The Dead King

Marin tried keeping himself preoccupied during the night hours since he couldn’t sleep. It was anything he could do to keep himself from boredom. During the quiet nights alone, Marin played his organ and even was in development in writing his own pieces. He journaled as well, encrypting it by writing in ancient. He read some of his books, and sat in front of the fire, pondering.

Marin also spent an hour or two out on the balcony of the castle. He would lean on the stone walls and overlook the mountains that Nocturne was nestled it. It was freezing outside during the nights, but he had no regards for temperature.

When this all wasn’t enough, on occasion, he would visit the night shift guards and make small talk. He avoided doing it often so no one would start to wonder if he actually slept or not.

Marin finally noticed the morning sun’s rays reach over the horizon after hours of darkness. From up in his office, he was relieved to know that a new day was dawning.

Whenever Marin was seen at the crack of dawn, most commended him for being such an early bird. He always responded by explaining that he was a morning person. Marin knew though that nearly anyone would be if they did not have to battle with the issue of waking up from a comfortable sleep.

The morning seemed to start like any other. After an hour of greeting the morning workers, Marin made his was to the dining room tables, waiting to watch everyone else eat breakfast. He imagined the smell of eggs and bacon being cooked in the kitchen as the tables started to populate.

“Good morning, Loid,” he mentioned at the sight of his friend sitting down besides him.

“Good morning, Sullivan. Did the night treat you well?” He asked, knowing that Marin experienced every bit of it.

“Another quiet night.” It was Marin’s way of indirectly mentioning that he had not much to do.

The conversation shifted at the sight of Marge approaching. She had her short gray curly hair balled on top of her head.

“Marge! How was the room? Is it up to your standards?” Marin asked, interested in receiving some feedback.

She pulled out a chair and sat in it. She adjusted the front of her shirt and turtleneck collar as if she was overly concerned for how she presented herself.

“I am quite pleased with commodities you provided. Much of it is better than the furniture I have in my own home. I will still have to move most of my possessions here, namely my collection of books, but I am debating leaving much there as your castle has greater or equal to what I have,” she explained.

“I will cover all the moving costs for you, of course,” Marin stated.

Marge never liked others paying for her bills, but seeing as she now worked an important job for this kingdom, she viewed it as benefits for her occupation.

“That will be fine.”

In a similar way when dinner was brought out, chefs and maids brought out breakfast foods. It was everything you could expect. Eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, hash browns, and more.

“What’s the plans for today?” Loid asked as he jellied a piece of toast.

“Well, we’re almost done with restoration, right? We will have to go over the whole castle to make sure everything is complete. Also, I’m expecting a letter from RAM soon about our status as a kingdom. We’ve had to jump through all of their hoops to get this completed. I really owe Helva a lot, she’s been quite the asset in this.”

Marin turned to Marge.

“Seeing as you’re tasked with the library, what are you plans?” The King asked her.

“I’m going to catalog what you have so far, then look into ordering more. I’ve been meaning to ask, how much gold are you willing to allocate for this library?”

“Get the best of the best. Gold is not an issue. Send all bills for the books to Harrel,” Marin instructed.

The response made Marge wonder just how much gold Marin really had. The answer showed great confidence in his fortune. She did not doubt he had the ability to earn the gold seeing how strong he was, but that didn’t stop her from imagining what he could have done to receive it.

Marin watched everyone eat as he talked with them for the next half hour. After breakfast was completed, they got up, and went their ways. Marin walked down the long table, waving and shaking hands of his citizens as they were still eating.

He was always asking if they had all their needs met. He briefly talked with Cheryl, Bronson, and Gus about how they were doing. Fern was even in the castle now that all the road work had been done. He was sitting by his brother Max, and Max’s wife, Mabel.

Max and Gus were employed as Nocturne’s guards, it made sense since they were guards in Heroca. Fern and Bronson were employed as custodians who kept the castle clean. Cheryl ran a garden and a greenhouse in the castle. Marin provided her with plenty gold to recover her collection of fine reagents.

Almost all the villagers who had joined the kingdom were quite satisfied with their new standard of living. That brought great contentment to Marin.

The King made his way to the office after breakfast, which became a usual thing. He waited for Helva and Harrel to finish the breakfast they ate together before they started their day in there too.

When both of them finally entered, Marin greeted them.

“I’ve been meaning to ask if you knew approximately what time the mail arrives each day,” he asked.

“I’d say noon?” Harrel responded. He looked at his pocket watch. “Yes, that seems right. Should be here in about three hours.”

Helva never took notice of the time when the mail came in, so she was thankful that her husband was more observant in that aspect.

“Are you anxious about that letter from RAM?” Helva asked with a playful smile on her face.

“Let’s just say I am looking quite forward to their response. It’s been two weeks since we’ve gone back and forth with them.”

