The masked people of the theater let out a collective gasp when they saw the blunt. They stopped moving and gathered around the Princess as ooohhhs, and aaaahhhs began to fill the street they were on.
"Holy..." Nadely began, "It's..."
"It's magnificent!" a new masked person of the theater exclaimed from the crowd. "Please Princess, do tell, where did you stumble upon such an item?"
Well, from the Princess's perspective, at least, it was a new member of the people of the theater. I however, heard a familiar voice with a familiar accent that can only be traced to the region of Hajpah, most famously known for their llama traders that roamed every part of Kaijei. The "new" masked figure stepped up removing his mask in front of the Princess.
"Well, actually, sorry you don't have to answer that, it was just to build drama," said Ahmed the llama trader there in the flesh. "I already know where it's from."
The Princess blinked and then gave her usual cute titled head finger on mouth expression.
"Who are you?"
"What!" Ahmed looked shocked, "Surely Hu Shuiliu has mentioned me at least once in your time spent together by now."
The Princess thought for a moment. To be perfectly honest, the memories of my time trading with Ahmed were only now coming back to me. I never kept a lot of new friendships in my adult life but he is someone that I built at least somewhat of a camaraderie with after trading so much. He even invited me a few times to smoke Kush with his 3 llama trader friends though doing so is possibly why I didn't remember him that well. As I looked at the disappointment in his face, I thought to myself, you know, maybe I should have hung out with that crew more. They were certainly an interesting bunch, all llama dealers, all 4 of...
"Does he not remember any of us?"
3 more masked figures came forth removing their masks and what do you know, they were the 3 other llama dealers in Ahmed's crew who were apparently also people of Riki's theater. Who… actually I wish I could tell you more at the moment but I felt my crystal ball vision fade as my mind zoomed back into the smoking room of the Kush shop where Riki was relighting the "Fujoshi Perception" blunt.
"Say Riki, how did you manage to get all these people to join your theater?"
"Oh, that was easy," he said, placing the blunt in his mouth. "I promised them a life of adventure, a life of fun away from their ordinary mundane everyday life, a life… of theater."
He took a couple puffs before passing the blunt back to me.
"Right..." I said taking my first hit. "And it looks like in that regard you succeeded. So the reason they couped you anyway is because..."
"I also promised them a salary for theater performances if it sold well."
"..."
"..."
"But we always had difficulty filling seats."
I took my second hit of the blunt.
"I see..."
"Yeah, I mean, like many ideas, it sounded grand at first. But the reality is, a lot of them had absolutely no experience when it came to acting. Most of them in fact, had absolutely no actual skills at all when it came to theater. The few that did were poached by more popular theaters that could afford to pay a much higher salary compared to I."
He sighed as I handed him the blunt before he took a long hit before exhaling.
"Yeah, those were good times while they lasted. But I really do mean it when I said that I agree with your philosophy in this regard. We all gotta make a coin to survive in this world, right?"
He took a small hit to follow up before handing the blunt back to me.
"So I can't say the coup wasn't deserved."
I took the blunt, taking a hit while trying to process everything he was saying.
"So what are you going to do now then?"
"What am I going to do now?"
He thought about it for a moment.
"I'm… I'm not sure, the theater was all I had to be honest. And then suddenly just… it's gone now."
I took my second hit as he looked at me with sorrow.
"It was just so recent, I haven't even had a chance to digest everything yet Hu, that's why I'm smoking with you now to figure it out to be perfectly honest. Maybe it's because…"
His words were fading now as the "Fujoshi Perception" effects were once again beginning. My vision faded again to the scene where the Princess revealed the golden blunt and was now suddenly surrounded by Ahmed and the other llama traders named uhhh… what were their names again?
"You really don't know who any of us are?!" Ahmed asked the Princess again in shock.
"I bet that narcissist Hu doesn't even remember our names!" one of the llama traders not named Ahmed exclaimed.
"How dare he not remember, Ramil, Lazarus, and Bill!"
