramssee had time to bend ear of king, but does nothing.” Then angrily the myz added, “Nothing but live in luxury and keep Kaoz locked up!”
“I haven’t heard you complaining much, dog!” spat the viperz. “Why you’ve even said that—“
“ENOUGH!” I interrupted. “I care not to listen to your bickering, nor your excuses. I am a very busy god. I have much to attend to. Just tell me, how is the mining of Akka going? When do you expect to be at the Deepest Depths?” (3)
“Ah. But? Akka is…” stammered Kaoz.
“I don’t have time to listen to a nitwit.” I twirled a little vexing motion with my bony finger and directed a small spell towards the myz, “Kaoz, I command you to be silent for the rest of my discussion. Ramssee, you explain.”
“I appreciate your visit,” soothed Ramssee. “Yes, I have the answers you are seeking.” And here the viperz eyes started to spin as he stood up and started walking closer to my apparition.
“STOP THAT!” I commanded. “How dare you try to use The Power on me?! I gave you that gift, you ungrateful fool!”
Ramssee quickly recovered. “I meant no harm, master. Forgive me.” Coming to his senses he back away and bowed with his palms open, “Actually, we are glad you came to visit us, for we are in need of your divine assistance. The fact is that while no mining has yet begun–” And seeing my anger grow, the viperz speeded up his speech in an effort to get his point out as quickly as possible, “Yes, while no mining has begun, that does NOT mean that we haven’t been making progress on the plan.”
“You’re not making any sense.” I warned.
“Yes, yes, of course.” Ramssee agreed. “The fact is that despite The Power, I’ve discovered it doesn’t work on everybody. I know. But that’s the truth. It seems that if somebody is truly pure of heart – damn them! – well, your gift of Persuasion will not work. Unfortunately, that is the case with Karl Dinus, the current King of Orkney.”
“Interesting.” My scientific curiosity was somewhat piqued (4). “Hmmm. I didn’t expect that. But so what? Why haven’t you just eliminated him and installed a new king?”
“Yes, that is the plan. However, as you know, we need the support of that new king and his people — for Fubar holds the mining resources and labor we need to unearth The Grim at Akka.”
“And?”
“And, I have finally groomed the next king – Karl’s son Dinus.” The viperz boasted.
“And, I’m so impressed.” I let the mandible of my skull hang open in mock disgust. “Then what’s the hold up now?”
“Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to figure out a way to covertly remove the well protected Karl without raising suspicions on ourselves.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that to begin with! The solution is easy and I’m frustrated that you didn’t think of it already. But no matter. You will move forward as follows – I will provide you with the recipe for a poison that is not only undetectable, but also will make it appear as if the king killed himself – which is exactly what he will do once this potion works its magic on his psyche! Listen now, here is what you will need…”
I then explained went on to Ramssee how to prepare the poison that Prince Diked could secretly give to his father that would cause Karl to take his own life.
I could see the viperze was eager to get moving, yet before I ended the visitation, I made it very clear that my patience with he and Koaz was growing thin and that if both of them did not have substantial progress to report to me upon our next meeting – which I purposefully neglected to advise when that would be – then there would be consequences. “Bring me The Grim – SOON! Or suffer my wrath for all eternity!”
Once I was gone, Kaoz was released from my <Silent Inertia> spell and he immediately tried to throttle Ramssee – blaming the viperz for all that had gone wrong so far.
“Kaoz will kill Ramssee!” The myz roared as he chased after the now retreating snake man.
The viperz wisely escaped into his hedge maze and used his knowledge of the labyrinth to elude his partner. Staying always out of reach, Ramssee them used his Power wear out Kaoz and eventually calm him down. Fortunately for him, the King’s Aide was successful in this endeavor – for Kaoz was far from being “pure of heart,” and thus readily influenceable by the magic I gave the viperz.
The next day, after concocting Death’s Suicide Potion (5), Ramssee explained what was required of Prince Diked – to which the boy readily agreed.
And with that the junta implemented their plans to depose King Karl Dinus.
So it was that on the second night of the second week of the second month of the Winter of ’48, Orkney lost its beloved King Karl – the result of an unexpected suicide by that ruler.
