The other troopers think I do not know what they call me. Yes, I see them in the mess hall, turning away when I enter the room. They think that a man as beastly, as powerful, as cruel as the Overseer cannot also be sneaky, cunning, perceptive. But I am all of those things. I hear their private conversations through the door when I approach. Then the rattle of my keys warns them, and they close up tighter than a barrel of gunpowder.

The truth is I would not have made it to the top if I had no cleverness about me. And that is why I am here, overseeing the most important place in the entire realm and perhaps even all realms: at the top of the ballista tower of Fort Weepus. It is an important job, a “high visibility role” in every sense. Not only do I watch the frontiers for activity from Ludopolis, but also I am seen by the Bosses. I do not mean mid-bosses, mini-bosses or even bosses-in-training. We’re talking Final Bosses here, like Victoria and Xue-Fang. The Emperor himself passed through just the other day. Well… passed over, anyway. The shadow of the Boss Tower cooled us from this land’s accursed sun, before we took even that.

Yes, this is going to look very good on my résumé. Full bosshood is basically in the bag. Soon I will rub elbows with the movers and shakers. I don’t want to jinx it, so I won’t say it out loud, but I’m envisioning mushroom tapas with the turtle-dragon, and hedgehog on a stick with the egg doctor.

I know, that’s some major ambition from a lowly prison warden. I’ve come a long way, if I do say so myself (and I do) from my origins in an open-world fantasy. Once upon a time, I paced back and forth through the halls of the Underdungeons. I reveled in the moaning and screams of the elns, dwarns, and human prisoners under my watch. Hell, I caused them. It was a favorite pastime to flog the hands of prisoners who stuck their knobby, polygonal hands through the bars. How I coveted the jangling key ring of the master jailer as I paced those torch-lit tunnels, little more than an NPC following my orders and my predestined routines.

But I said to the universe, “the code be damned.” I broke free of my destiny and now am master of it.

And now look at me—head of my own dungeon, watcher on an almost-finished tower. I’ve got my own jangly key ring. Not bad for a country boy NPC from Annals of the Relics of Ash’thamar: Volume IV: Banners of Westnoble Spire (20_6).

I suppose I still pace back and forth, but now it’s to give orders. My commands my rain down like explosive barrels. Sometimes my explosive barrels rain down, too! And these sad-faced imperial nothings have to scamper about and do what I say. Not to mention the Street Toughs, who frankly would all be in jail if it were up to me. The problem is there’s too many of them and nobody knows why. They multiply faster than Thendracian rabbits, a thing I would know about, since I had it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in my old life.

Now I eat good. I’m feasting. My old Underdungeon clients and coworkers would barely recognize me now—I’m easily three times the jailer I was then. How? Let me let you in on the secret behind my impressive girth, which is coincidentally the most important thing about having Street Toughs on the payroll.

Street Toughs come from a brawler. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it—after the Total Conversion, it’s never going to matter again. All you need to know is that it’s a kind of gameworld where people fight on streets. No, not like Street Fighter. More like Rampage City (19∞9) and Return to Rampage City (19Ω1). For some reason nobody has figured out, people in that series store all kinds of food in barrels, crates, phone booths… you know, things you might find on the street. Things you might be hurled through during a street brawl.

These people are putting everything in these barrels and crates. Full soda cups, freshly poured and still fizzing, straws included. Entire chicken dinners. Whole pizzas. Bowls of ramen noodles, not a drop spilled. It makes no sense. Somewhere along the way, yours truly discovered that any Street Tough can punch any barrel in half, and out pops a steaming hot meal. So every day at lunchtime, I call the nearest Street Tough up to the top of the tower, where I keep a reserve of barrels. They punch it open, I have a hamburger or a calzone or whatever appears that day, and I replenish all those calories burned by waving my arms around and yelling all day, and sometimes beating my chest.

The barrels also double as a great defensive mechanism. You see, this tower is still a construction site, obviously. It’s just a mess of shaky temporary platforms, ladders, and random gaps. That’s why I don’t love going up and down a lot. One ladder comes loose, and a big boy like me is gonna have a tough time of it. Once, my Street-Tough-delivered lunch went awry, and a barrel tipped over and started rolling. What do you think I found? Against everything I know about physics and gravity (which isn’t very much, to be fair), the barrel rolled down toward the nearest ladder and dropped straight down, clobbering another Street Tough coming up to report in. It bounced off the wall, rolled across the platform and bowled over a scroblin, who started—well, continued—swearing. It never went right off the edge; it just followed this perfect path left, down, right, down, left, and so on until it found its way to ground level.

The Street Tough and I experimented a little, rolling barrels down the platforms. And let me tell you this: I have never seen the barrels track down the exact same path twice. Truly, it boggles the mind.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Sometimes I will drop a barrel down the track when someone is on their way up to see me, just to see if it will get them. (When it does, I bellow and beat my chest in amusement. There’s not a lot of entertainment to be had at Fort Weepus, but this more than makes up for it.) And they do have to come up a few times a day to get my keys.

