Location: Fubar
Timeline: Sixth Age, 53rd Year, Spring
I continued watching through The Eye – King Diked’s return to the palace was a frantic blur as he scrambled to escape the memories of his struggle with the plague that was destroying his people. Once inside his fortress, he burst through the ornate gilded doors, his lungs burning with terror. He ignored the swarm of servants—the courtiers reaching for his blood-stained cloak, the stewards offering wine to steady his nerves, and the cooks promising a feast to drown out the screams from the rabble outside.
Had he been his usual, arrogant self, Diked might have found their wide-eyed, trembling obedience empowering. But he was obtuse to the shift in the air. He had only one name on his lips, a prayer and a curse: Ramssee.
“Where is he?” Diked roared, stumbling over a priceless marble bust. “Where is the Steward?”
“In the K-king’s Den, Sire,” a page stammered, pressing himself against the tapestry to avoid the King’s frantic path.
Diked raced through the halls, toppling furniture and shoving aside anyone in his way. He rounded the final corridor, but as he lunged for the doors to his Den, two guards—men he recognized from General Alec’s elite circle—crossed their pikes, the steel ringing as it barred his path.
“What is this?” Diked shrieked, his voice cracking. “Out of my way! This is my palace!”
“Orders, Sire,” the guard on the left whispered. His pike was shaking so violently the tip danced against the stone. “The Steward… he said no one. Not even the Crown.”
“He said he would kill us, Sire,” the second guard added, his face a mask of sweating, knee-knocking dread. “The door is locked from within.”
Diked’s face turned a mottled purple. “I will have General Alec strip the skin from your backs for this treason! Let me through, or so help me—”
“Sire, listen!” the first guard blurted out, leaning closer. “We can’t let you in because… because of the voices.”
Diked put his ear to the portal – he couldn’t make out clearly what was being said, but he was certain there was a conversation going on.
“Is there another person in there with Ramssee?” He asked the guards, fearing that The Steward might be plotting against him. But then, his self-doubt getting the best of his manhood, he fretted, “Is it Monnik? Does he have my mistress in there with him? Why if he does, I will kill him!”
One of the guards spoke up, “It’s…It’s not your majesty’s mistress, Sire.”
“Well then, WHO is it?” Diked raged.
“Ah. That’s just it.” The other soldier explained. “Nobody else has gone into the room while we’ve been on watch. And this isn’t the first time we’ve heard these strange voices.”
“A demon!” the other cried, his resolve finally snapping. “Ramssee is a witch! He’s going to kill us all!”
The two soldiers, overcome by a primal fear that outweighed their duty to both King and Steward, threw their pikes to the floor and bolted. Their footsteps echoed down the hall as they fled toward the exit, leaving the King alone in the sudden, heavy silence of the corridor.
Diked didn’t care about demons. He was a man drowning, and Ramssee was his only shore. He threw himself against the wood, pounding until his knuckles bled. “Ramssee! Open this door! It’s me! It’s Diked!”
Suddenly, the lock clicked. The heavy door swung inward with such violent speed that Diked fell face-forward onto the plush rug. The door slammed shut behind him, the bolt sliding home with the finality of a coffin lid.
Ramssee stood over him, looking less like a man and more like a predator mid-hunt. His eyes were no longer merely amber; they pulsed with a dark, rhythmic glow that seemed to drink the candlelight.
“What’s this I hear about YOU threatening ME, little worm?” Ramssee hissed.
Before Diked could inhale, the Steward’s boot connected with his ribs.
“Oof!” Diked gasped, curling into a ball.
“So, you would pull rank?” Ramssee shrieked, delivering another savage kick that sent the King rolling across the floor. “I, who have turned this city into a fortress to save your pathetic hide? I, who stand between you and the thousands of peasants currently sharpening their teeth on your name?”
“I… I don’t understand,” Diked wheezed, clutching his bruised ribs. “I’ve been gone but a week. Why does everyone want me dead?”
Ramssee straightened his silk robes with a crisp, maddening deliberate. “It’s your damn plague, Diked. The ‘Curse of Akka’ has arrived. While you were off begging at the feet of the Orkney lords, I was left to steer a capital through a crisis.”
“MY plague? MY Curse?” Diked bawled, his voice cracking. “How am I responsible? This was YOUR idea! The mines, the gold—all of it!”
“Ha!” Ramssee’s cackle was sharp enough to draw blood. “Don’t you realize? YOU are the King. I am merely a lowly advisor. You are the one the people look to for protection and bread. In the eyes of history—and the mob at your gates—all roads of responsibility lead back to you, King Diked.”