The kingdom was shocked, nobody could explain why the seemingly happy Karl would have felt he need to take his own life. Yet not even the General Alec – himself devastated that he had failed to protect his king against his own hand – could cast suspicion on anybody, particularly his chief rival, The King’s Aide Ramssee.
Although King Karl was missed, the fact is that the world moves on, as it always does, and even while Orkney mourned the loss of Karl, plans were laid to crown Prince Brinn as the next King upon the first day of the Spring of 49.
Unfortunately for Orkney, the populalice was again forced to suffer another tragedy – one so horrific that the people began to wonder if maybe the Dinus family was suddenly a cursed clan – for the night before Brinn’s inauguration, that would-be king not only abdicated the throne, but also (allegedly) ran out of town, proclaiming that he would never return! (6)
In the end, when the first day of the Spring of 49 finally arrived, it was but a small group of Orkney’s high society that were invited to pay their respects to Diked Dinus I – King of Orkney. (7)
It should be noted that because Dinus was a mere eighteen years old at the time of his crowning, the law required that he have a Royal Steward to assist him. Naturally Diked named Ramssee as his Chief Advisor – thus effectively garnering the viperz the outright rule of the kingdom. (8)
Their schemes for installing Diked as King now completed, Ramssee, Kaoz, and the new Ruler could now move forward with their next step in their plans – the mining of Akka. To accomplish this, Ramssee convinced Diked to call a royal celebration, in order to not only recognize a new era in Orkney that the viperz was calling the Rebirth of the World – a time when King Diked Dinus I would lead his people out of the Dark Ages and on to their rightful place in the Annals of History.
With Diked readily agreeing to everything the viperz wanted, Ramssee couldn’t have been happier. Languishing on his bed, he blew smoke rings towards the body of the dead prostitute Katrina, whose last drops of blood had long since oozed onto the viperz’s hardwood floors.
Finished with his remembrances of the past, the snake man pondered the future, So young Diked thinks he will really be a great king? Well, for now, that’s fine. I’ll let him deliver the speech I prepared for him so that we can convince his people to dig for gold in Akka. Yes, that’s all well and fine, but sooner rather than later I’ll rid myself of little Diked, that brute Kaoz, and of course my biggest threat — Shedu Mezai. And when I remove all those thorns, then I, Ramssee, can rule Orkney and all its people – for that is MY destiny!!
Nektar’s Notes
- What – you thought I was just going to keep narrating this part of the story? Wrong – I wanna be part of the action too!
- The Shaitan, Shedu Mazai, yada, yada, yada – what’s in a name? It’s the soul that matters and regardless of my name, the soul is still the same.
- You might be wondering why I was asking all these questions and didn’t know the answer to any of them. After all, both Ramssee and Kaoz were of an evil nature and therefore easy for me to observe from afar. Here I’ll admit that I hadn’t paid much attention because, from my perspective, they hadn’t been gone all that long – it had only been a little over a year since I’d given them the mission and that time frame is but a breath from a god’s perspective – especially one as busy as me. Could I have just observed them casually with a secret visitation? Certainly. But where’s the fun in that? After all, one of the reasons why I appeared to Kaoz and Ramssee on this day was because I wanted them to SEE me and to know that I could SEE them – anytime I wanted. I wanted to put the fear of god into them and make sure they understood that I was still very much their boss.
- There are so few people of pure heart in the world that I didn’t really take that into account when I created the Power of Persuasion spell. Oops.
- That has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
- What the people didn’t know was that Ramssee had arranged for Brinn to meet the myz Kaoz for the first time that night before his crowning – and apparently, what Kaoz told Brinn scared him so senseless, that Karl’s heir was convinced to give up his seat of power to his younger brother.
- The King’s Aide had convinced Dinus to keep the gathering small because he’d explained that most of Orkney was unimportant in the grand scheme of things, therefore it made no sense to honor the people by letting them see a new king being crowned. What the citizens thought or felt didn’t matter at all – for the people of Orkney were but sheep for the king to use as he pleased.
- Needless to say, General Alec was not pleased with these events, but without much he could do to oppose Ramssee, the military leader chose to keep his mouth shut out of respect and allegiance to the Orkney Throne.
The Apocrypha of Azazel 