ROA: The Mythicall Adventures of the Eight Rings of the Raiment of Asmodeus, expecially the Orange Ring of Change

[DrWhoFanJ]

SECTION 1 — The Story Begins

CHAPTER 1 — The Creation of the Rings

One terrible month at the Courts of Ramesses the Great in Egypt, there toiled a Creature known as Flitsen, a foul Demon banished from his Realm of Hell by the Forces of God, and forced into hiding by His servants, the Archangels Uriel and Raphael, destined never to return to his homeland until the End of Time.

His awfull work complete, Flitsen released his eight indestructible Rings of Power unto the planet Earth to wreak as much havoc as they could.

Each ring had been imbued with one of his eight principall powers:
[*]The Perilous Pink Ring of Vision enabled the bearer to perform myriad tricks on the ocular organs of any being or being-like objects (even covering eyes in pictures or drawn on a wall).
[*]The Rambunctious Red Ring of Sensation permitted its bearer to manipulate the physical receptiveness to stimuli of any creature within its range.
[*]The Yearning Yellow Ring of Movement could force or impinge any motion of a designated victim.
[*]The Ghostly Green Ring of Desire would osmotically enforce the bearer’s deviancy onto their intended subject.
[*]The Ominous Opal Ring of Memory was often used to wipe a victim’s memory of any events appertaining thereunto, but could also imprint memories into a person of events that never actually occurred.
[*]The Brilliant Blue Ring of Swapping enabled interchangement of corporal forms of the Ringbearer and his allotted target.
[*]The Powerful Purple Ring of Reversion would permit its bearer to rewind time for a short period, usually to change the result of a certain outcome to his favour.

However, there was one more Ring, more afear'd even than all its bedfellows combined: the Omnipotent Orange Ring of Change, which essentially combined the effects of all the other six Rings of Asmodeus into one terrifying distillation of unbridled power. It is this “one ring to rule them all” (if thou willst permit a small borrowing from the works of one John Ronald Reuel Tolkien) that this tale shall endeavour to follow through all the 3,250 years of its existence.

All content in this story is copyright © TTR (Tracking the Rings) Corporation Ltd., a company registered in the United Kingdom. Any unauthorised duplication or other similar activity is prohibited without express permission of the owner.

[Executionus]

Amusing intro and the style of the writing is fun, although whoever the speaker is totally botched Flitsen's backstory about as badly as humanly possible . Didn't even get his species right for starters, and Flitsen does everything that he does specifically to postpone his fate of going to Hell one day like his siblings all did. I'm sure that was all intentional, and demonstrates that the narrator might be less than accurate henceforth.

Fair warning: Change does not actually have the power to just copy all of the other rings, in much the same way that the Reality Infinity Stone couldn't just copy the other five stone's powers for Thanos. It IS the overall most powerful of the rings though for sure with the widest scope of capabilities by far. It's the perfect ring choice for this style of long-spanning anthology since its use can be massively different person to person.

I also wanted to mention that Flitsen never fought any angels in his long life and seeks to avoid Raphael and Uriel at literally all costs. If you know anything about those two archangels in official Christian lore, both of them REALLY enjoy unleashing violence on anything demonic or monstrous and not even the highest lords of Hell stand a chance. Uriel's flaming sword is second only to Michael's as the most powerful weapon ever forged in the cosmos, and one of my favorite Raphael myths involves him magically leaping out of a Bible and one-shoting Sin of Gluttony Beelzebub (peer of Asmodeus, Flitsen's father). Flitsen the clown vs either of them would be like watching the Joker vs Superman.

[DrWhoFanJ]

Amusing intro and the style of the writing is fun, although whoever the speaker is totally botched Flitsen's backstory about as badly as humanly possible . Didn't even get his species right for starters, and Flitsen does everything that he does specifically to postpone his fate of going to Hell one day like his siblings all did. I'm sure that was all intentional, and demonstrates that the narrator might be less than accurate henceforth.

