PHUGS! The First Path Of Blood.

Chapter 6 A Bug in the system

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The sun lowered upon the horizon of a random huge coastal city.

Not long now until sunset.

Below in that city, the innocent did not know the terrible things that were about to happen to them all.

The bombs were ticking.

It was no exaggeration to say that Archimedes Sheffield was the unofficial king of the world.

As both mightly Sunite and Satite empire both unofficially bowed to him in many ways.

At least, in all the ways that really mattered.

Sure he had to bow and scrape and act humble as possible in public but behind closed doors, HE decided the prices of almost everything.

This thing, pale, week looking pen-pushing man.

Had most of the real power!

Because HE, Archimedes Sheffield was the CEO, of the Bronze Flag!

The Bronze Flag was a totally neutral power.

In a world carved between two vast empires, Satite vs Sunite, the Bronze flag allowed messages and limited trade to pass between the two rival empires.

Where trade was not allowed between empires the Bronze Flag acted as a middle man, with a significant mark up on all sold-on, goods and services.

As the enmity and aggression increased between the empire the more valuable the Bronze Flag presence became.

Over the last ten years, since the new CEO, Archimedes Sheffield took over, the Bronze Flag had become so vital and infeasible to both empires that ONLY the Bronze Flag had a licensed monopoly to be a middle man between the two.

ANY other trader acting in such a manner was executed for treason by the respective empire.

EVEN if such trade or charitable gift was for emergency humanitarian reasons.

When it came to any form of cross empire commerce, You either used the Bronze Flag or you died.

That simple.

The closer by mere inches, the two Empires came to full-on war, the incrementally the already vast power of the Bronze Flag more than doubled each time.

The real name of Archimedes Sheffield, the unofficial king of the whole world?

The real name of Archimedes Sheffield was Bug Phug, the youngest of Granny Phugs sons.

On a hill overlooking some random huge city.

(Bug barely cared which one it might be – such was his power and influence.)

A modest secretary addressed this important man with a question.

“Are you sure you want to do this, sir?”

Bug nodded grimly as three large trolls ambled up to him.

Spiked armour, mussel, smell and bloodthirsty.

Each from a different village, each promised that their village and loved ones would be spared IF they killed this one little human.

Each veteran warrior troll was also promised, that the deaths of those same loved ones would be slow, starting with the troll children while the troll mothers were forced to watch IF they failed!

The trolls attacked but despite his best efforts Archimedes Sheffield accidentally let out his inner Phug and killed all three fairly quickly.

Leaving him with only a slight arm bruise.

Because of their failure.

All the families within three Troll villages would now be screaming before the end of the week.

In the distance, several vital Bronze Flag warehouses and sorting buildings exploded.

As the sun now set, Pretty plums of smoke, fire and ash sparked against the landscape and smudged the glowing sky.

Billions upon Billions in value of goods, property, and records were destroyed.

Thousands of lives were being lost.

Hundreds of thousands of lives were also being lost worldwide.

The same was happening all around the world at this same exact moment.

Such death and destruction was a calculated long term investment.

The return on which was to be the entire world and everything in it!

Only an arm bruise?

“Wipe!” Bug thought,

“They will never believe that!”

Bug walked up to a nearby rock and raised his right arm.

Then, after some brief concentration, he smashed his own arm hard enough and at such an angel as to cleanly break the upper arm bone.

He did not shout or scream

He felt the pain as keenly as any normal person would, there was no magic happening here, just discipline.

Bug turned to his secretary again.

“Send ten at me…” he gowled.

The secretary nodded and this time ten large armoured trolls charged at Bug Phug, attempting to kill him.

They would all fail.

But Bug Phug will then have limped away injured enough to look like he had fought for his life to escape an attack.

Just as two of his three other brothers had all recently done.

No attack was planned on Dodg Phug, yet.

Bug wanted Dodg to stay suspiciously NOT attacked.

He wanted to set up Dodg as the Patsy or Fally Guy for his crimes until it was too late!

In the distance yet more buildings exploded.

But from here only beauty could be seen, none of the blood, horror and the loss.

From here you could not hear the screams or smell the flesh.

For now, he had to find his Mum.

She would be meeting with his other brothers.

He needed to be trusted and to find out what their counter plans might be!

Bug Phug long term goal was to be the ACTUAL King of the world rather than just secretly.

His plan was to push both empires into a devastating war then just walk in and take over EVERYTHING!

His patrons had lent him some demonic agents,

The Six Paladins the Hand of the Sunite Empire.

Sinister inner council members of the Satite Empire Agent Dice and Entropy.

(Entropy, who looked like a cute little female child, was doing a mission, recruiting the Dark Elves!)

His partons had also given him the armies of the Spider Queen, and the Deep Ones (among others!)

Bug, could pretty much have any resource at any time whenever he wanted it.

His Master just wanted the job done.

That job? Make the two empires commit to all-out total war!!

His Masters, the Demons of Chaos, promised him this world to rebuild…

After he, at first, helped the forces of that Hell destroy it.

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.I am trying to decide whether to complete the books I have started and signed upI could live with the lack of financial rewardIF I had a large enough audience eager to read themI just need to feel that the emotional rewards for the time and effort were a bit closer to what I get for my Art Work..What musician would want to pack a van with gearTravel 50 milesSet up on stage And then play to an empty room??Then have to pack and travel all the way back..When faced with the choice of 3 hours to make an A2 picture for £50VsWritting 50k of words over 50 hours for $50 to be only followed by less than 10 people..Which am I going to choose?.Which would you choose in my shoes? .I made in value over £300 pounds from my art and have my first gallery opening (shared with another artist) soon. .Money made from Writting Books, Articles on Vocal, etc etc,$20 over 3 months. .It is not as much about ego,It is far more about time efficiency while trying to break into the creative industriesThere are only so many hours I can work in a dayAnd only so many years in a lifetime!.It is not so much about mere money (although that is nice)It is more about how many people I can entertain..Going back to the Musician AnalogyI'd rather play in a room of 100 eager people for £50 Then a room of only 10 people for £100 who are just popping in until the rain outside stops..I should feel committed to completing the contracts I have signed out of a sense of duty and honour,However, IF I do finish them. at all......then they will get finished eventually,Over a long time...Like a child picking at his cold dinner for hours..The harsh bit isI am sure I am a much better writer (despite Dyslexia) than I am an artist!.Please share with me what you think?.