That’s where the real power comes from. You’ve heard of “the keys to the kingdom”? Well, I’m the guy with the keys. If a prisoner needs to be removed or executed, somebody has to venture all the way up here, avoiding my barrels, to make the request from me. They hate it. And that’s why they call me what they call me.

The key king. They curse my name when they say it: The “Dang Key King.”

I actually do love the moniker. It’s reminiscent of something I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s provocative, and it has a nice flow to it. It rolls off the tongue like a barrel rolling down struts and ladders on a construction site. It’s the insubordination I don’t love.

And yes, when I hear it, there are repercussions. That kind of grumbling is not good for team morale, and needs to be stamped out. But it’s maybe not what you think—I’m a fair boss, a just boss, and I give constructive feedback. I follow all the HR protocols. I log the instance and bring it up on my subordinates’ quarterly reviews. I don’t frame it as an attack. “Here is some feedback on your performance,” I say. Then I have them hurled over the edge of the Screenwilds, into space. Or whatever is out there.

You can’t argue with the results! According to our metrics, obedience is tracking up. I know my boss is pleased, and she’ll tell her boss, and her boss will tell his boss. It won’t be long now! I’ve got a good reputation going on here, literally holding down the fort at the very front of the war effort. The only forward operating base on the continent, or chunk of rock, or whatever you want to call it.

I’ve got full control of my minions. I’m strong and merciless to my enemies. I can throw a mean barrel, and out-swear scroblins at muster. My eyes are keen.

Which brings me to my next question: What the hell was that? The wagon coming out of no-man’s-land out there? I saw Sorrow Troopers in the back. Maybe they caught one of the traders or supply gatherers, some brainless NPC or another, straying too far form the city and commandeered their wagon. Still, not a method of transportation that is endorsed by the Boss Council Field Handbook. I’ll have to get their ID numbers and make sure this is reflected on their quarterly reviews.

That’s how you keep order in a place as chaotic as the Screenwilds. Meticulous adherence to the rules. Plus, this will give me a chance to chuck some Sorrow Troopers off-continent. That never fails to put a smile on my face. It’s not that I have anything against the Empire of Sorrow specifically, it’s just that it thins the heard, evens out the numbers for those of us who don’t come from Ultimate Requiem: Empire of Sorrow (19Ω4). I mean, they’re the backbone of our assault forces, and the harlequin king himself, the Boss of all Bosses, is the titular emperor. I mean, nepotism much?

Boy, time really passes up here, ranting to myself and beating my chest. I’ve got visitors. They’re a little early for lunch. Looks like it’s Troopers anyway, not Toughs.

Is it just me or do these ones look a little out of the ordinary? One is huge, one has an enormous backpack, and another is obviously a dog. I mean, sure, these are largely body type issues, and they’ve got what really counts—the frowny tragedy masks. I would never go counter to our workplace diversity policies, so I can’t just single them out for being nonstandard sizes or species. But let’s just say I’ve got my eye on them.

May as well see what they want. Speak, Troopers, and hear the judgment of the Dang Key King. Sometimes I get so pumped, I catch myself twirling the keyring around on my fingers.

Is it me, or did they huddle together for a suspiciously long time before nominating the average-sized one to be the spokesperson? Why all this hesitation? I thought the empire trained their troopers better than this. How I long for the days when I will have a lieutenant, a mini-boss who can deal with all this stuff themselves. Some kind of Dang Key King, Jr., maybe.

These day-to-day tasks just take all my creative energy. Energy I could be spending on finishing this tower. Conquering this continent, and, who knows? Having a Dang Key King country of my own. We could celebrate with Dang Key conga lines and stage Dang Key King racing. We’d tour through the Screenwilds, dancing to a veritable jungle beat to the south, beneath a tropical breeze.

They requested to use the ballista? No? Ha? What? The nerve of these people. Just because they come from the same gameworld as the emperor, they think they can go over my head? That’s it. Now they’re going to feel the wrath of the Dang Key King.

Catch a barrel, fuckers.

Whoa! The normal-sized one jumped right over it. I’m starting to think these are not Sorrow Troopers at all. Yep, here we go—sure enough, the masks come off, so to speak. But, literally, they’re taking their masks off. Turns out the dog-shaped one is a dog. I told you I had a keen eye.

Infuriating. I’m seeing red, just pounding my own chest with rage. They’re going right past me, trying to use the ballista before I can stop them. No way. Not today. Not on the Dang Key King’s watch.

Um… shit?

They just… piled in and pulled the lever before I could even stop them. What was I supposed to do? The barrel didn’t stop them. I was out of ideas.

Oh, and I just realized that I’m a ghost. Fantastic. Apparently the one with the shoulders vaporized me with some kind of energy weapon. See, there’s my smoking boots left behind. Unbelievable. And this is all before lunch.

Oh well. Honestly, this is better than having to face my boss, or her boss, or his boss. I would have definitely heard about this in my next review. But, no biggie now.

Speaking of bosses, was that who I think it was?