Sajja the Great, King of Kings and leader of the Kulawanti Empire, woke up covered in sweat.

He was used to having prophetic dreams. As a son of Utari, the Goddess of Divine Inspiration, he would often be informed in dreams and everyday events of what would happen in the future, from how he would win upcoming battles, to important alliances he should make, and even to the arrival of strange men from the far north of the world bearing gifts and goods for trade. He had always trusted these visions and feelings, and they had never been wrong.

That is why he was so shaken to have just witnessed his own death in a dream.

Maybe, he thought, maybe this time it was wrong. He WAS getting up there in age at this point, maybe at 45 years old his abilities were becoming distorted. Sajja tried to put these thoughts out of his mind, and went back to sleep.

Then, of course, he had the same exact dream, this time in even more vivid detail.

Over the next few days, Sajja would quickly move through the usual stages of grief. He had already passed denial, and moved straight to anger, spending the rest of the morning cursing his mother, the Gods in general, and everyone who would cause the events leading to his death. Eventually he collapsed in exhaustion, and simply began to weep, moving into the next stage - depression.

Returning to bed, Sajja would not leave his room until the following afternoon, where he emerged and walked straight to the Great Temple to begin praying for his life. All night he made every promise in the book, bargaining lifelong devotion and all of his wealth to the Gods if they would stop the events he had seen from coming to pass. But night turned to day, and no sign from the Gods had found its way to him.

So that morning, when a messenger quickly made their way to him, he took the note with indifferent acceptance, and barely had to skim it to know what it said.

Sandpit had invaded.

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Almost three centuries ago, when the Kingdom of Suhendra first shattered, there had been twenty years of constant war. Men from across Doebi with every level of claim fought to establish themselves in their own Kingdoms, eager to take control of the slivers of the land that had oh so briefly been united under one banner. In the end, a small handful came to dominate the rich coastline and non-jungle interior, creating kingdoms that would last for many of the years that followed.

Then Sajja had appeared, with a claim to both the lineage of the old Kings of Suhendra, and a direct lineage to the Gods. This claim was only bolstered when he took the Kingdom of Kuching - home of the greatest city on Doebi and the old capital of Suhendra - without spilling a drop of blood. He then led his army east toward Pontianak, land that was needed to form a protective buffer around Kuching, and land that Sajja could (rightfully) claim to be his birthright. Fighting at the front lines, it was said that Sajja cut down a hundred men by himself, and literally carved a path to the King of Pontianak, who upon seeing this great King had prostrated himself before him, prayed to the Gods, and accepted his death. Sajja, of course, did not do this, but rather left the King in charge of that territory, bestowing upon him the title of Bangsawan and leaving him to take care of the payment of taxes, the levying of local troops, and any local infrastructural projects and organization that was needed. In doing so, Sajja set the stage for the organization of his future Empire, and the Bangsawan system would inform the organization of future empires for years to come.

Of course, not all saw the beginnings of this domination over Doebi is a good thing, and in its wake, the Pact of Lupa Sug was formed between the powerful kingdoms of Sandakan and Davao to oppose the further expansion of the Empire. They began funneling troops, supplies, and money to the Kingdoms of Sandpit and Balikpapan to help defend them against what they saw as the inevitable invasion from Kulawanti.

Of course, Sajja was not looking for such immediate domination, and so had left them alone, giving them time to bulk up, and feel a larger and larger need to use such a large military. This pressure continued to build, until Sandpit believed their best chance at survival was a preemptive strike to cut down Sajja before he could invade them.

These, however, were the events that Sajja had seen in his dreams, the ones that would lead to his death in the marshes of Sandakan. But with the might of the Pact behind them, he knew that to not fight meant not just his death, but the death of all he loved in his new Empire. So with a sigh, he gathered his men and headed east to meet the Sandpit army on the field of battle.

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The plan, for Sajja, was twofold. On one side were his highly trained and highly motivated land troops. They would push back the initial invasion, gaining converts to their righteous cause, and begin the reunification of Doebi that the Pact had worried about for so long. It would, ironically, be their opposition to the idea that would force it into fruition. But Sajja knew that land domination alone would not be enough, he would need to split the Pact in half, and remove the support of gold, food, and men pouring in from Davao. So he called upon his friends in the Empire of Darawan, and combining their naval power then sailed north to engage the combined navies of the Pact in naval combat and assert control over the seas of Lupa Sug and Celebes, and keep the Davaoans locked to their shores.

