King Oktug’s Last Birthday Party

4E 0
Lake Canulus, Alessian Ruins, Nibenay Basin
Lord Saphrius,
The chamber off the northern wall of the primary 
ziggurat was,
 as we had thought, a hall of records, containing the chronicles of all 
the dynasties
 back to the mid-First Era. As your lordship knows, the Colovian Ape 
Folk were
 meticulous in their records concerning bloodlines. The discovery of 
this genealogical library, together with the engraved steles in the 
Ziggurat Courtyard, should lend some credence to the theory that the 
Imgan Kings derived their right to rulership from relation to the Monkey
 Prophet and his holy lineage.
The written Imgan language is, truly, a curious 
medium... not because of its
alphabet, which was definitely influenced by early Colovian typography, 
but because of its structure. The texts follow no discernable pattern. 
Passages run horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. They crisscross 
each other often, which makes the text difficult to decipher. Sentences 
sometimes end only to continue several pages later with no clear 
indication as to why. Some paragraphs are even written in mirror script.
 This, I believe, offers some insight into the peculiar minds of the 
Imga. Living in the labyrinthine branches of the graht-oaks, they would 
have needed a complex three-dimensional map of their surroundings. When 
they were educated by the early Colovian heirophants, they must have 
thought it odd that humans write in so linear a fashion. Luckily, the 
script is supplemented here and there by the words of Alessian scribes, 
which are useful when all other points of reference break down.
The texts, interesting as they are, have 
unfortunately been badly damaged by
moisture and age, and are fragmentary at best. However, with the aid of 
the
thought-echoes lingering in the ziggurat's stones, the praxographers on 
loan to us from the Arcane University have been able to assemble a more 
or less complete picture of the late First Era kings.
Attached: the latest transcript of the Alessian 
scroll we unearthed at Site 4,
 detailing the Birthday Party of King Oktug, named alternately as 
Mighty-Mountain-Head-Oktug, Great-Golden-Kingly-Oktug and - in an 
irreverent hand in the margins - Sissy-Poo-Oktug. I thought it oddly 
appropriate, since your Lordship's own birthday was but a few days ago. I
 trust that your own Party fared better than Oktug's did.
Regards,
Kintius Sargia
Head of Paleotypography
Canulus Complex 2
Here is the forgotten story of the Last Birthday Party of Oktug, the 
King of Aocoltekultügagog, anon The Place of Burning Staves, which is no
 more. It was forgotten on purpose, for it is [embarrassing], and was 
never told on Oktug's reign-story-pillar.
It is remembered now because it is true, and it is important, and it is 
kind of funny.
Great-Golden-Kingly-Oktug was the son of High-Worldheaded-Gvoguhl, 
who was the son of Tohglahl Blade-Finger, who was the son of Red-Raoluk,
 who was the son of Serpentfeathered-Caokax, who was the son of 
Xicüýnuhl Flame-Tongue, who was, himself,
the son of Tolaola, the eighth concubine of MAR-UKH, and reigned during 
the high-years of the first mannish hegemony. His domain was in the 
Dragon-jungled West of Aldacyrod, where monkeys can no longer go.
Now Great-Golden-Kingly-Oktug was, at that time, preparing for a 
grand celebration, and so it happened that he summoned nine Nedes to his
 court. They arrived with a train of slave-worshippers at their backs, 
who chanted the name of Aless and
wept at her death-memory. They were dressed in the red-silks of Empire 
and carried staves of tibrol wood, which were mirrors of their purpose. 
They were Alessiklusödroklergohl, the tower-dancers of the Star-Crossed 
Empire.
Their arts were macroaurbic, and they knew the biting ways of [the 
mandibles]. It was said that they could use Cetekauktlusödrothog - the 
symbol of mannish conquest, anon Armunt-Axle of the Mountain-Ears - to 
shape something from nothing.
This, to the Mountain-Ears, was a profane inversion of [empyrean 
supergradiency] that the Nedes seemed to delight in. Then again, the 
Nedes delighted in anything that involved pissing off the Mountain-Ears.
King Oktug was obliged to show them some measure of courtesy, for 
they were emissaries of the Slave Queen's Hegemony, and were Marukhati 
too. And gracious Oktug offered to them the wonders of the Royal 
Pleasure Chambers,
replete with troupe-prostitutes who could spear-talk, perfumes and musks
 from the Star-Wounded East, hookah pipes, bowls of lotus-fruit, 
tire-swings [?] and other manifold delights of the tongue, eye and 
loins.