It was not deliberate (simply a side-effect of writing so late at night), but it is still an extremely fortuitous accident, as that is very much precisely a core intention of the narration aspect, given that it’s being written by someone at the very end of the ring’s period by assembling what scant legends of its existence remain.

Fair warning: Change does not actually have the power to just copy all of the other rings, in much the same way that the Reality Infinity Stone couldn't just copy the other five stone's powers for Thanos. It IS the overall most powerful of the rings though for sure with the widest scope of capabilities by far. It's the perfect ring choice for this style of long-spanning anthology since its use can be massively different person to person.

Ah, but it’s the most cunning ring, and thus can easily bring what other rings it may want near it if it should require them for a given plan.

I also wanted to mention that Flitsen never fought any angels in his long life and seeks to avoid Raphael and Uriel at literally all costs. If you know anything about those two archangels in official Christian lore, both of them REALLY enjoy unleashing violence on anything demonic or monstrous and not even the highest lords of Hell stand a chance. Uriel's flaming sword is second only to Michael's as the most powerful weapon ever forged in the cosmos, and one of my favorite Raphael myths involves him magically leaping out of a Bible and one-shoting Sin of Gluttony Beelzebub (peer of Asmodeus, Flitsen's father). Flitsen the clown vs either of them would be like watching the Joker vs Superman.

Oh, I see. Being irreligious myself, I am woefully lacking in knowledge on that particular element of this contest. I’m mostly getting around that by, honestly, pretty much ignoring it for the most part, with only occasional references to it at certain important moments. (I should also mention I’ve never seen those other stories you described, either, so I don’t really get your analogies as well as I potentially otherwise could.)

[DrWhoFanJ]

SECTION 2 — The First Ringbearer: Montu of Thebes, 1300 BC

CHAPTER 1 — Discovery of the Ring

Even before its completion, the Ring had already chosen its first Bearer: a charming, recently-pubescent servant boy called Montu, having sensed his capacity for chaos every day while it was being created.

The very first day of its existence, our Glorious Pink Ring wasted no time in hunting Montu amongst the bustling streets of Thebes, and firmly affixed itself to his finger while he slept.

The next morning, while preparing his outfit for that year’s Tekh Festival (a yearly festival of drunkenness in celebration of the Great Goddess Hathor saving the world with beer), our young Montu noticed that a little red ring had appeared on his finger overnight that he had never seen before. Curious, but in too much of a rush to get himself ready for the day ahead of him, he resolved to ascertain its true nature later that day.

However, unbeknownst to him, the Ring had already detected a desire within his mind and acted accordingly…

[DrWhoFanJ]

CHAPTER 2 — At the Festival

Arriving at the Festival with hopes of seeing the Pharaoh Amenhotep Ⅱ and this year’s Royal Attire, chosen anew for every occurrence of this most auspicious of feasts by the most-popular designers and haberdashers of the land, Montu was delighted to see him wearing an interesting adaptation of his traditional Royal Headdress, but with the styling and mark of the Great Goddess Hathor herself imprinted upon it, replacing the more-usual marks of the Pharaoh. Below that lay a simple sash similarly emblazoned over the most-illustrious example of linen dress ever seen within the Kingdoms of Egypt, so full of diamonds and jewels as to make even the stars of Heaven envy it. Further below that lay the sole fixed element of Amenhotep’s traditional clothing: his personal-branded simple skirt wrapped tightly around the waist so as to prevent accidental exposure of the Royal Genitalia, among the most-heinous of sacrileges possible to perform in that period.

Noticing his friends Tuthmos and Nephthys nearby, Montu crossed to join them ready to watch the Pharaoh’s Address, foretold to be one of the grandest he had ever made in his long reign.

“My friends,” he began, “welcome once again to all my fellow inhabitants of this Kingdom of Thebes! We are gathered here today to celebrate the anniversary of our saviour, the Great Goddess Hathor, who, with the help of the Gods Tenenet and Ra, realised that He should save us all from his tyranny as Sekhmet, and thus willingly consumed the reddened beer Ra had created to sate Him and turn Him into the Goddess Hathor. Now, let the feast of that beer begin!”

