Nibor's Situation

Chapter Three: Nibor’s Situation

As chief advisor to Minoreyna, our current, our de-facto Queen of Rasalandia, although in theory she is still only a princess, my principal job is to take a great blanket view of the world and advise her on decisions which will affect our Empire.

At this time, this function has become the most difficult of my career, since we are facing a world-wide catastrophe with the Zombie Infestation.

Picture this: Rasalandia, a small coastal village where live only about 50 thousand souls, mostly minotaurs and a few, very much loved humans, surrounded by beautiful and exotic forests, with effectively only two roads of access, has become, by deals and treaties with Lord Jesus Christ and Lord Krsna, in one of only TWO possible safe zones for the millions of humans who live in our planet, Nagaloka who are being slaughtered without pity by a horde of relentless zombies.

These millions of humans, are desperate to escape from the Zombie Infestation designed to exterminate them by non-other than Lord Jesus, are mostly NOT devotees of the deity that is giving us protection, Lord Krsna. Some are devotees of Thor, some of Kukulkan, some of Ameratsu Onichan… 

This zombie infestations was started by Jesus Christ in for the Final Judgment of mankind on Planet Earth. To do this, first he needed to exterminate OUR humans, although they are very much loved by us here in Nagaloka.

Oh, I’m certain that they will be safe in other places, such as Atlantis City, which will probably just leave orbit, rendering Jesus’ massacre useless. Might be that a few humans might survive in the Great White Dessert, since zombies there must be very rare, it being the home of the Frost Giants, who are notorious for their appetite of human flesh.

Goblins, Trolls, Ogres… all of them devour human cadavers when they die in their lands, so the zombie apocalypse will probably not affect them very much.

But in the human lands… Basically there is no more hope.

Unless they happen to live in the lands ruled by Lord Krsna or Lord Christ.

So the only other guaranteed places where humans might escape the zombies are the three Christian cities of  La Niña, La Pinta and La Santa Maria, which are ruled by a Pope, who reigns there as absolute sovereign of all Christendom in Nagaloka. They have already issued a declaration that only Christians known to be so BEFORE the “Day of Judgment” as they call the Zombie Apocalypse will be admitted into their lands unless they be children. And virgin children at that. They have a very narrow definition.

This Pope, or Rex-Mundi, as he is called by his people, also considers all Minotaurs such as Minoreyna and Dragons such as myself, to be demons.

And our planet he considers to be Hell.

Sooooo typical of Humans who profess to follow Christ.

So since  the humans in these Christian cities believe, erroneously, that they reside in Hell, they have also taken to the curious belief that they were reborn here as punishment  for their sins committed on Planet Earth. And even curioser, they also believe that this terrible tragedy of the dead rising from their tombs to slay the living is somehow a wonderful event, since they will be finally free.

If only they had a true understanding of reincarnation, they would quickly understand how utterly wrong they can be.

All the same, for our Kingdom of Rasalandia, it is a very complicated situation, wouldn't you agree? Oh, we could easily expulse the humans not protected by Krsna for not being devotees.  But my monarch, that obnoxious teen calf, has strictly forbidden me from NOT accepting refugees, no matter if they happen to number in the tens of millions. Our forests and lands are being rapidly depleted, and I fear a “humanitarian” catastrophe of the same size as the zombie apocalypse outside our borders.

Other interesting points to consider are that Lord Krsna and Lord Jesus are basically the same being.

Both are, in Nagaloka, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Eternal, Everlasting and Infinite. And yet, they are two beings, not one, at least as of yet. I suspect that eventually, they will become one being, since there can only be one cosmic Alfa and Omega. Or can there be more? My philosophy is not big enough to cover such possibilities. I am, after all, a devotee of Krsna.

Both Jesus and Krsna have a deep abiding love for mankind, and they expect a certain code of conduct from their devotees. Their conflict here on Rasalandia has ended in a standoff between them.

Allow me to explain how this happened.

The zombie infestation began about a year ago with isolated incidents of human dead returning to un-life to try and claim the life of living humans. In other words, zombies came out of their graves to kill humans.

Humans are common in our planet, and so at first, our leaders in the various city-states, such as Lollipop City and Grumpsland at first tried to destroy the zombies. But this proved soon to be impossible. The reason is not that zombies cannot be destroyed, in fact, they are slow-moving, utterly stupid and basically very fragile.

They can be burnt, chopped into little pieces, liquefied... The trouble is that hundreds of millions of humans have died over the many thousands of years of human history in our planet, and millions of those were buried with a certain care to perverse the body, as in the famous "Christian burials" which is actually just another form of mummification. Furthermore, all those who died at sea have "miraculously" returned, more or less complete, but incrusted with dead sea-things that they have somehow used as spare parts.