At first, things went even better than planned. After routing the Sandpit army, beheading their King, and installing a loyal Bangsawan in his place, the King of Balikpapan met with Sajja in secret, seeing the futility of his opposition and swearing fealty to the King of Kings. He was kept on as Bangsawan of his territory, and together they marched north on the armies of Sandakan and Davao.

This is where things began to ground into a standstill. In terms of riches and manpower, the combined might of the Pact held its ground against the armies of the Empire, and were bolstered by the abundant mineral reserves spread across the two kingdoms, allowing for the wide provisioning of bronze weaponry. Success here would depend upon control of the seas, a battle that was not going so well...

The Darawan navy was good. Really good. And had it been at full strength when it combined with the Kulawanti navy, the Pact would have been overwhelmed. Unfortunately, it was not, having just ended a civil war of their own, and so instead of overwhelming the Pact, they met them equally. Of course, the Pact navy had the advantage of being right near their territory, easily able to resupply and return for repairs before the ships of the Empire could even fully retreat. All the while, supplies and men continued making it to the front lines, and the situation was quickly becoming untenable.

Finally, the breakthrough came not from Darawan, nor from Kulawanti, but from Sulawesi. The three kings had met to discuss the situation, and realized the problem of an emboldened pact to their immediate north should they win, compared to the known steadiness of a Kulawanti Empire looking to trade. So, in a rare show of unity, the Three Kingdoms of Sulawesi combined their ships and flanked the Pact navy seemingly out of nowhere. Completely surrounded, the Davao navy retreated to their island, and Sandakan was cut off from its partner.

This was the breakthrough Sajja needed on the ground. Leading his men forward, he met the now-under-supplied Pact forces head-on, and after another week of fighting, they were all but routed. That is when the King of Sandakan charged forward, and challenged Sajja to a duel, man to man. Sajja sighed, knowing this is the day he had feared for almost two years now, and nodded.

The duel lasted almost twenty minutes, as metal hit metal, and two expert swordsmen fought with the grace and fury of men with nothing left to lose, and everything to gain. It seemed that until one made a mistake, the fight would continue forever, with neither man even touching the other. Unfortunately, the first mistake came from Sajja, who spun too quickly to avoid a sweeping slash from his opponent, and left his back exposed, just for a moment. But a moment is all that it took for the King to bury his sword up to the hilt in Sajja's back. A gasp went up from the surrounding troops, in disbelief that their Demigod King of Kings had lost. The King of Sandakan smiled, and leaned forward, hand still on the sword buried in Sajja's back, and taunted him. How did it feel to die? he pondered, What did it feel like to so thoroughly lose? He was so busy taunting that he failed to realize what Sajja was doing until it was too late. In one quick movement, the King of Kings took his sword, and thrust it into his own chest, burying it too up to the hit. The King of Sandakan fell silent... and then fell backwards. The sword had gone clean through Sajja, and made its way into the King leaning over his shoulder to taunt him, piercing his heart. Sajja collapsed to the ground, coughing up blood, and looked into the eyes of his son, who had fought beside him for so long, and smiled. The Empire was his now. Then, with one final sigh, Sajja the Great breathed his last.

Anuman, the Emperor who's new crown was still dripping with the blood of his father, ordered his men to dig in where they were, not pushing further, but not yielding a single inch of ground. The Pact commanders, not wanting to see more bloodshed, and knowing a losing situation when they saw one, ordered the same, and a week later an armistice was signed, not a sign of peace, but a cession of hostilities. This armistice would see a massive military buildup continue along the fortified lines both had dug in the wet earth deep in Sandakan territory, and Anuman would establish a Bangsawan for this new artificial slice of land ripped from the Kingdom of Sandakan. This armistice would last for another three centuries, as the war between the Pact and the Empire would become cold, spanning land and sea, with secret missions, maneuvers of influence, and constant opposition defining the political situation of Southeast Asia for the foreseeable future.

Map of Kulawanti Empire and its constituent Bangsawan after the death of Sajja the Great, 1486 B.C.E.