Nima, King of the Desert - SCP Foundation

In truth, Nima was a coward.

A merchant by trade and traveler by passion, he was closer to a mouse than a man. With his little eyes and small posture he'd skitter through the Great Desert, crossing from one side of the continent to the other. With him, he'd carry many things, wonderous things — that's what he'd tell his buyers. Really, though, Nima carried little more than stories. His cargo was hardly anything but everyday items, taken from the city people to the tribesmen and vice versa; curiosities mistaken for commodities by those fearful enough not to know any better.

He'd never known any home other than the desert. Both the East and the West were little more than just stops on his ceaseless march; they were places to trade and eat in before venturing out again into the desert, not places to settle down in. So with this ideology in mind he traveled, all across the continent, all across the known world. He made sure to avoid the South, fearing little more than the Everyman and his inhuman creations, but other than that? He was a free spirit, so he walked wherever he pleased. Still, he felt most at peace when he and his steed walked across the desert.

It was a harsh home, but it was always there for him, no matter the circumstances. Nima knew that even if the rest of the world went up in flames, the desert would always be there, always waiting for its little hooded man and his donkey. It was almost like a holy pilgrimage, for him, to walk through the desert; like a son coming back to his home he'd smile whenever he felt the warm sand all around his sandals. For Nima, the warmth of the desert's sun was almost like a mother's embrace. The desert loved him, the desert fed him, and the desert was always there to guide him forward.

And soon enough, the desert would change his life.

Most months Nima would cross it, the road across the desert was simple. After so many years out in it he'd learned it by heart; each of its valleys and dunes was little more than a memory he needed to unearth to remember. But one day — perhaps by the will of the gods or just pure chance — a sandstorm crossed his path. At first he tried to wait it out, thinking it was just a matter of a few hours; but when hours turned into days and his supplies started running low, he decided he had no other chance. With a heavy heart, Nima walked face-first into the storm, ready for the hardest journey of his life.

For what felt like weeks Nima wandered the desert, all of its familiarities turned alien by the raging storm. He had half-expected to still make out parts of it he would recognize, despite the extreme conditions, but he soon realized that his path was gone. Detoured by a force he couldn't fight, for the first time in his life, Nima was lost in the desert. With little more than a drop of water left he lay down on the ground, ready to surrender, ready to accept his defeat at the hands of the elements, ready to cease in a place he had called home for so long.

And that was when he saw it.

Before his eyes rose a great building, a structure similar to those he'd heard of in the legends. Half-buried in the sand it towered above the dunes, its grey, imposing structures unmistakable for anything but a Ceitu. He'd heard stories of them many times when he was a child — the dwellings of long-gone gods, full of wonders and fears, never to be accessed by men lest they wish to feel the wrath of gods. To enter a Ceitu was a declaration of either insanity or pure stupidity, but Nima had no choice, not really — it was either dying out in the desert or crossing sacred ground.

So with a heavy heart he entered through, ignoring the still-burning magical symbols that surrounded the building.

Inside Nima found many things, wonderous things — things that, if he just wanted to, he could sell for enough gold to never have to work another day. He thought it a blessing by the gods, a sign of recognition for his devotion to the desert. He thanked York and Kalef, dry tears going down his eyes. Had he simply taken the goods and walked out the rest of his life would be spent in peaceful luxury beyond his wildest dreams. But something deep inside the place beckoned him, ever so tempting to come closer, to see if there was anything even more valuable down inside the bookshelf-ridden crypts of the Ceitu.

And there, buried beneath centuries of dust, sand, and rotting planks, he found the greatest treasure of them all: knowledge.

The book stank of death. Nima didn't know the old language, but even then he could recognize the words written atop it. Deep down he knew that the Kodex Tenebra was a secret beyond his mortal reach, a terrible and disgusting thing better left buried, better left for the absent gods. But still, in spite of his own better judgment, he reached for it and the wonders it contained.

For all his life, Nima was a nobody. He'd spent four decades of his existence slowly dying away, lying to himself about his purpose. He knew that the second he touched the book. He knew that it could change things, gift him with power, and give him everything he'd ever wanted.

