The King In Yellow

Beneath the Editors's Sphere in the Sephiroth Tree, where the light of Nevermoon penetrates like violent lightning bolts, stretched the abyssal wasteland of the Umbra. A plane choked by shadows, corruption, and the echoes of unwritten nightmares, its existence was a necessary wound in the great tapestry of creation. The Editors, despite their mightiness, were ultimately bound to the necessity of maintaining the order between light and darkness, weaving its darkness into the stories, ensuring that the world above did not crumble under the weight of corruption.

Here, eldritch things slithered through the blackened mire, ancient horrors given form by the ever-feeding darkness. Entities such as—Nyx, the Primordial Lady of Shadows, and Lord Sotharath, the Void Beneath the Stars. Nyx, the shadow lady, had once ruled this desolate upon almost destroying creation. She was the endless night and darkness given form, the chaos that wove trials into stories, the balance against light.

But balance was fleeting. When the Editors sought to bring order to the chaos, they sealed her away in the Great Abyss beneath Sotharath's void. The Lady of Shadows was no more—only her slumbering hatred remained, festering in the depths, awaiting the day it might once again seep into the cracks of reality.

And then, as if summoned by the absence of rule, he arrived.

No grand proclamation. No celestial heralding. No origin to be traced.

The King in Yellow simply was.

One day, the great spiked throne stood empty. The next, he sat upon it, draped in tattered robes of gold and decay, his face hidden and forever covered by bandages. The beings of Umbra—the twisted wretches, the mad scholars, the wailing phantoms—did not dare question his presence. He did not claim the throne through war or divine right. He simply sat, and that was enough.

Thus, Carcosa, the black heart of Umbra, was reshaped in his silent image.

The city itself was an eerie fantasy come true, a ruined monarchy that was always falling apart. Their black spires gnawed at a sky roiling with madness and tempest, while twisted towers protruded at inconceivable angles. Silently, lightning split the heavens, lighting the broken architecture in sickening flashes. From above, the city's miserable residents crawled through the filth like condemned rats as the acid rain hissed against their bodies. Living in Carcosa meant suffering and letting one's thoughts drift and melt away with every second that went by. However, they persisted, captivated by an eldritch cosmic force and pulled by their ruler. Just his presence was an unwritten law, an unnamed order that no one could defy. The King himself rarely moved from his throne but would sometimes be seen walking through the corridors of the castle, or even taking a walk through the city of Carcosa. He did not speak, nor did he issue decrees of conquest or ruin. And yet, his will was understood. Through unseen means, his thoughts shaped the landscape of Umbra, directing its madness like an unseen hand upon the pages of a cursed manuscript. Those who witnessed his words never returned. And those who did were never the same.

The Forbidden Library was located deep within his castle, past winding passageways that folded in on itself and doorways that led to the same chamber no matter how far one went. It was said to be an impossibly old repository of information that shouldn't exist, all of them catalogued and stored by the king itself. The stories that the Editors had trimmed off the Sephiroth Tree were here, among tall shelves that reached beyond the horizon.

On the King's shelves, volumes of deleted stories—tales judged too dangerous or unworthy—slumbered, their words trapped in a shifting, incomprehensible script. Rumor had it that the library was associated with Da'ath, the Abyss of Unbeing, and that only the King had the ability to recover what had been thrown away.

Some people dared to force open the books and peruse the sealed-off material in search of the library's forbidden wisdom. However, the knowledge inside was a disease, an old-fashioned infection that shattered lives and distorted minds.

Because mortal minds were not intended to comprehend the King's knowledge. It was the awareness of abandoned realities and lost information. To look at those words was to invite unimaginable lunacy. The books stayed closed as a result. Unread their realities. Only the King, knew their secrets.

From his throne of blackened iron, the King in Yellow gazed outward.

Through the ever-churning clouds, beyond the screaming horizons of Umbra, past the latticework of interwoven narratives that formed the Sephiroth Tree, he could see it.

Creation.

Brilliant. Fractured. Chaotic. Beautiful.

It was a thing of light and melody, of purpose and meaning. It was everything that Umbra was not. It was everything he dreamed to ever reach.

For all his vast knowledge, for all the stories he cradled in his eternal grasp, he could only imagine what true light must feel like.

And so, in the silence of his desolate kingdom, with no words spoken and no war waged, the King in Yellow dreamed of radiance.

How marvelous it must be, he thought.