Doctor Amandee Vermeulen was a small, nervous man with a morbid fascination for doctor's coats. He brought two new ones with him every working day, both equally immaculate white. But one had a breast pocket with a blue line in it and the other two buttons less and a V-neck. He loved having the interns track down the difference between his jackets. That castle builder with his shattered thumb could wait a little longer. And the young nurses dared not refuse anything.
Amandee was the head of department C, where the people who had been in a deep sleep for some time had their rooms. He thoroughly enjoyed swinging the door open, parading in and asking the patient how he or she was doing. Then he applied the principle of 'nothing-saying-is-consenting' and had the most fascinating and enriching conversations with the sleeping sick person. So today he walked into the king's chamber for the third time and stroked back his long gray hair.
"Good morning, your majesty. Did you sleep well? That's what I thought, sir. By the way, what do you think of my new doctor's coat? Isn't it ingeniously white? Well, we'll check how you're doing."
With his ear to the royal breast, he checked the king's regular heartbeat and verified the number of beats in a table drawn up for this purpose. "Everything perfectly normal, your glory, I'll send a nurse over for the daily amount of herbal ointments, but it's time for you to wake up yourself before you're completely soaked. See you later, Your Majesty."
Just as cheerfully as he had entered, he left the room and walked through the milky white corridors of ward C. He pushed his goblet glasses a little higher on his nose and thought of the expressionless face of the sleeping king. Was he currently sleeping without worries or was he dreaming of Yths who didn't know what to do without a king? Did he agree to the auditions and assignments for a replacement or did he refuse any kind of successor? Did he already have a candidate in mind or did he hardly care? Was he even thinking about anything? Dr. Amandee sighed. Although he communicated with the king every day and he always heard what he wanted to hear, the king was not there. Hour after hour, his eyelids remained closed, and his skin became whiter than parchment. Doctor Amandee had to convince herself again and again that the leader of Yths was still alive.
Strange assignments had come in, from drinking cat pee to flying over the Eaglemountains, from milking fourteen cows as quickly as possible to eliminating a bubbling volcano. Many letters of ideas were thrown into the royal fireplace to be swallowed up by the fire. But some useless ideas were secretly hidden under a loose tile in the noble toilet as reading material during one of the daily visits. In contrast to the three-minute-all-cobblestones-counting-on-the-King's Square assignment of the pace-faster, Lilian's assignment was considered. It seemed like a test that everyone could miraculously put their own spin on and thus solve it in a highly personal way. After a long deliberation, everyone agreed and all candidates were informed of their first assignment. After each test, candidates would be eliminated and only those who survived would advance to the next assignment. Thanks to Madam Haclaire's goodwill, each participant was given 24 hours to prepare for the assignment. Tomorrow, just after the crowing of the first rooster, the starting signal would be given.
Slander and his twin brother Vlander were discharged from the infirmary with some scratches and bumps. They decided to carry out the assignment together. "Till death do us part," was their cry. During the preparation time, they carefully studied the map of the country and realized that they would be hopelessly lost. Then they packed their backpack, which ended up being far too heavy for their small backs. Tactically speaking, Slander stuck to pure improvisation, while Vlander first had a big laugh and if that didn't help, he went for it.
Jack Bulton stayed in bed all day to supposedly be better rested and had butler Edgard sharpen his sword. He planned to dye Henry Deer's hairstyle back to its original color and buy him a pair of giant sunglasses to hide his devil's eyes. Then he immediately looked like the ideal son-in-law and could convince Mr. Tubaak. Hendrik had to risk his life himself to reach the fortress of the brain teasers.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
Mayor Guy organized three crisis meetings with his aldermen and decided to take his two most backward colleagues with him on his trip to the Gray Vulture Castle.
Axel Tikker, the witch hunter, consulted the pace-faster, much to his euphoria, to find out how he could best manage his time efficiently to fill every minute functionally. A slimy pace-fast even lent him his very expensive, self-writing diary.
