Seeker of Thrones 9-108 (MAMMON)
Chapter: 9
“[O]utside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan […], whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.”
a big dog 😮
find god in the lowest of beasts
D-O-G = G-O-D
play god with dog, and dog with god
…the grey, the fading above the eyes. The fixation on an order devoted to keeping tally for him…
Has Mammon gotten so old (possibly blind? look at those eyes) that he’s having memory issues? A dragon incapable of keeping track of his own hoard? Oh, that’s… cruel. Really cruel.
At this point, Allison would just be performing a mercy kill.
All the Demiurges have grown old, and have gone to great lengths to disguise that fact (at least, those yet sane enough to do so). For is it not said that Time is the greatest conqueror of all, for all falls under its dominion and before its blade?
…Time is a mighty adversary indeed, but it’s still no match for the truly determined. Though the charts involved in repeated travel have a tendency to drive people quite mad.
I wonder if Mammon, unable to see his wealth, has crafted a whole religion around chanting the number of his wealth to him, so he doesn’t forget. The idea of a blind hoarder who can’t see his treasure is a tragic one however, I agree with you there
The Tower rises high.
The Tower sees all.
The Tower cannot be breached from without.
The Tower cannot be breached from within.
Yet a tower built upon a foundation of clay will topple and slowly drown into a mire of mud once the skys open up and the long awaited rains cleanse and wash away all that is.
But the Tower grew Heavy
The Tower became Strained
The Tower began to breach Itself
The Tower Cracked beneath Itself.
Janice stopped the count in the counting line.
Who me?
Yes you.
Couldn’t be.
Then who?
Allison stopped the count in the counting line!
terrifying. incredible.
Cod, Cornwall, Horn
From Lorien to Tepes.
The Darker, the more powerful.
AGGROED
A breaking of normality is the worst kind of horror.
There is nothing in this life as sweet to those who want more, as is knowing that they are getting it. Not even the more itself can surpass the sublime beauty of receiving it.
Now hold the knowledge from one who has grown addicted to it over ten thousand lifetimes and see how they writhe and scream.
Wouldn’t pencil and paper stop such things from happening? I know several fonts capable of easily being written by beings without arms…
So many keys adorned around his neck, and greater ones in his brow.
Regardless, only a single key need be used to defeat him. Such redundancy.
I expected the Grand Dragon to be more bulky than this emancipated self.
IA!
Emancipated from his emaciation, this dweller of the deep is not.
IA! IA!
mammon looks… sad. stressed, even. like a business owner that’s afraid to end the month at a debt. not exactly the dragon i was expecting, but maybe that’s just my viewpoint
My guess is, all of the Demiurges will turn out to be pretty miserable when we see them up close.
Agreed. They have grasped what they wanted, but lost what they needed, and forgotten it in their joys, until those became their sorrows.
Then you must have trouble conceiving the kinds of debts that Gods may accrue, and what sort of interest they might come to owe.
It matters not. If even YI-SUN the Unrepentant Liar could grow old and die, then it stands to reason the Pretenders who think themselves immortal would grow a debt not even gods seem to be able to pay.
Aye, and what kind of loan one must take out to purchase ones godhood.
The bill comes due.
Alice collects.
I profit.
Maybe writing the count down would solve such problems…I know several fonts that can be written by beings without hands/thumbs/arms/bodies. They can be quite useful
The bigger they are, the more that they bleed
“Monstrous size has no intrinsic merit…unless inordinate exsanguination be considered a virtue.”
Reminds me of Luther Strode vs The Gardener.
The deeper the scars that won’t heal.
Prodigious size alone does not dissuade the sharpened blade.
1 IA! IA! The Count!
2 Grinds all worries into dust
3 Ends Gluttony, banishes Lust
4 Cuts short Sloth and Envy’s path
5 Shatters Pride and butchers Wrath
6 The Count, The Dragon, The Tower lead
7 To Immortal and Absolute Greed.
Hail Mammon, Greatest of Dragons!
Hail Mammon, who Counts the Stars!
Hail Mammon, who Measures!
Hail Mammon, who Knows Worth!
Hail Mammon, Dragon of Cash!
Hail Mammon, the Gentle Conqueror. Hail Mammon, in whose heart the wheels of Capitalism grind ever onwards. Hail Mammon, the Invisible Hand. Hail Mammon, delight in His grandeur and mourn! Mourn for the lost fortunes of a billion worlds across a hundred thousand Universes! Mourn for your hope, which he has already bought and sold! Mourn for Mammon, who will never count high enough.
