Episode 19 - A New Kingdom

Music: Majestic Nature by Craig Stuart Garfinkle Artwork by Steve English The script: Episode 19 - A New Kingdom One day, as Salaronicus lay back on her couch pulling the legs off a live, inverted woodlouse, a scout appeared at her side. Not wanting to disturb her majesty as she sucked the contents of each leg dry, the scout stood and waited, a little restless with the critical news he brought. He watched impatiently as she gnawed each leg husk to a digestible power with her razor-sharp teeth. ‘S..top wiggling s..cout!’ Salaronicus snapped, not even looking towards the hapless scout as she concentrated her attention and her teeth on the body of the unfortunate woodlouse. ‘You look like you want to relieve yours..elf.., jumping from leg to leg.’ The scout, 374 (standing for 3rd battalion, 7th squad, 4th least important) was mortified. Falling to his knees, saliva dribbling down his chest through his profusion of poorly fitting teeth, he bowed low, mumbling an apology. Then, lifting his head while still in a kneeling position, he began, ‘Oh, mos..t ruthless.. and majes..tic S..alaronicus... Uncontes..ted empress.. of.. the 7.. rooms.., conqueror and vanquish..er of all before her. I have exciting news…We have f..ound another world to conquer …..’ Unfortunately for 374, Salaronicus was neither patient nor nice! So, before he had finished his little speech, her glass-like sword flashed from its sheath cleanly removing 374’s head from the rest of his body. I say, head. With salami, it’s rather hard to tell where head ends and body begins, but wherever it was, Salaronicus had hit the spot slightly before she realised what 374 was telling her. As 374’s head and body hit the floor - in that order, Salaronicus swore loudly, spattering saliva over herself and her attendants. (I should say that because of the sheer number of teeth salamis have and their lack of a nose, noisy breathing and saliva splattered speech was the norm, so no-one batted an eyelid.) ‘Oh f..amel!’ she swore. ‘What was.. he s..aying about another world?’ Her attendants, who looked at the bits of 374 and took lots of tiny steps backwards out of the reach of her sword whilst bowing and scraping, didn’t say a word because they didn’t know. However, there was one brave one. ‘I’m s..orry your S..piciness..,’ spattered a rather tall and regal-looking salami. (It seemed they didn’t realise that avoiding words that started with ‘s’ and ‘f’ could help reduce their sprayings and spatterings!) ‘I do not know the ans..wer to your question.’ Then sucking up a stream of mucus that had started to trickle out of his mouth, he gulped as he saw the look in her eye and added, ‘But I will s..et f..orth s..traight away to s..ort this out!’ At that, he fair ran from her presence. (The Rampant Salamis had rather big feet which strangely resembled hobnail boots and seemed impervious to slippery surfaces, so running with all the saliva around wasn’t a problem.) Thankfully, just behind a zombie wine bottle stood a small gaggle of scouts nibbling on ants and cracking rude jokes. Noticing they had the same colours on their helmets as the unfortunate 374, the long-legged regal attendant grabbed one and found he also knew about the new world. After some arguments and a couple of lost limbs (they grew back quite quickly), one of them stepped forward to go before the Empress. The tall advisor turned and walked briskly back to the throne room with the scout following, who almost had to run to keep up. Entering the throne room area (it wasn’t a room so much as a slightly raised platform), the advisor bowed very low – in fact, so low his head seemed to touch the floor. Maybe he figured that it would make it harder for Salaronicus to remove it with her sword. Whatever the reason, bowing, the advisor waited. He didn’t have to wait long, Salaronicus wanted to hear more. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘What have you f..ound?’ (The letter ‘f’ always seemed to eject saliva... Support this podcast