That puts hundreds of millions of walking dead roaming about our planet trying to kill the living humans who are not under the protection of Lord Christ or Lord Krsna. In other words, an all-out apocalypse.

For humans.

Dragons, minotaurs, lizard-men, goblins.. We don't have much to worry about. The zombies seem to ignore us, unless we decide to protect our human friends. In that case, we are obstacles to a single-minded zombie purpose: destroy human life, even if you have to kill non-humans to do so.

Lollipop City, with its huge human population, fell rapidly to the zombie onslaught early in the infestation.

The Lizard King, Agua, gathered up all the survivors of the first zombie attacks into the Pink Tower and then transported them to the Inner Earth of Nagaloka through a massive ritual sacrifice. The “Sacrifice in the Arena”.

About 14,000 souls mostly humans living in Lollipop City were uprooted to what is essentially another world and there, they were left at the mercy of the Octopus People, whose ways and desires are as mysterious as they are.

Lollipop City was burned to the ground by the Lollipop City Dragons, a kind of reptile police force, who did not want the infection of living dead to expand to other places. At that time, the cause of the infestation was still not very clear. But in that fire, millions of zombies were destroyed by the Lollipop City Dragons.

But this drastic measure did not work, and the living dead began to appear everywhere, in every corner of the planet. And where zombies appeared, either coming out of the sea or the earth, they sought to kill any living humans who were there. Soon, all the human cities fell to the plague.

Valhalla, Ameratsu Onichan, Kukulkan, Pirate City… Each one perished after a useless defense under onslaught of the living-dead. Now, most of those places are either utterly destroyed, like Lollipop City or utterly overrun by undead. In either case, a united Dragon Force, composed of all the dragons in the planet unified by this catastrophe, shall destroy these cities in order to bring down drastically the zombie population, since zombies seem to be a problem we all share.

Each and every one of the non-human cities, like Ogre City and Goblin City tried to defend their humans from the zombies but without success.

Then, since the zombies were targeting only humans, the non-human cities, like Grumpsland, of the dwarves, either exiled their human populations or murdered them outright, as was the case of the Goblin City.

In the case of Grumpsland, King Grumps decided to use this worldwide catastrophe to deal a blow to his ancient enemies in Goblin City. The Goblins are divided politically, and one of the Goblin tribes, the Green Goblins, decided to call the Dwarves to defend their humans form the other Goblin tribes, like the Black Goblins who decided to eat their humans instead.

King Grumps was only too happy to agree to help the Green Goblins, even though he had already sent all HIS humans to Rasalandia, where he asked the Minotaurs for assistance because of their previous alliance against Lollipop City.

Chaos, it seems, is a profitable thing for the greedy dwarves. They would gain a foothold in the Goblin Kingdom and swell their allies in Rasalandia.

The result of that particular conflict is still unclear, but basically, the dwarves sent us already all their humans. Around 21,000.

And now to our situation here in Rasalandia:

Rasalandia, always had a relatively mixed group, consisting primarily of Minotaurs, who are the dominant race, but also with a large groups of humans, dwarves, elves and lizard men who have chosen to live here. Since our form of government is a Vaisnava Monarchy, our monarch, the teen-aged Princess Minoreyna thought it imperative to save all her humans from certain death. An impossible task during a mass extinction or zombie apocalypse.

And so she called upon our deity, Lord Krsna to intervene.

This would pit Lord Krsna against Lord Jesus' devious plan to begin Judgment Day on planet earth at the cost of the lives of all our humans here in our own planet. Of course, Lord Krsna would never deny a True Devotee, so he descended upon our palace and visited our Queen.

This visitation got Lord Jesus' interested in our town, and so he too came down to our palace to determine what to do next.

Lord Krsna and Lord Jesus decided NOT to fight.

Lord Jesus accepted to give Lord Krsna a sanctuary for all the humans living in our land. That means only in Rasalandia.

It was kind of the same immunity from zombie attack in the Christian cities of La Niña, La Pinta and La Santa Maria. 

What our young and inexperienced monarch did not expect is that suddenly ALL the humans of non-Christian tendencies in the ENTIRE PLANET would want to become citizens of our Nation overnight.

This standoff between Krsna and Jesus has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in our beaches and forests and all our underlying lands officially under the dominion of our young Queen.

Humans from places as far away as Valhalla are flocking in group or individually looking for sanctuary from the living dead. Hundreds of thousands have already arrived at our borders... They are all lacking food, warm clothing, medicine.. And we must provide them with such amenities.