So he took the book and ran, never looking back at the Ceitu or the rest of its secrets.

Nima wasn't a learned man; he knew how to note and use numbers — it was imperative in his trade — but words were always beyond his reach. Still, he had no issue decoding the secrets written within the Kodex. When he looked at the myriad words contained within, he felt like he had always known the old language by heart, as if he had been born with the ability to decode the speech of gods. So for days and nights he'd read, studying the forgotten knowledge of a world that wasn't his, his donkey always bravely carrying him forward.

And within the tome he found magic.

At first it was little more than small wonders, parlor-tricks shown to children by the campfire. With the book's directions, Nima learned how to spark fires and redirect winds, how to bend earth and command water, how to make himself invisible to the naked eye and move faster. Nima still was the same merchant he'd always been, but now he could be clean, he could be efficient — his journeys across the desert took little more than a day, now, his caravan covered in a bubble of sand and hot air that protected him from any and all dangers.

With his new skills Nima traveled the world like he had never before. He went from village to village, showing up on a donkey with fire in his hands; a messiah by pure chance, Nima would use the now-godlike treatment he was given by the people of the continent to its fullest. He didn't know hunger and misery with his new skills, always able to put on a show or defeat a bandit to earn what he needed with his little tricks.

And with that, with that safety wherever he went, Nima got bold. Bending the ocean to his will he crossed the waters up North, visiting shattered islands beyond the horizon. He swam towards the South, beyond the Everyman's domain, and arrived at the cold border of the mortal realm, where no soul treaded and no life could flourish. He'd go from one side of the known world to the other in just a matter of minutes, breaking the fabric of reality with his own hands — just like the book had told him. Just like the gods had done, then. Just like Nima did, now.

But soon, Nima grew bored.

He had seen the whole world and its many wonders and horrors. After a few years, there was no part of the continent that didn't know the story of Nima, the Desert-Sorcerer, messiah of trickster gods and demons. There was only so much that he could see, only so much hospitality he could receive as a messenger of the gods. In time, everywhere he went he'd get greeted by monotony, a familiar landscape no matter the place. The continent grew to be mundane, and so did Nima's days. A life once spent traversing the wonder of the known world was now little more than a journey Nima wouldn't care for; a mundane and lifeless march without a purpose, a pilgrimage without a destination.

So Nima reached further inside the Kodex, willing to imbue his existence with the wonder he'd grown so addicted to.

At first it was still little things, dead rabbits sacrificed on altars of power, the life of animals he still was planning on eating given to a greater cause. It was all nice and tidy, Nima would tell himself, wiping the blood of birds and rats from his newly crafted ritual dagger. He could do so much more like this, taking not the energy of himself but of others, of beings mother nature was planning on devouring anyway. He could make plants grow and heal people and traverse realms beyond this one, he told himself, somehow thinking it would justify the way he defiled the corpses of animals. Nima was no longer a sorcerer but a gravedigger, scouring the forests and plains in search of worthy offerings to gods and demons, just like the book had told him.

And Nima traveled the world further, his skills ever growing, ever hungrier and mightier. He would arrive at places he had already known, showcasing what he had learned since, showing he was more than just a messenger of the gods now. And the people would fall down with fear in their eyes, offering Nima fruit and gold and cows and daughters; and Nima would accept, a glister of lust and greed shining down his soul — a glister only he himself refused to notice.

In time Nima grew accustomed to this, of being treated better than gods no matter the place or time — he wasn't a merchant, not anymore, now taking up the full-time job of a pretend-god, a makeshift deity. He was tired of needing to work so he didn't, instead choosing to spend his days in glory and luxury. They'd call him the King of the Desert, the Messenger of the Sands, and he'd accept the titles and riches that went with them, claiming ownership of entire villages that soon turned into entire regions.

But even that wasn't enough — even though Nima could own any place he wanted with his new power, the hunger deep inside him, now awakened by the secrets of the book, beckoned him to own ever more, to have everything and everyone in his grasp.

So knowing no other mentor, Nima listened.

