The Tyrant

I will now speak of the follies of men, in a land far separated from our own. The full story is long, and would take hours to tell in full; so I will not. Instead, I will compress, and let part speak for the whole.

It began, in some part, with the tyrant. He ruled in a fortress above the clouds, and brought dark miasma with him wheresoever he travelled. His intent was unclear, but his actions evil, and his movements regular: once a year, he visited, wreaking destruction with wave and machine.

This might serve were he invincible; but he was not. His enemies, cowering on the ground below, defeated one of his minions, and took his air-ship for their own. With it they learned much, and when again the tyrant came, a year later, they struck against him with his own weapons. His machinery of destruction was laid waste, and his fortress attacked by soldiers and heroes.

The heroes struck deep within the tyrant's fortress, steadily depowering it, as was their mission. The tyrant sent great demons against them, long imprisoned for such a purpose; the heroes struck them down. So the tyrant fled, leaving his general to die in his stead. Most of the heroes left in pursuit, while one remained.

The fortress was in the hands of the tyrant's enemies. A treasurehouse of powerful technology, and a formidable weapon in its own right (festooned with cannon and machine-gun), it could be as great a weapon used against the tyrant as it had been in his hands.

So, of course, the hero left behind promptly shut down the last of its engines and sunk it below the waves, all its wealth lost.

Idiot.