Chapter 28: A King of Wonders
Troy finally arrived at the Grand Staircase, and sure enough, just as King Jekazar said, there was a map showing how big and magnificent the castle was. Troy then glanced even closer.
"Wow! His castle has eight floors!" Troy exclaimed. He couldn't believe how massive the overall square feet of the whole castle would be. He observed it more carefully, and found where the Guest Room would be. He walked up to the 3rd floor of the castle, and there the rooms were.
"Well," Troy said. "I might as well go over to the last Guest Room at the very end."
Troy could hear Konah and Kentar's voice finishing his sentence in his head saying, "In my opinion, that is the best!"
Troy headed over to the last guest room at the end of the long looking hallway, and opened it. He was a bit more surprised than last time. It looked just like Konah's and Kentar's castle, only combined together, and just like the arches, it was purple and green.
Troy opened the window and checked the scene of the entire area, and it was a good sight, as usual. He could see another forest a few hundred meters from where he was, and he of course knew that forest was the forest the played Royal Forest Flags in!
"Alright… what should I do?" Troy thought to himself, but then smelled grass in him. "I know! I might as well take a shower and remove this grass smell from me."
When he got inside the shower, he looked down and stared at those metal plated pads.
"Are you kidding me?!" Troy asked to himself in disbelief.
Troy sighed.
"Oh well, at least it pumps out water." He joked with himself.
Troy put his bare feet on the metal plated pads and then pushed down with his feet. Immediately, a handful of water splashed down on him. Troy kept on pressing down the pads with his feet, which actually kind of felt soothing to him. Or, to at least his bare feet, that is!
(12 MINUTES LATER)
Troy couldn't find his outfit when he finished taking a shower, but that was okay, because he was wearing those bathrobe towels that you cover you waist and below with. Troy was kind of embarrassed though, and slightly blushed when he had to run away from those women like the Musketeers, and the archers, and the Valkyrie.
Troy finally was able to lock himself into his room and breathe out a sigh of relief. A few seconds later though, he heard a knock on the door. He forgot to say, "Who is it?" and just opened the door anyways, but it was okay for him again! The outfit was freshly cleaned and iron and hanging on a golden hanger in the front side of the door. He smiled.
"Thanks, whoever cleaned my outfit!" he said, but of course said it to the open hallway that was leading back to the Royal Grand Staircase.
He quickly swapped what he was wearing, so now, instead of wearing holding the bathrobe instead of the outfit he was wearing, he was wearing the outfit instead of the bathrobe.
"It should be sunset by now, so I might as well go see what goes on in the Royal Dining Room!" Troy excitedly said as he left his room. Soon, he only walked a few steps down the grand staircase when he soon could smell the tasting aroma from the kitchen. He decided not to be greedy and head to the dining room instead of the kitchen.
"Wow, I never knew how good all of these foods could taste like!" Troy exclaimed.
As Troy went inside the Royal Dining Room, he could see King Jekazar, and what looked like to be his son, who was a Prince.
"Hi Jekazar!" Troy greeted him.
"Hello!" Jekazar greeted him. "This is my son, Kalit, and he is very excited to meet you."
"Nice to meet you Kalit." Troy nodded at him.
"A pleasure to meet you too and may I ask, what is your name?" Kalit asked.
"The name is Troy." Troy nodded.
"Troy, eh?" Kalit asked.
"Troy." Troy repeated back. "The name can mean many things, can it?."
"Indeed!" Jekazar nodded.
Troy took an open seat next to Kalit, who was one seat away from Jekazar, who was sitting at the head of the table of course.
It was just a few seconds of silence, before soon, some more troops started arriving.
"Hey Jekazar, I didn't know troops get to dine at the royal dining room!" Troy exclaimed.
"Yep. The most important troops who played a big role and helped out a lot in the last arena duel get the honor to dine here!" Jekazar proudly replied back.
"And if there aren't any helpful troops, there is still a cycle, and everyone will eventually get their turn!" Kalit said.
"That makes sense. It's also fair too!" Troy agreed.
Soon, more trumpets were sounding a few minutes later, and Troy sighed. Everything almost sounded the same, just like Kentar and Konah. He was hoping Jekazar could be different, in any other way there was.
"So Jekazar," Troy began, "Do you have daughters?"
"Yep!" Jekazar nodded. "But the truth it, I have more sons then daughters."
"Really!" Troy said, kind of surprised. "Are they all princes?" he asked again.
"Yep!" Jekazar nodded. "But Kalit here is good with operating with explosives!"
