Joy had thought that the prince’s castle was beautiful when he was first shown around. But now, he was just annoyed with how big it was.

He left Sam’s room at a quick pace and had been running around the castle for nearly ten minutes hoping to stumble across clues. The only thing he had discovered was that the cleaning staff gave weird looks to people who ran in their hallways.

But he had a new plan for discovering clues, he was going to ransack the prince’s study and see all his assorted plans. Honestly, he knew it was just a desperate last-minute attempt to save himself, but he didn’t have any better ideas at the moment. Sam had said they wouldn’t tell him, Ian would probably just beat Joy up for asking him to divulge important secrets, and the prince would just smile and laugh and Joy’s antics. So digging through the prince’s office it was.

Joy ran up flight after flight of stairs. The prince loved a good view, and so his study had a beautiful view of the king’s castle, but that did mean it was incredibly high up in his own castle, meaning Joy had to climb a lot of stairs to get there. What was with these royals and their hyper fixation on big castles, were they compensating for something?

His entrance to the study was heralded by his labored breathing, thankfully for Joy no one was there to see him panting like a dog on the elegant rugs the prince placed on his floor.

The prince was a man who understood the luxuries he could afford and knew how to enjoy them. Expensive alcohol lined his walls, while his rugs were all plush and comfortable to the touch. The desk was a beautiful chestnut color, with well-organized journals and papers stacked around it. The bookshelves were all tall and held everything from collections of children’s stories to Philip Pen’s collected works. But the most ostentatious and princely decoration was the window.

The window was floor to ceiling and had a stained-glass edge surrounding it. The window obviously looked at the king’s castle, where his father and sister lived in all their glory.

The stained glass was a simple mesh of colors, blobs held together. It was a little artsy-fartsy for Joy, but he could appreciate the majesty of the window. He knew that the prince specifically hired a man with a flight gift, to fly around the outside of the castle to keep this window in a spotless condition.

Joy had finally caught his breath, so he started going through the assortment of papers on the prince’s desk.

It was a nightmare for Joy. When he had come to the study, he had hoped a sheet of paper would declare loudly and boldly what tonight’s speech would be about, and he could leave. Instead, there was so much paperwork.

How much the prince’s employees were paid, employee evaluations, and whether the prince would keep hiring them. There were even dossiers on most of the nobility in the second ring. Joy was not stupid, but he knew that this was too much for him.

There were three things that caught his eye on the table though. There was an old journal that seemed to be from the second age, detailing a group of explorers’ misadventures through the three destroyed continents.

There was a report that the prince’s spies had written, showing how the princess Dahlia was preparing supplies and men for some expedition.

And finally, a report written by Ian about Joy saying how he was “unpredictable” and “kind of stupid” and that his termination from the prince’s payroll should be considered. There were going to be some pranks in Ian’s future if he kept talking about Joy like this.

All this evidence led Joy to the obvious conclusion that the prince and the princess were in a race for some long and forgotten artifact nestled somewhere in the three uninhabitable continents. And that both were sending foolhardy men to their certain demise searching for it in this royal race. Or something like that. Hopefully.

Joy’s musings were interrupted when he heard two voices approaching his door. One of them was distinctly princely while the other was feminine and seemed to be bossing the prince around.

“David, I know you love the purple and gold for these speeches, but it honestly makes you look quite campy.” The feminine voice said as the two entered the room. Joy had scampered to hide under the nicely varnished desk and held his breath.

“What does campy even mean, Rose? And they love seeing those striking colors on me, it adds to my royal looks.” Even though Joy couldn’t see the prince, he could feel the smug smile and wink the prince had put into that sentence.

“Well excuse me for worrying about the color clashing that will add to your suit.”

“I know, I know. I just enjoy messing with you. We are going for the streamlined black look. Black clothes, black hair, and black eyes. It is supposed to show my cohorts how serious this problem is, and how serious I am about it.” By this point the prince had sidled up to his seat at the desk and was about to sit down.

“If I didn’t know that this was how you dealt with stress, I would be very worried about you David, you do not seem to be giving this situation the importance that you should.”

Joy was on the edge of his metaphorical seat hoping to hear exactly what this situation was. The prince was on the edge of his very real seat and his knee bumped into Joy who was still hiding under the table.

Joy knew he had been caught, so he quickly weaseled his way around the prince’s knees and stood up next to him. The prince’s currently sapphire eyes showed a look of shock that morphed into one of bemusement as he looked at Joy who was desperately searching through his pockets.

“Well, you see Mr. Prince David I just love the ideas you have going for your outfit tonight. The black, on black, on black will make you look suave and debonaire.” Joy had nervously been backing away from the desk and he pulled the pipe he had been keeping in his pocket out. Then he placed it in the woman, Rose’s, hand as he continued, “honestly, I would even say that you would look smoking hot.”

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Without even a moment to try and explain his horrendous pun, he ran out of the room.

Rose looked at the pipe in her hand, then back to the prince. He just sighed, “he is just lucky that he’s really good at his job. Now let’s get this wardrobe change done.”

In Joy’s humble opinion, stairs were an invention by Pain to keep the foolish mortals in their place. To bypass the horrible stairs, he had decided to slide down them like a child. He would have massive bruise on his back and butt, but it was far better than doing cardio.

After sliding to a stop at the bottom of the staircase Joy started stumbling to Lillian and Theo’s room hoping that his guess was right and that he would still have his job after the whole debacle with the prince.

Lillian and Theo’s room had two distinct sides. One for each person. Theo’s side was streamlined for efficiency. Things were kept incredibly neat and orderly, and everything personal was in various shades of blue. There was not a stray piece of clothing or an unfolded bed sheet in sight.

