The King and his merry men

[Victor Wolfe]

Whilst Victor waited for the king to regain consciousness he decided to explore the palace, curious as to how well it had weathered the storm, and it was a good chance to get away from the newcomers and clear his head of the black mans drivel and the exorcist's cold stare. he confidently walked down the halls, quickly noticing that as predicted most of the decorations of past had been destroyed, stolen or left a shell of their former self. He noticed a vase on a small table, one of the few things that had not been taken by the ransackers, looking at it he was sure it would have looked very pleasing to the eye, now it was filthy, covered in a layer of grime, and cracked. "Much like this Kingdom now" Victor giggled to himself as he walked on.

He reached what he assumed was a dining room of some kind, the large and sturdy rectangular table is one of the few structures still standing, though even it showed signs of damage, the wood stained with a mix of blood, vomit and other unnamed bodily fluids. And chunks of it missing at points where it would seem that overzealous bandits tested an axe or two. 

The room itself was thick with the stench of rot, clearly, the bandits that had used this place had held a few feasts with the pantry of the castle and probably moved on once it ran out and they realised that the infrastructure to resupply it had disappeared. The bones of chickens, pigs and even people littered the floor. Victor walked over to one of the corpses, judging by the fur and leather outfit along with the metal helmet he assumed it was one of the former bandits. the Helmet had a horrid gash in it, looking back to the table Victor deduced that it was probably the same axe and that this bandit had gotten a little to carried away with the revelry. 
Murder and pillaging, death and destruction, is that all that the deranged garbage that makes up most of the dunes are capable of? No wonder nothing has been done in the past two years, this endless cycle of destruction without any creation or rebuilding, of all the factions the bandits had to build their worldview on why that of LAW? I should take some pictures of this, show the sane people what we really offer protection from. 

Victor opened up the camera app on his dataverse device, taking pictures of the scene in all its graphic detail, the rotten food, destroyed property, and especially the corpse of the bandit, noting down that anarchy can be fun until a bigger bandit decides they don't like you and put an axe in your skull. As he moved around the room he noticed another body at the head of the table. Not a bandit this time but rather what appeared to be a maid. Victor crept towards the body curious about its positioning. What he saw did not surprise him but still filled him with disgust. Although decaying from the effects of time Victor could still tell that the girl was probably a beauty in life, and it seems that this brought the wrong kind of attention, a good portion of her maid uniform was torn, and a look of horror was still etched across her face. 

Looking at her body it seemed that her neck had been snapped, and the skin around her neck still showed the bruising from what he assumed was choking, five large finger marks still partially visible. He had seen injuries like these before, mostly on the women of recently conquered territory We have to let the soldiers blow off a little steam after a hard battle, Victor could almost hear the apathetic acceptance of the Emperor. This is why these monsters can never hold onto power for any length of time. These actions just lead to people wanting vengeance, hopefully, Gilgamesh will not repeat the mistakes of my former homeland.

As the assassin thought about the hive of scum and villainy that was his former homeland a knocking at what remained of the door to the room drew his attention, it was one of the Nippurian guards, although by how fresh his armour looked he made the assumption that this was a new one his king had summoned, and knowing not to sneak up on an assassin in thought, this new batch of guard apparently was at least twice as intelligent as the last.

Turning to the golden clad lad Victor raised an eyebrow "Yes?" he questioned, pretty certain of what he was about to hear but willing to humour the newbie on his first "big" assignment. "Our King has awakened sir! He requests your presence immediately" the guard seemed tense as he announced the message causing Victors predatory instinct to kick in. He glided seamlessly across the floor to the guard, getting uncomfortably close, his red eyes locking with the guards. it reminded him of seeing rattlesnakes paralyze mice with a stare. "So our king does requests now does he? You if it isn't that urgent than I think I might take a nap and visit him later, why don't you go give him the bad news?" The guard almost visibly gulped "s,sir I don't think that would be the best idea" he said trying to show some backbone. "Well ... Dave" Victor said in a mocking tone "but sir my name is not..." Victor cut him off holding a finger to his lips "uh uh uh, its Dave now, I like the name Dave, simple, short easy to remember, and because I like your name I am going to give you some advice that might just save your life. Our King does not request the presence of his subjects, he demands it, you are a guard of the one and only Nippur, wear that armour with pride and grow a backbone, everything you say could be taken as the words of King Gilgamesh himself, and if his messengers are faltering it makes our King look like he is faltering. So confidence right Dave?" 

Dave was clearly flustered and intimidated and nodded in agreement, trying to get the teasing to stop, causing Victor to giggle and pat him on the back. "Good boy, now I want you to do me another favour, clear this hall and get rid of the table, any bodies found throughout the castle I want to be brought here, this room can serve as a morgue for now, once the bandits are clear we can try to have the remaining townsfolk identify the bodies, after that we will give them a proper burial and build a memorial to them its the least we can do really" Victor said confidently causing Dave to reply "But Lord Gilgamesh told us too clean and repair the palace". Victor let out a sigh "and that will be a lot easier to do with all the dead bodies in one place, seriously Dave do I need to do all the thinking for you?" sarcasm filled Victor's voice causing the guard to nod not wanting to draw Victors ire again as he answered "right away sir" the assassin patted the guard on the back with a chuckle before heading off towards the throne room.

Reaching the doors Victor entered approaching the Golden King with a smile, he reached the stairs that lead to the throne and dropped to one knee in a bow "You asked for my presence my King?" he said in a happy tone, overjoyed that things were slowly returning to normal.