PUTRESCET REGEM

Once upon a time there was a king. This character is derived from incognitodealer's past but will interact with a variety of characters. Please read the about!

[crownofcysts-blog]

a little dream of me

[dawnandtwilight]

Mathis coughed and gagged at the smell “nngh…I…could not do that to my own. I do not want to.” he mumbled, turning his eyes down to stare at his feet “I don’t want to kill him.”

[crownofcysts-blog]

"Oh, no no no no! I was not suggesting you do such a thing. Your situation is distinct from my own." He only leans in closer, the cold porcelain of his mask pressed to Mathis's forehead. "Your little nuisance does not fancy himself above all others, as he dangles from his noose, no... He has many friends and allies. And what is a king without subjects?"

[crownofcysts-blog]

a little dream of me

[dawnandtwilight]

"You…defeated the masked one?" for his own instance it had been his son…the thought of killing or maiming Zacharie….was terrible to him. He didn’t want to hurt him…he just wanted to improve their relationship back to the way it had been.

[crownofcysts-blog]

"Yes. Although I have allowed him to live with his wounded pride, for now. He needed to be taught his place. There is no room for false gods here. We are the true gods. Some is us..." He peers closely at Mathis, exhaling a cloud of reeking breath into his face. "Take to it better than others."

[crownofcysts-blog]

a little dream of me

[dawnandtwilight]

He winced a bit, not speaking as he was touched. After a moment he spoke, his voice just barely a whisper “What do you mean?”

[crownofcysts-blog]

"He challenged me and I tore his wings from his body. Ripped him down like an old curtain and crushed him into the dirt. Forced him to crawl away with his tail between his legs, hacking up his own teeth." He sounds gleeful, fingers curling with a creak of many bony joints. No need to mention that he'd lost the first time.

[crownofcysts-blog]

a little dream of me

[dawnandtwilight]

Mathis fell silent, just covering his mouth. He wanted to just wake up, he didn’t want to be here with this disgusting beast. But there was nothing he could do.

The old king lifted his gaze to look at his counterpart, looking rather defeated.

[crownofcysts-blog]

"There, now..." He lifts a hand full of long, talonlike nails to stoke the man's face in a perverse mockery of a father comforting a child. "I don't think we are so different from one another. We both have the mistakes of our past still buzzing in our ears. I've simply seen to mine a bit more thoroughly."

[crownofcysts-blog]

a little dream of me

[dawnandtwilight]

"No. I refuse." he stepped away from the other king, disgusted by him "You’re nothing but a rotten pile of conniving meat…be gone with you!" he snapped, looking visibly sick to his stomach.

[crownofcysts-blog]

"Are you listening to me you doddering old man?" The King whirls around, snapping in Mathis' face. "I cannot leave you as you cannot leave me. We are in a dream, which may just as quickly become a nightmare if you do not watch your tongue."

[crownofcysts-blog]

a little dream of me

[dawnandtwilight]

"I don’t want to be great, I just wish to make up for my sins." he stepped back, swallowing a bit as he stared up at the rotting monstrosity "Leave me be, malicious spirit. I don’t want to be here anymore." his voice wavered with fear as he held out his free hand as if to ward off the other Toad King.

"Our greatness was nothing but a sham built upon the backs of the less fortunate. I will not do such a thing again."

[crownofcysts-blog]

"You are in slumber, dearest King. You have little say in the matter whether you remain here or not, and I could not oust you even if I wanted to." The beast remains ever-moving, slinking about Mathis and leaving a trail of pus wherever he stepped. "I am no spirit. I am alive as well as you are. We could meet as soon as we were both conscious, if you so desire, though I am admittedly less becoming in person. And I know for a fact that my greatness was my own, and I am finding greatness once again, without the pitiful, scrabbling fingernails of the peasantry carving the flesh from my back."

[crownofcysts-blog]

a little dream of me

[dawnandtwilight]

"I don’t want to hear this." he said, turning away from the creature quickly, clutching his chest where the other had touched him "They did what was proper and that was all that was needed. I care not about anything else." 

[crownofcysts-blog]

"But you are here, and hear it you will." He puts a chitinous arm down in front of the man, looming over him. "You were weak. And still you mewl and cringe like a feeble old man, ungrateful for the life you have been granted. Unlike myself." The beast creeps past, purulent fluid dripping from his underbelly. "There is still a chance you know... A chance to be a great as we should have been."

