More than Nothing: The Artorias Interlude

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Praetor Artorias' campaign at Caphtor ended in disaster. Of the five ships he sent, only nine people returned - four of whom were prisoners and soldiers of his rival Empress Palisa, and one a foreign violet knight named Dorza. While they were sent to be reconditioned to serve in his army, he questioned the remaining survivors about the events that led to this loss, including the great beam of light shooting up from the island and making it vanish as well as what transpired to turn the sun into a cold, dull blue color...

After being separated by a thick fog, Rowina, Yuriet, Waywocket and Dorza managed to regroup - collecting four bound and sleeping prisoners on a hilltop, but with no initial sign of the others they decided to make their way back to the beach head camp being established by Eagley and Lord Moroney. 

Meanwhile Il'bakstabyo alone, witnessed the growing sun gain a horrific looking face, a huge humanoid body and began to start eating everything in its path. As his sanity slipped away Il'bakstabyo then heard a strange song, and witnessed what looked to be Jerghonson with a golden clarinet battle the sun using his music, causing the sun to scream in a beam of light into the heavens until it shriveled up, turning blue and retreated back into the sky. 

The others found Il'bakstabyo sometime later crying and curled into a ball and took him with them back to the landing site where they discovered the camp being annihilated by a hydra. Rowina the acrobat had come across a magical coin-sword in the fog, and managed to use it to slay the beast but not before it killed everyone else in camp. Fleeing on a small craft they set out into the misty waters but upon looking back the island had simply vanished...

After sending the insane Il'bakstabyo out into the wilderness as he had no more use for him, Artorias took the coin-sword from Rowina and made her as well as the other two survivors, Yuriet and Waywocket, generals in his small army to take Aeterna's throne in Crown City. To make up their weak numbers, Waywocket suggested legitimizing and joining the oppressed Numerologist religion whose hordes of practitioners made up the vast majority in the city (the slaves and servant population, who numbered vastly more than nothing).

The ploy worked and the city defenders couldn't win a battle from forces outside and within, and Artorias took the throne... but soon the Numerologists elected their own leader: "The Dos" who alone could hear the voice of Numero Uno. Papa Petrus was the first Dos and it quickly became clear that Artorias could not hold onto power without the Papa's say so. Over the next few years the Papa's power and influence grew while that of Artorias waned into comical relief as his own troops and generals had no control over the fervorous Numeroligist believers.

Years later we find our new heroes, a band of Aeternian teens: Raah-min the Great Grand Daughter of Aah (Rose), Moomba the grand daughter of Mamita (Mom), Ughhh the Great Grand son of Ughh (Juris), and Jerghon G the grandson of Jerghonson the Great (DL) following their friend, Ever Worthlessman, through the forest to the small wooden fortress of Walram Teck to free their other teenage friends Lord Teck has taken a fancy to.