The tower-dancers, unthinkably, declined. King Oktug, though mortally
 insulted, showed much mercy in not having the Nedes executed, as they 
would have been if they had been anything other than representatives of 
the Slave Queen's Hegemony, for it was unthinkable that followers of 
MAR-UKH would behave in such a manner.
Following this scandal, King Oktug spake thusly unto the Alessiklusödroklergohl in a voice like thunder:
"I, Great-Golden-Kingly-Oktug, Ruler of Aocoltekultügagog and lord 
over ALL the monkeys of these jungles, have called you here for a 
REASON. I have heard that you tower-dancers have strange-shaping-magicks
 that you can use to MAKE things from NOTHING. Since I have grown BORED 
with the parties that MONKEYS throw, I want YOU to make my BIRTHDAY 
PARTY. It is said that the Tea-Party-Man throws the BEST parties, and 
you Nedes are in his FAVOR, or he wouldn't have scoured the 
Mountain-Ears from the land with his God-Light if you are NOT! There 
one-hundred-and-some days until my birthday, and you have until THEN. I 
will personally test EACH Party you create until you get it EXACTLY 
right. And I FORBID you to leave until you have SATISFIED me, for I am 
King here, and I DO NOT CARE what the Slave-Queen-Hegemony thinks! 
HA-HA-HA."
"And," Oktug added, "I don't want just ANY Party, oh no... I want a SURPRISE Party!"
And the Nedes were anxious, for they hated surprises.
"But, O Mighty-Mountain-Head-Oktug," another tower-dancer said, "If 
you insist on testing each Party that we dance into being for you, then 
it won't be much of a surprise when your birthday arrives."
"Then you must make it EXTRA SURPRISING, musn't you?" Oktug snorted, 
stamping his great feet. He was becoming angry, for he was King, and he 
was unused to being tested so.
"But, O Great-Golden-[sexually insecure]-Oktug," one tower-dancer 
said, "We require a tower in order to shape the [spiritual bleed] from 
the womb of Æther, and your splendid city has none."
And the court sniggered, for the tower-dancer was only used to his 
own kind's feeble-bird-language and had said Oktug's name wrong. Oktug, 
showing infinite grace, ignored the mistake.
"I shall make you one!" Cried Oktug, gesturing expansively. "I shall 
build for you a great-high-place in the image of MY OWN PALACE. It shall
 take eighty-and-one days to build, and will be a LASTING MONUMENT to MY
 reign!"
"But, O King Oktug," another tower-dancer said. "Please, allow us to 
explain. It is not enough for our dancing-place to be high... it must 
have the proper shape, as well. The reason we use Cetekauktlusödrothog 
is because it is the same-image of Nüllna'lusödrog, the Origin-Spire, 
whose foundation is at [zero-intercept]. If we do not have a proper 
myth-shape-tower, then the Parties that we dance into being for you will
 be shadows, or woven from lie-thoughts, or worse still, will [not 
really be there at all]. What you ask of us is impossible. Surely if you
 would allow us to..."
But Mighty Oktug, who knew nothing of the All-You-Can-Eat-Trumpet and
 was enraged by their discourtesy, had reached the end of his patience. 
He reached into his anus, drawing forth a stinking mass of his own 
faeces, which he hurled at the Nedes with great malice. The rest of the 
court followed suit, for as monkeys see, so shall they do, and the 
tower-dancers retreated under a fusillade of excrement.
And over the next eighty-and-one days did the monkeys of 
Aocoltekultügagog assemble the dreaming-tower, and as it rose from the 
soil stone by stone, the tower-dancers became greatly dismayed, for it 
was indeed not shaped like the towers of Ald-Meria. It was square-based,
 squat and low upon the ground, built from green stones carved with 
serpent-patterns that coiled around each other, and inscribed with 
mirror-words that did homage to MAR-UKH and his four times 
Great-Grandson, Great-Golden-Kingly-Oktug. Oktug's story-reign pillar 
was erected on the jade stair, and at the pinnacle was constructed a 
great arch for the Nedes to Dance on. The Alessiklusödroklergohl saw 
this and knew that the Ape Men knew nothing of mythotecture, and 
despaired.
The tower-dancers, having no other choice, set to work immediately on
 the Party, for they had but four weeks in which to prepare it.
