Tales of the Endless Empire

The Curator's Crime

The sun was standing high above one of the many grand cities of the Endless Empire. On one of the higher towers, a rooster the size of a cow readied itself to do its deed, breathing in deeply while keeping its head close to its feet. Once the rooster was almost finished filling its lungs to the brink, it looked more like a bloated toad than a rooster. Its head shot up to the sky, its mouth wide open, but just a second before it had the opportunity to audibly annoy everyone, killing intent from the highest tower erupted and made the rooster stop in its tracks. Its beak closed in fright. Unable to move from the shock, it just stared in the direction this evil had erupted from—the tallest and brightest tower where the governor lived.This day, many people didn’t wake up to an agonizing high-pitched ballad of the rooster, which would be memorized for the next hundred years. Only a small cult called the Faithful Feathered had a different view. For many members, the missing high-pitched scream left them crying on the ground. This day, the cult lost over half its members, with most joining the Depressed Seals.

The rooster got PTSD—Post-Terrible Situation Debuff—which is why, after deflating, it immediately visited a doctor who told him to get kicked by a donkey at the end of every day. In the Endless Empire, one of the more popular medical studies showed that the best treatment for old pain was new pain. The collective of scientists, the Side-Effect Society, who were currently studying this phenomenon, would have likely known about the rooster’s situation. Sadly, they were all robots who lacked any real emotion and couldn’t possibly understand what the loud, high-pitched scream of the rooster meant for all the other citizens in the morning.

Yet this isn’t about the rooster or the robots from the Side-Effect Society. No, it is all about what led to this situation in the first place. To uncover what tragedy had unfolded in the governor’s tower, we need to switch to his bedroom. For all others, this day’s morning had turned out to be a blessing. Quite the contrary for the governor, who had been hit by the full killing intent of his wife, who was currently standing before his over fifty-meter-wide bed made from the feathers of lost Indians. His eyes were wide and his face pale. The blanket was pulled up to his chin while he only dared to glimpse over it to see what had happened.

Before his bed stood his wife with a red face, her long burning hair on fire.

“He… He… what’s the matter, darling?” He barely managed to force those words through his lips. When she was in this mood, it was better to keep one’s mouth shut. Preferably, it was best to just teleport away. In the governor’s case, that wasn’t possible. After a few chocolate cookie nights to recover from being near his wife, he was simply too fat to teleport. He had tried everything, but the diet cookies tasted so horrible that he couldn’t pull through. In his case, it was the only way to escape his wife when she was in this special mood. On the other hand, he needed the cookies against all the stress.

Initially, he had smoked a few bundles of cigars every day, but then his voice got a bit rusty, which was horrible when you had to speak to your people from time to time. The healers, who should have fixed his lungs, also wanted him to get kicked by a donkey, which is why he had to heal himself on his own. The governor knew that he wasn’t the smartest, but he simply didn’t trust those robots.

Good that this time it seemed like he wasn’t the origin of his wife’s outburst. Otherwise, he would have preferred a visit to the level 999 donkey with the special titanium hooves. This day, the governor was the only person who didn’t notice that the rooster hadn’t screamed.

“Its the Curator. He betrayed us. After all I have done for him.” Her voice was like fingernails scraping over a cupboard.

“Hugh, the Curator? How? Isn’t he locked in the basement with the only food being liquid cocaine so he hopefully gets finished with the endless story of the Endless Empire? Man, I’m still struggling to get enough trees to print this endless book.” The governor drifted off, not noticing how the demeanor of his wife got worse by the second. “Those stupid trees just didn’t want to give their trunks to the Endless Empire, and the lumberjacks are traumatized by the long and truly sad monologues of the trees, and when you send them to the doctor, they get a medical certificate that allows them to stay home for the next week, curing their broken heads after the donkey’s kick. It is like an endless circle that can’t be broken, with the only one profiting… Hugh, darling, is there something you want to say?”

The governor’s face grew even more pale, and he tried to hide even more of his body under his blanket.

“The Curator did not only write the Endless Empire, but in the ten minutes the guards weren’t watching, he wrote another book. A complete book about another emperor named Tiberius. This is heresy of the highest order.” His wife said through gritted teeth.

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Normally, the governor didn’t care that much which living or unliving being his wife was torturing to death. Not only that, there were simply too many, which made it impossible for his brain to memorize even half of them, but he still needed the curator. He was the only one who remembered the story of the grand Endless Empire. Not many had the brain capacity to memorize an endless story. Yet there was also one other reason. A reason why he was a bit more afraid of his wife than usual. He had also read this story. The Amulet of Broken Time was a great story in his opinion. Tiberius, the immortal emperor, was his idol, and he had chuckled often when he had been reading it in secret. If the curator died, this would also be the end of The Amulet of Time, and the last pages were still missing, and he really wanted to know how it ended.