...Okay… so, Ahmed, Ramil, Lazorous, and Bill all looked irritated as they continued to guilt me for not remembering them at all. Honestly, I couldn't blame them one bit as if I'm remembering correctly now, they were the ones who...
"How dare he! Especially when it is because of us, you even have that blunt Princess."
"Wait really?" the Princess replied, "He did say that he got these from some llama traders, I just had no idea you'd be here now. That is some coincidence."
"There is no coincidence this time Princess!" Ahmed exclaimed, "After all, how do you think we were able to find you here in the first place?"
"Yeah, honestly we did all the set up and everything," Ramil chimed in, "And yet that bastard Riki still had the galls,"
"That bastard Riki still had the galls!" Lazorous continued "to demand 80% of the total bounty for returning you to the palace. That's fucking outrageous, and goes against every one of my political beliefs!"
I looked at Riki who darted his eyes back and forth whistling innocently upon Lazorous saying a reason for the coup that did not match Riki's.
"Yeah, who the fuck does that?" Bill chimed in, "biggest fucking ego power trip I've ever seen in my fucking life. He threatened to close our theater group all together if that wasn't the plan with the bounty."
"Yeah, it was just a real 'what the fuck' moment," Ahmed said, "he went on and on about how almost all of us were untalented hacks who only have any bit of an exciting life due to his hard work even though... to be honest we don't even know what he does."
"Yeah!" Ramil said, "He's honestly just like the rest of us! He just makes up random shit with absolutely no structure and then wings each step along the way! We could have captured you at the first inn but nooooo… he wouldn't tell us where you were staying until you already left!"
"Yeah, it was healthy for the group. That's why we stabbed him."
The Princess gasped.
"You murde…murdered…"
Her face trembled in terror as the 4 llama traders looked at her puzzled.
"What? No no, we didn't actually… look I know what coup technically means but we just stabbed him with a few prop knives like Mack did to Hu earlier. 50 at once though and he fainted and we left him. But honestly, he deserved it for being selfish."
The crowd of masked figures all nodded in unison.
"Oh okay, that's much less sad" the Princess said thinking back to our bathhouse conversation, "honestly I had no idea he was like that."
"Yeah, it's because he's so good looking right?"
"What? No that's not what I meant... I didn't..."
"Yeah, we don't blame you, you really can't argue with those abs."
"Yeah, or that chiseled jawline."
"True, good looking people are naturally persuasive!"
The Princess's nose was bleeding again. I looked over at Riki who was still innocently whistling at the accusations made about him by the llama traders. Admittedly as I looked closer, he did have nice abs. I wanted to question him further on things but I couldn't really make out words as the blunt was hitting really hard as my vision returned to the Princess.
"Yeah, but that said, 80% is ridiculous. Business owners don't even take that much of a company's profit."
"Yeah, who the hell does Riki even think he is? There are 50 of us, 50 people that all need money, not just him."
"Yeah, if we split the money equally, that comes out to 100,000 Cive for each of us."
"Shit yeah, that's a lot of coins."
The masked figures all nodded in unison.
"Yeah, that's like 10 years worth of rent money."
"Yeah, it's quite a bit, but I don't think we can retire on it or anything."
"True, but it will definitely accelerate our sales. I'm definitely upgrading my llama with that money."
"Hmmm…" the Princess thought for a moment, "you bring up a good question, what are you all going to do with the money after you get it?"
The crowd of masked figures collectively began chatting about the Princess's question.
"Yeah, I don't know, I haven't really thought about it."
"I'm going to pay for my sister's medical expenses!"
"Oh really, that's so noble of you, I'll probably spend mine buying a new cottage home to be honest."
"What? In this market? No way could you buy a cottage with just 100,000 Cive, you have outside savings as well?"
"Uhhh... yeah, it's stored at the Riguo banks right now though."
"I want to buy 2 male dancers, at the same time!"
"I know exactly what I want to buy," Ahmed said stepping forward, "it is something I have dreamed about owning for a long time but never something I ever had enough capital on hand at once to purchase. You boys know exactly what I'm talking about right?"
His 3 boys, Ramil, Lazorous, and Bill all nodded.