“Give it time, King Marin. I’ll summon you the moment I receive the letter,” she said.

The King had to make do with that answer for now. Helva wheeled herself behind the desk and began pulling papers out. It wasn’t long before one of Nocturne’s staff entered the room.

“Can I help you?” Helva asked.

The tattered man approached the desk. When he saw King Marin, he bowed to him. “Your majesty,” he uttered.

Marin gave him a slight nod back. “As you were.”

He faced Helva behind the desk. “Ms. Yoren, there’s a pipe exposed in bedroom twelve of the southeast wing. They are requesting that it be rerouted behind the wall. I am able to do it but I knew I’d have to get permission to do so first.”

As the repairman spoke, Helva quickly wrote down the details. “I’ll put the request through Loid. He should inspect it soon and give an answer.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He looked to the King again, and waved before leaving the room.

Marin knew he could easily approve the request, but he almost enjoyed watching his administration handle these decisions for him. He also did not want to belittle the work his office did, so he remained silent.

“Do you get many people coming in here with issues?” Marin asked.

“Throughout the day,” Helva responded. “Most are so insignificant that I wish they’d sort it out themselves, but every once in a while I get an important one that requires my decision, or one I elevate to Loid, like that last one was.”

“Modifying a room is a big deal, eh?” He asked.

“I’d assume you’d think so,” Helva responded.

The King nodded. “You do a great job. Your judgment has been successful in running the castle.”

Helva smiled. “I’d ask for a pay raise, but you already allow me to buy anything I need or want!”

Marin laughed. “That’s right.”

As they told more jokes, Loid entered the room with an anxious look plaguing his face.

“Ah, Loid,” Helva greeted. “I have a request for you about one of the bedrooms.” She grabbed the small yellow sheet of paper from her desk.

“That is going to have to wait. Sullivan, someone is here to see you, and I do not like the looks of them.”

All the lightheartedness left the room immediately.

“Yes, I’m coming.” Marin stormed out of the room with Loid.

They both paced the hallway as they made their way to the grand foyer.

“What is going on?” Marin asked with concern.

“Some shady man appeared in front of the guards, and demanded to see you right away. Says he wants to know if you really are who you claim to be,” Loid explained.

“What?!”

“I fear he might cause trouble, Sullivan. He’s not dressed like a regular person. He looks quite intimidating.”

The two were now walking down the stairs of the grand foyer. They now had some distance to cover before they got to the doors.

“Did he say anything else? Where he’s from? Who he represents?” Marin tried.

“Not at all. He refused to talk further until I summoned you.”

Loid seemed very concerned with this man. While Marin had no fear of a singular person due to his own power, he feared a larger organization they could possibly represent or where they might potentially be from. The last thing Marin wanted was to have issues with a different kingdom or establishment.

They walked briskly to the main doors. Just thirty seconds of walking to the front felt like an eternity to Loid. When they finally made it to the front, Marin saw just exactly who he was dealing with.

Standing outside the front doors patiently, was younger man, appearing to be in his early twenties. He wore bright orange and black leathers. A large cape and hood he adorned was striped in the colors. In his right hand was a golden pole he was using as a staff, that stood just a hair taller than the wielder.

His face lit up when he saw Marin. He didn’t give Loid a single look.

“Well, well, this man fits the description!” He belted out with much satisfaction, as if he had been on a long mission and finally found his objective. “Are you the one claiming to be Sullivan Marin?” He directly asked.

Marin didn’t like the attire of this man at all. He was not a regular person. The bright colors he wore were fighting clothes, leathers worn for sport in melee or elemental battles. Very cautiously, Marin answered.

“I am who you say.”

The stranger laughed. “Sullivan Marin, the same Sullivan Marin who held the crown of Nocturne Kingdom over two hundred years ago?”

“I am an heir, and I share the same name,” Marin explained. This was not good. The name of the first king was not well known. Almost buried, according to Helva. One would have to dig into RAM’s archives or old libraries to find out any information from that time. The fact that this man knew had him concerned.

“A likely story. What’s under the mask, Marin? Why are you wearing that? Do you have a dark secret you’re hiding?” He demanded.

Loid could not believe the audacity of this man. The way he talked to Marin was very daring, and Loid assumed he had no idea who he was truly messing with.

At that moment, the King turned to the guards.

“You two, enter the castle and shut the doors behind you. Lock them. Do not open them until I tell you.”

The guards who were also reading the severity of the situation nodded and quickly did as they were told. Marin stared at the stranger as he watched the guards pull on the doors, shutting themselves in. Loid stood outside with him, but took a few steps back.

“You’re making a lot demands for someone with no authority here,” Marin pointed out with a slip of anger in his voice.

The stranger was not intimidated. “What I want to figure out is how you got the gears of this whole kingdom turning again in such a short amount of time. The first king who established Nocturne all that time ago was quite rich. Let me guess, you’re that rich as well?” He asked.

