Grimm Tales

The Sinking Palace

Once upon a time, deep in the Great Desert were two travelers on horse back.

In the lead a young man wearing a full suit made of red, white and green fabric, and a large hat to shade him from the desert sun, normally wearing the suit would make him look like a dandy, but wearing it in the desert made him look ignorant of the desert. The thin rapper, with gold leaf did little to restore confidence in the young man.

His companion did not inspire much more confidence; he was an old man, dressed in white robes, with a walking stick secured to the back of his saddle and a saddle bag full of books. He was reciting one of the books from memory, "And they all lived happily ever after."

"I think I heard that one before, Uncle Marcus," the young man pouted.

"Oh really," the old Uncle Marcus said amused. "Then what is the moral of this story Salvador?"

"I think the moral is, we're here," the young Salvador said from a top a dune, happy to see a rocky outcropping, with a small village carved into the cliff side.

Agrabah, a rest stop for merchants traveling through the desert between the Queendom of Cinder and the Easter Nations. Neither man had visited the village before, but Marcus had researched it; this was not the Agrabah described in the books; a mass of thousands of people, carts, camels and horses hid the desert sand.

The oddest thing was that on the desert sand was a massive palace, its walls made of white marble, with gold trimming and roof of shining blue tiles, its walls and towers reaching a half dozen storeys into the air. At least they would if the palace was not sinking into the unstable desert sand.

"I thought this was a small rest stop?" Salvador asked Marcus.

"It's supposed to be," Marcus said concerned. "If merchants can afford it, they travel by sea or airships. Towns like Agrabah usually host small merchant caravans traveling between the Queendom and the Eastern Nations. This could be worse than we thought."

Marcus took a moment to write down what he saw into a notebook, before they descended the dune to the village.

The pair watched the crowd closely as their neared the encampment, it was a melting pot of different peoples, like one would expect to see in a market place. There were desert folk dressed in sensible light clothing native to the desert. Merchants dressed in silk clothing in the style of clothing from the East. There were even nobles from the Empire and Republic.

"There's something strange about this crowd, Uncle," Salvador whispered, loudly enough for Marcus to hear over the crowd, but quiet enough not to be heard by anyone else.

"Yes, there is," Marcus agreed.

Usually, such trading posts would be filled the good cheers of travelers happy to have somewhere safe to sleep for once, maybe a few more luxuries like a bath after weeks in the desert. Instead, there was a sense of desperation in the air- everyone was shouting for something, water, food, a place to sleep.

"Welcome to Agrabah," a young girl said, bowing her head respectfully to Salvador and Marcus.

She looked to be in her mid to late teens, what skin the men could see on her face was olive tone common to the desert folk of the region. The rest of her was covered in clothing style preferred by the desert folk, protecting them from the sun, but also hiding their bodies for modesty.

The clothing was beautifully covered in elaborate designs that would normally mark her as a member of the nobility or the daughter of a rich merchant. But the clothing was covered in dirt, and worn crookedly, making her look like she'd spent the day working.