Movement 1: The Pledge, Breaking The Recurring System

Act I: The Breadth of Corax

Scene I: Prelude, The Plague

The 31st Day of the 3rd Moon, 1536 P.V. (Post Vesperum – After the Dusk)

Khepriarth, The Kingdom of Tepes

At dawn, a shipment of top hats arrived in the rural village of Khepriarth in the mid-east of the Kingdom of Tepes, a land ruled by the higher vampire, Count Tepes, or, as Nicolas called him ‘Count Pompous.’ 

The hats, which arrived in a yellow and black plaid horse-drawn carriage, were labelled as a gift to ‘All the Gentlemen of the Village,’ and presented to the gentlemen of the village by Nicolai-Pauley the Cheese. Nicolas gave Pauley the name Pauley the Cheese because he always had cheese on his meat. It was a running and mildly insulting joke among the Nicolai.

Of course, the people of Khepriarth did not know that Pauley was a Nicolai, or even what a Nicolai was, but the Corax Asylum logo on the carriage held the warning ‘Part of the DeSilva Group’ in enormous writing to inform everyone that Pauley was an associate of Nicolas’s.

Pauley was revered throughout The Deep for his tenacity in rigging boar races and making a mint through the DeSilva Bureau of Dubious Turf Accountants. The people of The Deep applauded Pauley’s ingenuity in doping and disabling the boars, bribing the jockeys, and spreading dirty racing tips to anyone who would listen. As such, the gentlemen of Khepriarth saw the delivery as nothing less than an altruistic gift and opted not to look beyond that possibility because it suited their greedy natures and gentlemanly pride to receive the free goods.

Unfortunately, there was a problem. The problem did not become apparent until after Pauley’s departure. The problem was that there were not enough hats to go around. This caused a public scene with one man arguing with another about what was considered gentlemanly. The mayor, Lord Fuckwad of Khepriarth, a stout, pious man, spoke up first explaining that gentlemanliness could only be defined by electoral elevation. He reasoned that the matter had already been decided when the citizens placed their confidence in any given public servant.

This sweeping statement excited the farmers who pointed out that they had no time for public office since they already served the public by providing produce. The blacksmith rebutted the farmers, venting a speech about how their horses could not pull the carts without shoes, and the butchers jumped on the bandwagon reminding the farmers that all they did all day was herd animals around fields, whilst the butcheries were left with the visceral task of slaughtering and slicing the livestock.

By the time the baker took the bread out of the oven, the whole town was in chaos with one man arguing with another in the cobbled marketplace. Very little work was getting done, and fights broke out. At length, a meeting was called at the town hall, and the ‘Bee Test’ applied to determine who was, and who was not, a gentleman.

The bee test stipulated that only a true gentleman would remain seated, and gloved, in the event of a swarm of bees. That was Lord Fuckwad’s theory anyway. Unfortunately, neither the gentlemen nor the bees got the memo. The Lord of Khepriarth made matters worse by insisting on locking all of the doors. He then mislaid the keys. By the time the surviving gentlemen escaped the town hall, many of their women were already showing signs of the plague.

It seemed that whatever material had been used to create the hats was saturated in a damp matrix housing fleas. Fleas that carried a bizarrely accelerated form of the bubonic plague. The men were quite displeased by the situation as they did not want to be infected. Neither did they want to endure sexual relations with women who were scratching and clawing at the black, puss-filled buboes that were already tearing through their skin and substantially lowering their market value.

A decision was rapidly made to bury both the infected, and the hats, in a communal grave. The men did not wait until their wives had expired, but acted immediately, and, on this matter, they were all in agreement.

The women of the village were quite vexed and a little too vocal about the whole situation, but once the soil was backfilled no one could hear the complaints and that suited everyone. Except the women.

Some men were so concerned and overzealous that they opted to bury their wives, who showed no sign of sickness at all but did exhibit an unnecessary amount of verbal and prolonged protest, alive and healthy.

Lord Fuckwad complained to Count Tepes, who managed the Kingdom of Tepes, and Tepes complained to the renowned Immortalis Theaten of D’Aten.

No one knew who had sent the hats, but there were rumours, and Theaten believed those rumours to be true. He immediately dispatched a letter via raven to his beneficent and quite magnificent brother, Nicolas DeSilva of Corax Asylum in Togaduine. The letter read,

‘Dear Nicolas,

Count Tepes has recently alerted me to an outbreak of plague in the village of Khepriarth. The plague, it seems, was spread by one Pauley the Cheese, an employee of the DeSilva Group. I have reason to believe that you not only created this disease but have the cure to it. I suggest that you resolve this matter with immediate effect.