“You seem to know quite a bit about the first king,” Marin pointed out. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here. Are you accusing me of somehow being that same first king?”

“I just find you mighty suspicious. Too many factors are lining up. Why don’t you remove that mask you’re wearing and settle some concerns for me.”

“I will do no so such thing. I have no reason to answer to you. But perhaps I might treat you with more consideration if you tell me where you’re from and who you represent,” Marin explained.

The stranger did a noisy inhale, as if that was not a response he wanted to hear.

“Hey! I’m here alone! I just need to get some information from you,” he admitted.

“Then alone you will leave, now. I will have no further discussion with you or your baseless claims. Begone!” Marin shooed him away with one hand.

The stranger stomped his golden pole at the ground. He sighed.

“My name is Oscar. And if you’re not going to comply with me, I must duel you.”

“What?!”

“That’s right, I’m not leaving without a duel,” Oscar stubbornly stated.

“I’m not going to waste my time with you. Let’s head back in, Loid,” Marin ordered.

As they both turned around, Oscar banged his pole into the ground again, and purple amethyst crystals shot up from the ground, dividing them from the large front doors. The crystals were three times taller than their height. It blocked their way to re-enter the castle.

“I knew it,” Marin uttered, only loud enough for Loid to hear. They both turned back around.

“If you don’t give me what I want, I will destroy your castle and everyone in it.”

Loid’s blood boiled. He was shaking with rage. Marin took notice immediately.

“Loid, step back,” Marin requested.

“Do you have family in there, old man?” Oscar asked to Loid, taunting him upon noticing his rage building.

Loid assumed a fighting stance. Dark, shadowy smoke began to rise from his back. “If you attempt to harm a single-”

“LOID! I said get back!” Marin ordered. Upon hearing the King’s frustration, Loid looked over to him.

“I gave you an order, now follow it. Stand over there,” Marin said more calmly.

Loid took a deep breath, and realized he had to yield to Marin and let him take care of this dangerous stranger. He stopped grinding his teeth, and breathed heavily through his nose. He walked a fair distance away.

“That’s right Loid, stand over there,” Oscar taunted.

Marin adjusted his gloves.

“You have a lot of nerve showing up here acting the way you are. You want a duel? You’ll get one. I will show you first hand what I’m capable of, and after this you’ll give me more respect than you do now.”

Oscar smiled. “Excellent.”

He twirled his golden staff rapidly, and a jagged wave of crystals shot to Marin from the ground.

Marin responded by waving his hand and shooting a jagged wave of ice right back, that shot through the crystals and nearly hit Oscar.

He had to jump backwards to avoid being struck by the ice. In an instant, he realized that Marin’s own ice attack thwarted his crystal one, both were cast in the same style.

“Ice and crystal, they’re very similar elements, aren’t they?” Oscar teased.

“I’m not here to have a discussion with you,” Marin answered. He wanted to lightly test his foe to see how he would respond to low skill attacks. Several icicles started forming around Marin’s body. With a few movements, he shot all of them at once towards Oscar.

He used his staff to parry each of them as they approached. To Oscar, it was a failed attack.

“I have a few special moves of my own!” Oscar exclaimed. In front of him, a glowing red crystal appeared. It started expanding as new spikes grew out of it. He used his golden staff to whack the crystal towards Marin.

It exploded into countless red shards that honed in on Marin. It was a neat move, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He responded by lifting his arms, and right before the red crystal fragments reached him, they froze in the air, both literally and in movement, before falling to the ground.

Marin tried a more severe attack by letting loose a large glowing ice beam from his palms. Oscar used his staff to help him jump high into the air to avoid it. He swung his staff again in the air and produced a large, brilliant green crystal shard, that was launched at Marin.

Again, it was a predictable attack. In response, he held both his arms out, and the cracking sound of ice could be heard as he instantly created a curved ice wall in front of him. It was shaped perfectly so that when the crystal hit the wall, it traveled the shape of the curve and was launched back into the air.

If Oscar had remained suspended in the air somehow, it would have hit him. Seeing that he had landed back on the ground, he could only watch his own crystal shard fly back into the air, returning to its original creation point.

“Whoa.” Oscar seemed slightly impressed.

As soon as the curved wall completed it’s task, it shattered away to the ground.

“How’d you create an ice wall that was shaped perfectly to send that crystal back so fast?!” Oscar demanded.

Oscar’s feet suddenly froze in place.

“You’re treating this duel quite lightly the way you keep running your mouth,” Marin stated. He started walking towards Oscar for a final ice attack. He had finished estimating Oscar’s strength, and it was not anything impressive.

Crystal spikes exploded from Oscar’s feet, breaking the ice and freeing himself from the temporary trap. Before he could think of his next crystalized move, Marin had propelled himself forward at great speed by launching ice from behind him.

