Location: Fubar
Timeline: Sixth Age, 53rd Year, Spring
The winter was done, and the Royal Steward was doing his best to ensure that none of the passing season’s ice wine would go to waste. Ramssee sat in the King’s Den at the palace in Fubar, the candlelight dancing off his fine crystal glass. He felt invincible. He felt like a king in all but name.
“Well, another year is here,” he mused, the wine slithering down his throat. “What will the future hold for me, I wonder?”
The answer came not in a vision, but in a persistent, irritating sound: <rap, rap> at the heavy oak door.
“Go away,” Ramssee called out, his voice thick with annoyance.
<rap, rap> <rap, rap>
“I said, ‘GO AWAY!’ I am not to be bothered!” He shouted, the wine sloshing in his glass.
But the tapping continued, rhythmic and demanding. With a snarl, Ramssee hauled himself from his overstuffed chair. He flung open the door, ready to strike whatever page or servant had dared to interrupt his solitude. But the hallway was empty, cold, and silent. There was only a small, dark wooden box sitting on the rug beneath the door, a parchment affixed to its lid with a seal of purple wax.
Ramssee’s first instinct was to crush the box under his boot, but the craftsmanship stayed his foot. The wood was ancient, carved with intricate, interlocking patterns that seemed to move if he looked at them too long.
“Akkanian,” he whispered, his greed sharpening his senses. “Fifth…no Fourth Age. From the lost Drokka kingdom!”
He picked it up. It was unnervingly heavy, yet as he shook it, nothing rattled. The contents were anchored by more than just satin. Carrying it to his desk, he broke the seal and found a small metal key. The note was brief: Thought you might like this piece.
There was no signature, yet Ramssee didn’t care. Later hindsight might have made him wish he’d paused to consider his next action, but given the wine’s effect on his judgement and that feeling of invincibility, he didn’t hesitate. He fit the key into the lock, and with a metallic click, the lid hissed open of its own accord.
Inside, cradled in deep violet silk, sat a solid gold oil lamp. It was a thing of terrifying beauty. The gold was not the dull yellow of common bullion; it had a deep, pulsing luster—a “swirl” that seemed to suck at the light of the room. Its surface was a tapestry of tiny, looping vignettes: ancient battles between the Drokka and Derkka..
Ramssee yearned to touch the lamp and he felt a sudden, violent possessiveness surge through him—a conviction that he would kill anyone who even looked upon this…his treasure. Quickly then he reached in and snatched the lamp from its casing.
Immediately a jolt of adrenaline, cold as a winter stream, shot through his veins. He chuckled, blaming the ice wine, but as he held the lamp to the light, the vignettes on its surface began to move. He watched, mouth-agape, as he saw a looping scene in which a horde of goblins overran a dwarf stronghold – the detailed images gruesomely lifelike. Moving the lamp again, he witnessed a different scene set within a background of giant petrified trees – once more an army of goblins massacred a band of dwarf warriors.
Now why would the stone men add runes to this lamp that glorified their losses? Ramssee wondered.
Yet, still he looked on. This time he turned the lamp over, looking on the other side for the first time. He vision was immediately drawn to a cloudy tableau in the center of the bowl – it was hard to make out because of roiling black wisps that ever obscured the view, but it looked to be a skirmish involving Derkka, Drooka, and even Myz. Once again, the hordes had obviously got the better of this struggle, for all but one of the dwarves was dead and the action seemingly showed the last seconds of that lone Drokka in his fight against certain death – yet, unfortunately the swirling specks got so frenzied that Ramssee couldn’t see the final result.
“Why can’t I make this one out.” Ramssee said a little perturbed. “Why does the darkness on this spot seem different then the rest of the lamp’s swirl? Is it just a little dirty here?” And to test his theory he held the lamp in one hand while he used his shirt cuff to rub it with his other hand.
Perhaps I can clean it and then make out wh—
A blinding <FLASH!> of violet light detonated in the room. Ramssee dropped the lamp as from its spout, an inky, miasmic fog began to pour forth, filling the Den.
Ramssee froze, his mind screaming that the Shaitan had come to claim his soul. But the haze did not take the form of the Shedu Mezai. Instead, the mist began to coalesce into a long, cylindrical shape—a purplish-black shadow that elongated into the form of a giant serpent with a humanoid head.