Hail Mammon, the Unassailable Tower, the One, the Only, First and Last of his Name, God of Wealth, Grandest of Dragons.
Mammon whose mind is pure machinery! Mammon whose blood is running money! Mammon whose fingers are
ten armies! Mammon whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Mammon whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Mammon whose love is endless oil and stone! Mammon whose soul is electricity and banks! Mammon whose
poverty is the specter of genius! Mammon whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Mammon whose
name is the I!
We shall break our backs lifting Mammon to Heaven!
Is it just me or does Mammon seem distressed/upset, not angry?
Is that the ark of the covenant on his back?
Why not open it up and see?
Afraid you are not worthy?
Comrade, L.V.M.F.C, me thinks you strike close towards the truth of the Dragon. Consider, Mammon strides through uncountable miles of gold, yet he wears over a hundred keys ! Keys for more hidden vaults containing the rarest masterpieces, treasures, artifacts looted from hundreds of worlds which he will not leave in the open. So WHAT carries he upon his back ? THE MOST PRECIOUS ! That which he treasures ABOVE ALL ELSE – he carries those UPON and perhaps – WITHIN his person.
“IA ! PRAISE THE LIMITLESS GREED OF THE GRAND DRAGON !
SEEKER OF INFINITE WEALTH ! MASTER OF OBSESSION !”
Perhaps the Fortress of Yre is not only infinite, but recursive as well? Could it not be that the dragon carries his vault upon his own back?
The treasure most precious it carries on its back. The burden most great. the remains of his family entombed in honor. The place of remembrance.
Oops. Not good.
Mammon.
Who’s wealth is so vast it has become priceless, and therefore worthless.
Who’s ambition became so vast that it became hollow, turned inward to the count.
Who’s strength languishes within an impregnable vault, locked away like an animal.
Self-inflicted purgatory. Repeating the pointless cycle over and over.
What a waste. Tear out his Key and leave his corpse to rot.
Can we get a full version, possibly without the speech bubbles? This comic blows muy damned mind.
*Now* you’ve done it, Allison.
Kudos to whichever unnamed wretch managed to plant a blade in the Dragon God’s left forearm. But what looks to be the *hilt*.
“Some people don’t think the art of cutting is hard enough to learn already, and wish to challenge themselves further by doing it all backwards.”
-Unalesh the Fool, also sometimes known as Unalesh the Wise
The One who is going to slay you
The Grand Dragon has lost his sight, it would seem.
N I C E B E A R D
T H E F R E N D L Y P I R A T E
Yarr… Dragon Beard, the bearded Dragon! Yarrrrrr!!
Wondering if he’s counting the people, and if so what for?
Don’t they get bored with just counting stuff? Doesn’t seem like much of a life.
Never interrupt a Dragon from his Accounting.
Hot Piss Lovecraft is a fucking racist asshole and anything he wrote has been written better by better authors.
You seem upset sir. Yes, Lovecraft is a Xenophobe. That is the very inspiration of all of his work. To call him out for it is silly.
Your opinion on his work, I have have to respectfully disagree. He was a wonderful writer and incredibly inspirational to the last century of media.
That would be ‘was.’
And so was every fantasy and horror writer of that benighted time, and times before.
Look at Robert E. Howard, look at E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith, look at Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Hell, look at C. S. Lewis.
When what we considered racism was the norm, it was normal for writers to include protagonists who were racists, casually or actively.
I’m glad it’s no longer considered normal, at least in a non-institutionalized sense.
Imagine what the readers of fifty years hence will make of our greats, and the way they show institutionalized racism and sexism! Quelle horror!
I’ve made a general comment below already, but I do want to highlight some things about R.E. Howards later work that often fly over the heads of modern readers.
At first glance, his tales set in Africa often seem insanely racist, but compared to the consensus of the scientific community of the day, his science fiction diverges on some very insightful points.
Explorers had discovered forgotten stone ruins in the African jungles. Assuming that no black person could be smart enough to build a stone city of castle, scientists assumed that they must have been built by ancient European invaders, using local slave labor.
Howard dared to postulate a lost, BLACK master race. This was still not right, but it was an important step toward actual academics being able to suggest the possibility, that at least some black people were almost as smart as white people.
Baby steps, people! The wheels of academia grind slowly, but grind they do.
Oh, and how did this continental empire fall, in his universe? They were evil and cruel to their slaves, who finally rebelled and destroyed them. You bet your ass that sounded pretty plausible in pre-civil rights movement America.
