Deep in the wastelands of Gesselheim, where the greatest cities once thrived, stands the ruin of Galston House, the greatest theatre in the world.
"Where's the booze?" interjected Audience Member #1, an incomprehensible being from beyond space and time. A handful of its ethereal appendages rummaged noisily through the chest where snacks and drinks were kept.
Audience Member #2, a willowy woman with thick glasses, slapped one of the tentacles that strayed a bit too close.
"We don't have any," replied the blindfolded wolf who was telling the story. "It's not like beings who exist outside of time can prove their age in a liquor store."
"I had a long day," protested the tentacled horror. "I need a drink for any story involving the ruins of Gaston!"
"Story's starting, no one drinks," the wolf replied bitterly.
"—like Gaston," finished Audience Member #1 under its breath, rescinding its tentacles into some unseen rift to search elsewhere for drinks.
The blindfolded wolf ignored him and continued the story.
It is a shadow of its former self, but it has been kept in strangely good repair. It still has its share of devotees, after all.
It was to this ruin that Regicide Heketch traveled following his meeting with the Overlord...
He moved under cover of night, covering incredible distances with impossible speed, until he reached the famed Galston House. He knew nothing of its legend, but he had no trouble identifying the grand building. Entry was trivial; the whole of the place was cast in shadow... or nearly so.
One of the tentacles reappeared, waving a half-empty container in time with off-key singing. "No one drinks like Galston, no one thinks like Galston, no-one's armor has as many chinks as Galston!"
"Where did you get that?" sighed the wolf. "Can someone read the label for me?"
"It's hard punch," replied Audience Member #2.
"It does sound like he took a hard punch," the wolf grumbled.
He emerged from the darkness at the edge of a raised platform. The platform was lit by a mechanized spotlight originating somewhere in the darkness far, far above. He placed one claw at the edge of the platform and lifted himself up onto it, growling as he did. Only one other figure occupied the stage: a dainty-looking child with long, blonde hair. She was watching him intently and without fear, which surprised him slightly.
"Let'ss get thiss over with," the Rasp hissed. "I'm ssuppossed to keep you out of trouble until you go to ssleep. I wasss sssent by—"
The girl was frowning, and she held up a hand to cut him off. "No! That's no good at all. You'll make a terrible hero." Then she waved at the room behind him and called: "Understudy! Can we get an understudy up here?"
"One, two, she's comin' for you," the tentacled horror slurred. "Oooh, how the mighty have fallen! The great Regicide Heketch, now a mere babysitter!"
Before Heketch could react, something smacked into the back of his head. He reached up to tear it away, but it was already fumbling its way over the top of his head, yanking on his ears and pulling his hair in its attempt to surmount him. He whirled around like a dog chasing its tail, clawing and biting at the thing on his head, then stopped when he felt it jump off (kicking him in the throat as it did).
Bloodlust rising, he turned to look at the stage again. The girl had moved to one side, and a ridiculous-looking doll of some sort was standing in her place. It wore a miniature suit of armor and brandished a large-ish knife as if it was a full-sized sword.
"Our hero!" the girl crowed. "Wielding the legendary sword, Alkaline!"
Momentarily dumbfounded, Heketch simply stared at the doll. "Uh... What?" he hissed, looking from it to the girl.
"His sworn duty," the girl continued, "is to rescue the fair damsel from the clutches of the terrible monster!"
Suddenly, a second doll dropped down onto the stage from the darkness above. It was small, like the first, but this one was wearing a bizarre costume that seemed like it was meant to resemble a dragon—if worn by two or three full-grown adults, at least, rather than a single child-sized doll. It had jagged-looking pieces of metal sewn to its arms, and it wore a menacing-looking mask. The mask had particularly angry eyebrows which appeared to have been added fairly recently.
"What," Heketch repeated, baffled.
"Someone help me," gasped Audience Member #2 between chuckles, "this is getting too cute."
The tentacle was wavering unsteadily in the air, its physical form flickering and swaying. "Too much to drink," it mumbled before losing cohesion entirely and disappearing.
"Good night," the wolf remarked.
The girl threw her hands up in apparent fright and let out a shriek: as if mimicking her, the "monster" raised its makeshift claws and advanced slowly toward her.
"Rescue me, O hero!" the girl shouted, gesturing at the doll that was arrayed like a knight.
"Enough," Heketch snarled, disappearing into the darkness at the edge of the stage only to reappear behind the "monster" a moment later. He picked it up by its head and held it at arm's length, leaving it to flail ineffectively at the air. "Thiss iss ridiculousss."
