Location: Fubar, Orkney
Timeline: Sixth Age, 52nd Year, Summer
I would have loved to say that I watched this particular thread of fate through Seraphiel’s orb back in the 53rd year, sifting through the past for news of my truant pawns, Ramssee and Kaoz. But sadly, even an Arch-Demon has his limits; I grew tired and bored watching the mundane events related to the Finch household, and that plus all the blood wine I’d consumed, caused me to skip over this rather vital incident. As a result, I am finding out the gritty details much like you—as I piece together my Apocrypha from the echoes of the world’s memory.
So, with my trusty quill, let us look back at what I missed in the sweltering heat of the 52nd year…
The Zenith of Summer
When the spring melted into the lush, intoxicating heat of summer, Merrill Finch returned to Monthaven with the swagger of a man who had conquered a continent. Fresh off his updated agreement with that silken viper Ramssee, the merchant believed he had finally secured a crown for the Finch family. He wasn’t just making his daughter a Queen; he was building a legacy that would echo for generations.
Imagine his surprise, then, when the summer brought a complication that no merchant’s ledger could account for—his daughter had found a heart of her own, and it belonged to someone else.
Lynsy didn’t confess the secret immediately. At first, Merrill tried to soothe her, boasting that his trip to Fubar had been a grand success. He spoke of the fall wedding and how Diked was now a King in his own right, expecting her to glow with pride. Instead, he saw a hollow, paralyzing terror in her eyes. When she finally burst into tears, Merrill—ever the optimist—mistook them for anxious joy.
He was corrected quickly enough.
“Father, please don’t make me marry Diked,” she whispered.
As you might expect Merrill cycled through the gambit of emotions. Lynsy didn’t tell him everything—she spared him the most graphic details of Diked’s mistreatment—but she told him enough to turn his world upside down. Merrill was a businessman, yes, but he was a father first. The realization that he had nearly sold his daughter into a life of misery distressed him so deeply that when she mentioned her new love for Emcorae Azop, he didn’t weigh the boy’s status or his “elf-lover” reputation. He saw his daughter’s happiness, and for once, the merchant was moved by something other than gold. He gave them his full support, even helping them plot a path to the sanctuary of the forest.
But where there was a father’s love, there was also a jaded son’s envy.
Dugan Finch did not share in this sudden burst of altruism. To Dugan, Lynsy was a currency that had just been catastrophically devalued. In his mind, Emcorae was nothing more than a dirt-streaked elven puppet, a local peasant’s son who was stealing Dugan’s one shot at the nobility. While Emcorae and Lynsy were playing at romance in the summer meadows, Dugan was lurking in the shadows of the estate, scratching out a letter that would set their world on fire.
Thinking his betrayal would win him back a place in Diked’s good graces, Dugan paid a rider a small fortune to race to Fubar. He was so eager to sabotage his sister that he didn’t wait for details; his letter was a blunt instrument. He didn’t know about the escape to Arbola, nor did he know that Emcorae had been trained by the Amorosi since he was twelve. He simply wrote that a local boy named Emcorae Azop intended to steal the King’s bride and urged Diked to stop it.
By the time that rider reached the iron gates of Fubar, the romance of the summer had reached its peak—a zenith that, thanks to a brother’s spite, had nowhere to go but down.
Unexpected News
Despite the city’s new found riches of the last half decade, the throne room of Fubar was still a place of drafted cold and hollow echoes. The hall was mostly empty and the air was thick with the cloying scent of incense and the heavy, sweet musk of ice wine. Instead of sitting on his throne, Diked lay reclined on an overstuffed divan off to the side, his fingers tracing the lace of his courtesan Monnik’s sleeve. For her part beautiful black-haired woman leaned against the king’s shoulder, but her her eyes—cold and calculating—secretly met the Steward Ramssee’s gaze as the viperz looked at her over Diked’s head.
Oblivious to the coquetry going on behind his back, the king’s face a mask of brooding resentment. Since his return to the north, he’d become a ghost in his own palace, obsessed with dreams of Inanna and his trip to Ramos. It’s true that he’d found some solace in the arms of the Monnik, yet even that wasn’t enough to quell the king’s fidgeting. To make matters worse, the “needs” of his kingdom were always pressing—or so his Royal Steward continually told him.
Ramssee, that ever-present “pillar of wisdom,” lounged in his own comfy chair on the other side of Diked’s couch. As usual he spoke of many things—the progress of the miners at Akka and the urgency of improving the fortifications of Fubar’s defense systems—as if stone and mortar could keep out the feeling of inadequacy that gnawed at Diked’s vitals.