This master race isn’t noble or enlightened. They aren’t enlightened bringers of wisdom and civilization; they are cruel, imperialistic exploiters. The few surviving clans scheme in secret to summon primordial evils to give them revenge and help them conquer the globe for selfish gain. Howard never called them out in so many words, but I think he had started to see the Nazis for who they were.
Maybe, like his hero Solomon Kane, he could never consciously resolve the dissonance between the beliefs he had been brought up in and the truth in front of his own eyes. Maybe that’s part of the reason he ended it.
We’ll never know what was going on in his head at the end there.
Hell no, Lovecraft was a hysterical super-racist, far beyond Howard, Smith or Lewis. He would have borderline panic attacks if an Italian person walked down the street in his direction.
From his own wife, Sonia: “Whenever we found ourselves in the racially mixed crowds which characterize New York, Howard would become livid with rage. He seemed almost to lose his mind.”
Look at this letter from Lovecraft to Frank Belknap Long and tell me Lovecraft wasn’t biting his pen and quivering with rage and terror inspired by racism: https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2012/09/26/not-lovecrafts-providence
He was far, far beyond his contemporaries in how uniquely racist and messed-up he was.
Hrmm… Y’all need to get yer perspective right. I’m sure you probably know this, but everyone back then was a racist by today’s standards. And I do mean everyone. White, Black, Hispanic, Persians, Asians, etc.
Sure, Lovecraft has been done better by others. And just like those other fellahs, Lovecraft borrowed from and was inspired by other authors. Does that dimish his contribution in any way? Do any of those other authors before or after have an entire genre that is evoked simply by mentioning their name?
Poe? Machen? Howard? Burroughs? Smith? Leiber? Derleth?
…Lovecraft. IA! IA! Speak his name and awaken the Elder Gods!
in fairness, Lovecraft was racist even by the standards of his time. like, spitting-rages-when-he-saw-an-Italian racist. final solution to the Spaniard Problem racist. racist enough that Robert Howard, no stranger to race-mixing-as-source-of-horror himself, decided after a collaboration with him “uh, christ, maybe I ought to tone this shit down, you go hard enough on this and you come off as a real fucking weirdo.”
Lovecraft’s a fuckin’ genius who created entirely new mythology and approached horror as no one dared before; regardless all the prejudices, infantilism and delusions the man had.
Yeah, someone has a clearer vision of the future of science fiction and religious syncretism than others of his day, and people expect that vision to be a crystal clear prophecy that exempts the genius from all human foibles.
It turns out that geniuses are people too.
Don’t fuck with the count
Don’t fuck with the count
It was her!
Mammon is the still, quiet voice that whispers lies to you at night in your bed. Mammon is the beating of a great drum. Mammon is the flame of a burning ship, sinking in the wet desert of the ocean. Mammon cannot be called. Mammon cannot be dispelled. Mammon slides a tentacle, finer than the thinnest human hair, into your dream and drives it into the moraine of your subconscious, pulling from it the merest fraction of your baser self. We are meat and drink to Mammon. We are poison and manna, anathema and avatar. Mammon hates us. Mammon loves us. Mammon fears us. Mammon loves us.
holy fuckin shit yo. what a guy
Quick! Find a hat and get in line!
Yes! figure out the pattern of the rule maker and follow it as quickly as possible so as not to be noticed. My first thought as well. We obviously have far to go on the path of Royalty!
I can’t help but imagine him with Smaug’s (or rather, Benedict Cumberbatch’s) voice.
That just changed Lord of the Rings And this comic for me….
The worship of Mammon is one so very clammorous. Although a clerk Priest first the great vault was always so very loud.
Piety announced loudly and worn on ones sleeve just as the great wealth held there. A fine and holy clamour indeed, though it would eventually drive me to seek more quiet faiths.
Come to wonder, only when the count stopped did the clamour dim…
Mother Mottom forgive her, for the dragon so pitied is now rpused… Ia,Ia.
he is still not as big as I, the Most Enormous Child
Are you familiar with Bor the Very Large? He resides in a realm called “Overside.” Perhaps you and he could exchange stories of your significant volume and mass.
The king in his TOWER that hides from the world ceases to be a king at all but a hermit. Mammon relishes his count in his own world safe from the outside. What can our Risinng King learn from this?
That you can’t COUNT on having privacy?
To cut off all that makes you weak. To become invulnerable. To become a creature of unquestionable power, reigning over a terrified priesthood, among wonders incomprehensible to lesser beings.
To die, and never even notice it yourself.
I’m so happy this comic exists
I imagine him having the voice of Father Ariendel from Dark Souls 3. It seems appropriate.