"A llama wagon!" they said in unison.
The Princess tilted her head. Seriously, even though I had seen it at least 100 times now, it was still the cutest thing I had ever seen in my entire life.
"A llama wagon?" she asked, "That's just a horse wagon but with llamas instead of horses, right?"
"Ahhh..." Ahmed said, "That's right, Riguo is a grassy country filled with horses as the main animal of transportation. Yes Princess, llama wagons are the horse wagon equivalent in our home country of Hajbah which is filled with the sandy grounds of the desert that the first settlers rode on."
"See! I knew it."
My vision zoomed back to my 3D environment as Riki interrupted my trance.
"Most of these guys have basic as fuck wishes. Like really? A cottage? 2 guy dancers at the same time? A mother fucking llama wagon? That's so boring."
I refrained myself from slapping him, as for my own horse carriage, I spent a good 6 months of my life basically hustling nonstop and traveling from place to place on just a horse at first before I was able to afford my wagon. Unfortunately, the couch I was sitting on at the moment was too comfortable for me to attempt such a thing as I just let Riki continue to talk.
"They don't dream, Hu, they don't dream about something bigger."
He let out a long sigh.
"None of them, absolutely none of them, have the same vision as I do Hu. Do you think I wanted the 80% for my own personal benefit? No no, nothing of the sort. If I had 80% of the bounty, you know what I would do Hu?"
The blunt's crystal ball effects had faded so I couldn't tune him out with a scene switch like previously. And plus, I was actually curious to hear what he had to say. Even if I disagreed with what that would be, it certainly sounded like something that would be interesting to listen to.
"What would you do Riki?"
"I would buy or rent out the best theaters in each major city. And then I would put on shows for free."
"For free?"
That certainly is more interesting.
"That does sound pretty nice, but surely for something as grand as that vision, even 5,000,000 Cive will not be a sustainable amount after a while. I assume, you would still pay the people of the theater for performing, no?"
He sighed as he relit the "Fujoshi Perception" blunt.
"Yes... I'm aware, which is why although the shows will be free for anyone to watch, I will still be accepting donations for after the show. That sounds like a more fair way of doing things anyways, no? I won't receive any such donations if I put on a boring show. So it ensures I always have to put out the highest quality shows each time."
He took a big hit.
"Still, I swear to you, putting on free shows is exactly what I planned to do with the money, Hu. For it is this boring world of average everyday citizens who spend long hours doing things they probably don't want to do just to earn the coin for their survival that deserve it. I see a great problem Hu, a great problem among the people in the restaurants, the people on the streets, and most of all..."
He darted his eyes back and forth.
"I see it in the people at the churches," he said whispering to me, "thanks to businessmen like us, no longer is the world filled with starving people. But replacing it now instead is a bigger pandemic that consumes an everyday person's life."
He took his second hit before passing me the blunt.
"You know what that is Hu?"
I took the blunt, taking a long hit before replying to him the answer I already knew.
"Boredom..."
"Exactly Mr. Hu, exactly!" he said, clapping his hands, "perhaps you should even think about joining my theater when I wrestle back control of it. There are not many people I see like you anymore. People with true artistic potential. Because yes, as you said, we all need to make a coin to survive. But it's not like you actually like the coin and the power it holds, no? You probably think of it the same way I do. Just a means to an end of curing the endless boredom in our lives."
I nodded, taking my second hit of the blunt. To be honest, he was spot on with every bit of his psychoanalysis of me. I didn't really care for the coin outside of its representation of freedom and the necessity that I have to do so. And everything he said about the theater and his grand vision, it all seemed so fascinating to me. Still...
"That all sounds super fun, Riki. I don't know how you managed to do it, but you managed to convince me that your goals are noble. I suppose the lesson for me here is to always listen to everyone's part of the story before giving judgment. Even so..."
I set the blunt down as my vision began to fade back to the Princess.
"Even so…"
"Even so," he interrupted, "you won't let me because you're in love with the Princess right?" he said before the scene returned to her and the other masked people of the theater.