Although Ramssee didn’t know what the monster before him was, I can tell you that it was a Mist Djiin – a creature of the deep ether. While the grotesque appearance of its body was a sight of itself, it was the visage of this creature that emitted a captivating magic – controlling the gaze of its onlookers. Its face was smooth, for it had naught but two holes for a nose and its mouth had no lips. But, it did have fangs – oh yes indeed! – giant fangs which it made no effort to hide. And its lidless eyes glowed a florescent green under a heavy brow – it was these flashing orbs which bespoke of the supernatural power it held inside. Quickly then it fixed its gaze on Ramssee – a look of loathing malice written on its face.
Ramssee backed away, tripping over a footstool. He was unable to draw his own gaze from the face of this being who appeared before him. Being a snake himself, yet never having conceived of such a being as this, Ramssee thought that his visitor was actually some immortal viper god who had come to take him back to whatever underworld they both belonged to. And, since Ramssee himself was not yet ready to go to such a place, he was trying to slowly make his way to the nearest door so as to run away as fast as he could – far, far from Fubar, to somewhere he could hide from this menace!
As he reached for the door handle to flee, the creature’s face shifted. The loathing vanished, replaced by a mask of oily, exaggerated humility. “Who is the great massster who has called forth Sssaura?” the creature hissed, its voice like dry leaves skittering over stone. “How can I be of ssservice to you, wizssard?”
To his credit, The Royal Steward was able to quickly adjust to the circumstances, his fear replaced by hubris. A servant. He raised an eyebrow. Not a judge, but a tool.
The purple-black mist of the snake spirit coiled itself up above the lamp to which it was ever attached. It affixed its deep gaze upon Ramssee and said again, “I am Sssaura. Pleassse name yourssself, wizssard.”
Still terrified in spite of himself, the Steward said cautiously, “Ah, I am R-R-Ramssee.”
“R-R-Ramsssee, Sssaura is here to grant you your heart’sss desssire on three occasssionsss. After that you mussst promissse to return me to where you found me or elssse…Sssss…facsse the consssequencssesss.”
“But how do I kn–.” Ramssee hesitated, the offer sounding too good to be true.
“What?” Interrupted the djiin with a shriek. “You refussse to accssept my offeringsss, R-R-Ramsssee?” And the being rared its head back, as if preparing to strike!
“No, wait.” The viperz held up his hands to ward off the coming attack. “My name is not R-R-Ramssee. It’s just Ramssee.” And then, finally he got his own nerve back and, now realizing that this was not his own father god who came to steal his soul away, but instead was nothing more than a magical spirit who he had fortuitously gained the privilege of service from, Ramssee perked up. He walked slowly closer to the djiin.
“Well, Ramsssee. What do you desssire of Sssaura?”
Ramssee smiled. The “Ol’ Black Magic” was already working on his mind, amplifying his secret hungers. He didn’t think of the poor, or the kingdom’s stability. He thought of the two obstacles in his path.
“I want Diked and Kaoz to leave Fubar—forever!” he cried, his voice ringing with newfound pride and power. “And let the bastards both perish while they are gone!”
“Ssss. And ssso it shall be,” Ssaura hissed, the green light in its eyes flashing with a secret mirth. “Exssactly asss you requessst, Massster.”
Realizing that he might not have specified his desire literally enough, Ramssee quickly added, “Ah, don’t I need to tell you when and where I want them to go?”
“Your timeline worksss differently than mine; make no demandsss upon me in thisss regard.” Warned Sssaura. However, he then slyly added, “However, take no offenssse, Massster, for I invite you to ussse another wisssh, if you ssso desssire, to have me guide them to your chosssen location. Do you want to ussse your sssecond wisssh?” And the djiin let the words hand in the air like a noose.
Ramssee narrowed his eyes, judging the situation. Hmm. He might have taken me on this first wish. Well. Let’s just see what happens before I go wasting my other two. And aloud, he replied to Sssaura. “No, that will be all for now. I want to see how well you grant me my first desire before I ask for anything else.”
“Yesss. Let’sss sssee, ssshall we?” The sinister spirit agreed. With a final <FLASH>, the djiin vanished back into the spout, leaving the room smelling of burnt copper and ancient dust.