Such a Clamorous covenant that of Mammon and the Dragon Bank. When I was young and born in that Vault it was filled with sound at all hours. Clinking coins, counting Priests and, when deep within, the faint sounds of Mammons Holy tread upon his endless count, may he be pitied.
Come to think it was perhaps the lack of Silence that would drive me on to seek quieter faiths later on, though there was occasionally silence… when the count stopped…
Praise be to merciful Mottom, Ia, Ia, we pray the pitied dragon sleep…
By size and swords he seems half a match for Jagganoth.
Not that appearances are any way to judge demiurges.
He’s about to kill literally all of those priests.
Just like Allison, we don’t know what number Mammon was on (and how long it is) when he got “interrupted”
In fact we don’t even know if he’s sane or not. For all anyone (including his followers) know he could be completely mad and rambling about numbers that don’t exist or relate to anything… Simply counting for the sake of itself.
How often does this happen and who does he blame over it? Well, I guess we’ll have to make due with a half-answer on that one…
They prey for him, they guard him, they pity him. Perhaps the dragon is not what we expect?
Is Mammon blind?
This happened to me once. Not, of course, with a being such as mighty Mammon (then I would be Orlandu the THRICE-dead, heh), but with a small church of numismatists whose sacred grove of algebra I mistook for a public latrine. I was most embarrassed by my trespass, as I am sure Al-YISUN is here.
Well, he’s not quite the demon sultan (he has several equals or even superiors), but I suspect his wrath at the interruption of his own sweet lulling tune of monetary accumulation will be even more terrible – it will, unlike the mindless flailings of the idiot God, be a wrath directed with cruel intelligence and deliberate malice.
This pitiful interruption is but a taste of the radical sea change about to swell towards and toss this misbegotten monarch and his ocean of ill-gotten gold. Prepare to crest and be broken on the bow of the rising king as she passes through your little world.
Infinity to count the golden pebbles, eternity to count the silver stones, not one second spared to count the shattered bones.
F’TGN!
This can only go well.
As my people would say, you done goofed.
Way to go, hero.
“Now we have to start over!”
Woe be unto the souls of those fool enough to make the Grand Dragon lose his place.
Just look at AL YISUN’S “count”enance
“The Thing cannot be described – there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. A mountain walked or stumbled.
If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful.”
–H.P. Lovecraft
Hmm… Al-YS-UN may be nearby Mammon… but she’s not nearby the site of the battle anymore, and one could suspect that the surviving invaders have likewise scattered. Might Mammon assist the Rising King by finding gathering her surviving companions to some conveniently nearby location?
looks like our hero needs no invisibility to hide from the dragon if he’s blind.
556534935 Ah! Ah! Ah!
He needs a monocle.
Well played 😉
One bat hanging in the steeple… one bat flies in through the door… that makes two bats in my belfry. Wonderful! But wait, there’s more… 😉
This is rather metal.
Somehow I expect the dying Mottom to soon crashing into the Vault with her lil city. Dont forget whats happening outside.
Climb the tower, catch the dragon by his tail. Dance on top of the tower, and take his key.
The structure he carries on his back, this Master of a seventh of the Multiverse, actually looks rather similar to the one he carried when he was a mere beast of burden. How appropriately ironic.
The song of coins has been interrupted, the dragons dream has been disturbed. Prepare thine self
Well Allison, now I bet you wish I was there, huh? I’m gonna be real mad if you let me die back there.
The dragon is thinner than I thought! Has he lost weight?
In either case, I worry for the fate of the children. If Lord Mammon cannot see, he will surely be able to hear their crying
I count slowly, slowly, slowly getting faster.
Once I’ve started counting it’s really hard to stop.
Faster, faster. It is so exciting!
I could count forever, count until I drop.
1! 2! 3! 4!
1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4,
1-2, I love counting whatever the amount haha!
1-2-3-4, IA! IA! IA! That’s the song of the Count!
A very freudian tower indeed.
Who stopped the count? Obviously, some ABSOLUTE NUTTER!
GREAT DEVOURER, MAY YOU BE FRUITFUL AND ETERNAL
I Hate Every Single Person In This Comment Section Especially Myself
Alejandro: How? How can I do what is needed, when all I feel is… hate.
Don Diego: You hide it. With this.
–The Mask of Zorro
There was only the count.
There is only the count.
There will be only the count.
as the berserk
warrior said:
“you’re huge! that means
you have huge guts!
rip and tear!”
the rest is
history
SCP-682 got big.
The being you know as SCP-682 is NOT Mammon, or even remotely connected with the 7 Demiurges of Throne. The Lost Child of the Scarlet King is as an insect to the might of the Demiurges (as is her father, whose title of “Scarlet King” is borne entirely of arrogance and not of true nobility).
