The King stooped over the gilded table. Strewn across its wide expanse were maps of his territory, little clay men standing on certain towns and forts across his kingdom. Other maps lay over his territory, missives sent by his spy’s telling of his rivals’ movements. Other books lay open, tallies of his treasury, his grain stores, the names, and payments that were to go to his liege lords, blackmailers, tithes, and mercenaries. He was rapidly running out of funds. The king knew that soon he would need to start selling nobility to the merchants, or even worse allow his blackmailers to air his secrets.

The king knew that he was going to die soon. Of the few nobles that he had, at least half wanted him to ennoble various peoples, so that those nobles may have more loyal servants. Other nobles did not want any ennoblement at all to happen, wanting their taxes and serfs to not be divided as new nobles were created.

The king took his dull metal mug (the glass and golden one having been sold some months back) and took a gulp of his servants’ beer. He hated the stuff, the taste was too bitter, the alcohol both too apparent and at once not strong enough. He hated what it meant, that he was no longer able to even buy the cheep wine that merchants sold to the freemen. The sting of the bubbles condemning him to poverty, the smell twisting to the smell of the rope that would soon circle his neck.

His country would soon be in war with his neighbors, not even the alliance that he sacrificed his daughter to secure was safe. She was probably even a reason why they were being so bold to garrison troops on the boarder. With one of his daughters as a wife to a noble it allowed then to create a casus belli to take his lands as theirs.

No, with a roar the king swept everything to the ground in a loud crash. He strained and flipped the table. A book started to catch fire from one of the candles the rolled on the floor. A servant came and smothered the fire. The king turned and slapped the servant across the face, the kings heavy signet rings cutting the face of the servant. Blood pored from their face, the kings rage quickly turned back to the extremely expensive maps coated in beer, now serf blood as well. The king trampled and kicked the journals, stomping on the clay figures. Anger, rage, and desperation clinging onto him.

He knew that there were many options available to him, calling his liege lord to help. But the help would either be denied or given too late to make a difference. That is if a messenger even was able to make it to his liege.

Another was to give land and wealth to his attacker. That course of action would give all of his nobles even more of a reason to rebel and assassinate him, not to mention that he was barley surviving on the land that he had now, much less what placating his rival would leave him with. After which being in such a weekend state some other king would see him as too week to defend what he had and take the rest away.

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He could ennoble many other freemen and add to his army and fight his rival. But the time it would take to raise and arm them would not be quick enough. That’s not even thinking about how his nobles who already supply most of his troops would react. He could press the serfs into service, but again not enough time, and it was about to be harvest season. The time when he needed every man woman and child in the fields creating food to last the winter, creating food to give to him, creating food to sell. No pressing the serfs into the army may win him this battle but would kill him in the next.

He could find and employ more mercenaries… If he had the money, which as any of his creditors would tell you he doesn’t. Not even the allure of loot from battle would help him, after all they only care about coins. If they come from him or a rival does not matter. Hell, the mercenaries would probably contract with him, then contact his rival for more coin, then stand aside in the battle for his forces to be smashed only to loot his army of any thing valuable.

The king was stuck. He had no move to make but one. One move that would banish him to the depths of hell should it work. For all he knows enacting this plan would destroy his soul even if it failed.

The king stopped smashing and stomping around his war room. The loyal servant stood, cloth on his cheek to stymie the blood. The king turned to the servant, breath heavy from his rage.

“Wake the sorcerer and tell him that we are going to enact the ritual.” The servant quickly left to attend to the task. The king paused waiting for his servant to leave before he kneeled in prayer.

“Lord I beg of you, please guide my hand. Please lead me to my salvation. I need your help my lord, for without you my soul will be destroyed. I beg and plead with thy to grant me this boon. To allow my soul to suffer if only to allow for my kingdom to survive.” He whispered.

The king made his way down to the dungeon. Not a dungeon, where prisoners would be kept. He went to THE dungeon, the sole reason why this kingdom existed. This room contained ancient magics. These magics were what allowed his great ancestors to dominate the lands much farther than his current liege lord could even imagine. But as time grew his family fell far from favor, assassinations, rebellions, rival nations all came to destroy them. And so, his family pled to others for strength, his once powerful family with hundreds of direct vessels now was a vassal them self. This fall was not the king’s fault. Nor was it any one person’s fault, just a series of circumstances forcing the hands of his ancestors to choose one bad decision over any other decision. Just as he was doing right now.

The room was large. Built to contain large boxes of metal, that no scholar, or metal worker has ever been able to identify. These boxes also had many different cylinders of all shapes and sizes of the clearest glass imaginable. One broken off from the ritual cubes could pay for all of his expenses for years. But no matter how he tried, how any of his ancestors have tried, none of the glass could even be scratched, much less broken.

Boxes upon boxes linked together by even more mysterious metal ropes all sounded a raised mysterious metal disk. The broken plaster on the walls surrounding the ritual magic attesting to the many centuries of abandonment.

This is where the king stood waiting for his chief sorcerer to appear before him.