Suddenly, the heavy iron-bound doors of the hall creaked open, admitting a blast of wind and a shivering, mud-splattered messenger. The unknown man collapsed to his knees, clutching a scroll.
“Speak,” Diked barked. “Or go back to the mud you crawled out of.”
“A message… from Monthaven, Majesty,” the man wheezed. “From Master Dugan Finch. He says it is of the utmost urgency. It concerns the lady Lynsy.”
“Is she dead?” Diked asked hopefully, sharing a laugh with Monnik.
Yet Ramssee was across the floor before the messenger could even offer the scroll to the king. He snatched it himself, his long fingers tearing the wax of the Finch’s seal with practiced cruelty. He didn’t flinch at the King’s apathy; he knew it was just a shell. He stepped forward, the firelight catching the sharp angles of his face as he quickly read the missive.
With a sinister grin he said, “It would appear that your little Lynsy has been busy with another lover – some peasant boy named Emcorae.”
Disappointed to hear that his fiance wasn’t dead, the king trailed his hands through Monnick’s lustrous locks and replied in boredom, “Good. Let the boy have her. I didn’t want her anyway. Lynsy was a chore. Why should I care if some dirt-born boy wants to bed a merchant’s daughter? I have everything I need right here.”
“Of course, Majesty. Your taste has always been… superior,” Ramssee purred, knowing all about Monnik’s ‘talents’ since he still partook of them secretly himself. “But this isn’t about the girl. I rather thought you’d have cared about the…theft.”
Diked squinted, his eyes puffy from wine and the dim, amber light of the Den. “Theft? What has been stolen?”
“Well, for starters, your reputation, Majesty.” Ramssee’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial silk. He made a grand show of glancing toward the heavy oak doors and the shadowed corners of the hall, pretending to ensure the room was purged of potential eavesdroppers. He leaned in close, his cold breath smelling of winter air. “I’m sure in the taverns of Monthaven, they are already laughing at you. Can’t you hear it? The clinking of cheap ale mugs as they toast to the local boy who made a fool of a King. I’d imagine they’re whooping it up even now, wondering how this… this Emcorae was able to ‘win’ a prize you couldn’t keep.”
“Some prize,” Diked scoffed, attempting to project a regal indifference. Yet he sat up slowly, the leather of the divan creaking under his shifting weight. His grip tightened on his wine glass until the silver groaned—Ramssee’s calculated use of the word ‘win’ had acted like a hot needle plunged into the King’s ear. “Do they… do they really laugh at me?”
“Alas, I can only imagine it is so,” Ramssee sighed, his face a mask of false sympathy. He turned away as if the thought were too painful to bear. “The common folk love a story where the high-born fall. It gives them something to talk about while they bake their bread.”
Diked’s eyes darted to Monnik, seeking a anchor in his rising sea of doubt. Finding none in her cool, watchful gaze, he waved a dismissive hand at his Advisor. “Who cares about what they say in some backwater town in Pennal? This is Fubar! They love me here. My name is etched in the stones of these walls!”
“A wise point, Sire. Truly,” Ramssee played along, his voice dripping with sycophantic grace. “The rabble in the south are beneath your notice. And yet… I can’t help but wonder.”
“About what?” Monnik purred. She leaned forward, her fingers like pale spiders stroking Diked’s trembling arm, her eyes locked on Ramssee in a silent, shared secret.
“Well, it’s probably nothing,” the Viperz cooed, pacing a small circle near the hearth. “But I worry—what if this news reaches Orkney? What might the people say in our taverns? What might the lords think when they hear that their King’s betrothed was stolen by a boy who spends his days playing with elven trinkets? If you cannot hold a bride, Diked, the lords might wonder if you can hold a crown.”
“Could it really come to that?” Diked’s arrogance vanished, replaced by a cold, sudden hollow of worry. He looked at the shadows of his own throne as if they were closing in. Then, with a flash of infantile anger, he barked, “You seem to have all the answers, Ramssee! So tell me—what should I do, Steward? How do I stop the laughing?”
Ramssee made a show of pacing the floor, his brow furrowed in “deep” thought. He stopped before the fire, the flames casting long, flickering horns upon the wall behind him. “As I see it, this is not about Lynsy at all. This is about you, Sire. You have to remind the people everywhere—from the docks of Skarra Bree to the forests of the south—that nothing is ‘won’ from the King of Orkney. Your friend Dugan says the boy is there now with Lynsy; that he’s arrogant, distracted by his little romance, and utterly unprotected. This insult to the crown cannot stand. There is only one clear path.”