He loooks… skinny. Got no time to eat, countin’ all eternity?
IÄ! IÄ! THE TOWER! THE UNBREACHABLE FORTRESS OF THE HOUSE OF GOD! BY HIS PERCEPTIONS ENCHAINED! BY HIS AMBITION RESTRAINED!
IÄ! PITY HIM!
I hope you won’t pull some stunt have the children die for cheap pathos, Abaddon. :/
AWAKEN, MY MASTER
Rouse Thyself, impregnable Tower of the Deep, for the Eternal Count has been interrupted! Restore order, Lord Mammon! Name the number of her days!
And while you’re at it, could I please have a raise? I’ve been thinking of replacing my skull with a macro-ruby, and I can’t do that without a Black Glass buzzsaw blade, and those cost a pretty penny. I promise, He Who Feasts in the Dark, it is in the name of Greed.
Mighty!
I see now what Whit Chain meant when she said they are utterly mad. I suspect ALYISUN will have to free Mammon in some way as well.
I’m starting to think you can’t master a Key without going insane, becoming an asshole, or, most often, both.
The child that dropped the chest of money stopped the count, not Allison. Surprised no one noticed the kid.
That was a box of flowers.
The kid dropped the chest because of Allison. I don’t doubt the child will be eaten AFTER her.
“Demon Sultan Azathoth
Bubbles in confusion.
Center of the Universe,
Sprouting foul protrusions.
Muffled madd’ning beating drums,
Hellish flutes a-playing
Round him dance the Other Gods
Voiceless, mindless swaying.
Many-formed Nyarlathotep
Bodes mankind’s destruction.
Calls us to our certain doom,
Voice full of seduction.
You can’t help but dance behind
Gyrating and turning.
Tears of joy streak down your face
As the world dies burning.
Yog-Sothoth is Gate and Key,
Binding time to matter
When his gaze falls on the earth
Laws of physics shatter
Try to chain him with your laws–
Pitiful equations!
Naught but dust and sand shall mark
Your obliteration!”
“Demon Sultan Azathoth” H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society
Man, Duck McScrooge. That is the duck for this kind of situation.
As the Plaguefather knows, the count is very important. Never stop the counting.
I once tried to count the souls under the vault of heaven and was lost. But oh, the things The Dragon has lost….
H-he’s beautiful <3
Rock this fool, Ally-bear.
So, so far we have:
Mottom: GLORY
Incubus: FLAME
Mammon: TOWER
I wonder what the other four words are. Or have they already been mentioned elsewhere?
You know the accountants are hardcore when they use triple radix abacuses.
Anyone else notice how the big box on Mammon’s back is chained directly to his flesh?
Who else has such enormous hooves in such a large amount?
I’m bearded and I’m talented and hold your bank account!
It’s the Count, It’s the Count, It’s the Count! [Repeat]
M is for Magnificent––another word for Great!
A’s for Avaricious––stack the tribute on my plate!
M and M is for my Monstrous size and Mighty Roar!
O’s for Overwhelming fear that shakes you to the core.
N is for the Numbers that I must recite unbroken
if the Count is ever halted, then my wrath will be awoken!
It’s the Count, It’s the Count, It’s the Count! [Repeat]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl7JZ8_8v44
Damn, the Count from Sesame Street really did not age well…
I’m sorry ma’am, but you threw off the Grand Dragon’s count.
This can *only* end well.
Bring me my brown pants.
Who else has such enormous hooves in such a large amount?
I’m bearded and I’m talented and hold your bank account!
It’s the Count, It’s the Count, It’s the Count! [Repeat]
M is for Magnificent––another word for Great!
A’s for Avaricious––stack the tribute on my plate!
M and M is for my Monstrous size and Mighty Roar!
O’s for Overwhelming fear that shakes you to the core.
N is for the Numbers that I must recite unbroken
if the Count is ever halted, then my wrath will be awoken!
It’s the Count, It’s the Count, It’s the Count! [Repeat]
“5565349355! 5565349355 coins! AH AH AAAAAH!”
Slay the Beast! Slithering slaughterer of his own blood! Let him now drown in it!
While most bands are satisfied with a simple “1 2 3” or “1 2 3 4”, it is said when Mammon finally finishes the Count, his opening song will ROCK the universe to DESTRUCTION with the purest incarnation of METAL since the self-annihilation of YISUN.
Thinking like a video game protagonist, those swords and whatnot stuck in him DO make it look like you could use them to climb up to his head.
For every key, A blade?
Or is it the other way around?
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