Ramssee stood in the silence, his heart hammering a triumphal rhythm. He gingerly placed the lamp back in its box, locked it, and hid it behind his most expensive cases of wine—a place where even King Diked feared to tread.
“What a way to start the year!” Ramssee toasted himself, draining his glass of ice wine. “52 was the year of the Steward. But 53… 53 will be the year of the Emperor. Ha, ha, ha, ha!”
Spring Cleaning
As Spring bloomed across the flat earth, the world below my volcanic perch began to stir with predictable industriousness of the mortals of my domain. Along the banks of the Akkas in northern Orkney, a mountain goat nimbly picked its way across the scree, oblivious to the fact that the earth beneath its hooves was a hollow shell filled with the greed of men. Nearby, a fox nibbled on the early grasses, and overhead, a pair of hawks engaged in an aerial display—a pre-mating ritual they had enjoyed for thousands of years, blissfully unaware that the sky they claimed would soon be choked with the smoke of a burning kingdom.
Further down the slope, a large brown bear poked its head from a den, snorting as it cleared away the vegetative debris of its three-month fast. The beast was lean and famished, but more than that, it was irritable. For three seasons, its hibernation had been punctured by a rhythmic, unnatural thrumming that leaked through the very bedrock.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The bear rose on its hind legs, let out a jagged roar of frustration, and began digging at the frozen dirt as if it could unearth the source of its madness. What the poor bruin did not understand was that the Fubar miners were back, their picks biting into the “Barriers” that barred the Deepest Depths of the Akka mines. Although the men thought their mission was to find the dwarves’ treasure for their king, what they didn’t realize was that their true goal was to find MY prize – The Grim.
And while the mountain was being hollowed out, Fubar itself was being turned into a gilded cage. With the thaw came the opportunity for the Steward to encourage the King to further empty the royal coffers into beefing up their defenses. In recent years, whilst Diked and Kaoz were away in Ramos, Ramssee had begun updating the city’s entrance – transforming it from the mundane material fashioned from heavy timbers into a more modern approach complete with a full fledged portcullis along with perimeter walls of reinforced stone. This year, Ramssee convinced Diked to commission the installation of “murder holes” above the portcullis—perfect apertures for pouring hot oil or spikes upon any who dared to breach his gates. Castellations were raised, crenels were sharpened, and towers were built higher to better allow for defense of a siege against the kingdom. Even the inner walls surrounding the palace were ‘updated’ so that structure looked less like a royal home and more like a fortress. And to top it off, the barracks were home to a larger military – with recruits from the peasantry throughout Orkney.
The reason for all these frantic fortifications?
Why Fear, of course.
Despite the promise of rebirth that Spring usually brings, King Diked was a man being eaten from the inside out. His throne had lost its allure; he was a prisoner trapped by the two “friends” he feared most: his Royal Steward, Ramssee, and the shadow-bound Myz, Kaoz. He spent his nights dreaming of the silk and heat of Ramos, yearning for Inanna, the goddess who had stolen his soul. But Diked was a puppet who couldn’t find his strings. Although he rightly guess that Ramssee would gladly see him off again, Diked knew couldn’t return to Inanna without Kaoz to guard him, and Kaoz refused to move until the mines of Akka gave up their prize – MY magical dagger which the treasonous Myz had secretly promised to the Goddess.
This meant that King Diked had to continue to devote resources towards opening up the Deepest Depths passageway – and since this was still as yet a very unprofitable and unpopular venture among his citizens, the longer that project went on, the longer the king was perceived as withholding treasure from his people, and thus the more unpopular he knew he became – especially with the rich lords of Orkney whose pleasure the king served at.
When Diked complained about the mounting expenses, his voice cracking as he tallied the gold leaving the treasury, Ramssee was ready.
“My King,” Ramssee whispered slyly as they sat near the hearth, the firelight casting long, serpentine shadows against the stone. “Although I hate to admit it, it is my duty to advise you that some of your once-loyal barons and dukes from the outer provinces have been rumored to be plotting against you. They are drunk on the gold they used to collect under my watch. Now, now, we both know it’s true. They whisper of a ‘weak’ throne. But that’s all the more reason why you need to spend your coin on building up these walls now. They are your peace of mind, Diked. Forget the lords—no power in Orkney could breach the defenses you have now. Let them grumble in their drafty keeps while you sit in an iron womb.”
