King Magma

By Jayden Wong

Eons ago, there once lived a ruthless dictator called King Magma, king and ruler of the Fire Tribe. There were three tribes; the Fire Tribe, the Sea Tribe, and the Desert Tribe. Having been enemies for centuries, the Fire Tribe was fighting a war against the Sea Tribe yet again, because King Magma was greedy and wanted more land from Queen Kelp, queen of the sea. King Cactus of the Desert, however, was not interested in sending his subjects to war, and liked to see his fellow monarchs argue like headless ducks.

After the daily war council meetings in the Fire Castle, nestled in the heart of the Fire Tribe’s capital, King Magma ordered a small team of warriors, led by his trusted spy Char, to find a new royal castle for him to live in. King Magma didn’t want to admit it, but he was actually scared of war, and could faint at the sight of blood. He mostly sent his minions to do his work for him, while he cowered in his quiet throne room. However, the room was now decayed with age - it held only some dusty decorations and a rusted iron throne. As you opened the once-grand doors, a swirl of dust would explode around you, shrouding you in a thick veil of dead air.

The next day, Char and his group of warriors left the Fire Tribe, in search of a new castle. They searched for weeks, through the swamps of Sea Tribe territory, the deserted wastelands that were littered with Fire and Sea Tribe bodies, and even abandoned mines that were left to rot because of the war. But then one day, when his team was finally going to give up and trudge back to the Fire Castle to be hanged by the merciless King Magma, he suddenly stumbled upon a looming cave, its entrance like a yawning jaw, with an eerie feeling to it. Char also noticed the large bits of debris and dust around the cave, and the smoke rising was making the team cough and splutter.

Shaking with fear, but mustering his courage in front of his team, he craned his neck and looked up. What he saw almost immediately made him scream with terror, but no words came out. This was no cave - this was a future area for the Fire Tribe to live in! It was shaped like a mountain, with a large hole sticking out on the top. Non-stop smoke was billowing out of the hole, like someone’s mouth when the food was still steaming hot. Char was not easily scared, but if this shocked him, he could just imagine the faces of Queen Kelp and her armies when they saw this monstrosity, their mouths gawking like pelicans.

Char quickly told his messenger to run straight back to the Fire Castle to contact King Magma. The note read:

“Dear King Magma, we have found a new castle for you. It’s so big, I think even all your subjects could move here as well. My messenger will give you a map, and meet me there in a week. From your spy Char.”

When the messenger arrived at King Magma’s throne room, he read the note, and he was delighted. He immediately ordered all of his subjects, every single person in the Fire Tribe, to pack their belongings and follow him to the new “grand estate”. Construction started, and within another week, the lava was drained from the hole, and a new throne room was built. Homes were built lining the outside shell of rock, and King Magma decided to call this new castle “The Fire Volcano”. He liked the castle so much that he signed a peace treaty with Queen Kelp, and she accepted. “I didn’t really want land, I just wanted to take your castle so that I could leave that damned dusty Fire Castle,” King Magma explained during the peace summit. 

King Magma was also delighted to hear from Char that there were many more volcanoes across the land, and Magma decided to spread out his subjects and they could visit each other in different volcanoes anytime. Magma also realized that he had the power to control the volcanoes, and he could control them to spill lava anytime and anywhere. 

To this day, King Magma’s descendants still control the volcanoes, but now instead of one king, there is one for every volcano in the world. Some of them are old, wise men, like Mount Fuji. They stay calm and are silent guardians of the city. Some of them are young, ecstatic kings, and erupt by accident, like Mount Pinatubo. Elsewhere, King Cactus and Queen Kelp’s descendants later became Earth's people, and everyone, finally, was at peace.