1340 FY | 2661 BC
We open on the continent of Kathara located in the northwest region of the world. The Puntian Empire has firmly established an early form of Imperial government similar to Ancient Egypt. Goblin Maddex is among the first to be recruited by the Sobek of this budding kingdom as one of their first tax collectors.
Maddex glorifies in his new role and imposes steep fines on the little entics of the Puntian Empire. It is his assumption that these people shouldn’t have the right to be people and ought to be considered animals. He looks for any opportunity to force these halflings out of the empire and at the very least keep them in a position of extreme poverty.
While delivering taxes he’s collected from entics to the local tax building, Punt is hit by a serious quake. The building collapses and Maddex is stuck inside a room by a pile of rubble. The small room he’s stuck in has thick walls and its only window looks out over the ocean. His predicament is compounded with a cauldron of molten metal installed in the building to defend it against theives. The cauldron has been tipped by the quake and now the searing hot contents are flooding through the rubble. The temperature in the room begins to rise. It is so hot that Maddex can barely stand on the floor and his green flesh starts to get burned.
Struggling to breathe, Maddex resorts to an extreme measure. He takes off his shirt and urinates on it and wraps it around his head to create a filter. The damp cloth blocks the suffocating dust. To his relief, he’s finally able to breathe. His ordeal is far from over. Maddex is still trapped and has no food or water.
Maddex is terrified. But what he doesn’t realize is that just outside the thick walls. He desperately calls for help, but no one responds. Then to his horror, smoke and molten metal start to engulf the room, making it almost impossible to breathe. Maddex is in a battle for survival. Alone and trapped in this room that is rapidly becoming a coffin, it seems the tax collector’s fate is sealed.
Hours turn into days and Maddex grows frail and weak. He is on the brink of death. But then a team of entic rescuers dig through the rubble toward him. Maddex is saved by the very people he bitterly cast as villains of the empire. Maddex atones for the wrongs he’s committed by giving back the funds he stole from them. He goes on to serve as a tax collector with more honest decorum and fairness now that his eyes have been opened to his prejudice.