"I need to see the King urgently, his life might be in grave danger!" Celeria, the elven adventurer, yelled at the knight guarding the imposing oak gate in front of her. She was standing in the outer courtyard of the king's castle.
"Look, as I already told you, His Majesty will start giving public audiences soon, If you want to talk to him you'll have to wait in line like the rest." The guard pointed at a very long queue of people that passed through the outer courtyard and reached outside the castle grounds.
"Yeah, no cutting in line! I have been waiting here since before sunrise!" Yelled an old man in the front of the line, with the people behind him murmuring in agreement.
Celeria scoffed. The conversation with the guard had been going in circles and she was no closer to meeting the king. "But he could be dead by the time it's my turn!"
"No exceptions."
How could the guard be so uncaring about his monarch's life? Celeria needed a way in. She could not stand idle while someone's life was in danger. Not to mention the reward she would receive for warning the king would probably be more than enough to recoup her recent financial setbacks.
No. She couldn't queue and wait till nightfall. Celeria sprang into action. She used one of the few spells she knew to magically unlock the door open before tackling it open. She ran towards the throne room, with the guard in hot pursuit and the line of people booing her for cutting in front of them.
Celeria ran up a magnificent staircase and rushed into the imposing throne room. Lavish paintings and marble statues decorated the walls. The king sat on an equally opulent throne. The bearded monarch was discussing matters of state with a crowd of courtiers before he noticed her entrance.
"My Lord, my name is Celeria…" she bowed to the king "… and I have come to save your life." The elf tried to lift her head, but the guard caught up and grabbed her golden hair, forcing her to remain bowed.
"Sorry my liege. I let this interloper get past me, but-"
The king lifted his hand. "Let her talk." The guard nodded and backed away.
"Thank you My Liege. You see, I'm an adventurer by trade, and I was recently tasked with clearing a den of vile and voracious vermin that had infested the halls of a local storehouse. After I finished my job, I found a most curious half-nibbled note there." Celeria reached into her green tunic and pulled out a musty parchment. She passed it to the guard, who handed it over to the King.
"My word..."
"As you can plainly read, the letter attempts to rally a cabal of vampires to perform a coup. More pressingly, it is signed by none other than the man you have right at your side, Count Vembena."
Celeria pointed at a pale man sporting a black cloak, his hood concealing his face almost completely. He was joined by an equally pale woman clad in a black dress with an also obscuring face veil.
"That's impossible, he's my cousin. I have known him since we were kids. He is not a vampire or any sort of creature!"
"Come on, just look at the guy! Then why is he dressed like he is afraid of the color white and standing where the rays of the sun can't touch him?"
"I have a hangover," the Count explained. "If you must know, my dear mother-in-law recently passed away and I have turned to my finest wines for comfort in these sad days. These are my mourning clothes."
"I can confirm that what my cousin said is true. And so soon after your wedding too." The King offered the Count his silent condolences. "I'm not going to allow you to slander my family based on a random note you found next to some dead rats. Get out before I throw you into the dungeon."
"I'm sorry, My Liege, but if you don't believe me I'll have to prove it to you." Celeria knew from past experience that random notes never lied. It was like people had a compulsion to write even the most random details about their lives in whatever parchment they could find.
An arrow to the head would prove to the court that the Count was not human. He would either catch it with his inhuman reflexes or survive the attack completely unscathed.
Celeria readied her bow and reached for an arrow, She grabbed something from her quiver and pulled a …apple. What? She reached again, another apple, and then another. She looked at her quiver and found it was full of apples! What happened to her arrows?
"Looking for something?" A voice called out behind Celeria. An impish-looking man wearing a red/green jester suit was using one of the arrows as a toothpick.
"Did you just attempt to shoot at the Count? Guard, seize this woman immediately!"
"Allow me, your Liegeness" The jester rolled up his sleeves and struck an exaggerated boxing pose "I'll give this intruder the what for!" He bounced on his feet back and forth. The King's lips twisted into an amused smile. With another wave of his hand, he motioned at the guard to stay back.
Celeria stared at the fool, tilting her head. Was the jester serious? Well, obviously not, considering his profession. Still, better face him than a knight. All she had to do now was evade the little man, run towards the Count, and push him into the light. That would reveal to everyone that he was a vampire.
Celeria ran forward but the jester leaped in front of her way. He used her moment to grab her arm, spin to the left, and throw her towards the wall. Celeria crashed between two paintings.
"I gotta say, my old pop was a hunter. I always wanted to try archery. Don´t mind if I do." The Jester mocked, aiming his bow at the elf.