A thunderous round of applause burst forth from the assembled crowds, promptly turning into worry and panic as those nearest the front, promptly followed by those further and further back, noticed a slight shrinking in the knot around the Emperor’s waist. This shrinking steadily grew worse and worse until, with a horrified scream from all around the stage as Amenhotep’s skirt finally fell to the floor, still intact but for the now-untied knot, and exposing the Royal Genitalia to the entire citizenry of the kingdom.

The Pharaoh’s Guards rushed to contain the now-violent-at-the-blasphemy rioters, but it was now too late; the crowds were simply too big and angry for there to be any hope of containing them in their quest to make the Pharoah pay for this affront to their gods.

[DrWhoFanJ]

CHAPTER 3 — The Trial of the Pharaoh and Montu’s Discovery

A few weeks later, once the initial hubbub of the events at the Ceremony had subsided, out in the middle of the scorching desert, Former Pharaoh Amenhotep Ⅱ was led onto the sentencing arena of the very Temple of Hathor he had so recently defiled, ready to be tried for his blasphemy against the ancient Gods of the Kingdoms of Egypt.

The representatives of the temple and of Hathor Herself, Ammon and Ahmed, also proceeded onto the arena after him to begin the sentencing.

Ammon recited from his papyrus, “It has been decreed that the Former Pharaoh Amenhotep Ⅱ must pay for his crimes against our Glorious Goddess Hathor by being stripped of both his titles and all his worldly possessions until such time as She sends us a sign that She deems Herself to have been sufficiently recompensed for his actions against Her. Thus have we of the Temple of Hathor decided. Do you have anything to say before sentencing takes place, Amenhotep?”

“Yes! I do! I swear it wasn’t me; I took extra care to ensure this would not be possible! It must be some sort of spell or trick!”—here he turned to the crowds—“Please, my friends, save me from this unjust punishment!”

But the crowd was all fully united in their silence for fear of angering Hathor even further.

All except one, that is, who had a suspicion that it was his recently-unusually-quiet friend who was (unknowingly? unwittingly?) responsible for the events of that fateful day, and knew he would be judged evil for allowing this miscarriage of justice to pass.

“I believe you, Pharaoh! I have important news I must impart to save our Great Pharaoh’s majesty!” shouted Nephthys, dear friend of Montu.

“Well, child? Impart your news and we shall see whether you are right!” responded Ahmed.

“If I may, my Lord, I cannot permit this mistrial to continue while I possess the knowledge of who caused this calamity! I must reluctantly accuse my own good friend, Montu, of somehow conspiring to create this devastating situation. You see, the day of the Festival of Tekh, I noticed Montu had acquired a new orange ring from somewhere that we could not explain. ‘Could this be why he seems so reluctant to speak?’ I have asked myself these past few weeks, and now I realise the answer: ‘Yes!’ Yes, it is my own best friend who must be punished for this transgression against our Goddess Hathor with his ring!”

“Can you prove what you say? Where is this ring now?” asked Ammon.

“Why, still on his finger,” replied Nephthys.

“Then, may we have a demonstration of your interesting theory?”

“I do not know, my Lord. We have not yet tested its powers, so we know neither how strong it is nor how it operates.”

“Then we must have a volunteer, and who better than Amenhotep himself for this perilous duty? What say you, Amenhotep? Do you agree to this trial method?”

“I do,” intoned the former Pharaoh.

“Then please stand straight upright on this stool, and bring those young boys up here to me.”

The guards escorted both Montu and Nephthys up onto the altar to begin the trial.

“Now, child,” Ahmed addressed Montu, “please show us what you did to divest the Royal Personage of his official skirt so we may prove or disprove your friend’s theory.”

Montu, however, was now more annoyed at his friend for spoiling his fun, and so, upon lifting his ring and intoning the special spell, it was Nephthys who was rendered naked for the crowd rather than Amenhotep.

Enraged at his former friend for exposing his underdevelopped crotch region to a crowd full of girls to whom he had bragged about having a large trouser snake with which to satisfy them in bed, Nephthys took it upon himself to give Montu the same treatment as revenge.