“But… you set me up!” Diked’s face turned a translucent white. “I’m going to die because of you.” As the reality of his isolation sank in, the King’s remaining dignity vanished. He collapsed to his knees, clutching at the Steward’s boots. “Please, Ramssee, don’t hand me over. I’ll give you my entire fortune, the treasury, everything! Just help me escape. Don’t let them touch me… I don’t want to die of the rot!”
Ramssee kicked him away with a look of pure loathing. Diked raised his hands to ward off a further beating, but the assault stopped. Instead, the Steward walked calmly to his high-backed wing chair and sat, crossing his legs with the grace of a resting panther.
“Your General Alec is still loyal to you,” Ramssee nearly spat, as if the General’s integrity were a personal insult. “That means the army—for the most part—is still pledged to your protection. For now.”
Diked remained huddled on the floor, watching from a distance. On the side table sat a bottle of dark wine and an elaborately carved wooden caisse—an ornate box the King had never seen, its surface etched with ancient, swirling patterns. Ramssee traced a hand lovingly across the lid, his eyes glazed with a brief, mindless fascination. Then, remembering himself, he poured a glass of wine, pointedly leaving the King to thirst.
“Have you noticed the silence, Diked?” the Steward asked after a long sip. “No villagers. No merchants. No laborers. The streets are empty of everything but steel. Did you even notice on your frantic ride home?”
Diked thought back to the ghost-town atmosphere of the inner wards. “Why? Why would they leave?”
“My idea,” Ramssee said smoothly. “Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t pull rank. When I issued the decree to clear the city, I made sure it was signed in your name. I was merely enacting the orders you ‘gave’ before you left.”
“Gee, thanks,” Diked whispered ruefully. “Another reason for them to want my head. But why?”
“To save your life, you fool. Listen and learn.” Ramssee leaned forward. “The morning you left, the medic reported five cases of that miner’s sickness. By evening, twenty. By the next day, a hundred. Your plague was spreading faster than a forest fire. I had to make touch decisions to save the important ones—removing the chaff to garner the wheat.”
Ramssee smiled, enjoying the sound of his own genius. “Orkney is built on layers, Diked. The rich don’t touch the poor. Only the poor worked the mines; therefore, only the poor carried the rot. I simply drove them out of the city. To ensure the safety of the rich, the ‘drivel’ had to be purged.”
“But you’ve given them nowhere to go!” Diked surmised, his fear momentarily replaced by logic. “They’ll crowd together in the outer villages. The sickness will burn through them ten times faster!”
“Exactly!” Ramssee beamed. “See? You do have a spark of intellect.”
“NO!” the King cried. “If the workers die, who supports the palace? Who keeps Fubar running?”
“The poor are like sheep, Diked. There are millions of them across Orkney. When the grass is clean again, I’ll simply import more. They’re desperate; they’ll come for a copper and stay for the slaughter.”
“But if they try to escape the villages, they’ll spread it to every corner of the world! You’re a madman!”
Ramssee merely grinned. “Let me enlighten you. This virus is brutal and mercifully fast. From exposure to ‘husk’ takes less than a week. Seven days, Diked. If they try to flee to another city, they’ll be a pile of bones on the highway long before they reach the gates. It is a self-extinguishing fire.”
Diked’s mind flashed back to the body he’d seen that morning. It wasn’t a murder by Kaoz. It was a runner who had run out of time. I wish it had been the Myz, he thought bitterly. Death by steel is kinder.
“Money rules the world, Diked,” Ramssee continued, raising his glass. “The poor are desperate sheep, and I… I shall be their new shepherd.”
“So you mean to take my crown?”
“A mere king?” Ramssee laughed. “No. I will be the first Emperor of Orkney. Tell me… do you have a problem with that?” His eyes flashed a sudden, predatory red.
Diked swallowed hard. “Then why let me live at all?”
“Grand designs, little worm. Alec and the military are the last hurdles. I’ve already purged any soldier who so much as looked at a peasant—driven out by pike and spear. Once the plague has finished with the sheep, we’ll have the survivors clean up the mess, and life will return to ‘normal.’ But every grand design requires a sacrifice.”
“Are you handing me over to them?” Diked pleaded.
“Diked, please. I am not an unkind ruler. I shall be ‘Ramssee the Revered.’ But I need you to do exactly as I say. You want to escape? You want to go back to Ramos? Fine. I’ll even send Kaoz to guard you.”
Diked felt a flicker of hope. With the Myz as his shadow, he might actually survive the journey. “But why would Kaoz leave? He doesn’t have the dagger.”
