Once Upon in Al' Dah Kash

Once upon a time, there was a sultan who was mostly stingy and enjoyed counting his money and numerous possessions more than anything.

His name was Gamblar O' Nseex the Third and he ruled the kingdom of Al' Dah Kash with a perspective of scales and gold. It was no secret that he also had a penchant for acquiring items of disputable use, if he reckoned them to be at a “bargain” price. As a result, his court was commonly populated with numerous traveling merchants from every distant land, who came to offer their goods, always at some great rate made especially for the sultan.

In that fashion sultan Gamblar had acquired several peculiar things.

Among others, a seven sided die with the number seven on each side for merely six gold pieces. A silencer for a future weapon with the promise to get the weapon (when invented) for free. A wooden wheel as big as a bathroom priced like a regular sized wheel and a flying napkin, which even though turned out to be an invalid means of transport, it surprisingly saved the sultan's clothes from stains quite successfully.

He had gathered so many things that calling him stingy before, may be a false accusation, but the truth is he almost never bought something really essential to himself or for his kingdom's prosperity.

One day, a merchant far from the exotic lands of Enphi Nit Werz came to the Sultan's court and asked for his private audience. For he had a spectacular marvel the world had never seen before and an exquisite bargain, like one the Sultan had never been offered.

The Sultan sent for him and the merchant appeared before him and bowed deeply until his extraordinarily long mustache touched the floor.

“Your illustriousness sultan Gamblar. My name is Thi and I possess the privilege of owning the most marvelous, the most rare, the most singular of all inventions mankind has ever created.” he said and then drew the cloth off of his large wagon revealing an iron cage which held inside three wooden beds.

“I present to you the Three Carnivorous Beds, made from wood heroically taken from the Tree of Nightmares and mattresses with feathers plucked from the deranged swan cultists of The Lake Formerly Known as Swan Lake. Their inventor was so utterly satisfied when he created them that knowing he could never surpass himself ever again, he let the beds eat him, which definitely adds to the sentimental value of the items. There is no manual as to their proper use, for the beds “know better than that” as it had been aptly stated by numerous relevant, late scholars. My supergreat sultan, I offer you these cherished treasures in the one-time offer of three for the price of four.”

Hearing this, the Sultan and being indeed persuaded that this was a great offer, he ordered for the merchant to be paid his price and the newly acquired carnivorous beds to be placed in the dungeons, along with similarly dangerous purchases from the past.

And there the beds remained ever since for many, many years to come.

* * *

The sultan had an only daughter too.

Her name was Lola and she was a rebellious girl, product of a subjectively oppressive father. She was on top of the cheer-leading pyramid, founder of the ΩΩ (Omega Omega) sorority - famously known for its debaucherous events and had over ten thousand friends on ideogram.

She had won multiple times the title of Miss Unnaturally Natural Breasts, with the competition of 65.056.345 A.D* standing out, when she had answered all the award committee's questions with questions.

And finally, borrowing the words or rather word, of the top selling vanity magazine of the times, VAGUE: “Princess Lola: Pretty?”

* A.D stands for Anno Dinosaurs, not to be confused with Advanced Domino which is a version of domino with the addition of players hop-scotching during its play.

So, there came the time when Lola reached the “legal” in the kingdom age to consummate and her father-sultan declared her available for prince courting. Of course, Lola was her own princess, with no need of a father's approval and had jumped along the consummation train for quite a while by then. This was a common secret among the courtiers of the palace who had fittingly decorated her with the secretly shared among them title: “the almost virgin”.

Nevertheless, multiple flyers were printed showcasing the princess in uncomfortable for her father revelatory poses and were distributed via magpies (which were unsurprisingly the sultan's favorite birds) to every distant corner of the kingdom.

* * *

Not a while after, the call was heeded and three princes arrived at the sultans court ready to claim the princess' heart.

The first one was the north-man Stun the Strong, hailing from the Kingdom of the Always Clenched Fist. He was obviously the barbarian, who aimed to turn the princess' world upside down through showcasing his more than enough abs and violently hitting things with a stick.

The second prince was named Marv the Clever, coming from the south empire of Mor Lor. Literally born and raised by books, he was made out of paper and extraordinary amounts of yet underemployed knowledge. He was about to fascinate the princess with poet words and lyric songs, which could wet ladies' underwear like miscalculated silent farts after hot pheasant stew. Theoretically at least.

The last prince, was a guy not long ago seen entering through the palace window and thankfully carrying one of the most forgettable of faces. His name was Kant the Coward and he arrived from the Distant Eastern Unified Emirates of Desert 'Er.

The princess then appeared before the three princes and was ready to do a crowd dive from her flower-dressed balcony towards their lustful arms, when sultan Gamblar intervened.

“Let's have a contest!” he announced.

The crowds underneath him cheered and hi-fived each other and replied in unison.

“Yeah, let's!”

For ignoring the decisions of his daughter is obviously the natural way of a father figure to behave.

And when the sultan squeezed his mind to come up with a preposterous idea for a challenge, he remembered those carnivorous beds he had once acquired.