“Oh… Hugh… What abomination would even try to read another book? Eh… dear, just say, where is the curator right now?” The governor asked, preparing himself to quickly dive back under his blanket.

“He is hanging before the tower, of course, while my clones are preparing the hellfire to inflict more pain. Currently, most of the pain is coming from the withdrawal from the liquid cocaine, but this is about to change soon.”

The governor had to swallow hard. The worst part—even if he managed to free the curator and place some unlucky mimic in his place—was that with today’s medicine, it could take thousands of years for the curator to recover. When it came to physical pain, the doctors were sure that the best cure was to listen to the song of Hugo, the crab lost in a soup pot searching for love, presented by Garry the seagull.

“He… Oh… Very great punishment. I will immediately go down and Mmhm… revel in his pain and suffering.” The governor said, breathing heavily midway. Lying to his wife always gave him an adrenaline kick any extreme athlete could dream of.

“Really? That is… that is splendid, but I can’t join you now. On my thousand-year shopping trip, I encountered a special torture machine I would like to purchase. It’s called the Agony Engine. Have you ever heard of it? Hugh… what has gotten into you? Can’t remember you getting out of bed this fast the last time.” This time her voice almost had a bit of amusement in it.

“Oh… never heard of it, darling. I just want to see how the Curator looks before your torture begins.” The governor said, moving towards the door as fast as his thick, tiny legs carried him. He didn’t even bother to put on more clothes. The shirt and underwear had to be enough. There was no time to lose.

“Husband? Is it really you? You were never this excited about my torture techniques since I fried you in gorilla piss. I will hurry up and get the Agony Engine as fast as possible. This will be such a romantic morning full of torture and pained screams.” With those words, she disappeared.

His wife wasn’t the only thing that vanished, as the governor let go of all courtesy as he rushed down the stairs. The bedroom was high up in the tower. The tower had an elevator, an antigravity lift, and rolling staircases. All of them he couldn’t use because of his high weight. Instead, he had to run down the narrow staircase. It felt like he was flying down the first five steps, and his confidence rose. If he continued at this speed, he would be down in no time. The confidence disappeared five steps later. Sweat was pouring down his face, and his breathing became sporadic.

Yet two thoughts kept him going. He wanted to know how the story went on, and he didn’t want his wife to see him like this. She was in a pretty good mood, which could lead to her calling the doctor. He shivered only thinking about the aggressive Overload Rehabilitation Program. With this motivation, the governor managed to step before the hanging Curator before his wife returned. He was looking pretty good for someone his wife didn’t like. There were only a few flesh wounds and broken bones. As long as he didn’t go to a doctor afterward, he might even have a chance to heal fully.

“Greetings, dearest Curator.” The governor whispered after looking in all directions to make sure no one was listening in.

“I also read your... Oh... other book. If I free you, could you be so kind and tell me how it ends?”

“Eh… sure… how did you get down here?” the Curator muffled.

“That is beside the question, but we need to get you out of here so that you can continue your work. Now hold still…” The governor said, with excitement and fright evident on his face.

When his wife returned with the over ten-kilometer-wide Agony Engine, the Curator was gone, and only the governor stood before the empty gallows. A frown immediately crossed her face, and a second outrage was visibly charging up.

“Husband. Where is the Curator?” Her tone was almost monotone, which almost made the governor forget his perfect excuse. Good that he had enough free room in his brain, and he immediately began with the long, from the Curator prepared text. The man simply was a genius. Yet after the first word, he sadly forgot what he wanted to say.

“I… I… I ate him.” was the only thing that came out, and he didn’t like how a smile spread on his wife’s face.

This was the first time his wife was actually proud of him. She even gave him a kiss on the cheek, and he decided that he liked that even more than lying to her. His little lie had a few unexpected outcomes. For one, his wife insisted that simply being digested wasn’t enough, which led to his shit of the next days being dumped into the Agony Engine, which tortured it to the extreme. This led to a very bad review, since his wife had the opinion that the shit didn’t suffer enough. While the shit wasn’t having a good time, the Agony Engine also was traumatized from the whole process. After going to the doctor, it had to visit the Giggle Grove, and if it hasn’t died, it was probably giggling to this day. It was probably the only patient that truly had been cured. Sadly no one cared about an Agony Engine, which is why no one heard of this medical breakthrough.