May I remind you that Khepriarth will be unable to supply tributes if all of the citizens of that village are dead.

pp Klouthe, Ghoul of D’Aten

Your brother,

Theaten.’

Nicolas, who had had a horrific night, was less than pleased to receive the communication. The letter arrived in the evening and poor Nicolas was already quite worn out.

In the early hours of the morning of the same day, Nicolas’s favourite green and orange silk lounge suit, one that he had adorned continuously for more than a century, had developed a nasty hole to match the nasty odour that it emitted.

The hole arose during a rather difficult and displeasing encounter with one of the new tributes. Tributes, as you may recall, were thesapiens, mortals, bred in every town and village within a tributiary as sacrifices to appease and feed the appetites of the Immortalis.

Nicolas’s new tribute, a redhead who went by the name of Stricta of Threnodyl, lacked the submissive nature expected of tributes. She also lacked any theoretical education in the subject of carnal knowledge. Nicolas had explicitly, and repeatedly, impressed upon the people of Threnodyl the need to impart such knowledge to please him, but the Tributiary of Threnodyl had a high staff turnover. 

This was largely on account of Nicolas waging fury on the tributiary’s constant failures in quality assurance, which forced Nicolas to make an example of the workers by removing the arms and legs of the frontline staff. Such antics resulted in a perpetual loop of failure and punishment, for which Nicolas took absolutely no responsibility.

Stricta had been washed by Nicolai-Dr Shiverton Smythe, who was nursing a hangover and used acid instead of soap, putting the girl in a rather difficult mood. The mood declined further when Nicolas entered her cell and decided to dispense with any foreplay. He had a day of doing nothing in his office planned and did not have time to indulge newcomers.

Smythe’s lack of judgement had seeped from the washroom to the cell, and he had neglected to chain Nicolas’s new conquest to the bedposts. Stricta not only struggled, but bit and slapped Nicolas. This did not impress him and put an awful dampener on his desire. During the struggle Nicolas attempted to force her legs apart with his knees, ripping the crotch of his favourite trousers. This put him in a worse mood.

He decided to dispense with the romance and move straight to the correctional facilities. After knocking Stricta out cold with one hard wallop, he pulled a chain on the cell wall and a door jutted open in the stonework. Nicolas could not be bothered with the main stairs.

He carried Stricta through a tight passageway, up some unstable wooden back stairs, and through a wooden door at the top of said stairs. This delightful secret passageway led straight into one of Nicolas’s torture chambers, or ‘Corrective Facilities’ as he liked to call them. Nicolas called them corrective facilities as they corrected tributes and inmates from being alive and moderately well thesapiens to being dead or severely injured thesapiens.

This particular chamber, the riding room, was quite bare except for the exquisitely carved wooden rocking horse that sat in the middle of the room. The horse was painted black and had a steely, red-eyed gaze. Nicolas carried his unconscious prey to the creature and sat her on the horse’s saddle and then climbed on behind her.

Nicolas used the chains that acted as the horse’s reins to bind Stricta to the cruel beast, shoved his frustrated hardness inside of her and recommenced his horny morning interlude.

Stricta’s head flopped over the barbed wire mane, and Nicolas delighted in pressing her resting-bitch face into the barbs. Stricta woke with a shriek, and that was all Nicolas required to sate his need, that and the visuals of watching her struggle against the chains. Her pain gave him a wave of pleasure followed by a moment of what is generally called ‘post-nut regret.’

This wave of guilt came from the knowledge of Nicolas’s impending marriage to the third Immoless, a demonic priestess bred to slay him known as Allyra, but the regret passed almost as quickly as it arrived.

Nicolas remained in position until the last few drops of desire had departed from his body and then cleaned himself on the screeching tribute’s filthy white dress.

Once the cock-cleaning matter was concluded, Nicolas alighted from the steed leaving Stricta in position. He pressed a small red button on the side of the horse; this triggered the release of nine iron spikes that did not care for the woman sitting blocking their trajectory.

The spikes, a little addition suggested by the inventor and scientist Nicolai-Webster, shot upwards, impaling Stricta’s newly explored regions and in doing so secured her body

to the overall apparatus.

Nicolas watched as his difficult tribute floundered and wailed, whilst bleeding all over his nice, grime covered floor. Stricta flapped about for an unnecessary long period, two maybe three minutes, forcing Nicolas to pull out his pocket watch. He flicked it open, looked at the time, and muttered,

‘I don’t have time for this!’

And he didn’t.

