Dawn- An age of Darkness

The room inside, or rather the throne room was kind of large. It was bigger than what I\'d seen in Alfeime and Helsing. 

Moreover, there were rather big people inside this room. And here I thought Dwarven nobility looked like humans. 

Boy was I wrong. Because every single one was a giant of sorts.

"Welcome, Lord Daarc Green." 

The man on the throne, the king was probably the largest and basically, he was still seated. He greeted me fairly politely and the nobility around him bowed their heads a bit as did the soldiers. Technically I was the guest, so I had to bow. 

And I was about to bow out of courtesy when Alisa all of a sudden stood in front of me. I had a bad feeling about this. 

"It would seem Dwarven Royalty are nothing but rude imbeciles."

Wait, what the hell did she just say?

She glanced back at me a second later and winked. 

Well, this wasn\'t going to end well. 

I could already feel the imminent headache coming. 

Everyone in the room was surprised, myself included. 

Some of the nobility even had their mouths hanging. The earl behind has had a similar expression. 

This really wasn\'t going to end well. 

"Throw them out." The king finally spoke. 

A rather wise decision from him, a very wise decision. It was so wise, that I almost wanted to laugh at his face. But it was better than executing us and having another war on himself. 

Yeah, a really wise decision indeed. 

The soldiers who bought us here were definitely rather conflicted on what they wished to do. 

"This is bad," The earl hissed under his breath. "Father\'s serious."

I sighed. Well, this was something. I was about to speak, but Alisa took the lead. At this point, I just gave up. 

"It would seem, you\'re even bigger of a fool than I took you to be. You\'d lay a hand on the archduke of Alfeime and two demigods?" Alisa chuckled condescendingly. "How low the dwarves have fallen."

The king had a large beard covering his whole face but he was so mad, that even his beard shook. "Now!"

"What are you waiting for you?" A voice came from the right of the king, probably one of the ministers.

The soldiers rushed for us but I just stood there, without moving a muscle. These morons started it, so I\'ll let them handle it. 

Alisa glowed in blue and a second later all the soldiers were frozen to their hips. Next, she moved closer to the throne. "Don\'t take us lightly, apologize."

The king again started to shake but this time, still out of anger and maybe a bit of fear. "What, are you doing, execute them already!"

Well, looks like we pushed him too far. I guess everyone had their limits.

And Alisa sure wasn\'t happy with that.

One of the soldiers broke free: just one. The one with the black armor. "I don\'t know what you wish to accomplish with this, but I will obey the command of his majesty." Looked like his life was a drag too. 

"I\'ll handle it," Ve spoke softly. 

Yeah, didn\'t want to bother with this anyway. 

Both of them rushed at each other and started fighting. 

Meanwhile, all this stuff was kind of making me feel stupid. Couldn\'t we have done this in a civilized manner? 

But this just felt too normal. I wasn\'t even concerned anymore. I guess my mind kind of adapted to all this. 

"What is going on!" The earl whispered vigorously. 

"Trust me, I want to know that too."

While Ve and the man were on a stalemate, Alisa started sorting things over. 

"He is the ruler of Helsing! The duke! Not a lord! And you will apologize for it!"

I looked around and the general conscience was \'just for something that simple?\'

Obviously, I had the same thought. But I knew Alisa probably had some other plan. 

She was too shrewd to do something like this for something so trivial. 

Wait, but what if-

Just thinking was enough to make me feel weird again: and not to mention the splitting headache. 

"Can we get a move on? We have other stuff to do too." And I was getting awfully impatient.

"As I said, apologize," Alisa demanded, paying me no need.

I guess that was a no. 

The king gritted his teeth and grinded them. "Very well." He glared at me. "Forgive me, Lord Daarc." He stood up from his throne and bowed his head slightly. 

Well, that was something. 

I nodded. Did not expect that one. 

Alisa smiled and stood right next to me. "You\'re welcome," She whispered. 

\'Yeah, no one asked you!\' Obviously, I couldn\'t say that to her face. 

The knight fighting with Ve backed off and stood next to his frozen peers. The frozen peers weren\'t so frozen anymore and they all breathed heavily. Some even shivered a lot but didn\'t create any commotion. 

Meanwhile, there were only whispers among the nobility. 

"Well, what now?" I whispered. 

"The rest is up to you. They had to know their place, otherwise, they\'d have thought you were doing this for charity," Alisa winked. 

Technically, I was. 

That kind of made sense though, but this was too much. The king was still glaring at me. I guess he hated me now. 

I glared back at the king. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance." I gave him a courtly bow. He nodded, still glaring. "I\'m not sure how much you\'re aware of. But I\'m the duke of Helsing and the Archduke of Alfeime. Both of my companions are demigods, and this thing is a bunny god from the Braskan islands." As usual, Biteira was still clinging to my neck: I still didn\'t know if there was such a thing as a bunny god or not, but oh well: I really hoped I said the name right though. And I also tried my best not to sound condescending. "We\'re on a mission to search for strong weapons and armor, and we help people in need." I tried to be frank and I could see Alisa grimacing a little. But I kind of had too much of sugarcoating. "So, give me all the Mystic equipment you have and I\'ll stop this war for you."

After saying the last bit, I realized, I might or might not have sounded like a complete asshole. 

He looked at me seriously for a moment almost as if implying \'what the hell are you smoking?\' and then finally burst out laughing. A lot of other nobles also laughed. "I will crush the humans regardless. I don\'t need your help. Go back to your country."

Well, at least he was polite about it. 

So instead, I chose a different approach. "Well, I did receive a different job too, being, if I could dethrone you and let a certain someone take over, I\'ll still get the weapons. So I guess, I win, either way?" 

All eyes were behind me. I guess the earl wouldn\'t be getting out of this alive, but, honestly, he shouldn\'t have trusted me this much. 

I might have created a bit more of a problem for me in the heat of the moment. 

\'How am I going to get out of this one?\'

"Very well. You\'ll leave us alone if we give you a mystic weapon?" The king spoke majestically. He wasn\'t having my BS.

This guy was a lot more agreeable than I thought. "I was promised two."

He grimaced. I guess that was pushing it. "Very well."

Very, very agreeable.

\'Now what?\' I kind of dug my own grave with this one. I thought he was going to be stingy and I\'ll taunt my way out of this, but now what! "Why are you fighting, because of your son?" I desperately searched for a way to continue the conversation. 

\'Please say something…. please!\' If he wasn\'t going to try something with me, I couldn\'t get out of this. I really felt terrible now. It wasn\'t going my way one bit. 

After a brief moment of silence, the king began. "Yes. The humans have kidnapped him." I was actually expecting something along the lines of it wasn\'t my business or something like that. "And because of that, I might have shown you disrespect. And I apologize for that."

Again, I did not expect that. What the hell! Why wasn\'t this dude trying to insult me or something!

Frankly, I was losing my mind. 

"The humans are also saying the same thing. So, if I\'m being honest, I think there\'s a third party at play here." I had no idea, but I still kept on talking anyway. 

He looked at me again with a bit of seriousness. "And who do you suggest are the culprits?"

"It could be anyone. It could even be one of your ministers hoping to seize the throne." Again, I was just keeping the conversation going. 

And I was falling down the rabbit hole more and more. 

"That is nonsense!" 

"We would never do that!"

"How could you say that!"

Apparently, the nobles were going crazy over that. They did not like my analogy. 

Well, this just got out of my control. 

I sighed and looked at Alisa. \'Well, do something!\' She was the one who started this. The least she could do was help me!