A fortnight later, the King again whined about the names he was being called in the taverns—”Diked the Drainer,” “The Beggar King.” Ramssee merely waved a manicured hand, poo-pooing the peasants’ teasing.
“Forget the rabble. Their tongues are wagged by ale, not intellect,” Ramssee sneered. “Know this—we must prepare for every eventuality. Ponder this: what if a decade from now, the dwarves seek to come back to their kingdom in the mountain? What then?”
Seeing his words strike a sudden, cold fear in the King’s eyes, Ramssee leaned in closer. “Although we have acted legally in annexing a deserted section of our own lands, even still, those stunted stone-grubbers might not see it that way. They are a vengeful race, Diked. They remember every debt. Therefore, we must be prepared to defend ourselves.”
The thought took the King by surprise. Diked swallowed hard, his hands shaking as he gripped the arms of his chair. “The dwarves? But they’ve been gone for ages! You said the Akka was ours by right! If they come back with their hammers and their mountain-magics… Ramssee, we’d be crushed! The city wouldn’t stand a day!”
In answer, Ramssee’s thin lips peeled back into a predatory smirk, the sort of expression a viper wears just before the strike. “What if the dwarves are already on their way here, my King?” he whispered, letting the words hang in the air like a hangman’s noose. “What if the mountains have already begun to spit them out, hungry for the gold you currently sit upon?”
It was a masterclass in cruelty. The Steward purposely withheld the truth from the shivering King: the winter capture of a Drokka who didn’t a pickaxe, but a royal lineage. Months ago, in the howling dark of a blizzard, the Myz Kaoz had secretly dragged a bloodied, broken figure to Ramssee’s chambers. He had thrown the injured dwarf—a self-proclaimed Prince of the Rhokki Mountains—at Ramssee’s feet like a piece of refuse. For his part, The Royal Steward had not offered the noble prisoner mercy or a healer. Instead, he had the dwarf prince shackled in the deepest, most forgotten pit of the Fubar dungeons. The prison guards had been sworn to a silence enforced by the threat of the headsman’s axe – to them, the cell was empty, and the groans they heard were merely the wind.
Why the secret? The Steward was hoarding that revelation, nurturing it like a poisonous orchid. He envisioned the perfect moment to drop this “tidbit” onto Diked’s fragile psyche—a final, crushing blow of terror that would send the King screaming into the night, fleeing for the safety of Ramos and leaving the throne of Orkney vacant and ripe for the taking.
For this night, Ramssee instead played the role of the humble, concerned advisor. He acted coy, watching with inward delight as his gambit took hold. Fear, he realized, was still the most efficient pump for a dry treasury. Once again, the panicked King signed the ledgers, letting the royal gold flow like a mountain river into the hands of the stone-masons and architects of Ramssee’s future empire.
Weeks later, the tension in the King’s Den had reached a snapping point. Diked, his face flushed and his hands trembling, had spent the last hour pacing the length of the rug in his study, shouting about the empty treasury and the rising dissent in the streets.
“The vaults are running dry, Ramssee!” Diked cried, slamming a fist onto the mahogany side table. “The merchants are hoarding their grain, and the commoners look at me as if I’m the one picking their pockets! You’re bankrupting this crown! Are you trying to leave me a king of a graveyard?”
Ramssee didn’t flinch. He sat perfectly still, his eyes glinting with the cold, oily memory of the Akkanian Lamp hidden behind his wine crates—a reminder of the dark “magic” now fueling his every move. He waited for the King’s breath to hitch before he struck with a verbal blade.
“Is that what you think, Diked? That I am merely playing with your coin?” Ramssee’s voice was a low, dangerous purr. He leaned forward, the firelight catching the predatory curve of his fangs. “Ponder this, my dear, terrified King. You remember the ‘unpleasantries’ of the Finch affair, do you not? The girl, Lynsy? The blood?”