Celeria looked at her back and gasped. With a sleight of hand, the jester had stolen her weapons from under her nose. It seemed like she wasn´t facing any regular old fool. "It takes years to hone one´s marksmanship to be able to use a bow correctly. You couldn't even hit the wall behind me if you tried."
"Maybe I don´t know nothing about marksmanship, but I am an expert in piemanship."
Before Celeria could do anything else, the jester pulled three cream pies seemingly out of thin air and threw them at her. The elf managed to dodge the first and second pie, but the third one hit her square in the face.
The nobles started laughing pretty enthusiastically. Celeria cleaned the cream in front of her eyes just in time to see the clown using her bow to shoot her own arrows at her. "How hard can this be? Oops!"
"Ahh!" Celeria raised her arms in defense, but the arrows only grazed her, pinning her cloak to the wall.
"Drat," The jester shrugged. "I guess you were right, I completely missed! I guess I need more practice."
The jester was readying to fire again. Celeria´s reflexes kicked in and she slipped out of her cloak barely in time to dodge the shot. Luckily, the man had run out of arrows and was standing on the other side of the room. It was her chance to expose the Count.
Celeria sprinted toward the throne, getting closer and closer with no sign of anyone coming to stop her. The nobles didn't seem worried. In fact, the closer she got, the more amused they became. Why? Celeria felt a curious draft on her skin and looked down, her tunic was gone! All the nobles were getting a good eyeful of her naked breasts bouncing up and down as she approached. The elf stopped dead in her tracks and hugged her chest.
"No undergarments!" the jester yelled. "You adventurers sure like to have freedom in all aspects of life, huh?"
"It's not like that!" Celeria said as a hot blush formed on her cheeks. "I just didn't have enough money to buy everything I needed and underwear isn't really nec… Why I am telling you this?"
"Cause I'm very charming."
Celeria scoffed at her opponent. Her eyes examined the room in search of her tunic. She found it! Or at least what remained of it. One of the arrows had caught on to a loose part of the fabric and the whole thing had ripped apart while she ran. The remnants of the garment were pinned to the wall.
Momentarily forgetting about her quest, Celeria ran back to get her cloak and cover herself. After two steps, she felt her feet come to an involuntary stop, causing her to almost trip over herself. Celeria held on to the chest of a nearby statue of a woman for balance, causing her hand to get stuck to the sculpture.
Celeria tried and tried, but her feet and hand refused to budge, there was some weird substance that glued her boots to the floor and her palm to the surprisingly heavy statue. She kept struggling to get free, failing to notice the jester sneaking in behind her.
Grinning from ear to ear, the jester pulled down the adventurer´s pants, exposing Celeria's round bottom to the court. The elf squeaked in surprise and tried to pull them up with her free hand, but the glue got them stuck to the floor too.
The jester took a bow towards his audience. "Now she lies as bare as her lie," he added, and the court gave him a round of applause. "Ready to surrender?"
"Never." Celeria knew she was better than that two-bit circus clown. She would beat this buffoon, recover what was left of her clothes, prove that the Count was a vampire, and then be handsomely rewarded.
Mustering all her strength, Celeria jumped out of her boots to get free, landing a couple of feet away from her tormentor. The momentum of the jump was also enough to free her hand, although in doing, she pulled the statue down to the floor, shattering two of its arms. Before the jester could react, she grabbed a nearby portrait from the wall and smashed his face with it.
The comedian recoiled back, trying to pull the frame out of it´s neck. Celeria calmed down a little, allowing her to feel the intense gaze of her spectators over her bare skin. Cold sweat rolled over her forehead as she realized she was now naked in front of the most influential people in the kingdom. She grabbed another painting and placed it in front of her body. Ironically, she picked a portrait of another naked woman to cover her own body.
"Ack!" Celeria ducked as a pie went flying above her head. The jester had removed the painting from his neck, and he seemed mad. The short man again pulled pies out of thin air and started throwing them at Celeria. She quickly grabbed the painting and used it as a shield against the creamy projectiles, but the unrelenting onslaught made her back away until she was almost against an open window.
The barrage stopped. The painting was completely covered in cream, as were Celeria's legs and the fingers she used to hold her artsy shield. She peeked out from behind her cover and saw nothing. The jester seemingly vanished, but where could he have gone? For a man with bells in his hat, he was remarcably sneaky.
Celeria heard a distinctive bell jingle above her, looked up, and saw a familiar clown hanging upside down from the roof using a rope coming out of his sleeve.
"BOO"
Celeria took a startled jump backward, tripping over the window sill and falling out of the tower. She screamed for her life in freefall, the wind rushing against her bare skin as she plummeted downwards.