literature

Raz and the Desert King: Part 3

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‘You did good work Commander Scrar.’ Said an old man sitting on a throne. ‘I try my best King Stuz Sho.’ Responded Scrar. Stuz Sho was an old looking man, wrapped in the finest silks, and wearing only the finest jewellery. He sat in his huge throne room, which held only him and Commander Scrah. Stuz Sho was a greedy man, and a despicable one at that. He liked his privacy and distrusted all but his Commander; due to this reason he never allowed any of his guards to enter his throne room and this was why Scrar and Stuz Sho were the only ones in the throne room. ‘Have you found out yet, how that creature managed to bypass the planet’s defences without alerting anyone?’ Stuz Sho asked in a demanding tone. ‘Unfortunately, no sir. Raz’s spaceship is like nothing we have ever seen before. All of our scans indicate that it is an advanced vessel, utilizing technology which we can only dream of, but we still do now know how to enter the vessel, let alone reverse engineer it.’ ‘You fool, you should have waited until that creature opened it, then you would not have this problem!’ ‘Do not worry your highness, I will personally interrogate the prisoner, and should he be unwilling to cooperate, I believe I know of a facility where we can transport the spaceship.’ ‘Do what you must, just know that I will not tolerate any more incompetence, you must find out how this “Raz” managed to get past my defences!’ ‘As you wish, my sire.’ Scrar then bowed before his king, and walked out of the throne room. Scrar had a feeling, based on the time when he talked to Raz, that Raz did not fully understand how his spaceship worked, nor did Scrar believe that Raz was here intentionally. He had wanted to tell his king this, but Stuz Sho despised any subordinates who shared their thoughts, and so Scrar kept this to himself.

Raz was back in his cell, sitting on the floor, pretending that he had no escape plan. He hadn’t been sitting there long, but he did want to make sure that there wasn’t a guard nearby. He got up, and walked to the cell door. The last time Raz was locked up, he realized that the guard that had fetched him food, was not the same one that had locked him in the first place. Which doesn’t seem so strange at first, but it had gotten Raz thinking while he was in the vehicle in the desert. ‘What if there was more than one key to open one cell?’ was one of the first thoughts he had during that trip. You see he had realized that when the guards were locking and unlocking the cell door, they only had one key. Not a key ring. There was many cell doors, so if the guard who had first locked him in had changed shifts with the guard who had given him food, then that would make them jailors, and if they were jailors, then that would mean they would have a key for every cell door, and having that many keys without a key ring would be cumbersome. ‘What if the guards all have a single skeleton key?’ was one of the later thoughts that had passed through Raz’s mind during that trip.

When Raz was captured, he remembered where the other two guards had kept their key, and as such, utilized his natural pickpocketing ability, to swipe a key from one of the guards, just after Scrar had given the order to take Raz in. Raz knew the guards were heavy-handed, and liked to push Raz around, and so Raz used that opportunity to swipe a key. When he had gotten a key, he quickly hid it within one of his mittens. Fortunately, the guard that took him to his cell, was not the one he had swiped the key from. Because if it had been, then that guard would have noticed his missing key and probably have suspected Raz.

Raz then took out the key from his mitten, and got up onto his tip toes, as he tried to unlock the cell door. It was hard to reach, due to the fact that the lock was on the other side, and Raz’s arms were so short. But he managed to get the key in and turn it until it unlocked. Clearly a lot of luck was involved right now. Raz could’ve been wrong about the security flaw of the standard issue cell door skeleton key, he might have not have had an opportunity to pickpocket a key, and Raz might’ve gotten caught with the key and had it taken away from him. Clearly, everything that had just happened was mostly down to sheer luck. Or at least that’s what Raz believed. Raz also believed that with how unlucky he had been that day; that he was due in for some good luck anyway.