The first picture they made was fanciful: it showed a black-tower in a
 field of red roses, orbited by sixteen attendant spirits who took the 
shapes of Frame-Beasts. Its number was Eighteen-Plus-One. It stood at 
the hub of a world-wheel, and like Cetekauktlusödrothog, its nature was 
[cosminach]. Wolf-animunculi with light-swords ran rings around its 
base, singing doom-symphonies in power-tones. Oktug found himself at the
 very top, dressed in a ridiculous crimson robe. He reprimanded the 
tower-dancers, thinking them presumptuous, and told them again that the 
tower he had made for them would do the job perfectly well, say thankya.
The second picture they made was silly: Oktug stood on top of a 
big-steel-tree with man-helper-climbing-branches, holding a lady in one 
hand and throwing barrels down at a crazy-plumber with the other. Oktug 
almost killed the tower-dancers for their insult, but Princess Argatuga 
thought it was kind of cool, so he had it made it into a game that some 
young monkeys still play.
The third picture they made was [blasphemous], and shall not be 
described here. Oktug broke the back of the [censored] Nede whose bright
 idea it was in the first place, and that was the end of that. By this 
act, the number of the tower-dancers was made eight (and this a fateful 
number).
And the days wore on, and the dancers danced, and their creations were rejected again and again.
"Holy cow," said one tower-dancer (for the lover of the Paravania was
 and is still held in high-reverence by the Nedes), "Oktug's birthday 
has arrived, and we have not yet prepared a proper Birthday Image!"
"This is bull [censored]!" shouted a second (for even the excrement 
of the Heaven-Bull is considered sacred). "By the Breaking-Blue-Gates 
and their Eighteen-Times-Sixty-Three spirits-attendant, what the 
Ape-King has asked of us is futile and undoable, which is (more or less)
 the same thing!"
It was then that another tower-dancer (the same one that Oktug had 
disgraced by ancient rite of the Fecal Turbulence) ran up, waving his 
arms frantically and calling in their strange-bird-language, "Quick! 
Great-Golden-[sexually insecure]-Oktug is coming! We must dance-make 
something for his Party, or we will be in trouble! Hurry!"
And the other tower-dancers looked and saw that Oktug really was 
coming. He had emerged from his pleasure chambers with a happy grin on 
his august countenance. He was seated on a high-chair borne by three 
Mountain-Ear slaves (for these are the Colovian Imga we're talking 
about, and they enslaved the Mountain-Ears, not the other way around), 
and was making his way through the harlot-fruit-marketplace.
And the Alessiklusödroklergohl, having seen Oktug's wrath and knowing
 the consequences of their failure, began to dance and dance and dance 
as they had never danced before.
But then the tower-dancers made a very, very big mistake. Because 
they were tired from all that dancing, because they did not have a 
proper tower, and because they were [scared [censored]less], they had 
forgotten their steps, their dreaming-chants and their 
profane-fabrication-patterns, and had begun to dance in reverse. The 
[choreography] was reason-death. [Incalculable] rhythms issued from 
their feet, and the Beat of the Heart and the Beat of the Drum became 
one and the same, as it had been in the Before-Time. By the time King 
Oktug had reached the ziggurat, the very stones were screaming with 
sacrilege.
Although King Oktug was called Great-Golden-Kingly, he was not 
Golden, or Kingly, or even very Great (he was Mountain-Headed, though). 
And because of this, he and everyone else within 
three-hundred-and-seventeen walking strides of [the epicenter] who did 
not have the kimm were [solved], and sublimed into the charged air, 
until all that was left of Aocoltekultügagog was an array of false 
theorems drawn in the cracked earth.
After the Party, Oktug's son Urokh took the throne, and once the 
[JILLEN] had annulled the Ætheric ramifications, the first act of his 
reign was to outlaw surprise parties, on pain of death.
This is why Nedes hardly ever Dance on Towers anymore. It is partly 
because they believe that the [Sundering of the Armunt] was a good thing
 (mostly), and partly because they are scared and don't want to 
[censored] it up, and partly because it is [really, really hard] and, by
 most accounts, not really worth it. Many people still think that using 
towers to make/unmake things is a [stupid] idea.
However, as long as there are towers there will always be 
tower-dancers, and of all the man-people of the Armunt, the 
Alessiklusödroklergohl are better at it than most.