Chapter 23 The King

"They sure do revere you Neph, these are some amazing statues, and the detail is exquisite," I tease Neph silently.

(It sounds to me like someone is jealous that they don't have any statues of themselves)

Tsk, just you wait, I'll have even better statues than these two and they'll be even bigger, maybe I'll have them adorn the front gate to Rinascita," I reply haughtily falling for his teasing instead of the other way around.

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The three of us made our way up the grand set of stairs leading to the main doors of the Royal Castle after admiring all the statues along the way from the front gate. I was still irritated by my exchange with Neph because I was the one that ended up being teased by Neph instead of vise-versa.

As we reached the doors, two guards standing beside them opened them allowing them entrance into the castles main hall.

Entering the castle, the three of us walk on an ornate crimson and gold rug that centers the main halls floor while the walls are adorned with various suits of armor along with different styles of axes which each set of amor.

"These are all the armor sets and weapons of each of the previous kings, after they passed away their equipment is set up here in the main hall of the Royal Castle in honor of their life. Each king hand made their own armor set and weapons whilst they were alive so that is why each one has such a distinct style," the guild master explains as they make their way to the throne room.

At the end of the hall there is a massive set of onyx double doors trimmed in gold with an ornate golden crown on the left door and an ornate golden hammer and anvil on the other.

"These two symbols are what make up the royal seal," the guild master explains as he also pulls the pendent out from around his neck showing the same two symbols engraved upon it.

As we approached the doors to the throne room the pendent started the glow faintly and the doors began to open. As they opened, they didn't make a single sound indicating that they were moving, if they hadn't been looking at the doors, they wouldn't have known they even moved.

"Is this magic? How can such massive and heavy doors move without so much as a sound? Why did your pendent glow?" I ask in amazement.

"The stone is enchanted by the mages guild to act as a key to the throne room. The doors are identically enchanted to unlock when a pendent is presented in front of them, they're also enchanted with sound cancelation in order to not cause any disturbances inside the throne room. There are many different enchantments upon the door that not even I know the exact ones used on it," the guild master explains.

"This is amazing, I should make a trip to visit this guild, maybe I can get one of the mages to join us," I say to Damian as several thoughts flash across my mind about what could be done to Rinascita.

"That would indeed be beneficial if we could have one join us," Damian relies back deep in thought.

"What do you mean join you? You mean join your monster hunting party?" The guild master asks confused as to what we're talking about.

"In a way yes but also no, it's a lot to explain and we don't have a whole lot of time to discuss it right now," I tell the guild master as we walk through the throne room doors.

The three of us walk into the throne room after the doors have fully swung open, inside the throne room there are banners hanging from the ceiling with different symbols inlaid upon them. At the far end of the throne room resting upon a raised platform is the throne for the king of the dwarven kingdom and sitting upon it is none other than the king himself.

As we neared the king sitting upon his throne the three of them kneeled before him in respect and waited to be addressed by the king.

"Rise," states the king a warm manner.

Upon hearing the king's acknowledgement of us kneeling before him, we slowly rose and continue to stand before him.

"Welcome Paul, it's good to see you again, I'm glad that you're doing well," the king says with a smile on his face.

Damian and I look at the guild master in confusion because this was the first time, we heard his name. We never thought to ask him for his name either because all the guild members just called him guild master. We felt rather stupid for the fact that we just did like everyone else instead of asking for his name.

Noticing the pair looking at him he understands what they're thinking and chuckles, "don't worry about it, everyone calls me guild master except for his majesty, he refuses and insists upon calling me by my name," Paul says with a chuckle.

Hearing what Paul said the king starts to laugh boisterously as Damian and I give Paul and the king confused looks. Seeing how these two new individuals were in a state of utter confusion the king laughed even harder to the point that he had tears in his eyes.

After finally calming down from laughing for the past several minutes the king looks at Damian and I, it's a pleasure to meet you both, my name is Golaium.

"So, Paul who are your friends here and why have the three of you come to see me all of a sudden?" Golaium says regaining his composure.

"This goblin here is James, he is the first visitor to our great city in centuries and with him is his friend and hunting companion Damian. They recently came to my guild looking for work to gain money and to hunt monsters. So, after I met with them and judged their character, I invited them to join my expedition to hunt down the Scarlet Death Spiders," Paul explains to Golaium while pointing to myself and Damian identifying them whilst explaining.

"Ah yes, I remember your request to go and hunt them down. How did that go by the way, weren't you supposed to leave a few day ago to begin the expedition? You couldn't have completed it in this short of an amount of time, what went wrong, or did you discover something?" Golaium asked as he looked at the three of us whilst rubbing his chin in contemplation.

"As you have guessed something did go wrong and we did discover something," Paul responds in a serious manner.

"Whilst exploring Murcrilium, James discovered the true nest of the Scarlet Death Spider, in the center of the city there is a tunnel that was made by the spiders leading several hundred feet underground. After following it in its entirety, it led to a ledge over-looking a vast underground cavern. The cavern was big enough to fit this entire mountain that we currently live in inside of it." Paul explains slowly so the king can digest everything one piece of information at a time.

"Our entire mountain can fit in this underground cavern you discovered…...?" Golaium asks in an unsure tone, not quite sure he heard correctly.

"Yes, after being on the ledge for several hours and doing what little reconnaissance we could, we believe that it is larger enough to fit Marbelium mountain inside of it," Paul reconfirms what he said previously.

"That is almost incomprehensible, to think that there is a cavern of such magnitude under our ancestral city. Is discovering this cavern the reason for your early return? What was in the cavern, you said that James discovered the nest, is it occupying a part of this cavern?" Golaium asks in a concerned manner.

"I'm afraid that the nest doesn't occupy a part of the cavern, but it takes up the entire cavern completely." Paul says in a grave and defeated tone.

"Takes…. up…. the…. entire …. cavern ...?" Golaium stutters in utter shock and horror.

Golaium looked at Paul in shock not being able to believe what he heard, he looks over at myself and Damian and we both nod in confirmation with a serious look upon our faces.

After this additional confirmation Golaium sinks back into his throne deep in thought trying to imagine just how many spiders there could be in such a vast cavern. As this thought crosses his mind he looks to Paul once again and dreads what he about to hear next but knows he must know the answer.

"How many spiders do you believe are in this cavern?" Golaium asks nervously knowing that no matter the answer it'll surely be more than they can handle.

"From where we were located on the ledge, I would estimate over a hundred thousand, we know that just below the ledge we were on, there were five hundred spiders. These five hundred were located at the very beginning of their territory so it's safe to say that my estimate isn't far off from the truth at best," Paul says regretfully.

"Over a hundred thousand...," Golaium covers his face after murmuring this and falls back into deep thought. There's no way we can defeat such a large number if they decide to attack our city. Even if they don't attack our city, we can't allow such a threat to exist this close to our kingdom, we'll have to try to slowly kill them over time but with the sheer number of newborn spiders, they can produce at one time we would be fighting a losing battle of attrition, the king thinks to himself.