The lucky Storyteller

I had to rely on their fear.

I watched their reactions: fear, anger, despise. I knew I sounded like a total villain, but I didn't need them to trust me. I wasn't about to trust them either.

"Does this mean we will have a chance to get out of here alive?" asked the old man, while the others kept silent. I could hear their breathing stopped in wait for my answer.

"Maybe."

"Then I take it. I can't speak for the others, but, for me, a 'maybe' is better than just waiting for the kings' sentence," said the old man, looking at the child hiding behind him.

"I take this chance too," said a young woman. "I would do anything to get away from here and kill the king."

"Yeah," other voices joined her.

"Oh, and how can you kill the king, when you can't escape from a simple dungeon?" I asked, letting them know the sarcasm in my tone.

"The king is weak," she replied. "We may not be able to escape from here on our own, but that doesn't mean we are weak. I am a rank B wizard, and my team is made from rank C adventurers. If I had a staff, I could blow off this whole dungeon!"

"Yeah, and bury all alive, along with yourself. Besides, the king may be a weakling, but he sure is not surrounded by them, especially tonight. You seem like a person who first acts, then thinks... but by the time you think, it's too late. And this is not a time to make stupid mistakes that could cost the lives of everyone."

She muttered something that I couldn't comprehend, avoiding looking in my direction.

"Louder!"

"I said I wouldn't endanger the lives of the others, but I will fight the king and all his guards. My life can be of use as a distraction to get the others away."

"I too will fight the guards," said the robust man, followed by three other people who nodded, and I guessed that they were her team.

"As much as I want to see a master in action, I'm afraid this time you won't get the chance to make your bravery shine. Is any of you a healer?"

A woman raised her hand reluctantly.

"I used to be the disciple of a healer, but I lack in talent, so I can only heal cuts and bruises... if they're not very serious... and if I'd had a staff to help me canalize and focus my magic right."

"I see," I said, looking for a healer staff inside my pouch, and it delivered a very heavy one, made of silver and with a beautiful, round and large, yellow stone, maybe a diamond. It sure wasn't an ordinary healer staff. I pulled off a corner of the painting, just to throw the staff near one of the prisoners. "Will this do?"

Their eyes almost popped out when they saw the staff, and their mouths dropped. 

"Take it and heal the ones in need."

The woman looked as she was about to faint.

"But! I... just... what..." she stuttered, shaking her head in disbelief.

"It's not like I'll give this to you for good. I'll take it back. But right now, I need to preserve my strength and magic, and I can't be bothered with a simple task such as healing you, so it's the least you can do. Until I return, heal them all and be ready to follow my instructions."

She took the staff with trembling hands. I didn't stay any longer there to watch them, I had my own agenda, but I wanted them to see me as a very powerful being, so that they wouldn't even think to hurt me or disobey me. At the first sign of danger from their side, I was determined to abandon them without any remorse.

I ran to the corpse and started to carry it as fast as I could to the kings' chamber. There, I took a short break to catch my breath and gather clothes from the wardrobe room for the prisoners.

"Hmm. I guess they need warm clothes. Cloaks are good. Also, the boots. As for their heads... maybe the wigs will keep them warm... Yeah, I'll take them too."

As I was returning from the wardrobe room, the buffet on the corner picked my attention. There were lots of meats, hydromel, ale, wines, dried fruits, compotes, salt fish in a sour-sweet sauce, and meat pies.

"They have no real dessert. The food is pretty plain, even for a royal face. And these meats are so spicy. Could it be that the spices are a rarity here so the more you use the more appreciated you are? Yeah, it seems like it. I can't feel the taste of meat from all that pepper. Bleah, what the heck is this? This meat is perfumed with rose water! Damn it! Like the meals from old French cuisine, where they perfumed everything. Okay, I will leave this be. I doubt anyone would like it. I don't see any vegetables. There aren't in this world or the royalty is not very fond of potatoes? Well, I do remember that the potatoes were not appreciated by old nobility from my world, as they were seen as the pigs' food or that of the peasants. If that's the case, the food here is quite boring. Though, I can't really blame them. This world seems pretty medieval to me."

I took the food too, then returned to the corpse. As I was about to follow the tunnel to my room, I turned my head in the direction I saw Bezmal going and, against my better judgement, I went there.

As I was walking there, I could've heard the words from below the dome, as those gathered down there, at the auction, were arguing about their favorite hero and all wanted the one that seemed the strongest. They insulted each other a lot, bidding more and more. I tried to ignore them.

Soon, I reached a purple door with intricate ornaments, even metal roses that could've been taken as real. Just as I was about to touch one of those beautiful roses, at almost two centimeters away from the petals, I retreated my fingers.

"This is wrong!" I thought, and a second later a needle broke off from among the petals, from its nib dropping a purple resin. The needle sat there for three seconds, then slowly retracted back into the petals core. "Again poison? That murderous bi... But wait, if these passages were designed for the king to use, why would there be a door with a very high possibility to hurt or even kill the king? Could it be that the king wasn't aware of this poisonous door? Or was he aware but there was something so precious inside that he didn't want to risk anyone finding it... except Bezmal? Hm, he seemed very... dependable on Bezmal and from the way she talked with him, looked to me that she has the real power since her words have the same heaviness as the ones of the kings... Which means that if the king dies, she would have all the power in her hands."

I got my fingers closer to another flower for a moment, and retreated them as fast as I could when the nib of another needle sprung forth.

"So it's activated by the body heat. I guess this is as far as I can go here. No matter how valuable the things inside are, they are not worth my life."

 I returned to the corpse, and this time I never stopped until I reached my room.

From inside I could've heard angry knocks. The candles that I left lit were almost gone, but still showed me how the bathrooms' door was kicked from inside. It wasn't more until whatever was trapped inside was about to set free to wreak havoc. It was dangerous to go there, so I changed the clothes of the corpse with my pajama and slippers, then threw the body inside. Also, I've put my candle on top of the bed, close to one of the beds' pillars, so that I would start a fire. It was necessary so that I could hide the obvious cause of the death.

The candles flickered a few times, and when they stopped, before their fading light that cast ominous shadows on the walls, the creature from the bath escaped and threw itself on the corpse lying on the floor. Soon, the four-posted beds' drapes caught fire and I ran away from there, hoping their forensic science wasn't well-versed.