[crownofcysts-blog]

a little dream of me

[dawnandtwilight]

"Th-This…This isn’t my throne room…" he grunted, trying to avoid the beast’s gaze "My throne did not fall into such decay…I-I remember seeing it not too long ago…" or had that been a trick of his illness…? He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember. The stench and the dead king’s words had his head foggy "What do you want, spectre?"

[crownofcysts-blog]

"Ah, but a spectre I am not. I am as real and as alive as you are." It prods him in the chest with a bony finger. "Both of us have been given second chances, have we not...? We are not so different, just because in this life, you've maintained your human form. What do you think happened after you first fell? Do you believe they mourned? Did they throw flowers in the street and tear their clothes and weep? Do you believe you were loved, Toad King?" It hisses, choked with mucus. 

[crownofcysts-blog]

a little dream of me

[dawnandtwilight]

Mathis stared around the hall in dim eyed horror, his body tense. Where was he? How had he gotten here?? He could have sworn he was just in his son’s shop, sleeping soundly.

When the rotting creature of the other king dragged itself into view he took a step back, grimacing as he covered his mouth, trying desperately to fight off the disgusting stench of mold and filth that permeated from every surface.

He gagged slightly and turned away “wh-where am I?”

[crownofcysts-blog]

The creature stares down at him, or appears to. There is no way to tell if it actually has eyes behind its smooth porcelain mask, which may be grinning or frowning, but regardless it is very familiar. "You don't recognize it? This is the throne room, your Majesty. Our throne room. Do you not recall...? We plotted wars, conquests..." It creeps, sharklike, around the perimeter, the grating creaking dangerously beneath its weight. "...or have you forgotten our greatness? Death does such funny things to the mind."

[crownofcysts-blog]

a little dream of me

The throne room, banners trialing in seeping filth, flies alight on the milky dead eyes of the courtesans. Sick light filters in through the stained glass, weak, weary, unsure if it is day or night. Instead of the opulent rug beneath the throne, the dais sits atop a rusted metal grate, precariously perched over a deep, black pit, a stinking sewer brimming with the reek of years of unchecked decay and putrescence. 

"Long live the king..." burbles a voice filled with the restless squirm of maggots. "Well... he would have, were it not for one small, one tiny, insignificant thing..." The beast's chitinous limbs creak as it drags itself into view, wan light playing across its moist flesh. "But we can take care of that, can't we...?"

[incognitodealer]

If there was any breath left in Zacharie’s lungs, it was all spent on a scream, muffled by grime that ended in a comical squeak. And the king only had the pleasure in hearing the bubbles.

When he was pulled free, the merchant was a coughing, gagging, wheezing mess. All words lost in exchange for the need to breath, even as the broken ribs implored him to seek out other means with sharp stabs. Zacharie hadn’t realized he was being moved at all till he found himself tossed to the level above, electing another choked gasp from him.

He was alive, that was a plus.

Zacharie would revel in that fact once he was coherent enough to realize it, and wasn’t reeling from the pain, and could calm the black smoke that billowed out from behind his mask.

[incognitodealer]

Ah, the words Zacharie would say if he could hear the king now. He’d spit brimstone and fire, and go down with a condescending smirk— except… perhaps, maybe once it wouldn’t be like that.

Perhaps just this once, the merchants reply was nothing more but bubbles breaking the surface with a release of smoke. A tremble in the kings grip as the merchant remembered fear and fought for breath.

For once one of his many mistakes was finally biting back.

[crownofcysts-blog]

The King presses down upon the merchant's chest until he hears something, several somethings, snap beneath the pressure. He squeezes, long fingers wrapping around limbs, forcing them to bend in directions they shouldn't. Every last wheeze wrung from his attacker's scrawny little body. "It is not a proper bow... but it will do. I am a proud man, merchant. I will allow you a grace period to gather yourself, and apologize to me."

He pulls Zacharie from the muck, still holding tight, and clambers up the wall of his chamber until he finds a gap he can squeeze through, back out into the hazy light. Carelessly he tosses Zach onto the ground, and then retreats sealing the hole behind himself with another layer of filth.

[incognitodealer]

Like music to Zacharie’s ears, a swan song he was willing to put on repeat, a continuous crank of his music box, set to agony. 

"Perhaps I what, my king?" The merchant hissed out, keeping his grip on the sword even as the vermin latched to his hands, opting for the bites rather than losing himself in the pool below. As he was grabbed, however, the pool was quick to become appealing. Yanked away from the king, sword remaining embedded into the monster’s back, Zacharie screamed as he was slammed into the walkway, going limp as he gasped with pain.