Ramssee turned, his eyes gleaming with the trap he was about to spring. “You must take Lynsy by force—not to reclaim a bride you do not want, but to reclaim your respect and honor. You must instill a cold, paralyzing fear in any who might dare to wonder if the name Diked Dinus is mighty.”
Diked appeared to waver. The thought of the long, frozen trek to Monthaven and the physical reality of a confrontation made his stomach churn. Ramssee saw the hesitation and moved to pivot.
“You need not go yourself, my lord. Why soil your boots with the mud of Pennal? Send Kaoz. Let the Myz kill the boy where he stands—let him choke on his own audacity. Burn the family’s house to the ground so there is no memory left of this Emcorae. And the girl? Bring her back to you where she belongs. Once she is in the Fubar vaults, you can throw the maiden in the deepest dungeons. Then, we ransom her back to Merrill Finch for his entire, staggering fortune. How’s that for a win, Sire? You get your honor back, the boy dies, and the merchant pays for your new fortifications with every last copper he owns.”
Diked looked to Monnik, his eyes searching for a final permission to be cruel. The courtesan leaned back, her fingers trailing a slow, deliberate path down the silk of her robe. She gave him a small, encouraging smile—a silken nudge that pushed the coward over the edge of the precipice.
“So this boy thinks he has bested a King?” Diked stood up, his legs shaking but his voice booming with a borrowed, manic strength. He roared, throwing his silver goblet against the stone wall with a violent clang. The heavy red wine splattered against the grey masonry, running down the cracks like fresh, arterial blood. “I will show him what it means to lose everything! I will show Monthaven what happens to those who forget their place! Kaoz! Come forth!”
From the deepest shadows behind the throne—shadows so thick they seemed to swallow the flickering light of the hearth—the Myz moved.
With a silent, predatory walk that made the air in the room feel suddenly thin, Kaoz emerged into the light. He was a towering wall of grey, slate-like skin that seemed to absorb the firelight rather than reflect it. His muscles were like knotted ironwood, and his face was a slab of unmoving stone, save for those flat, shark-like eyes that held the terrifying patience of an apex predator, beneath his wild mass of black hair.
As stepped into the center of the room, the floorboards groaning under Kaoz’ weight. The Dread Knight looked at Diked not as a subject looks at a King, but as a wolf looks at a yapping dog—with a detached, cold curiosity. He’d listened to the tired narrative play out and knew what Diked wanted. To Kaoz, this trip to Monthaven was a distraction, but it offered the chance for blood sanctioned by Ramssee, and it gave him something to sate himself with as he continued to wait for The Grim to be found.
Diked pointed a trembling, white-knuckled finger toward the south, his voice cracking with a mixture of fear and triumph.
“Go to Monthaven. Find the boy, Emcorae. Kill him. I want him to watch as you tear his world apart before you take his life.” Diked’s chest heaved, his eyes wide and bloodshot. “Drag Lynsy back by her hair if you have to. If she resists, break her spirit—but bring her to me alive. I want her to rot in the dark while I spend her father’s gold.”
Kaoz didn’t blink. He tilted his head slightly, a gesture that was more amusement than a nod of obedience.
“And others?” Kaoz’s voice was a low, grinding rasp, like stones being crushed in a mill – the sound made Monnik visibly flinch.
“Anyone who stands in your way is a corpse!” Diked shrieked. “Make Emcorae suffer—I want the whole world to see the ruin of the man who dared to oppose the House of Fubar! Burn the estate! Leave nothing but ash and the scent of my vengeance!”
Kaoz turned his gaze toward Ramssee – the true power in Fubar. The Steward offered a slow, almost imperceptible nod. Without a word, the Myz turned and vanished back into the gloom of the hallway, his departure marked only by the sudden return of the room’s warmth. He was already calculating the swiftest route to the Finch estate and the most cruel way to extinguish the life of a boy he had never met. He didn’t expect much resistance.
And so, the die was cast. Diked thought he was defending his throne; Ramssee knew differently. The Steward watched the Myz depart, already mentally counting the gold in Merrill Finch’s coffers as his own.
“Now – let’s see what happens when the merchant learns that all the gold in the world cannot buy safety from a monster.
The Apocrypha of Azazel 