The second he let the book's whispers into his soul, his reach widened. He was the unsaid owner of half the continent, now, his capital soon forming inside the Great Desert. Nima, Sorcerer-King of the Desert, the Sand Devil, the Worm of the Dunes; that was what they called him, whispering in fear as he crossed their paths. They said that Nima would go beyond just animal corpses, now, taking the dead from many villages and using them as fuel for his magic; a terrible, unforgivable crime even for your enemies — an unthinkable act on who were supposed to be his subjects.

In just a decade Nima's kingdom grew beyond his wildest imagination, and so did his power. He was more than just an avatar of the gods, now fully turned demi-deity by his own acts, his own sacrifices. His capital was great, its streets and homes constructed from sand and bricks and glass that Nima himself had molded from the dunes around him. He thought that if the cost of such beauty was the lives of one or two homeless nobodies, so be it. Least they could do was to sacrifice their insignificant little existences to the ever-growing might of Nima's desert.

But even that was little to the hunger inside Nima; even with land and air and sea conquered, the world he could now own was nothing to fuel the burning pit inside him. So he reached to the only place he still hadn't made his: the vast and great underground.

There he found new lands and new peoples; tunnels occupied by folk who looked like moles and frogs; caverns inhabited by walking stones and talking lakes; whole cities owned by great ape-like furmen, even their own mage-kings bowing before Nima's new might. He took more and more until there was no place in the continent that wasn't somehow his property, his slave under a chain formed of old magic and naivete.

For a hundred and one years Nima ruled over as the Desert King, his vast empire stretching far from the heart of his first home. Brought forward before him were thieves, conspirators, and beggars, what little life remained in their pathetic forms taken by Nima for himself, to ever-widen his existence. Just like the book had told him. Just like it had guided and instructed him, ever whispering into his little ear, ever telling him of what more he could have. Even as he owned the world, the man who had once been but a merchant looked upward, far beyond this reality, far into the realm of the gods above. He looked where no man had gone, where no man was ever supposed to go; he looked at the kingdom of his masters and within it saw something he was still yet to own.

So Nima decided to wage war against the gods.

He devised a plan, a terrible scheme meant to consume the Sun and Moon and make them give him the power to take the gods one-on-one. It was the Kodex's final instruction, its last temptation written in blood upon its wretched pages; a sacrifice of Nima's whole capital, all of its myriad citizens gutted upon an altar of power, a ritual worthy of the soon-to-be god-killer.

Without hesitation, Nima plunged his dagger into his people and ascended upwards, shouting a challenge into the heavens.

And the sky shook, hearing Nima's voice, empowered by the lost souls of a thousand dead men. It shook and with it shook its gods, their attention brought to the tiny man who thought himself equal.

They didn't hesitate to strike back.

In an instant too quick for Nima to notice, from the kingdom above him came the guardian spirit of godkind: Isel, the warrior of time, the warden of continuity, the vanguard of the stars. She and her hundreds of sisters descended upon Nima, their arms and armor uncaring for his magicks. It was a bloody battle, a brutal war in heaven, but in the end, when all was said and done, Isel and her sisters emerged victorious, their weapons driving Nima to fall back to the ground. He fell and he fell until he turned into a star, landing within his own wretched palace, the impact unmaking his capital and his empire whole.

But Nima lived on, his life still perpetuated by the years of sacrifices he had stolen from others.

Now, more than a hundred years later, it is said that Nima — or what little remains of Nima — still lays within the ruins of his palace, still clinging to the tome that was his blessing and his undoing. But the tome isn't there — taken by Isel and her kind it lies contained beyond the mortal realms, so that no man may ever use it again, never again allowing for mankind to be chained by an unjust king.

But Nima, the cosmic jester of his own making, a self-fated demigod of failure — some say that when you cross the desert, you can still hear his moans and cries upon the wind. Burdened by immortality given to him by the Kodex, he lies in his own ruins, somewhere deep inside the Great Desert. He lies and he screams, once again more animal than man, his once-mighty body turned into a powerless husk.

And nothing beside him remains.