And the zombies have become a real plague directly all around our borders. They do not enter into our land, as per the agreement between Lord Krsna and Lord Jesus.  They don't come  anywhere near, but outside our lands, in places such as Chille City, or Kukulkan, our closest neighbors, entire ARMIES of zombies have been forming trying to stop the refugees from arriving in our lands. They are blocking all the roads, all the maritime access. Flying undead like Banshees, Vampires and Ghosts have been patrolling the skies around our Kingdom, trying to bring down any humans trying to ingress into our sanctuary by air.

The slaughter of humans trying to get here from the outside is enormous.

There seems to be no end to the zombies.... Our army is busy to help the refugees get to our land, where they are safe from attack, but we dare not leave our own lands unattended since many of the humans arriving here are not necessarily Vaisnavas, and we fear for the wealfare of our own people and our animals in the forests.

I ask myself... What will we do?

My Queen has given me the direct order to allow any human who seeks sanctuary in our lands to be let in. But we are talking about millions of humans crowded into a city of no more than 50 thousand. Conflicts between the different factions of the humans might bring us all to our knees.  And as I said before. They are whipping out our forests and beaches, eating anything that crawls, flies or swims.

We need a miracle.

Lava speaks with Pride, the King of the Dajjal

Lava Speaks with Pride, King of Dajjals

The Hobbit Beach of Lollipop City, a perfectly gorgeous beach, styled almost exactly as Santa Monica Beach in Los Angeles, planet Earth, with a gigantic pier upon which you might find all manner of monstrous mechanical games to delight the children. There is the Octopus, the Ferris Wheel, the Merry-Go-Round, the Russian Mountain and many others. Besides the games, you also find a variety of stands with all manner of tourist traps, like the spin-the-bottle, the marbles game, darts, cards, dominoes, pool tables, and every gambler’s and sharks’ dream. Food? Just consider every single delicacy imaginable by man or beast served by the most absolutely gorgeous halfling wenches this side of Middle Earth.

A huge and chaotic place in a huge and chaotic city, you can lose hours… days… years… smoking ganja and watching sunsets and sunrises on the beach.

My name is Lava, I am a loyal Pink Tower Guard, serving the newly crowned King Agua, sovereign of Lollipop City. I am a Scorpion Man, which is to say, I have the body of a Scorpion but the torso and head of a man. I am roughly the size of a horse (or centaur if you prefer), and I am also a Capricorn. I like bacon and eggs, roasted goblin, and a variety of other protein rich foods. My metabolism determined the fact that I am a carnivore… Would I eat humans? Of course, but human flesh is one of the most expensive, right behind gnomes and elves. Almost all of them want to bury their dead, not sell their flesh in the troll butcher shops.   

But I digress.

I was at the time, smoking a bowl of fine ganja and visiting with one of the merchants on the beach with the best reputation… John Wayne.

John Wayne is a ganja salesman who has managed to market his particular strain of ganja all over Nagaloka and several other planets to boot. His “John Wayne” ganja is considered one of the best of the Milky Way and prices outside Lollipop City, where he grows his product, are off-the-charts. He is a burly, handsome bastard who chooses to dress in the style of human cowboys of Earth.  His similarity with the Hollywood actor is remarkable, and totally genuine. He has never used polymorphic magic to change himself.

Well, John Wayne and I were sitting on the beach, smoking a bowl together when suddenly, a huge hole appeared about four feet away from us. A few onlookers went to see what the hole was all about, and I, being a Pink Tower Guard, told them to step back until everything was safe.

Seconds later, a huge explosion rocked everybody off their feet, including my diminutive friend. A few folks got hurt when they fell, but nothing serious. Except for John, who fell, oddly enough, on his head, which struck, even more oddly, a great crab, who was just trying to right herself after being blown by the blast.

John lost consciousness immediately.

And from the midst of the explosion, a most peculiar floating eye, roughly the size of a house appeared floating exactly on top of the hole.

“I am looking for Lava, Guard of the Pink Tower.” It said into all our collected heads. Which is to say telepathically, and shouted loudly for all within visual distance to listen. About two dozen naked, puzzled hobbits (did I mention that the Hobbit Beach is a nudist beach?) looked at each other and then pointed their grubby fingers at me all at once.

Trying to reassemble what was left of my pride, I stepped forward.

"I am he." I said, “At your service.

You must understand something about my nature. I am a Scorpion-Man. I have been genetically altered by the Nagas to contain both the best of Scorpions and Humans, two tribes that have somehow not gotten along perfectly over the ages of the universe. But the key word here is SCORPION. I am always, necessarily, ready for battle. My stinger twitched in anticipation.