This contrasted with Lillian’s side, which was much more eclectic. Her room was a controlled mess. No one other than her would have no idea where to find anything in the room, but to her, everything was exactly where she wanted it. The color scheme was nonexistent, her side was filled with colors and textures that clashed awfully. But no one was going to stop her from decorating the room however she pleased.

Joy sauntered into the room, and immediately noticed that both Lillian and Theo were sitting on the floor, drinking tea, and eating cookies. The cookies smelled of almond and looked scrumptious. He stared longingly at those cookies knowing that the other two would never let him have a bite.

Lillian purposefully brought a cookie to her mouth and crunched down on it before asking, “so have you figured it out? Or are you here to announce your defeat?”

“I do know, so why don’t you tell me so I can see if you guys really figured it out.” Joy hoped his plan would work, it was desperate, but he only had an inkling of what the announcement was going to be, not any real confirmation.

“Nuh uh, we heard it directly from Sam’s mouth and got them to promise not to tell you. So, what did you figure out Joy?” Lillian’s shit eating grin had only grown from the beginning of this battle of words, she could smell his weakness and he knew he had been beaten. Theo had just been sitting there calmly sipping his tea, the picture of serenity.

“Fine. I think the prince is setting up an expedition to one of the uninhabitable continents. Searching for an artifact or something.”

At this declaration Lillian and Theo locked eyes, and Lillian’s grin somehow grew even wider.

“Well, I am going to take that favor now.” Lillian said as she scampered away in victory to go get something.

Joy slumped in defeat. He had given it his all, but they had beaten him by just asking someone nicely to tell them. Maybe Joy needed more friends around the castle. Theo stood up and walked to Joy, offering him one of the almond cookies.

“My condolences, no one deserves your punishment.” With those cryptic words Theo left the room.

Joy took a bite of the cookie; it was delicious. But why had Theo given him this cookie and what had Lillian cooked up for him.

Lillian reappeared from wherever she had gone, and she was hiding something furry and wet behind her back.

“My gift is not always useful, as you know Joy, and I had a real bust tonight. All I got from my dream was this possum suit.” From behind her back, she produced a suit that looked like a life-sized humanoid possum that was strangely wet. “And I felt making you wear this to the big event would be the perfect favor to ask of you.”

Lillian’s smile was not infectious, it was terrifying. But Joy was not one to back out of a bet, so he smiled and said, “I really worry about your mental health. Why are you dreaming of possum suits?”

“Put it on and don’t worry about it.” Lillian commanded as she threw the wet, disgusting costume at him and left the room.

Joy squelched his way down the halls with Lillian and Theo. The possum suit seemed to be covered in syrup, it was sickly sweet smelling and just generally uncomfortable to wear. Joy was not having a good time.

The worst part of the whole experience was that no one even looked at him with too much shock and awe. They saw that Lillian ad Theo were walking with him and realized that it must be Joy inside the suit. And that realization seemed to solve this mystery for them. It was just Joy being Joy.

So, Joy squelched and complained as the group of three made their way to the main hall where the prince’s speech was going to take place.

The prince’s hired staff were all milling about in the main hall, discussing what they thought the announcement was going to be about. Many ideas were thrown out, maybe the king was having another child, maybe the prince was having a child, or maybe the prince already had a child that he had recently rediscovered and was introducing him into the high life of royalty. Most of the theories revolved around children for some reason that Joy could not fathom.

As with all great leaders and their speeches, Prince David was running late. But that did not stop the rowdy bunch from forming organized lines and looking deadly serious about this speech.

Joy was spared from being put into this formation since no one wanted to be near him. He just quietly stood in the back corner as all voices fell silent.

The prince walked out in front of his retinue. His hired hands, trusted servants, friends, and even a few enemies stared up at him. He was clad in black from head to toe, he had even changed his hair and eye color using his gift for this event. The prince seemed dark and mysterious to the crowd.

The prince began, “everyone, I am not going to sugarcoat this. We will be going to the frozen continent to search for the legendary first age artifact, Kingmaker. It has recently come to the crown’s attention that a new cult has formed around a new warlord living with the uncivilized tribes of the frozen continent.” The prince took a moment to let the statement wash over the crowd. “Our mission will have two goals. The more important goal is to claim the Kingmaker and present it to the king. The other will be to destroy this new cult at its roots and kill the warlord in control of it.”

Murmurs started to spread throughout the prince’s audience, expeditions to the uninhabitable continents never ended well. Especially when they were going onto the continent to fight a powerful foreign entity.

The prince raised one fist, and everything fell silent. “It will be stupidly dangerous, and I will not force you to come along with me, but there will be rewards for all those involved. Those of you who want it may receive titles of nobility if you perform well enough on this quest. But we must protect our home from the evil that is growing in those frozen wastelands.” At the end of his rousing speech that took no longer than two minutes the prince left the group with their thoughts.

Joy’s mind was racing at the implications of what the prince had just said. He made his way over to the two people who were closest to being his friends in the entire castle.

“You cretins.” Joy said as he smeared his syrupy hands all over Theo and Lillian’s backs. Leaving a trail of goo all over them. “I had it right and you lied to me.”

“That’s what you’re worried about? My little joke, not the warlord amassing power that we are going to have to go fight?” Lillian nearly shrieked out her response.

“I’ve heard of otter things.” Joy did a little twirl after his clever pun.

“You’re wearing a possum suit, not an otter suit.” Theo said before he ineffectually punched the possum’s sticky head.

“Sue me, there aren’t a lot of possum puns. Unless you want me to play dead?”

“I don’t want you to play it.”

Joy ran, leaving a trail the cleaning staff would complain about for the rest of their lives, while Lillian and Theo tried to cut him off. It was a good laugh and almost made them forget about the prince’s speech.

Almost.