Diked froze, his eyes widening. “That… that was supposed to be handled. You said—”
“I said many things,” Ramssee interrupted, his tone sharpening. “But what I know now is that there is an ‘elf-warrior’ fellow. A man named Emcorae Azop. He is young, but said to be he consumed by a vengeful fire, and he has been trained by the elves of the Arbolan Glades. After what happened with Lynzy, we both know he isn’t coming to ask for an apology, Diked. He is coming to put your head on a spike.”
Diked sank into a chair, his face turning the color of curdled milk. “One man? You’re bankrupting us because of one warrior?”
“Not just one man,” Ramssee lied, leaning in until Diked could smell the ice wine on his breath. “The rumors say he has the entire army of Arbola at his back. Legions of elven archers and forest-shadows, all marching North because you couldn’t keep the girl to yourself. Now, tell me… would you not feel better behind a wall that even the elven host cannot breach? Is your life—your precious, royal life—not worth every last bit of gold in the mud? Or would you rather save a few coins and let them find you in an unfortified palace?”
The silence that followed was absolute. Diked stared into the fire, the ghosts of his past sins reflecting in his wide, watery eyes. The manipulation was perfect; Ramssee had transformed the King’s fiscal guilt into a primal, paralyzing terror.
“Build it,” Diked whispered, his voice broken. “Build whatever you need. Just… make sure they can’t get in.”
After that, the fear-ridden King stopped complaining. He became a ghost in his own halls, signing every decree and devoting every last copper and able-bodied man to the defense projects Ramssee had dreamed up. Free to act as the architect of his own destiny, the Steward turned Fubar into a grim military camp.
The Grand Entrance — now that monstrous portcullis – was slammed shut. It remained closed but for brief, heavily guarded windows in the early morning, afternoon, and evening. At those times, the passage of travelers was treated like a military inspection; armed guards, hand-picked for their lack of empathy, were assigned to interview every soul who sought entry. The side gates were not just closed—they were bolted, reinforced with iron bars, and watched by archers with standing orders to shoot first.
For his part, Ramssee couldn’t have been more pleased. A few nights later, the air was crisp as the Steward stood upon the newly heightened battlements of the inner sanctum, his silk cloak billowing behind him like a shadow. At his side stood Monnik, her eyes reflecting the orange glow of the hundreds of torches that illuminated the frantic industry below.
From this height, the city of Fubar looked like a living creature being encased in a suit of iron and stone. The rhythmic clink-clink-clink of hammers against chisels and the guttural shouts of the foremen were a symphony to his ears. Naturally, the viperz didn’t care about the boy Emcorae, the supposed legions of the Arbolan Glades, or least of all the safety of the sniveling King who currently paced his chambers in a fit of tremors. He was simply using Diked’s paralyzing terror and the crown’s dwindling gold to build the impenetrable shell of his own future Empire.
“Look at them, Monnik,” Ramssee murmured, his voice smooth as aged wine. “See how they sweat? Every stone they lay is a tribute to a legacy they don’t even know they are building. They think they work for a frightened king, when in fact they work for a god in the making.”
Monnik leaned into him, her hand resting on the riveted steel of the new parapet. “It is imposing, my love. I’ve never seen the city look so… formidable. But do you dare too much too fast? The people are beginning to whisper about the hunger.”
“Let them whisper,” Ramssee scoffed, his eyes glinting with a predatory light. “Hunger makes them lean. Fear makes them obedient. And they blame Diked for it all.”
He raised a silver chalice of ice wine, the liquid shimmering like a dark jewel under the torchlight. He offered a toast to the beautiful woman at his side, though his gaze remained fixed on the horizon where the road vanished into the dark.
“Let them come,” he declared, his voice ringing with pride. “Let the elf-warrior come. Let the dwarves march from their holes. Let the whole world come to our gates. They’ll find no mercy here—only a fortress that will outlast the stars, and an Emperor waiting to receive their surrender.”
I’d seen this play before – greedy mortals often overreach what they’re capable of. Whilst my pawn enjoyed his foul wine from the pitiful vintages around Skarra Bree, I luxuriated with Blood Wine from the Fifth Age – the essence of Mediridan Elves to boot – as I alone knew what the future of Ramssee held.
“Drink deep, little Emperor,” I whispered into the night. “Your walls may be high, and the gates may be strong. But the most dangerous enemy is already inside, and he is the one holding your soul…”
The Apocrypha of Azazel 