"So nice to meet you, sir." Replied the incredibly huge levitating Eye.

"And you might be?" I asked, now more curious about of offensive new arrival, who had knocked my friend, the hobbit unconscious, and generally, caused a great peace-disturbing chaos. I could, after all, arrest him.

The little market was a mess. Little panics form the appearance of the giant eye were spreading everywhere. My muscles were just barely starting to move again, electric shock still cursing through some of my appendages, my adrenaline working overtime. The hobbits on the beach were actually (I thought) spoiling to see a fight.

"My name is Pride, I am also known as Television and in some places, Dajjal." Said the eye.

Blinking with a little grace and a smile. Except it was just an eye. A floating eye. There was no mouth to his smile, just the eye. How DO eyes smile?

"I have heard of you. You live in the center of our planet, do you not?"

"Correcto."

"And how might I serve you, Maharaja Pride?" Maharaja means King. Pride was the King of the Kingdom of the Dajjals in the Inner Earth of Nagaloka, so addressing him with the title was very important. I was not so naïve as to not recognize the monarch. But I was a little puzzled, and quite terrified as to why this particular monarch was looking for me, and not necessarily King Agua.

In Nagaloka, all sentient beings were perfectly peaceful and well-meaning to each other. Hence, giving a formal greeting to the King of "Hell" was more than ordinary. But even so, a dangerous proposition. Powerful Kings of “Hell” as some understood the Inner Earth to be, were unpredictable and sometimes cruel beings. They could wipe out entire cities and not blink an eye if they thought it would benefit their needs.

"I need clarifications. I have come here to ask you a number of questions about Lollipop City, and I hope you can answer them honestly. Why your opinion is of interest to me, I prefer to keep to myself. But tell me, are you willing to answer some questions about your city?"

"It will be my pleasure, sire. It is well known that Lollipop City is a great and democratic republic, created by the Three Elders who also built it from the ground and held it together placing presidents and kings for each tribe under them that served the common good with intractable wisdom. King Agua, new ruler of this city has brought the Vaisnava faith to us, but has determined to keep our democratic and self-ruling principles originally created by the Three Elders. This has made most of the residents of our great metropolis very happy."

My answer was standard Pink Tower propaganda, well-rehearsed and well written. Was it true? I certainly believed it to be.

"A doomed democracy, I fear. But that is unimportant now, tell me, what is YOUR faith?” The thoughts of the great eye popped into my head as clearly as if they had been spoken. Indeed, the “voice” of the great being was complex, melodious and very masculine.

"Oh Great Maharaja Dajjal: although I am a scorpion and I am therefore unable to fulfill the four vows of a Vaisnava, I consider myself a Devotee of Krishna.” I said, also truthfully.

“I see. And tell me, do you think that the religious regulations decreed in the Vedas could be applied as laws for the citizens of Lollipop City?”

“Of course not.”

“Why?”

“Because we are a very mixed and chaotic bunch of creatures, oh Maharaja. The Vedic instructions regarding vegetarianism would be the death of creatures such as myself, who depend on animal protein to survive. And I am not alone. There are ogres, trolls, and of course, dragons. They need meat to survive, as do the Rakshashas, and the ghouls.”

“And do you think that putting together such a strange variety of beings is wise?” The giant Eye floated out of the zone of the hole and began to move slowly, ever so slowly, towards the mechanical games.

“The fact that we all live in peace amongst ourselves with a few exceptions who are rapidly exiled from here would seem to prove it, oh Maharaja.” I said.

“And yet, the Dwarf War, or as you call it here now, the King Agua War began on religious principles. It was King Agua’s failure to build a temple that caused him to ask the help of the dwarves to invade the city. And now, he is an avowed devotee of Lord Krishna. Do you feel that is congruent?”

“So long as the democratic protections created by the Three Elders hold, yes, I do.”  I explained.

And I wondered…

Why had this particular Dajjal looked for me to answer his questions? King Pride was known as Lucifer in some places, a “fallen” angel. In fact, this being was perhaps NOT Lucifer, but another avatar of Lucifer. A living avatar of a spirit immortal. So why bother with a lowly tower guard?

"Well, I can see that Scorpion Men in Lollipop City are well known for their honesty.  I am, on the other hand, known mostly as a liar, although I choose not to lie to you. I feed off the Pride exuded by sentient beings, and specifically, the worship they give me, so sometimes I am forced, for reasons of feeding off emotions, to push the truth to its limits."

"You are named Pride, and yet that is a condition, not ... a name. Or is it?" I was curious exactly what kind of creature this was.

