"So, do you think he will come and crawl between Thurul's legs?" Sophie asked, causing all of us to laugh.
"If he does, I will make sure I shower first. Need to show him a tiny bit of respect." Thurul replied with a big grin. He seemed to find this whole thing amusing.
"Haha!" I couldn't help but laugh. The whole situation was kind of funny. I looked at the guard still sitting on the floor and gave him another order: "Go tell your prince to come walk through Thurul's legs."
After this order, the guard finally stood up and walked out of the inn while my group and I finished our breakfast and chatted merrily as we did. When we were done, we got our things out of our room. I told the girls tonight I would be with Diablo since I had spent the night with all of them already. I had to make it fair, after all. While they pouted, Diablo smiled. He was in a much better mood, it seemed.
The dwarven capital was really a unique place. As we walked through the city streets, I could see the way the locals lived. While dwarves were the biggest of the population, there were humans and other demi humans living here as well.
But while there were many people walking around buying things here and there from the various stands and shops, there were also many sitting on the side of the road with a can in front of them and a sign looking for a handout. "Thurul, is it like this everywhere?"
"I am not sure. During the time I was here, there weren't so many poor people. To be honest, I am even surprised at how many are here. Gravos also has its poor sections, but only the east side was like this, while the main hubs were quite clear. Now I am not saying that the poor should be hidden, but this is just a bit crazy if you ask me. But with your reforms in the east side slums, life there is hundreds of times better now. My father once did his best to keep people from suffering and even issued reforms himself but now…." Thurul let out a sigh. I could see that he was not happy with what he was seeing.
"Thurul, do you want to figure out what is going on in this kingdom?" I asked. I wanted to know what Thurul wanted. If he wished to figure out why this was all happening, I would help him out as best as I could. If he just wanted to finish the task at hand and return, we could do that as well. Everything was up to him.
Thurul paused his steps, causing us all to stop as he turned to me and said: "Can I have a day or two to think about it?"
I smiled and nodded: "Take your time. We will not be leaving right away anyway, so take your time and figure out what you want. If it comes down to it, I will use my full power to get to the bottom of things. Even if I must take over the kingdom to find out."
"Well, don't go taking the kingdom over because I do not want it," Thurul said flatly. I could see he had no interest in ruling anything.
"Well, if that's the case, I know a ruler who would be more than happy to have another kingdom thrown at him." I could hear the sneeze from here. That stupid king!
"Faith, my father would probably cry if you annexed another kingdom. He said in all of the kingdom's history has the kingdom suddenly expanded in such a short period of time. We are lacking ministers to even set up a stable government to keep the kingdoms in place." Adel said as she chuckled.
"Adel, I wouldn't laugh too much. He might just abdicate his throne to you, making us handle it instead." I said as I poked her side. I guess this realization only now just hit her as she frowned.
"If he dares, I will refuse!" Adel shouted righteously. "He has to stabilize everything before I take control, or else I will not let him off! But then again, the one annexing everything is my fiancee…."
I felt a sharp pinch in my side, making me slap the hand away that was doing such an evil thing. "I get it! I won't annex any more kingdoms… For now…."
"Adel, if we took over the entire continent, wouldn't it make things easier? Then we won't have to worry about foreign interference." Sophie suddenly asked.
"It's not that we can't do such a thing, but we will need to deal with the current matters at hand first. We need to be able to protect everything we have without worrying about some super being like Azengrade destroying everything we work hard to build up. Which is why I am here in the first place." I explained. While maybe having the continent under one rule would keep things quiet for the time being with so many unknowns in the mix right now we still have to worry about how we will defend ourselves against a being who is on par or stronger than Diablo and if there are more than just one of him. Then there is the man who can ignore even my own detection magic and barriers. Such things as of now make it hard for us to build up the kingdom any further.
"That is true…." Sophie sighed as if her plans for world domination were suddenly crushed. But for her of all people to suggest such a thing was quite amusing in itself as she was normally the passive one.
"We are almost there. Just a few streets mo…." Thurul stopped his steps once again when he saw a group of knights walking towards us. "Why are there more knights here!?"
"Thurul, relax, they are probably sent to keep us from talking with the masters. "