Unfortunately for Nephthys, he had not reckoned on his slightly-older friend’s skirts having the exact content of his boasts hiding underneath them (enlarged due to the Ring detecting Montu’s wish to have a larger penis to rival his friend’s), and so, in one of the cruellest ironies ever recorded, all the women who had previously longed for Nephthys’ satisfaction piled onto his friend Montu instead for the rest of his life, to the extent that every single man, woman and child in the kingdom, and for hundreds of miles around, descended upon the Boy with the Largest Penis whenever they wanted genuinely-satisfying intercourse.

[DrWhoFanJ]

CHAPTER 4 — The Ring Leaves Montu and Epilogue

Later, upon his own accession to the throne by mass vote of the population, his first decree was that all clothing of any kind would be forbidden from the land except where explicitly required by another law.

Amidst the mass of upheaval and steamy passion, no-one even noticed that the Orange Ring had disappeared from the finger of the new Pharaoh Montu, and instead transferred to the exiled Nephthys to follow him wherever he would take it.

[DrWhoFanJ]

AUTHOR’S NOTE (1)

Unfortunately, due to the passage of time, and lack of available records for certain periods of history, it is not possible to track the Rings throughout the entirety of human existence, so there will unavoidably be significant periods where no information is available for use in this compendium. We have tried our best to assemble as much as we possibly can, but please understand that there will be some unfortunate large jumps from time to time where no sources can be traced. We hope this will not interfere with your enjoyment of these tales too much.

(Alternatively, you can always message us on this forum if you have any extra details you have found that you want added to a potential second edition, and we will try our hardest to include your story where we can.)

[DrWhoFanJ]

SECTION 3 — The Second & Third Ringbearers: Livia Valeria & Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, AD 55–68
CHAPTER 1 — The Ring Arrives in Rome

Arriving in Rome with [MISSING], the Ring was now hunting a Bearer who would not be so easily tempted into going beyond the terms the Contract of the Ring, and would instead see it for what it could really do: cause prolonged embarrassment for as long as possible, and of as many people as possible.

Having scanned the surrounding area on arrival, the Ring quickly identified the Cæsar Nero as a prime target for its power, famed as he was for lasciviousness and pranks on all people.

But how to reach him? Any parcels would be checked for weapons, so that approach would never be plausible. Attaching itself to a lady-in-waiting could work, and what better way to give the Cæsar a taste of his future power than to make him a victim of it first‽

Locating a senior lady-in-waiting carrying a tray of goblets through to the Cæsar’s personal bedchambers, the Ring quickly and quietly followed her through the palace via her own hand.

[DrWhoFanJ]

CHAPTER 2 — The Ring Convinces Livia

Having snuck into the Cæsar’s palace via the wrist of his most-senior slave, Livia Valeria, the Orange Ring was now finally in a position to start testing its planned next bearer to see how much embarrassment it could extract from him first.

To that end, it whispered in Livia’s ear (telepathically, though the people of this time were still far too primitive to comprehend such a concept) while she was still in the corridors of the palace: Hello, Livia. I can see you’d like to get revenge on that evil little Cæsar man for how he’s treated you and your kind these last years. Well, I can help you with that if you’d like?

“Who’s that? How? What…?” Livia looked around, confused, feeling sure she’d heard a disembodied voice from somewhere.

Oh, yes, how foolish of me. I am the Orange Ring of Change. I have the power to change anything you want into something else. All you have to do is think it, and I will make it happen. Watch! Livia watched, gobsmacked, as the tray she was carrying suddenly refilled the goblets atop it. See? I can do that, but my main power is in changing the sizes of clothes and genitalia in order to cause maximum embarrassment for as many people as possible.—here, Livia got a sudden rush of images in her head of the Ring’s sexcapades throughout history—So? What do you say? Ready to give that evil Cæsar his just desserts?

“Yes!” she shouted, determined to avenge the continued rapes and assaults on her and her fellow slaves by Nero and his fellow high-ranking courtesans in any way possible.