With the cell door now unlocked, Raz carefully pushed it open, taking care not to make any noise. He looked around the corner, and saw a guard standing just outside the doorway, with his back facing towards Raz. Clearly Raz would need a diversion to distract this guard, but if only he could create some sort of diversion in a different room. There wasn’t anywhere to really hide, and Raz didn’t really want a gun wielding guard chasing him down a hallway. Just then, the guard seemed to be alerted by someone beside him, and Raz could faintly hear what appeared to be a male voice. Then the guard ran off, leaving his post completely unattended. ‘Well what do you know, my luck is turning around!’ Raz said to himself in what he later considered to be too loud of a voice. Raz snuck to the doorway, and noticed it completely empty on both sides. Considering he had seen the guard go one way, Raz figured that he may as well go the other way.

Raz made sure to avoid any potential guards patrolling the hallways, by using his small size to hide in various spots. Eventually Raz made it outside, but it was unfortunately just a courtyard, with huge walls blocking anyway out. Just as Raz was about to turn back, he noticed a guard slowly making his way towards the courtyard Raz was in. Thankfully the guard hadn’t noticed Raz yet, but Raz needed to hide quickly. Just then, Raz noticed a small round grate, which looked just slightly bigger than him. Raz ran towards it, hoping that it would come off easily, which it did. Raz then jumped inside while holding the grate over his head so that it would land on top of the hole and close it. Raz hung there, suspended in mid air, as he held on tight to the grate. Unbeknownst at the time of jumping in, Raz had realized that the hole went quite deep. Raz pushed his feet against the walls of the hole, to try and keep his balance, and to reduce the strain on his arms. The guard finally wandered in, and soon afterwards, so did another guard. They began to talk about trivial matters, and appeared to be taking a break from their patrol shifts, which by the way they talked, sounded like they weren’t supposed to. They talked for what seemed like hours but were actually mere minutes. Eventually Raz couldn’t hold on any longer, and let go, falling a much greater fall than he had anticipated moments prior.

BANG!
Raz landed on the ground with a great big thud. It hurt, but luckily he could survive falls of that length without too much trouble. After recovering from the pain in his feet and lower body, and regaining his bearings, Raz instantly noticed the smell. It stunk in there; clearly Raz had found his way into a sewerage system of some sort. Raz then realized that the grate was probably there to pick up any excess water from the plants. Well, it was either that, or it rained on this planet; which seemed unlikely.

The way back up was too high, and Raz wasn’t sure that he’d be able to climb back up by pushing himself against the wall, so he instead squeezed through the small round hole in front of him. It didn’t seem that bad, clearly not much other than a bit of water actually went through the hole he was now pushing himself along. But when he got to the other end, and he had squeezed himself out. He realized where the smell was coming from. The main part of the sewer system was quite open and spacious, even more so for Raz who was quite small. Running along the middle was what appeared to be a stream of green water. But Raz recognized this water-like substance as something else. It was a cleaning agent designed for sewer systems as a replacement to water. Clearly despite the complete lack of water, this dictator liked his subjects to remain hygienic. Perhaps to reduce on outbreaks of diseases. This cleaning agent could be used to wash your hands, for showering or taking a bath, and even for moving your waste, which was its most common usage. It was quite easy to produce in vast quantities, and was quite reusable, but it was not drinkable. Personally if Raz was Stuz Sho, he would have invested in a large water reservoir, but water was probably the only actual thing keeping Stuz Sho in power. Raz then looked at the large passageway before him. It seemed to go on for miles in both directions, which made Raz think that there must either be outposts of some kind, perhaps with a factory, or that there must be more villages with which this system connected to. Because Raz found it hard to believe that something that went as far as this did, would have been made for a village that small. Unless Stuz Sho was planning ahead for an eventual population increase; in which case that would probably make him a pretty decent leader, if it wasn’t for the guns, and the imprisoning and the trickery, and not to mention the water hoarding. Maybe Stuz Sho wasn’t that bad of a guy, maybe Raz had just broken the law and this was them handling it. Sure it was a bit extreme, but he has heard of worse. None the less, these were not thoughts to dwell on, Raz was stuck in what appeared to be a sewer system, with no idea which way was out, or how long he’d have to travel. Raz just wanted get in his Fruit Juice Machine and leave, and so he randomly chose a direction, and began walking.