Kalit nodded, smiling. "I don't also mean to brag Troy, but I can operate a firecracker, and with my skill, I can take out an army of giants!"
"Whoa!" Troy said astounded but smirked. "I can do better than that!" he thought to himself.
"Well, where are your other sons?" Troy asked Jekazar.
"Don't worry, here they come!" Kalit pointed towards the entrance at the dining room. Troy looked in Kalit's direction where he was pointing. He could see, one by one, more princes approaching at soon, there were a total of seven standing there.
"Good evening my sons!" Jekazar nodded. "How was your daily training of jousting?" he asked them.
"It was great dad." One of the princes nodded.
"Who is he?" another of the princes asked.
"His name is Troy, and he is new to the castle!" Kalit nodded.
"Oh. Well then, I sure hope you will enjoy our father's castle!" another of the seven princes nodded. "He's got some great things ready for you in store!"
"Yeah, I can see some of the great things!" Troy laughed, as one of the first things that were "great" was the shower pads.
Soon, the smell of the great food was started to get into Troy's nose, and he nearly fainted from that entire good aroma.
"Is there something special today?" Troy asked Jekazar, despite all of that good aroma food.
"No, this is the kind of dinner we would have every day, when there is not a special day!" Jekazar proudly stated.
"Wow, you must have really good professional chefs!" Troy smirked.
"Actually, we don't!" Kalit exclaimed.
Troy was shocked by that.
"Then how do you have such good food brought to the table?" he asked.
"You see Troy; a hard task doesn't have to be done by professional chefs." Jekazar nodded.
"That's right! We have a huge team of chefs that are in beginner and intermediate classes of cooking!" Kalit added.
"Oh I get it!" Troy realized. "You are saying you don't have to have a team of professional chefs, you just have an even bigger team full of beginner and intermediate chefs!"
"That's correction!" Kalit nodded.
"Yes. It doesn't matter what kind of style and technique you use in the kitchen, the only thing that matters is that it will get the job done!" said one of Jekazar's sons.
"I agree to that one!" Troy nodded.
A few minutes later, more trumpets sounded, and Troy obviously knew the Queen was about to arrive. He was right. The Queen, walked calmly and slowly to the opposite end of the dining table, smiling at everyone.
"Good evening everyone!" exclaimed the queen.
"Good evening Queen Quaboa!" said everyone and bowed. Troy knew the procedures of how to greet the Queen, but he pretended he knew the Queen's name by mouthing a random Queen name, and for some strange reason, he guessed correctly, but no one knew that.
A few moments after that, everyone started talking about their own thing, and Jekazar, Quaboa, and Kalit and Troy were all conversing.
"You are new to the castle!" Quaboa exclaimed. "That's wonderful. Jekazar is a really good King, and that's what makes his kingdom so efficient!"
"Yeah, and you two raise a good family!" Troy said to Jekazar and Quaboa.
"Why, thank you!" Quaboa said enthusiastically.
"Yep! We train both our sons and daughters and our Royale team really hard when they were young. When you are young in age, now is the time to start training to become a master at a skill, and that's what I learned when I grew up to be a King!" Jekazar added.
"Training at a young age huh?" Troy nodded. Troy could still remember the first thing he saw when he was a baby brought out to the world. The sky, staring straight at it. Apart from the hospital bed and his mom and dad all those though, of course he saw those people and things!
"So Troy, how did you managed to find some of my Royales playing Royal Forest Flags?" Jekazar asked.
"I was playing Royal Forest Flags in King Kentar's forest." Troy answered back. "I went off to find the flag, and then I guess you could say, I wondered TOO far. Anyways, I then thought I found the red team's flag, only to find out that I was actually playing the game in your forest!" Troy finished.
"Well, well! That seems very interesting." Kalit exclaimed.
"It sure is." Jekazar smiled.
Soon, the chefs and Jekazar's daughters began serving the food, and Jekazar's daughters were obviously Princesses.
"So those are your daughters Jekazar?" Troy asked.
"Yes." Jekazar nodded. "They trained to shoot arrows ever since they were young enough to hold a bow!"
"Wow!" Troy exclaimed. "That's unbelievable!"
"Believe it!" one of the seven princes said. "We are very proud to have a father and King like Jekazar's, and are very glad to have a mother and Queen like Quaboa."
"You sure got reason to be proud and glad!" Troy smiled.
"Hey daughters! I want you to meet a new friend we have here. This is Troy!" Jekazar proudly said, so that his whole voice boomed across the room.
"Um… okay, hi Troy. My name is Penelope." Said the first princess.
"Yeah, nice to meet you… my name is Paloma." said the second princess.