He grabbed Oscar’s golden staff, and a layer of ice traveled from Marin’s grip up to the top, and down to the bottom of the rod. Marin snapped the staff off where he had grabbed it, and threw it to the side, still steaming from the new ice it was coated in.

Oscar looked in terror seeing that his weapon was so easily destroyed. He looked over to Marin, but had a swift kick delivered to his chest, sending Oscar backwards into the snowy ground.

“Ugh…” Oscar struggled. “That was… something else,” he mentioned as he looked over to the broken, frosted piece of his gold rod.

Marin walked towards him again, and Oscar began crawling in reverse. He didn’t get too far though, before he bumped the back of his head into a newly formed ice wall.

“Okay, okay! I yield!”

Marin bent over and picked the man up by his chest straps.

“Don’t ever come here again thinking you have the strength to destroy me or my kingdom. You’re a boy. Don’t waste your potential acting like this. If I was ruthless, I could kill you. Tell whoever you work with that they’ll have to send someone a lot stronger if they wish to contend with me!”

The ice wall behind Oscar disappeared. He threw him back into the snow.

“Now get going, before I decide to keep you prisoner here.”

Oscar’s legs shuffled in the snow a bit before he got to his feet and took off running.

Marin watched the orange and black cape wave in the air from the haste his foe made. Loid finally walked up to the side of him.

Once Oscar was out of sight, Marin released a heavy breath and slumped forward.

“Sullivan, are you alright?” Loid asked as he grabbed his shoulders.

“For someone so young, he has great potential. While he used primitive skills, they were executed flawlessly. That style was not from Neo or Arkana. I wonder where he learned it,” Marin made out.

He grabbed Loid’s shoulder to help his balance and stretched his back. “Well, there was that sparring I talked about yesterday. I didn’t ever think it would come in this form, though.”

“How do you feel?” Loid asked as he watched Marin hobble towards the castle doors.

“I feel… I don’t feel anymore, unfortunately. But I can tell you that my element obeyed my thoughts. So that is good news.”

When they made it to the front entrance, Loid shouted for the doors to be opened back up. The two concerned guards swung them outward, both of them wondering greatly what had happened. They noticed that the loudmouth elemental from earlier was no where in sight.

Loid explained to the guards everything that had happened. He told them to be extra alert during their shifts, and immediately report any suspicious activity.

The two walked back into the office where Helva and Harrel had been. When they saw that Marin looked tired, they both demanded to know what happened.

“Loid, shut the door,” Marin commanded as he sat in a chair in front of Helva’s desk. When he had done so, the four gathered together.

Marin cleared his throat. “Someone… who was quite suspicious of me, showed up. An elemental. He asked a lot of questions about who I was. He also wanted me to remove my mask, almost as if he had expected that I would be wearing it.”

Helva and Harrel were both in shock.

“He was young… too young to have any concerns about who I am. I believe someone sent him. He asked me for a duel after I refused to talk with him,” Marin added.

“A duel?” Helva asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you get any information out of him?” She demanded frantically.

“He claimed to be alone. I didn’t want to duel him, but it was made clear that he would cause a ruckus if I didn’t comply. So I laid into him a bit. Scared him enough to send him running away.”

Helva leaned back in her chair, with her fist balled in front of her mouth, deep in thought.

“That’s interesting,” she concluded.

“Agreed,” Marin said back.

“What did he know?” She asked.

“He knew that…” Marin looked over at Harrel. “He knew the name of the first King of Nocturne, which happens to be mine. And he suggested that I might be that same person.”

Helva knew that Marin was wording it this way due to the fact that Harrel did not know the secret. Helva understood perfectly what Marin was saying, though.

“That’s ridiculous,” Harrel stated. “Is he making the assumption that you are nearly three hundred years old?”

“That would be correct,” Marin said back, deep in thought about how he had to weave his words around Harrel.

“I guess its getting around that Nocturne is back, and a Sullivan Marin is ruling it,” Loid pointed out.

“I just can’t imagine why anyone would raise that suspicion about me. Or even care, for that matter,” Marin thought.

It was silent for a moment as they all thought what to say next.

“Just be careful,” Helva said. “Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just some reckless kid who read a few books and had made some bad assumptions. But if there are people out there thinking you’re immortal, we will all have to keep a look out, just in case.”

Marin nodded. The meeting was over, and Marin opened the office door back up. There was a line of citizens waiting to sort out issues with Helva. At the sight of the King they all gasped.

Marin greeted them all before walking down the hallway. Loid followed behind him. When they were alone, Loid pulled him to the side.

“Sullivan… are you sure you don’t remember anything from when… when you were alive?” He asked.

Marin really pondered it for a minute. “I have tried my hardest to remember. It is one of the most infuriating things to forget your life.”

“Okay. I was just wondering. I hope you remember something one day.”