“A formality. The miners cleared the way to the Deepest Depths before they… expired. The prize is within reach. Inanna will have her toy, and you and Kaoz will be her ‘heroes’ once more.” Ramssee’s tone turned sharp. “But tell me—did you leave the guards at the lookout point like I ordered? To watch for the Elf-warrior?”
“Yes, they are there.” Diked lied. “But what about Kaoz? The plague… what if he’s a carrier? What if I get it from him?”
Ramssee grinned, a sight that made Diked’s stomach churn. “Well, nobody said it was going to be easy, little King. But consider the alternative: I could open that door right now and announce to the guards that you’ve been ‘exposed.’ How long do you think it would take for them to throw you over the battlements?”
Diked slumped against the floor, broken. He was a prisoner in his own palace, trapped between a plague and a madman.
On the first day of the final week of the third month of the Spring of ’53, Ramssee awoke to a sunrise that looked like a bruised peach bleeding over the horizon. He stood at his bedroom window, watching the early light glint off the white stone paths of the empty streets of Fubar.
The city was unnervingly quiet. Beyond the palace walls, the great markets and bustling thoroughfares had been replaced by a sprawling graveyard.. A thin, yellowish haze—the breath of the “Husking Sickness”—clung to the lower districts. From this height, the screams of the dying were reduced to a faint, rhythmic hum, like the buzzing of distant flies. It was a glorious sound to the Steward; it was the sound of his competition being erased by the hand of fate.
“Ah, you’re awake, love?” Monnik purred, sliding from the silken sheets to nuzzle against his shoulder. Her skin was cool, a sharp contrast to the heat of the growing plague outside. “I like seeing you smile. Is it me back in your arms, or something more… material?”
“Hardly,” Ramssee scoffed, his eyes fixed on the empty streets below. “Don’t you realize, Monnik? Soon, I won’t just be the hand behind the curtain. I will be the face on the banner. I am going to be the first Emperor of Orkney. Ramssee the Revered.”
Monnik ran a manicured nail down his spine. “You’ve been the real power here for years, dear. Why fret over a title?”
“Because a title is a shield!” Ramssee spat, turning to face her. The amber glow in his eyes seemed to burn hotter in the morning light. “Power without a name is a target. Power with a crown is a legacy. And thanks to this ‘Curse of Akka,’ the people have done my work for me. They’ve already christened the boy ‘Diked the Doomed.’ They want to tear him apart, which saves me the mess of an assassination.”
Monnik chuckled, moving toward a vanity to check her reflection. “The ‘King’ is a pathetic sight. He sits in the guest wing, jumping at shadows. He’s driven himself halfway to the grave with his own nerves.”
“He sends me frantic notes every day,” Ramssee sneered. “Begging for an escort out of the city. I tell him the horses are saddled and the gates are open.”
“Then why does the little rabbit stay in his hole?”
“Because he knows that the moment he steps outside those walls, the peasants will rip the silk from his back and the skin from his bones. They hold him responsible for every bloated belly and weeping eye in Fubar. He’s trapped, emasculated, and the lords of the country know it. There is a vacancy on that throne, Monnik, and I am the only one with the stomach to fill it.”
Monnik’s eyes sparked with greed. She loved the scent of a coup. “Then what stops us from crowning you today?”
Ramssee’s expression darkened. He began to pace, his silk robe billowing. “Three thorns, love. Three obstacles between me and a Queen at my side. First, and most troublesome, is Alec.” He ticked the name off on a finger. “The General is a fossil of old-world loyalty. As long as he holds the army, Diked is technically protected. I fear Alec is already plotting to whisk the boy away to a provincial capital to start a counter-reign.”
“So the old man must go,” Monnik agreed, her voice cold. “But he won’t take a bribe and he’s too smart for a common blade.”
“He won’t even stay in the same room as me long enough for my… persuasions to take root,” Ramssee muttered. “He treats me like a leper. I can’t have him at my back when I take the crown.”
Monnik turned from the mirror, a predatory smile playing on her lips. “Perhaps there is a way to use the little weight Diked has left to crush the General’s spirit. Leave Alec to me, love. I can still whisper into a King’s ear when I need to.”
Ramssee stopped pacing, intrigued. He respected the viper in her.
“And the other two?” she asked.
Ramssee’s gaze drifted back to the window, thinking of the “beast” Kaoz and the shadow of Nektar. “Acquaintances from a past life. One was a mentor who taught me too much; the other is a monster I helped create. But they are distant problems. Alec is the immediate rot.”