"Slay the monster!" the girl yelled.
The doll with the sword lifted its weapon and ran point-first toward the incapacitated "monster," apparently to finish it off. Heketch kicked the "hero" square in the torso as it charged forward, sending it flying.
Heketch hurled the "monster" to the ground and dove into its shadow with one claw outstretched, emerging behind the girl in the same instant. He seized her by the neck and shook her, snarling as he did: "Now sssettle down!"
Her head flopped oddly and turned to face him, and he stopped short. He was holding another doll—the girl was gone.
"WHAT."
"Ah!" came the girl's voice from somewhere high up and far away. "Now that's more like it! You'd be a terrible hero, but you would make an excellent monster! Great work! We're back to plan A! Ladies and gentlemen..."
Suddenly, more artificial lights clicked on, illuminating the Rasp from every angle. He snarled and dropped the doll, scampering to the shadows at the edge of the stage—then another light came on to eliminate those shadows, and he flinched away as if burned. He dove to the far edge of the stage, but more lights flicked on, destroying his precious darkness until nothing was left. He huddled in the center of the stage, snarling with hate; his eyes darted everywhere, as if searching for an escape route.
"I present to you THE MONSTER!" the girl called. "Good work, stranger! What's your name, anyway? I can't promise it'll make it into the playbill, but I should give credit where credit's due."
"Oh, has someone just arrived?" the storyteller asked, interrupting herself.
"What did I just come back to?" asked the new arrival, a blue-haired gentleman with a long coat and a fashionable monocle.
"Just telling another story about Heketch's babysitting experiences," the wolf replied. "Make yourself comfortable."
The blue-haired fellow backed away slowly, then left the same way he'd arrived.
Heketch had finally found what he needed.
"My name..." he whispered, placing his claws flat on the surface of the stage. They slid into the ground slightly, reaching into their own shadows. He pulled traces of his own shadow up and into the air, scattering them to form a floating array of ethereal shapes.
The hovering shadows began to coalesce into more distinct shapes, and he grinned horribly, showing a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.
"Heketch!" he howled, then became a blur of motion. The blobs of shadow had become tangible knives, and he seized and hurled every one of them in a different direction with lightning swiftness, shattering every spotlight within the span of a second. At last, total darkness filled the theatre; he sighed with relief, then faded into the shadows to search for his prey.
A moment after he vanished, a ghostly candle at the edge of the stage came to life, but it seemed to cast no light.
"I've heard of you!" called the girl from a balcony seat. "You're the Overlord's pet Rasp, aren't you?"
"I ssserve the Overlord, yess," Heketch confirmed as he impaled the girl—or tried to. His claw was stuck in a wooden mannequin, and the girl had vanished again. "And you are the Trilivess child, yess?"
Several more ghostly candles had begun to appear. Some occupied the hanging chandeliers, but others floated at odd heights throughout the room for no apparent reason.
"That's right," she replied from an even higher seat. "I'm Tanis. Pleased to meet you! Are you always this excitable?" Then, shouting in a different direction, she added: "Mephisto, you'd better be ready with that costume change! Back to plan A, just like before Marlgrove backed out!"
Heketch snarled, tore the mannequin in half, and chased her new appearance—only to decapitate a particularly messy-looking broom when he tried to seize her by the head.
"Gone again!" he roared. "I'm not here to play around, Tanisss! I'm jusst ssuppossed to keep you out of trouble. My massster commandss it."
"That doesn't sound like the Overlord," Tanis mused from directly behind him.
He whirled around, but she was gone. Almost half of the room was now filled with ghostly candles, but they weren't shining enough light to trouble him.
"And of course you're not here to play," she continued from a higher seat, her voice echoing across the entire theater. "Being in a play is called 'acting,' not 'playing.' Did the Overlord really send you? And why do you talk so strangely? Do all Rasps have lisps?"
Heketch traveled the shadows to where her voice had come from, but he didn't see any trace of her.
"Of coursse he ssent me, you little brat," Heketch spat, withdrawing the invitation Rexan had given him and waving it in the air as proof. "And I don't alwayss sssound like thiss. I jusst bit my tongue."
To his surprise, something pulled the envelope right out of his claw without him seeing a thing. He growled and glared at the empty theatre, as if he could punish it for the mischief of its proprietor. Almost all of the ghostly candles were lit, and he was starting to wonder why.