“Let's hand them to the carnivorous beds and whoever survives will get my daughter's hand and his hand into my most magnificent space of cherished things. After I die of course.”

That second announcement baffled most of the attendees as to which hand goes where exactly, but the part about the beds made them cheer once more.

“Yeah, let's!”

Thus, it was decided and the three princes were to be presented, each with a carnivorous bed to face in a battle until death.

The stakes were high and so were the sultan's friends observing the spectacle from the palace smokehouse.

It was the chance of a lifetime.

It was the question of questions.

It was death or love.

That's what it was.

* * *

The first prince to compete was Stun the Strong.

He walked into the pit confidently flexing his biceps and making suggestive remarks towards the princess involving his sword hilt and her mouth.

“My name is Stun the Strong and I'm one of the strongest men named Stun back where I come from!” he said and stopped in the middle of the arena to graphically rip off his shirt, a move which was answered by the princess with a not so silent “Nice”.

Of course, the carnivorous bed couldn't empathize with work-out appreciation and attacked Stun while he was still applying oil to his balloon-man torso. When he tried to remove the cannibal sheets which were biting on his spleen, his sword was parried by the bed legs, his head choked by the constricting pillowcase and in seconds, he was totally consumed by the carnivorous piece of furniture.

Marv the Clever who was the second prince in turn, saw the terrible misfortune of his rival and laughed at his gloryless end.

“His end was too extravagant for his inferior self. Now witness how they do it, those from the upper shelf”, he rhymed and jumped inside the pit.

Of course Marv had already fabricated a sophisticated scheme to eradicate his opponent and claim his prizeness. He even had a Plan B in case the first one didn't cause bedlam, which was to talk the bed out, but he did maintain second thoughts about that one.

So, Marv pulled out his trusted flask of 40% vol. intelligence potion and took a nice mouthful. Then he held up his magic lighter - which lasts 1.5 times more than a regular lighter, but no more than a bigger sized lighter - and shouted to the crowds.

“Watch me as I burn this filthy aberration, using my handmade tool of incineration” ,he chanted and held the second gulp of the highly intoxicating liquor inside his mouth, ready to blow a scorching breath on his opponent.

What the second prince didn't consider, was that his paper body was already soaked with alcohol and even the +20 intelligence couldn't stop what happened when he tried to push the lighter.

At the first spark of fire, poor - posthumously entitled moron - Marv, went “Whoosh”

He turned into a flailing ball of flame and died horribly under the audience's degrading laughter.

Even the carnivorous bed would agree that dying of accidental self immolation is undeniably hilarious.

Last and most probably least, terrified and regretful of the unfortunate situation he got himself into, Kant the Coward entered the pit. Naturally, his plan was to run as fast as he could for as long as he could and he put that plan in motion immediately after he saw the flesh-eating double mattress threat appear.

In fact, after a couple of panicked rounds around the pit with the quadruped feral bed on his tail, he noticed he had already survived more than his late rivals and suddenly felt the stupid urge to say something.

Still running, he turned his head towards the carnivorous bed and shouted with an idiotic grin on his face.

“Yes! I'm winning!”

At that exact moment, karma responded with an instantaneous roundhouse kick and Kant's head was smashed onto something which he could otherwise avoid if he hadn't been such a poser.

He could not remember what occurred while he was unconscious.

But curiously, he did win.

By the stoke of this cosmic clumsiness the obstacle that happened to meet Kant's totally forgettable face, was actually one of the wooden poles holding up the sultan's throne. The sultan unable to react, began to fall towards the pit in what seemed like forever, immortalizing farewell pirouettes of a surprised verge leader. He landed exactly inside the carnivorous bed's insatiable mouth and got graphically teared apart by the beast's metallic spring-teeth.

The crowds gasped in coordination and held their breaths, for the thing that happened next was as unbelievable as fish raining from the sky and baskets magically fill with bread.

What even the bed didn't know – as it was evidently noted in the carnivorous bed's user manual “Read it. Don't sleep on it” - was that its kind is allergic to authority and its bite on the sultan was like feeding a cartload of milk to your lactose intolerant nephew.

Only lethal and more extravagant.

The sultan was blown out of the exploding bed in many, many pieces all covered up in a sticky goo of a decaying color. The Committee of Wise Janitors would later argue that the transformed pieces of their late leader, were what they called “The essence of the Gods” and would regularly rub them behind their ears for protection.

So, the bed was defeated and sultan Gamblar was no more, but Kant, that lucky bastard, was still unconscious and unaware.

Imagine his expression, when he heard that he could get to marry the voluptuous princess Lola, be the new sultan and inherit the previous sultan's vast collection of useless things.

Yes, you probably got that correct, even for such a plain face, it was clear that Kant considered all this to be “too much responsibility for himself”.

Shortly after, a man was seen getting out the palace window and guessing that it was probably him, everyone in the court proceeded in forgetting he ever existed. A ludicrous task in the least.

* * *

Thus concludes the story of how princess Lola came to spend all of her father's heritage on drugs, fast cars and nose jobs until she died in the gutter of a deflated lip infection.

The End