My second meeting, and probably the more important one was with the king. I was one of many nobles who asked to place some of their valuables inside the king´s vault, which he naturally obliged to. As long as he had room to spare, he didn´t mind holding their items hostage after all. But unlike them, I was led directly towards the king who awaited me alone on his throne.
“Lucy.” He instantly greeted me in a bad mood the moment I stepped into the room.
“Alphonso.” I greeted back, only in a slightly better mood as I had to lift up this heavy black box by myself. Grunting very unladylike, I placed it down near the door and gasped for air. “Huh, that’s heavy.”
“What´s in there?” He asked, to which I readily opened the lock and opened the lid, revealing the magical sword glowing in a gentle, blue light. It rested in velvet and was beautifully secured in place by it.
“The Sword of Magnetism. We don’t have a vault in the mansion, and as I am heading out for several weeks, nobody will be there to watch over it ... and I don’t want the servants to become a target.” I admitted and closed the lid once more and locked it close with the key I had in my hand. Luckily, none of the guards stared at me which meant there wasn’t a magician around to detect the sudden aura.
“You are going on a journey?” He asked, slightly perplexed by the sudden announcement.
“Sadly, I will need to. I was tasked by the gods to travel and find myself … I must admit I am not so sure what that means yet. But you know how it is. The ways of the gods are unfathomable.” I said and smiled wryly while looking upwards towards him.
“They don’t want you to stick around the next few weeks …” Not bad, my dear king. Not bad. He was as sharp as ever, but sadly not sharp enough.
“I do not know their reasoning, Alphonso, but the gods told me I shouldn´t worry too much. This city will still be the same when I come back … but I still want you to take care of yourself.” I said and lowered my head.
“I definitely will.” He said quietly. “Guards, guide her towards the treasure chamber.” He shouted out and the doors behind me opened.
“Thank you very much. We will see each other under better stars in four weeks.”
“I am betting on it.” He said and balled his hands into fists. He still had the illusion he was in control of anything, despite losing more and more with every day that went on. After curtsying towards him, I turned around and noticed how one guard was lifting up the black box.
“Please follow me, Milady.” Wow, I was honestly surprised that he didn´t call me ‘your holiness’. Apparently, humans were capable of learning, even though it took way too long in my opinion.
Once again, I was led through corridor after corridor while I wondered how anyone would find the way in this mess. Seriously, this palace was designed to keep intruders out, which made it horribly inefficient to get from one place to the other. Like always, the walls were littered with paintings, ornaments and such, showcasing the wealth of the royal family and giving me enough to make fun of later.
But the treasure chamber was even more extravagant. Shielded from curious eyes by a thick iron door and multiple magical circles which were quite difficult to read because the letters overlapped with each other, I was kind of awestruck. It took three guards with three different keys to open the vault for me, revealing a lot more wealth than I previously thought possible.
Gold. Everywhere.
Costly jewellery stacked on shelves, magical artefacts glowing in different colours, reducing the need for any lamps to zero. Speechless, I strode into the room and looked around. Items I had read about in books, referenced in all kinds of myths were placed into recesses in the wall. Most of these were without a doubt not from the trash tier, and some were probably more valuable than the sword of magnetism.
“It is always breathtaking to step into this room, isn´t it?” Yeah, it was. So much wealth, rotting underground and doing nothing. The king could invest all these gold coins, stacked at the wall, for increasing literacy or whatever, but he didn´t do so. Well, that wasn’t my problem.
“Is that …” I muttered and strode towards a golden crown with gems of different colours embedded into the serrates. It rested on a velvet cloth on a pedestal which was littered with magical circles, even though the crown itself was not that valuable. It wasn´t a magical artefact, but was still quite important for the king, just because of what it presented.
“The king’s crown.” The guard nodded and pointed towards another room, guarded by a thin, glowing barrier. “This is your vault. It will open if you put a registered family ring against it.”
“Are these barriers all like that?” I asked and looked towards the countless small compartments where different families held their valuables.
“Pretty much.” The brown-haired guard said and guided me towards my room … which was surprisingly empty. Even though the magical barrier, I already noticed that there wasn’t much inside, except a few books about the family history.
“Please, place it down wherever you want … it´s not like it is standing in the way of something.” I said and smiled brightly.
“… as you wish.” He said and put the black box into a shelf, luckily low enough for me to open it myself later again.
“Thank you, that was all.” I commented and followed him out of the room shortly afterwards. Only last time, my gaze wandered through the long hall until I spotted the object of my desires. Embedded deeply into the faraway side of the treasure room, there was a small compartment, shielded by an unimaginable amount of magical circles. They littered the complete backside of the hall and were only meant to protect one single item.
The Crown of Thorns, smiled toward me and incentivized me to reach out to it through the whole room and through these unimaginably complicated magical circles which weren’t deactivated for even a split second since the creation of this world.
It was truly an artefact worthy of my desires, even though it looked relatively harmless. It was still too far away to make out everything, but going by the descriptions I read so far, it was entirely made out of a strange wood with, like the name suggested, thorns on it. Otherwise, it looked fairly standard and as I didn´t want to gaze too long in that direction, I turned my head towards the guard and smiled brightly.
Together, we walked out of the treasure chamber again as if nothing happened at all. Well, so far, nothing illegal happened … sort of.
Crazy what AI can do these days.