"Oh, it hasn't healed yet?" Tanis asked politely, her voice coming from one of the light fixtures far above. Then, after a few moments, her voice came from the stage: "This is the invitation I sent to the Overlord! So he really did send you! I can't believe he went so far as to send me a performer—he must be really pleased with my work!"
"It sswelled up, sso I keep biting it again," Heketch explained, then vanished into the darkness one more time. He saw her on the stage, and this time she had the envelope in hand—surely that meant it couldn't be an illusion!
Heketch emerged from the darkness immediately in front of the girl, glowering with rage and hatred. He picked her up in one claw, and this time she didn't turn into a doll. She simply met his rage with her own cool gaze, unimpressed.
"Why don't I ssensse fear?" Heketch wondered. "Sssomething'ss not right about you, girl."
Looking as calm as ever, she put her hands to her face in an expression of horror. Then, meticulously, she let out an earsplitting shriek—at the exact moment the final candle was lit.
Heketch winced and nearly dropped her. He took a quick glance around, then he actually did drop her.
Galston House was not deserted. Hundreds, maybe thousands of ghosts, spirits, spectres, wights, ghouls, and even zombies crowded the theatre, eagerly watching the show. The ghostly candles did not shed true light, but they lent their own ethereal illumination that neither dispelled darkness nor cast shadows.
"LADIES, GENTLEMEN, AND FORMERLIES!" Tanis shouted, spinning to face the entire audience and gesturing grandly for their attention. "In tonight's presentation, I shall play the damsel in distress, menaced by a terrible monster—as played by Regicide Heketch! Please, give him a hand!"
There was scattered applause among the assembled undead, as well as a handful of jeers.
"Don't mind the catcalls," Tanis remarked. "Those're probably just people you killed. There's generally no pleasing them."
"Wait—" Heketch began to protest, but he was cut off by Tanis' next announcement.
"With musical accompaniment by our special guest, Voco Astrum!"
A blazing guitar riff followed the announcement as a flamboyant, purple-haired musician leaped onto the stage from practically nowhere. The zombies went wild, and a handful of decaying underthings were tossed onto the stage, prompting Heketch to dodge.
"I'd rather be called 'Overlord Voco Astrum,'" he remarked to Tanis, playing loudly so the audience wouldn't overhear the aside.
Tanis nodded cheerfully and amended her announcement: "Also known as Former Interim Overlord Voco Astrum!"
Voco visibly winced at the unflattering title, but he didn't press the issue.
"Voco?! What isss going on here?" Heketch demanded, but Voco just winked at him and twirled off the stage. The Rasp turned to Tanis for an explanation, but she was already making her next announcement:
"And the parts of the three heroes played by... Loki!"
Heketch groaned and fell to his knees as something knee-high and surprisingly violent slashed at his calves. He hissed and lunged for the armored doll, which had taken a few steps away to bow to the audience.
"Mephisto!"
Heketch's face slammed into the stage as the second doll landed directly on top of him. When the Rasp managed to pry his teeth free from the stage, he saw that the doll had donned a warlord's garb, not unlike the Overlord's combat uniform.
"Annnd... Eris! Give 'em a hand!"
Anticipating the attack, Heketch spun around and snatched the third doll out of the air on its way to tackle him. He roared with anger as the other two dolls attacked his arms, forcing him to release Eris and retreat.
The three dolls took up some sort of combat pose, and dramatic music began to play. The audience cheered wildly.
"All right, everybody!" Tanis called, side-stepping until the dolls were no longer directly between Heketch and herself. "Iiiiiiit's... SHOWTIME!"
Heketch knew that attacking her was exactly what she wanted. He could probably end this whole mess quickly by simply refusing to do anything. She'd get bored, and he'd be able to put her to bed.
But Heketch was angry. So, he didn't care. He charged.
The third doll, Eris, was unarmored, and it seemed to move far more quickly than the other two. He tripped over it twice in his first charge, but he caught himself both times and managed to use the momentum to jump clear over Loki. Just when Tanis was almost within arm's reach, though, he had to reverse direction to avoid an axe in his gut.
He pulled knives from the darkness and launched them toward her, but the swordsman leaped into the air and parried them with astonishing reflexes. Then, suddenly, Heketch found himself on the defensive; the sword-doll was improbably skilled, and he needed all his skill to avoid its blows while also preventing the unarmored doll from cornering him with the axe-wielder.
It took him several minutes to land a solid blow, but he finally impaled one of the dolls, ripping the stuffing out of it with one cruel strike.