Back in the palace, Scrar had just apprehended someone who had tried sneaking into the palace. ‘You take this rebel scum to a prison cell! Make sure he’s in a different cell block to our little yellow friend. We wouldn’t want the two to fraternizing.’ Scrar said while pointing towards one of the many guards that had gathered nearby. The guard then grabbed the rebel, and lead him deeper into the palace. The palace had just been attacked by a small group of rebels, intent on assassinating Stuz Sho. Scrar had called for as many guards as possible to deal with the threat, and so all but one of the rebels were killed during the ensured gun fight.

Scrar then made his way to the cell where Raz had been imprisoned. He had been on his way to Raz’s cell to interrogate Raz, before he was alerted about the trespassers. He reached Raz’s cell, and looked inside, but strangely enough, Raz was nowhere to be seen. Scrar looked to the doorway, where he saw the guard had just gotten back to his post from helping to fight against the rebels. ‘You there, where is the prisoner?’ Scrar shouted to the guard. The guard turned around and paused for a moment to see which cell Scrar was looking in, and then responding ‘He’s in that cell commander, the one you’re facing.’ Scrar then quickly unlocked the cell and took a look inside; he inspected each nook and cranny and came out with an angry look upon his face. He stormed toward the guard and screamed in his ear ‘He’s escaped you idiot! Find him!’ The guard then quickly leapt into action, running down the corridor nearly stumbling across his own feet, alerting as many other guards as possible to the escape.

Raz had been wandering the sewer system for hours. His feet hurt so much, that he was fairly certain that he had developed blisters. His small size didn’t help much either. Eventually Raz thought he could hear talking, echoing through the tunnels. It was faint, but somewhat distinct. Raz tried his best to follow the talking, which seemed intermittent and very quiet at times. Eventually, Raz noticed what seemed to be artificial light, emanating from one of the tunnels. Raz quickly walked up to the source of the light, and then to his surprise, found a huge open cavern with houses spread out along all of the walls. It was huge; it was an entire underground town, all of it lit up by a powerful light source attached to the top of the spacious cavern. There seemed to be a path way that circled along the edges, slowly rising in a way that can only be described as a spiral staircase. A few houses were situated in the middle of the cavern, but the majority of them seemed to be embedded into the walls, while the centre seemed to be more reserved for farming of some sort of underground crop. It was a fantastic site, and it took Raz’s breath away. This was the reason why Raz explored the planets he landed on, despite them not being the planet he was aiming for. This was the site that had made his whole day, seem worthwhile. Well, until he heard the clicking of guns again.

As soon as Raz heard the telltale sound of this planet’s laser gun’s safety switch being turned off. He just raised his arms and sighed. Then he noticed the ones pointing the guns, and realized these guys weren’t like the guards from the palace. These guys didn’t have any armour on, and their guns were in poor condition. If anything, these people looked like normal civilians. One of the guards then used his gun to motion Raz to start walking, so Raz did, and he was lead into yet another prison cell, this one having been carved out of the wall, on looking the town down below. ‘Great, imprisoned three times in one day! That’s got to be a world record or something.’ Raz then walked into the cell, and the door was locked shut by the guard placing a large metal pipe across the door, and fixing it in place with two vices. If Raz had a stretchy superpower, he’d have been able to escape from this cell with no problem, as a key wasn’t even needed. Unfortunately, Raz had no superpowers, despite his best wishes. Raz then watched as the guard hurried off, probably to return to his post. ‘Well at least this one wasn’t rough.’ Raz said to himself.
Next Part: fav.me/d77nr8k
Previous Part: fav.me/d75q3oi
First Part: fav.me/d74tcfj

Wow, my parts are slowly getting longer. Let's hope I can keep that up for the next part.
Overall, I'm very pleased with how the ending of this part turned out.
Also, while the story may make you doubt it a little bit, trust me, that Stuz Sho is no good guy. Everything will be explained in the next part. Trust me!

Also, any comments about what you think to the story so far would be greatly appreciated. Honestly, does no one read these comments of mine?
It makes me wonder if anyone is reading these stories at all.
A little inspiration would be nice, you know!
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