“Then have your men outside Diked’s door at noon,” Monnik said, throwing on a sheer robe and gliding toward the exit. “I’ll handle the rest. Ta-ta!”
“Bitch,” Ramssee muttered as the door clicked shut, though his tone was one of admiration. He watched her go, then reached for his own robe. He had much to do. The plague was reaching its crescendo, the city was ripe for the taking, and there was one more person—a certain “guest” in the bowels of the palace—that he needed to… consult.
Later, back in the [former] King’s Den, Rammsee ignored the smell of spilled wine and the tang of the plague drifting in from the city. In the center of the room, the furniture had been shoved ruthlessly against the walls, creating a wide, hollow circle of floorboards. There, resting on a velvet plinth like a coiled viper, sat the Akkanian Lamp. Its gold surface seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it, the ornate carvings of screaming faces and celestial alignments shimmering with an inner, oily heat.
Ramssee sat in a high-backed chair at the very edge of the room, his fingers white-knuckled as they gripped the armrests. Even with his newfound power, he kept a respectful, terrified distance from the artifact. He reached out, his hand trembling, and made a sharp, rhythmic gesture in the air—the somatic trigger that mimicked the rubbing of the lamp’s <swirl>.
The reaction was instantaneous.
A hiss, like a thousand serpents waking at once, erupted from the spout. A plume of thick, violet smoke roared upward, expanding until it hit the vaulted ceiling and began to coalesce into a terrifying, diaphanous shape.
“Who isss the magnifisssent massster who hasss called forth Sssaura?”
The djiin’s voice didn’t just vibrate the air; it shook Ramssee’s teeth. The smoke solidified into a towering, serpentine torso that snaked through the rafters, its scales iridescent and shifting. Sssaura’s face was a nightmare of ancient geometry, featuring eyes that burned like dying stars and fangs that dripped a ghostly, ethereal venom.
“Oh… it isss you, R-r-ramsssee,” the djiin purred, its voice dripping with a mockery so thick it was a physical weight. “How can I be of ssservice? Are you ready to sssquander your final wisssh?”
Ramssee felt the familiar shiver of a rabbit down the throat of a hawk. He swallowed hard, forcing his voice to remain steady. “Fool me not, servant. I have TWO more wishes to go, and you know it.”
Sssaura sneered, its smoke-tail lashing the air, inching its massive, flickering head closer to the Steward. “Well then, let’sss have them! My time in thisss hollow world growsss weary. What ssshall I grant my ‘powerful’ wizssard today?” The djiin’s forked tongue flicked out, a ribbon of purple fire that tasted the air mere inches from Ramssee’s nose.
“What you can grant your master,” Ramssee spat, leaping from his chair and scurrying behind it to use the mahogany frame as a shield, “is the fulfillment of my FIRST WISH! It has been weeks since I commanded you to make Diked and Kaoz leave Fubar, never to return. Yet here they sit! One whimpers in the guest wing and the other prowls the mines like a mangy dog. They plague me, demon! Why do they remain?”
Sssaura patronized him with a slow, serpentine roll of its neck, slithering back toward the lamp as if bored. “Yesss… it would not be wissse to have too many foolsss in one nesst, neh?” It began to coil in the airspace above the spout, its glowing eyes watching Ramssee’s every twitch.
“Don’t insult me!” Ramssee’s courage returned as the distance grew. He pointed a shaking finger at the smoke-wraith. “I am no fool. I know the laws of this relationship. You are bound to my service until the third wish is spent. And I will not utter another word of power until I see results from the first!”
The air in the Den turned frigid. Sssaura’s coil snapped.
In a blur of violet light and silent thunder, the djiin tore through the ether. Ramssee had no time to scream, no time to shift his form. One moment Sssaura was across the room; the next, its massive, terrifying head was a hair’s breadth from Ramssee’s face. The sheer force of the djiin’s non-existent breath sent the Steward’s hair swirling wildly.
“DO NOT THREATEN SSSAURA!” the demon boomed. The sound was like a mountain collapsing.
Ramssee stood paralyzed, his knees buckling, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. He was white with abject terror, his mouth hanging open in a silent, pathetic gasp. He couldn’t move; he couldn’t even fall. He simply stared into the abyss of Sssaura’s maw, waiting for the fangs to close.
But the strike never came. Sssaura pulled back, a cruel, jagged smile stretching across its smoky features. “I told you oncsse before… Time worksss differently in my realm. Do not placsse your petty demandsss of ssspeed on a god.”