"My name is Palena." The third princess smiled. "Forgive my two other sisters. They are really shy around new people."
"Hey!" Paloma said, annoyed at Palena. Palena giggled at that.
After that, the three princesses left back to the kitchen to get and serve some more food.
"I think we should introduce ourselves too." One of the seven princes nodded.
"Alright. My name is Paul." The first prince nodded at Troy.
"My name is Percy." Said the second prince smiling a bit.
"The name for me is Peleke." Said the third prince. "I am the oldest of the seven of these princes, with many years put into jousting training." He said that with a neutral tone, but Troy knew it was the good kind of neutral tone.
"My glorious name is Pesmeke!" exclaimed the fourth prince. I just love the sound of my lance smashing onto my target!
"Yep! When those lances smash, it sounds very painful!" Troy nodded.
"My name is Pakwuhu." Said the fifth prince. "When people dare attack my family and team, count me in! I like the sound of defense!"
"Yeah, defending is really vital when someone attacks you!" Troy smiled.
"Name's Pancok!" said the sixth prince. "Need to take out a horde in style, I'm your prince!" he exclaimed.
"Then I know you are really useful in the family Pancok!" Troy smiled.
"Of course I am!" Pancok replied back.
"My name is Punija." Said the seventh and last prince. "I am the youngest of all these seven princes, but that certainly doesn't that mean I am the weakest of these seven princes!"
"Yep! Age doesn't really matter that much when in comparison." Troy agreed.
"Well there you have it Troy! You got all of my eight sons names in your mind?" Jekazar joked.
"I will try to remember!" Troy laughed.
Soon, Penelope, Paloma, and Pelena arrived back, carrying the last of the main dinner. Troy could hardly wait.
After everyone was situated in their seat, everyone started bowing their heads. Troy didn't know why, so he did the same thing. It turns out that Jekazar was actually going to say a prayer of thanks for the food they had!
"Supercell, we greatly thank you for another life at this realm, and enjoy your food and other creations…" Jekazar began the prayer.
(42 SECONDS LATER)
Troy was among those we said "Amen" after the end of the prayer, and soon, the food was uncovered from the platter cover.
The dinner was roasted chicken, roasted beef, steamed vegetables, a medium sized plate of beets that were sliced up, a large bowl of steak, a super large plate with 15 large corn that were on a stick, a large pile of juicy okra that were on another big plate, and cranberries, but the cranberries were packed onto a large red blob, but that was no exception to Troy. There was also fresh orange juice, wine, and blueberry juice.
"Wow, this is a lot of food to choose from!" Troy exclaimed.
"And this is just a regular normal day dinner!" said Paul.
"Yeah. Can you imagine what the dinner would be on a very special day?" said Percy.
Troy tried to imagine it in his mind, and he couldn't even attempt. He could picture so much food on the table; there might be platforms on the table to house multiple plates!
"That's just mind-boggling!" Troy exclaimed.
"Yep!" Kalit nodded. "Food is one of the key essentials that keep this family going."
"Of course!" Troy nodded.
Troy took some steak, chicken, beef, two corn on a stick, a little bit of okra, an a little bit of the cranberry blob. He didn't want to be too greedy and take everything he likes. After all, they cooked it for everyone.
"This okra tastes really good!" Troy exclaimed. Even though the okra still had the bitter taste for it, something in that made it taste really good! He knew what the cause was. Since there were so many chefs working on all the food at once, they had their own way and taste of doing things.
(16 MINUTES LATER)
Seriously, that dessert looks so tasty!" Troy exclaimed.
"Thanks! I thought I put in a bit too much cream in the pineapple cake, but I guess it was enough!" Palena said.
"Well, it was sure enough! Seriously, you have the chef's taste for food!" Troy exclaimed, and Palena blushed a bit after that.
"You really think so?" she asked.
"Yeah!" Troy replied back.
"Well…thanks!" she exclaimed.
Troy looked around him after that. Everything looked so normal in Jekazar's castle, but at the same time, he admired Jekazar's family for having a really good happy connection with each other.
"Hey Troy! You want some extra cherries on top of your pineapple cake slice?" asked Pesmeke.
"I might as well have some! Yeah, thanks!" Troy smiled as he slid his plate over and Pesmeke picked up 2 more seedless cherries from a bowl and put them on the pineapple cake. He slid it back to Troy.
"Thanks!" Troy said.
"No problem. " Pesmeke nodded.
Troy was beginning to like King Jekazar's castle.
"You know, maybe he is actually a King of Wonders after all!" Troy said, smiling.