There went his witty retorts, at least.

[crownofcysts-blog]

He would not allow Zacharie time to play tricks. The King laboriously turns himself around, shoving the Mechant to the bottom of the pool. His entire back seems to have been torn open, pustules burst and oozing black ichor. "Will you kneel now, merchant?" He hisses, knowing full well Zacharie could not hear him down there. "Will you kneel to your king? You are nothing but what you have always been. A tiny, squirming thing to be trodden beneath the feet of the great. This is my kingdom. Mine, all mine..."

[incognitodealer]

It always came back to the wings, didn’t it? The king was simply envious of what Zacharie had, be honest now.

However sinking in the mire wasn’t something to be jealous of. This scene seemed rather familiar, but he didn’t remember the sewage to be so deep. His heart raced suddenly, uncomfortably and quick. Zacharie didn’t leave himself much time to think, before his head could vanish under the muck, he found himself once more on the king’s back. Hopefully the coating of sugar and other substances would play as some makeshift shield against the blood sucking parasites.

"something finer than me?" Gasped out the merchant, "You ate God himself?" He was on another cyst, and the membrane gave way under his weight, killing his footing all together. His sword in hand once more, Zacharie stabbed it into the monster’s back to keep him from falling.

[crownofcysts-blog]

The King's soft flesh sucks at Zacharie's feet, its many squirming inhabitants already attempting to bore through the coating of sugar and god knew what else covering his clothing. The sword sinks in, eventually hitting bone, but it offers another surface for the leechlike maggots to climb up and latch onto his fingers. 

"Perhaps I daAAUUUUUGH!" Pained, the monster flails, one bony hand managing to grab Zacharie around the waist, whipping him around and slamming him hard into the twisted walkway, collapsing it into the mire. The sword had pierced something important. Parts of the King's body did not seem to want to move right, but he was not dead. Not yet.

[thegodforsakenparson-blog]

maybe zach accidentally fell into the slot for the toad king’s file in his trade route????? idk i just like terrified zach

[incognitodealer]

Well, that’s one way to anger a king.

"I taste too fine for your warped tongue. Wouldn’t you prefer sewage to gourmet?" Zacharie would have punctuated that taunt with a laugh, if the rug wasn’t swept out from beneath his feet. Or rather, the rusted and crumpling remains of what used to be a walkway.

The sword that fell from his grasp vanished before it could hit the squirming murk below, and Zacharie adamantly leeched himself on the walk, preferring to dangle rather than sink. Granted, those few moments at the king’s mercy wouldn’t prove safe, and the masked man quickly snapped his head around, looking for another, moderately stable platform. 

[crownofcysts-blog]

"I have dined upon finer flesh than yours!" Oh, but he knows Zacharie's trick. The one where he vanished and reappeared. It had been a surprise the first time, but now the King knew better. He plunges that scrap of walkway into the muck. Let's see how swift he was when he was struggling for breath.

So many new tricks, but no sleight of hand could make up for the inability to fly. The King would always have taken that from him, that which could not be taken back.

[incognitodealer]

Zacharie didn’t like to think himself a coward. That involved too much emotion, too much thinking, and an all around embarrassment to his name, but something scratched at the back of his skull. said scratching made it all the more appealing to leave this place. Was it fear? Zacharie almost forgot how that felt. 

After all, the last time he faced the Toad King, he had wings… fear would be justifiable. But that was no excuse for cowardice.

There was a brief flash and a rattle as the merchant turned onto the monster looming nearby, using his next competence, Russian Roulette. Luck was on his side as a gunshot broke the monotonous noise of the sewer, and the pain was not his to bare, but the King’s. 

[crownofcysts-blog]

He tilts his head at the rattling. It was not something he'd expected to hear, and seemed to come from no identifiable source. Just as he's about to ask what that terrible racket is, the attack blows a chunk out of the side of his body, splattering the side of the pipe with maggoty viscera. The King howls in rage and pain, pulling himself rapidly over to Zacharie, scuttling on his spindly limbs much more quickly than a creature his size ought to. 

"You SPECK!" he roars, tearing at the walkway so it rips free of its bolts. "You WORTHLESS little GRUB! I'll EAT you! I'll hold you flailing beneath the muck and then I'll eat you whole!"