He held a fistful of stuffing up to the light. "It'ss jusst not the ssame," sighed the assassin.
Then, to his irritation, Tanis directed the doll he'd just "killed" to pull itself off of his claw and perform a more satisfying death scene. It did so, and when Tanis had properly narrated its dramatic death, it rolled itself off the stage. Thus was one of the three heroes declared dead. With every conquered hero, Heketch found the whole matter increasingly ludicrous.
Finally, he had slaughtered all three of the "heroes" and seized Tanis by the throat. Undeterred, she continued to narrate:
"Is this the end for our fated damsel? Join us next time! The same show will have performances through the end of the week, but the ending isn't always the same! Thank you for attending another special presentation by the Galston House! This has been the feature performance! Take a bow, everyone!"
"Regicide Heketch: the monster!" She made a strange gesture with one hand, and Heketch felt something around his neck—then he found himself yanked downward into a bow by an unseen force.
"Loki, Mephisto, and Eris: the three heroes!" The three "heroes" sprang back to life and climbed onto the stage to take their bows.
"Yours truly, Tanis Trilives: the damsel!" Tanis curtsied deeply. "Thank you, everyone! All together!" She and the three puppets bowed at the same time. "The next performance will be tomorrow, but stick around for a musical concert put on by our very own Former Interim—"
"Just Voco is fine," Voco interrupted, leaping onto the stage.
"Now let's clear off," Tanis remarked. The three puppets fled the stage, and Heketch felt the unseen force release him.
He snarled at the girl, but she simply pointed offstage imperiously.
"Clear off. Now," she repeated. "Or Voco will have a fit."
Heketch started to refuse, then saw her making that strange gesture again. He snarled and kept his grip tight, but he sauntered offstage nonetheless.
Tanis praised Heketch's performance while Voco started his concern, but the Rasp was not amused.
"I don't know what you're so grouchy about," Tanis remarked with a yawn. "You got to fight and kill. You get to keep doing that every single night, and your opponents will come back to life to die again every single night. It's a lot of stitching on my part, but I don't really see what the problem is."
"I am not sstaying around for another inssstallment of thiss inssanity," Heketch stated flatly. "My orderss are sssimply to watch over you, entertain you, and keep you out of trouble until you go to bed."
Tanis smiled innocently, despite the fact that the Rasp still had her by the throat. He was a little perturbed at how completely unperturbed she was. "Oh, that's no problem," she assured him. "We'll still have plenty of time to work on performances."
Voco's concert had become quite loud, so they had to move some distance away from the stage. He had recruited undead accompaniment, it seemed, and some of the more corporeal audience members were moshing in the stands. (The less corporeal audience members were moshing through the stage itself.)
"What?" Heketch demanded, suspicious. "When iss it you go to bed, anyway?"
"Never," Tanis replied sweetly, her smile widening as she did.
Voco's performance had reached a fever pitch; the audience was an unruly throng, and zombies crowded the edge of the stage. The purple-haired performer himself seemed lost to the music, his fingers flying like a master fencer's blade.
"What," Heketch uttered, caught entirely by surprise yet again.
"I'm a ghost," Tanis explained. "I don't sleep, so I don't go to bed. I don't have to."
Heketch's jaw dropped. Not at the realization that she was a ghost—he'd already suspected something of the sort, since she seemed completely unfazeable—but because he hadn't quite realized what that meant for his orders.
"No," he whispered.
"So you're here with me indefinitely!" Tanis declared. "Since that's settled, I have some critiques of your performance. You played a very good monster considering that it was your first performance, but a great monster would've..." She continued into a lengthy explanation which Heketch only half-heard. The rest of him was trying to remember if he knew of any good ways to kill a ghost.
In a frenzy of ghost light and enchanted music, Voco raised his arms high in his trademark sign, threw his guitar down, and leaped from the stage into his adoring audience. Unfortunately, as soon as he stopped playing, his horde of eager fans became dull-eyed zombies with no initiative of their own. Voco crashed to the ground, then made a mental note to bring his guitar with him the next time he tried to surf a crowd of zombies.
"There," sighed the wolf. "I think that's it for the night. Sorry it took so long. I decided to gloss over most of the action, but I'm sure nobody minds."
Nobody answered.
"Er... does anyone mind?"
Silence.
"Hello? Is anyone still there? It's kind of hard to see for myself, so a little help would be appreciated, please."
As if in answer, Audience Member #2 began snoring loudly.
Oh dear, thought the wolf. I won't skip quite so much action next time, then.