The three piglets, Hörk, Pörk and Gnörk, went to ask a wise old woman for advice. They went in search of the witch of the Yellow Pond, the pond whose water looked yellow because of the witch's concoctions. She might be able to talk the other witches out of it. The piglets put on their lederhosen and set off. Hörk, the eldest, led the way. "Have you brought enough ash trees?" asked Pörk hungrily. "Yes, naturlich," replied Hörk, who was also hungry. "I don't like this already," Gnörk complained.
The Arieman decided he didn't need any help. He was smarter and stronger than any man, which also made his ego ten times bigger. Ariemans were a rare breed because of their hubris and their sense of invincibility. As a result, they often engaged in fights that turned out to be just a little too much. They were actually ordinary people who were stronger, smarter, more handsome, and taller due to natural mutations. Most of the time, they were blonde and had long wavy hair. Arian, the Arieman who was eager to replace the king, packed his huge backpack and headed for the Notorious Leafy Forest.
Leo Niel bought a compass, a drinking bottle, a sleeping bag and a busily painted fairy tale book. He kissed his sister good-bye and spent the rest of his day in the halls of the palace, and no matter how often Robert met him and how enchanted he smiled, the slender young man would never tell what he was doing, what his plans were, and what path he would take. With each hour that slowly slipped by, Robert became more curious about how the assignment would go. His back became damp, his hands clammy and he started to breathe faster. That night he slept extremely badly, despite the fairy-soft mattress of the four-poster bed. He dreamed of ferocious acorn witches, candy-eating sugar princes and devilish Henry. Robert got up at three o'clock in the morning. The moonlight lit up the castle corridors. On tiptoe, he crept down the corridor, down the stairs, towards the west wing. He stopped in front of a large wooden door. Robert took a deep breath and knocked determinedly on the door.
A tiny blue fluttered to the next window frame and let the morning dew dry on her wings in the dim sunlight. She pecked a small berry from the windowsill and then flew up again. Dirrek looked at the bird and buttoned his pants. He wriggled into his suede jacket, shaved himself smooth, combed his hair into the crease and sprayed himself with a smoke of elderberry perfume. Odor extracts from dry rain were on it, although Dirrek had no idea what dry rain could smell like. The chambermaid tripped cautiously inside and began to shake up his bedsheets.
"You look radiant again, Eva, even so early in the morning," the charmer slimed. The girl blushed far behind her ears, hiding her red face behind the heap of white sheets. When she wanted to leave the room, Dirrek couldn't resist giving her a tap on her buttocks, causing Eva to let out a high-pitched scream and drop a pillowcase. The minister happily fished it off the ground, threw it back into her arms, and looked deeply into her blue eyes for a moment, causing her to immediately rush out of the room. Dirrek, who was not at all embarrassed, made one last check-up in the reflection of the window and then paraded up the landing like a true Don Juan.
Siel stirred his tea very furiously, causing him to regularly spill liquid on his saucer. In contrast to his violent movements, the pace-faster stood stock-still in front of the bronze statue of King Lodehart with his tempo-time device in his hand. In front of him was a sign with a cursory scrawl on it: 'World record standing still'. More than an hour ago he had spontaneously started this when Robert had warned him that a world record should always be official, hence the sign.
Dirrek passed him without saying a word and took a walnut from the bag that Madam Haclaire handed him. Today she wore a black and white checkered dress that reminded Robert suspiciously of Edgard's chessboard. For a moment he mused about the long, quiet afternoons he spent at the Lilian household as the lowest member of the Courtly Functional Bourgeoisie. But since a few days he had worked his way up to become a jury member of the royal elections. It was a serious career leap. Lilian would be proud of him. Robert smiled and then focused on what was expected of him. He had to give the go-ahead for the first assignment, probably because none of the other jury members had it into his head to climb on the shaky wooden scaffolding that had not been refurbished since the previous war. Either way, Robert felt incredibly important.