JohnWillStab sat awkwardly in the large room, a look of confusion and discomfort on his face.
Behind him was a large stone wall with a small hole serving as a window, the metal bars within served as a decent indicator of the trouble he was in.
“Hi…” he said awkwardly.
His attempts at a friendly introduction fell flat as the only response he got was a sigh.
Before him sat a woman, she wore a black vest over a lilac shirt.
Her hands were clasped together.
She sat opposite John at the interrogation table.
“…”
“Please explain yourself…” she began.
JohnWillStab looked away awkwardly.
“Well…” he began.
He scratched his head trying to come up with a good excuse for the recent events.
As John contemplated his reply, a light gust of wind collapsed the wall behind him revealing the burning ruins of the underground city.
JohnWillStab avoided looking directly at the rubble.
“Aaaand there goes the last wall…” he thought looking back to the visibly disappointed woman before him.
He looked back to her again.
“…”
“Are you mad?” he asked anxiously.
She met his gaze.
“…no”
“I’m just… disappointed…” she replied.
She breathed another sigh.
“Alright, JohnWillStab… start from the beginning… how did this happen?” she asked as an explosion went off in the background.
He looked down and began to recall the recent events.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“So… me and my guild had an important meeting with the prince…” he began.
Twenty-four hours ago…
JohnWillStab, Crown and Bonifacius sat at the table.
Before them sat the prince.
“I’m really sorry about the mix-up… I should have known better than to allow strangers to deliver your meal…” the prince apologised taking a sip of expensive wine.
After the prince arrived to the meeting, he saw the food was untouched and as such he immediately questioned the guests as well as the staff about it.
“They immediately admitted to their crimes…” John explained, looking up to meet the gaze of the woman.
“I see… but how did that lead to… this…” she asked gesturing to the burning ruins all around them.
JohnWillStab continued the story.
“Well, since the food was dangerous, the prince decided to bring us to a local inn to try some local food, there we ran into the Thief, Alex and Revenberry.”
That was the first red flag.
“We had a few drinks and then the prince got kind of… relaxed…” John tried to avoid being rude, setting the capital on fire was already a little risky if he wanted to stay on friendly terms with the people of the underground.
“And then we started playing a drinking game, basically, you come up with a round-about way of giving a number and the next person has to drink more than you…”
“The first to surrender loses!” John explained.
JohnWillStab breathed a sigh.
The woman nodded.
“Go on…”
“Crown was first, she had one shot…” John explained.
“Then she told me:”
“Drink nine over three drinks,” John explained.
“So, three drinks… Still, an undead shouldn’t have trouble holding their drink…” she began.
JohnWillStab looked at her dumbfounded.
“Three?” he asked.
“Three over nine, so for every 1 in 9 you take 3 drinks…” John repeated his logic in his mind.
The woman nodded uncertainly.
“H-how many did you drink?” she asked.
JohnWillStab tried to force a confident smile.
“That’s… That doesn’t matter!” he said dismissively.
“Anyway, the prince was next,” he explained.
All colour drained from the woman’s face.
“HOW MANY DRINKS DID THE PRINCE HAVE?!”
“Well, at first it was twenty…” John began.
“At first?” asked the woman.
John nodded.
“Crown got kind of upset about my maths skills, she asked me how I got twenty from nine over three, I explained my logic and she stabbed me like usual…”
“Then she explained that I must have tried to multiply the three by nine, so she force-fed the prince another seven drinks to make the math work out,” John explained.
The woman questioning John slumped her shoulders.
“She… WHAT!?”
John shrugged.
“He kind of passed out after that, so we stopped the game and just kept drinking.”
He scratched his head awkwardly.
“Then Bromy joined up with us,”
“He said the prince was dead, naturally I said that couldn’t be the case since undead don’t get drunk!” John explained confidently.
The woman placed her head down on the table.
“You killed… the prince…” she began.
JohnWillStab shook his head.
“Of course not!” he exclaimed with folded arms.
The woman looked up with a glint of hope in her eyes.
“He killed himself by challenging me to a drinking match!” John said smugly.
“DON’T ACT TO PROUD! THIS IS REGICIDE!” she exclaimed grabbing John by the collar and shaking him violently.
JohnWillStab shrugged.
“Anyway, we dumped his body in some ditch!” John explained.
The woman was dumbfounded, John just admitted to throwing the prince's corpse into a ditch.
JohnWillStab breathed a sigh.
“Anyway, he respawned and he must have still been drunk since he was pretty upset…” John continued.
“I’D BE FUCKING UPSET TOO!” she cried.
John smiled victoriously, “So we killed him again,”
“DON’T BRAG ABOUT IT!”
The woman let go of John’s collar and practically fell into her chair.
“Anyway, we tied him up and left town, then we killed him again when he tried to escape, we kept doing it until the prince promised to meet our demands,” John explained.
“SO, YOU TOOK THE PRINCE HOSTAGE?!”
JohnWillStab nodded.
“Yeah, if you don’t meet our demands, we’ll burn your entire underground to ash,” John explained.
The woman folded her arms.
“And why shouldn’t I just have you arrested right now?” she asked.
“I could call the guards any moment!” she added.
John looked over her shoulder to a handful of burning corpses lying under the rubble of one of the buildings.
“You mean those guys?” he asked.
The woman looked behind her and saw the corpses of the guards.
She breathed a sigh and looked back to John.
“What are your demands?” she asked reluctantly.
JohnWillStab handed her a piece of paper.
“1: The end of the monarchy.”
“2: An alliance with the jGuardians.”
“3: A chance to discuss the future of the underground and its rule.”
A fourth request was scribbled on sloppily.
“4: MORE BOOZE!”