He was squat and pugnacious in a bull dog sort of fashion. Horns like blunted pimples upon his brow, filled with enough pus to keep his crown afloat. Nothing could be seen in his eyes except unabashed disdain for us common-folk. He ruled as if Kurtulmak himself had come from the God-mines to ordain him. It boiled my blood to see such a pompous, snide ruler sit upon the Chasm Throne. I set upon my works to despoil him of his rule.

In Gaknulak's image I detailed my devious descriptions of dethroning for my closest confidants. Each a master their deadly or shadowy art. One a Dusk Weaver, capable of bending the darkness and shadows of the long night. One Elegiac Artificer whose crafts imbue negative energy within mechanical fabrications slaved to his will. One Wormtongue whose forked tongue weaves lies effortlessly into convincingly honeyed half-truths. And finally one Necrodancer with morbid acrobatics more than capable of death-defying feats.

The skeins of fate had been plucked and now we spun our web across the city. First the sewer states, caked in a century of filth they knew how to spread dirt quickly. And like a spark upon a dry plain word was pumped through the kingdom of refuse. Like an odorous emanation from the sewer grates the general populace was exposed. The gossip spread through their hovel-haemes like a plague and before long battered at the gates of the castle. Jeggimak had done his dastardly duties well, every ear in the city had heard his silver tongue through friends and neighbors.

Now that the city was abuzz with misinformation it was time to steal our way into the castle. Our prize was still locked within its tightly guarded walls. Gepick bent the night to mask our approach, ascending silently over the high walls. The many guards fires on the watchwall and below in the courtyard made the final approach dangerous. Gepick inhaled long and slow before releasing a powerful gust of dusk cloud to extinguish the fires at once. She then nodded to us before running off to distract the panicking guards.

Our path was laid bare before us and without hesitation us remaining three advanced on the buttressed walls. The windows were hard set in the stone and had a thickness that blurred the interior. But Trupo always had something up his sleeve or in his bag. He produced a polished ball of tin that rattled in his grasp. It erupted in multitudes of legs and eyes and pincers all with their own purpose. Its arachnoid form scuttled from his hand to the glass pane and began rotating on a point. Soon it had cut all the way through and a small opening was revealed to the inside. 

Fordal took her que and arranged her limbs and distorted her body in a way to squeeze through the miniscule hole.  On the other side she re-contorted her body to then promptly drop upon some guards. Their cries of surprise were muffled by a quick snap of the neck. Fordal made her way to the front gates and casually slid the doorway open. The distant echo of footfalls alerted us to incoming patrols so Trupo went about his trap setting.

The guards rounded the corner and shouted for our compliance and we feigned resignation. But as they drew closer gravity betrayed them. Trupo had reversed their aetheric polarity and they crashed in a metal heap upon the distant ceiling. Now we had to move, more patrols would be coming soon.

We dashed down the grand hallway straight to the mighty oaken doors of the kingly chambers. At this hour he was guaranteed to be asleep, but as a precaution we slipped some dream strength gas underneath the door. We held our breath and slipped inside the doorway. 

Our intelligence was spot on about the dimensions and amenities of the room, It would fit our design perfectly. The king slumbered greedily in his silken sheets wholly unaware of his soon-to-be rude awakening. Trupo, Fordal, and I began working in the faint moonlight. The moon waned and the faint aspirations of dawn were creeping above the lake and still Gepick didn't arrive.

She was the last cog in the machinations and yet she wasted the lynchpin shadows of the operation. It was too late, the growing din outside was the beginning of the end. What was seeded in motion months ago now was blooming. The populace was rising with the sun to depose their ruler, right on time.

We had to improvise, without the illusion of shadows we could no longer puppeteer the situation so we resorted to the backup plan. hide. There was nothing to be done about an angry mob, they burned everything in their path to reach their goal and now we were trapped with it.

The mob had broken through the gates and were storming through the grand hall, one earth shaking step at a time. When they threw open the chamber doors the creeping sun was casting long shadows over their nameless rabble. This wasn't the plan, where did it go wrong? We braced for the inevitable swell of anger whose waves would surely drown us too.

Then just as the leaders of the pack grabbed a flustered king by his fur lined neck, he opened his gods-cursed mouth. What came from them were beautiful lies that would make even Jeggimak blush. Doubt now spread through the masses, they murmured at the enchanted words, unsure now of their purpose. But fortune had dealt a better hand to us that day and a ball of coruscating darkness shot from the main gates. It rolled like a snowball through the air, accumulating all the bits of dawnly shadows left to form a massive avalanche. The darkness flew into the chamber and writhed for a moment before taking its awe-inspiring visage. 

The image of Kurtulmak himself now inhabited the vaulted dome above the crowded room. This was our last chance so we sprung into action. Trupo activated a voice emulator that combined with the moving god face was convincing enough as the voice of a god. At each absolute invocation of power renunciation our conjured Kurtulmak spoke Fordal swing like a whirling dervish hidden in the black fog. On a hissing curse she swung like a pendulum through his tongue and relieved the king of his crown.

Not a single cowering person looked away from their gods rant until the last word of revocation was uttered and the shadow faded in the sunlight. The voice quieted and a stunned crowd looked about them in confusion. That's when one caught a glimpse of a figure sitting at the other end of the grand hallway. Seated on the Chasm Throne was my perfectly poised body with a jewel studded crown glistening in the light.

They all turned to face me as I stood up from the throne and walked to the gold dais to address them. 

"On this new day we have heard the blessed words of our most revered Lord of Lords. He has stripped the false king of his right to rule. So shall it be that his god-given power be vested in me as the chosen of the divine. Let the plucking of the crown from his cursed brow be a miracle of providence. So Kurtulmak has spoken, and so shall I obey."

The crowd kneeled in a wave of obeisance, I held out my hand to quiet them once more. I sharp gesture and he former king was carried from his bedchamber and out the door by the receding masses. As his horrified face crossed the threshold I grinned, only the gods themselves would ever know of his deceit, and his new royal court of course.