“W-w-well,” Ramssee stammered, his voice a pathetic squeak as he tried to gather the tatters of his pride. “When can I expect—”
The djiin ignored him, its eyes flaring with a sudden, ominous intensity. “Know thisss, massster… YOUR TIME HASSS COME. Eventsss that will change your life—and end your world—will occur thisss very day!”
With a violent, swirling suction, Sssaura was sucked back into the lamp. The violet smoke vanished, the golden surface went cold, and the silence that followed was heavier than the noise.
Ramssee stood trembling for a time before he could slide himself out from behind the chair. He collapsed into the seat, his lungs burning. His hands shook so violently that when he reached for the wine decanter on the side table, his grip failed. The crystal pitcher hit the floor with a devastating <CRASH!>, shattering into a thousand diamonds. The dark red wine splashed across the floor, coating the wood in a pool that looked exactly like a fresh kill.
The Steward slumped back, his eyes glazed with exhaustion. “Ach!” he whimpered to the empty room. “Would that I could just sit here for a thousand years… in peace!”
But the Akkanian did not grant idle thoughts. And as the echoes of the breaking glass faded, a frantic knocking began at the door—the day just getting started…
<RAP!> <RAP!> <RAP!>
The sound was like a thunderclap in the silent room. Ramssee jolted awake, his eyes snapping open to find the Den draped in the late morning shadows. The spilled wine had begun to dry, turning into a dark, sticky crust. After the terrifying departure of Sssaura, the King’s Den felt smaller. Ramssee was still languishing in his chair, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He closed his eyes, trying to summon the icy composure that had made him the most feared man in Orkney, but all he could see was the djiin’s violet eyes and the rows of needle-teeth that had been inches from his throat.
“Your time has come,” the demon had hissed.
Fighting against the nightmare, the viperz found himself slipping into a fitful, shallow slumber—the kind born of exhaustion and terror rather than peace. In his dreams, he saw Fubar drowning in a sea of yellow spores, and himself standing atop the battlements, a crown of bone resting on his brow.
<RAP!> <RAP!> <RAP!>
“Go away!” the Viperz yelled, his voice cracking with a mixture of sleep and lingering fright. “I am not to be disturbed! I am not hungry today!”
“Master! Master, open up!” a muffled voice called through the heavy oak.
“I said, I am not to be bothered!” Ramssee screamed, his amber eyes flaring with a sudden anger. He gripped the arms of his chair, ready to summon the guards to have the interloper flayed.
“But, Sire! I bring an urgent message from Monnik!” the muted voice cried out, sounding desperate. “Your mistress said to notify you at all costs! She says the ‘transaction’ is underway!”
At the mention of Monnik, the fog of sleep and the lingering dread of the lamp vanished. Ramssee was up and out of his chair in a flash. He remembered their conversation from the sunrise—her coy promises, her predatory smile. She was moving against General Alec. She was clearing the final hurdle to his Empire.
Forgetting the demon, forgetting the broken glass, the Viperz scrambled to the door and threw the bolt. He wrenched the portal open so violently that the messenger—a small, middle-aged courtier with a face like a nervous rabbit—stumbled backward.
“Good work, man!” Ramssee declared. To the astonishment of the new door guards—who had expected the Steward to emerge in a murderous rage—Ramssee clapped the page heartily on the shoulder. “Lead on! Take me to Monnik at once!”
“C-certainly, Sire,” the page stuttered, blinking in surprise at the Steward’s manic energy. “Yet, your mistress was most specific. She advised that you should not come alone. You are to bring five armed guards. Heavily armed, Sire.”
Ramssee’s eyes narrowed, his mind whirring. Heavily armed. That meant Monnik hadn’t just whispered; she had set a trap that required teeth. He turned to the two soldiers at his door, men who were still visibly shaking from the stories of the “voices” they had heard earlier.
“You two,” Ramssee commanded, his voice regained its oily authority. “Find three more of your caliber. Steel and pikes. Meet us at…” He paused, looking at the page for the location.
“At the King’s bedchamber, Sire,” the page said meekly, bowing his head as if the very mention of the King’s quarters was a blasphemy in the current climate.
Ramssee felt a surge of genuine, dark delight. The guest wing. The rabbit’s hole. If Monnik was calling for guards at Diked’s door, it meant the rabbit was about to be skinned.
“You heard the man!” Ramssee barked at the soldiers. “Meet us at the King’s door within the candlemark. If you are late, I’ll ensure the plague is the least of your worries.”
As my pawn strode down the corridor, his silk robes snapping behind him, I felt the Bone Dagger humming a low, resonant chord against my ribs – my magic was working to perfection…
The Apocrypha of Azazel 