A quick decision was made. Nicolas’s hands grasped Stricta’s neck, gripped, twisted, pulled, and steadily ripped her head from her body. He lifted the head, so that it faced him, looked into her still twitching eyes, and said,

‘You won’t be fighting back again, will you? No, you will not.’

The body remained on the horse and Nicolas tucked the head under his arm. He licked his lips, then exited by the chamber’s main door and danced down the stairs to the banqueting hall.

Breakfast was concluding. The last horde of Nicolai were kneeling on the table ripping apart and eating a succulent and plump tribute who’s breasts had proven too delicious to avoid. The feast was made the merrier by each Nicolai making a concerted effort to force their own horny release with firm hands. Nicolas pulled a plate from the table, doing his best not to disturb his other good selves as they chewed and slapped the salami, and placed Stricta’s yummy head on the silverware, then called,

‘CHIVES! CHIVES!’

Chives, Nicolas’s ancient, weary manservant-come-ghoul hobbled in almost immediately and was forced to carry the scrumptious head to Nicolas’s office, right next door.

Chives placed the snack on Nicolas’s desk, minding the heap of parchments that were strewn all over the surface, and pulled Nicolas’s chair out so his lordship could park his regal ass without the worry of having to make too much effort himself.

Chives was about to leave when Nicolas shouted again, even though he was still in the room,

‘CHIVES!’

‘Sir?’

‘I need you to go to my milliner in Sapari and order me a new suit. Now listen, this century’s fashion is quite different to last century’s fashion. Plaid is the way to go. Yellow and black, and a touch of burgundy. A burgundy silk scarf to match. A black waistcoat, and a new top hat.’

Chives hovered momentarily. Nicolas hated Chives malingering so continued,

‘Go now, and don’t dally. I know you, playing up about that limp. Get one of the porters to take you in Nicolai-Nicky’s horse and trap.’

‘Very good, Sir,’ Chives sighed.

Nicolas waved him away.

Once the door had shut Nicolas waited, then stood, wandered over to it, and opened it as wide as possible. He returned to his desk, sat bolt upright, focused his eyes on the wall and smiled.

The smile was not a pleasant one. It was one Nicolas had mastered over time. His eyes narrowed and frowned, his lips parted enough to bear his yellowing teeth, and the corners of his mouth drifted into his cheeks, whilst his chin took a detour to his neck. Occasionally he dribbled blood laced with some gritty, yellow fluid.

Nicolas remained in that position for the better part of the day to unnerve the inmates. Inmates were allowed to roam freely during the day, or scoot about in their hideously over-sized, rusty wheelchairs, or ‘Billy Boxes’ as Nicolas called them. There was no escaping Corax, so Nicolas was quite happy for the roaming to commence. It made him even happier when the inmates caught a glance of his psychotic grin and went scattering about the hall in panic.

Chives returned at exactly the same time as Theaten’s raven, Malcolm, arrived. Unlike Nicolas, Theaten was no good at naming things. His ravens and the bong-eyed pet pugs he insisted on keeping around his palace all had stupid names; Norman, Malcolm, Cutalicious, and so forth.

Nicolas was glad that Chives had returned as it was far too much bother for him to open the envelope himself. Chives unsealed the envelope, as Nicolas continued to grin at the dirty wall, and read the letter.

Nicolas’s smile soon dropped. He grabbed a piece of parchment, spat on it, then dipped a quill in red ink, and penned the following response.

‘Robert,

I am sorry to hear that you are unwell, don’t scratch them buboes, and I am glad you enjoyed the cheese.

Give my regards to Count Pompous and tell him that some people consider shit stirring almost rude.

Stacia will be ready for collection soon.

The exalted and magnificent,

Nicolas DeSilva PhD, PhD, PhD, MD, Lord and Master of Corax, who managed to write this letter himself.’

Nicolas whistled, screwed up the letter, dumped it in an envelope that was far too small for it, spat on it for good luck, and handed it to his own bird, the splendid raven, Ghorab.

Ghorab flew straight to Castle D’Aten only to find Theaten also staring at the wall whilst sitting in his black and gold, minimalistic drawing room. Theaten was not staring to annoy the inmates as he did not have any inmates. He was staring because the vacuous space between his ears often went on strike.

Ghorab dropped the letter in his lap triggering Theaten to arise from his thoughtlessness and call his unnecessarily tall and morose butler Klouthe. Klouthe arrived hastily and read the letter as slowly as possible. Twice.

Theaten’s brow furrowed. His eyes wandered, then he spoke in a gruff voice trying not to dribble on account of his overbite,

‘I will need the carriage soon, Klouthe. A new Immoless skull awaits!’