"Pride is a “Sin”. The sin that has doomed me to my servitude to Pride itself, perhaps. As good a name as any." The great eye said. And once again did that smiling thing. Uncanny.

"And yet, you are perfectly agreeing to be what you are. Why?" I asked. I was genuinely curious.

"Could darkness be not dark? Could death be not death?  The great unknown? What does it mean for death to die? Could Pride not be proud?" It replied.

"A question within a question." I pondered out loud.

"Perhaps I don't know the answer." He joked. And for the first time, I hear the laughter of Pride. A wonderful thing.

"And yet scriptures would tell us that you are omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal, everlasting and immortal." Dealing with such dangerous beings as the Dajjals must be handled with caution, and when such a being joked about something, it could ... spell trouble.

"And also not." He said, definitively. “Death… the GREAT death, comes to us all. Even the so called “immortals”. I will be dead when beings are no longer proud to exist.”

I tried to remember what scriptures and all that.

It failed me completely. I had never been a good student of scripture.

But matter not, Scorpion Men are not known for their immense intellect, although I wore the Pink Uniform of the Elder Jigolanthas, who demanded of all his soldiers vast and complete knowledge of certain topics of his interest, including demonology... I had been a Guard to the Elder Gnome before I had become a guard to the Lizard King.

Suddenly, my passed out friend, the hobbit, John Wayne regained his consciousness and sighed between his teeth.

"Pride! My Lord…"

He tenebrously bowed before the strange creature.

Pride showed again his "happy" eye and then gave the hobbit a very brief and very intense image of an extremely sexual nature. It appeared directly inside the iris of the “eye”, a huge thing, as big as a television set.

"Your Lord is Lust, Hobbit, least you forget!"

"Pardon the confusion. But might I be of service to you anyhow, Lord?" John Wayne said, sweating visibly. He was terrified. He knew these Dajjals personally. But how was “Lust” his “Lord”.

"You might join our conversation if so wish. I am just… as you say… strolling on the beach" Said the Dajjal.

"Wow! A conversation with the King of the Dajjals! I wouldn't miss this for eternity, your highness!"

"What were we talking about?" Pride asked me.

"... omniscience." I replied.

"The subject bores me. I prefer to talk about my incredible achievements in Hollywood."

"Hollywood. Planet Earth. A planet that has been quarantined by the Nagas if I am not mistaken."

"The Nagas are wise to quarantine the humans. They have been exterminating other tribes incredibly fast. Why just last year, they did away with the spotted leopard. They are a dangerous menace to the entire multiuniverse. I have argued with other Elder Dajjals about their extermination, but most are quite reluctant, since they feed on them."

The dajjal's eye showed a variety of non-human eyes to me. The ones of the beings exterminated by human activities on earth.

"I happen to disagree with that appraisal, Lord. The humans show great potential." Fortunately, early in my military career, I had met a number of extremely agile minded and foremost benevolent and awakened human souls.

"You would say that because you are half-human, dear. If you were of "my" condition, you would not be so sure."

"You mean to exterminate them?" I asked.

"Oh, I think King Agua and Princess Minoreyna will do just fine, doing it for me. Maha Pralaya and all that, do you know? Although I have heard it said from certain places that might be that this particular Brahma who created us all is not at all happy with the arrangement. Krishna and Jesus will have to dish it out. It’s not for me to decide. My only interest is to make men proud."

"How is that possible?" I asked.

Indeed, I was getting more information on this one single meeting with this one single floating eye than I had from all the wizards and sorcerers trying to pry open the future.

"Even if I knew, why would I reveal it to you? King Agua will become Emperor of the Multiuniverse, and a single choice in that tenure will cause reality to cease to exist. We are all doomed."

I wondered if I should drop the subject, or force the Dajjal to answer my questions more clearly.

Never one to offend unnecessarily, I dropped the subject. It was not that important anyhow. The dharma of each being, being it known or unknown is an unbreakable thing. If King Agua was supposed to cause the end of the Universe, so be it. But… why would he do that? And could I influence him to do otherwise? I was one of his confidents. I walked with him often, in the bowels of the Pink Tower and in other places, as his bodyguard. His assistant. His friend.

A long silence ensued. Suddenly, the dajjals eye brightened, smiling again.

"I am bored. What do you fellows recommend to pass the time in Lollipop City?" He asked.

"The Red District." John Wayne the Halfling and I said simultaneously.

In a city such as ours, the place with the roughest, most perfectly debauched entertainment, as be fit the King of Dajjals would be in the Red District. It was going to be a wonderful night.