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The Gamer Chapter 1642 – Bachelor’s Night 1 – Gathering the Buddies
🕑 Added 2024-03-12 16:09:10 +0000 UTCSunday was without incident, leaving John more time to explore the parts of the city he was interested in. Then, much of Monday was spent just lounging around. John had that particular feeling in his stomach that always preceded important events.
“Planned out a route?” Ehtra asked.
“Check.”
“Loaded up on local currency in addition to USD and Token?”
“Check.”
“Transferred a sizable sum of money to every establishment you may or may not happen to visit in advance?”
“Check.”
“Then stop being so agitated, Master creature!” the secretary angel threw the checklist aside. A scowl on her pretty face, she turned away and walked off. At the very least the swing of her hips distracted him from his anticipation.
Thankfully, the chosen time was upon him.
“We shall meet again very, very drunk,” Rave declared and got up.
“Don’t do anything that would cause the city to tilt!” John warned.
“Don’t go wandering about!” she warned back. “Ya don’t get to call us to come crashing this time around.”
For once, her warning was the more realistic one. John had a tendency to go on aimless strolls when wasted. It was one of those alcohol habits that everyone seemed to have. Maximillian always sought out a strip club. Magnus often started chain-smoking expensive cigars.
John got up after all of his girls had vacated the room. Getting out himself, he turned the opposite direction from which their voice echoed. He only had to turn a corner to run into Magnus.
The stern Fateweaver was sharply dressed. Black suit, pressed shirt in the deep blue of Fusion, and black pants covering his slender, trained body. His long, brown hair was tied into a low ponytail. His face sported a decorative shade of a beard.
“Looking good,” John complimented his friend.
“I won’t in a few hours, knowing how these things go,” Magnus responded.
John patted him on the shoulder. After the recent Perks, the Gamer was now the broader of the two, although Magnus remained taller by a notable margin. “Knowing you, you’ll stay sober enough to look after us.”
The head of Fusion’s Fateweaver academy allowed himself a small smirk. “Somebody has to.”
“Let’s go get the groom,” John said and they got moving.
The reality of the evening was that it would just be the three of them. For a man as charming as Maximillian usually was, that had been a surprise even to John, who had been tasked with organizing this. A single joke had been all the Gamer had made to that end, before realizing why this was.
Rulers never had many good friends. This was as much due to the ruler’s power to cycle through acquaintances with ease as it was due to those acquaintances often having ulterior motives, even if they wanted to be friendly while suggesting them. For a ruler to have someone they could call a genuine friend, they needed to meet either an equal or a saint. Even the other nobles that royals were raised among were likely there due to their parents wanting to network.
It was for that reason, most likely, that many nobles were raised with a private servant. The eternal servant that, even though the power dynamics were unignorable, stuck to their lord or lady through thick and thin and could be that good or even best friend.
A friend that had stabbed Maximillian in the back.
Maximillian had lost Alexej, then went to the USA. That he had developed trust issues over the matter was something he had readily admitted to. Issues that he had worked out since, but that had nonetheless estranged those few other friends that he was left with. That was, if they even cared to pretend anymore to be his friends when he was out of power.
John hadn’t drilled down on the matter and would try to evade it. This was not the night for questions of such a downing nature. Sadly, he knew himself better than to rule out that he would let his inquisitive nature get the better of himself three beers in.
That was the long of why it was only him, Magnus, and Maximillian himself that was going to head out today. A few other friends that Maximillian had made during his year in the US had come up, just like a few of the people he would like to reconnect to now that he was returning to Austria had. Ultimately, none of them had been deemed close enough for Max to behave his worst.
Maximillian was found in the tallest spire of the palace. It was an opulent place, its many rooms connected via doors and a complete walkaround balcony from which one could look down at the entirety of the city.
There, the king stood, sipping on some brown beverage. “Drinking already?” John joked.
“Liquid food,” Maximillian answered plainly and downed the rest of the beverage in one go. “Drinking on an empty stomach is a bad idea and all of that.” He placed the glass on a table and the table began to walk back indoors. John and Magnus made room for it to pass through. “Join me, friends, for a moment.”
They were in no hurry, so they joined Maximillian by the railing. “We’re not about to be defenestrated, are we?” John asked.
Maximillian glanced down, as if weighing his options. “This would be the historical spot to do so.”
“Keep it to him,” Magnus stated and gestured at John. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“It would spare me the expenses of hosting your wedding,” Maximillian answered. “It would also come with considerably less fallout. No disrespect to Nina, but I’d rather have her on my tail than Aclysia.”
“I’ll forgive you only because you remember the promise.” Magnus retrieved a yellow poker chip from his personal pocket dimension. Skilfully, he twirled it between his fingers.
“You kept that?” Maximillian asked, then caught the chip when it was thrown at him.
“Thought you might forget otherwise. You were quite drunk.”
“Not as drunk as Ted.”
“Ted was on another plane of existence at that time, one that consisted primarily of cold beds and swerving mattresses,” John commented.
Maximillian inspected the chip for a little bit. Then threw it up in the air. A quarter of the way up, it stopped mid turn, its animation suspended. The gravity king gave it a tap and it sailed back to its owner like an object in space.
“Show-off,” John grumbled.
Maximillian shot him a knowing smirk. “Still jealous?”
“Yes, very much,” the Gamer complained. “Why would I stop being jealous of a thing I still cannot do. Free form magic is incredibly convenient. The only Skill that I have that is remotely freeform is my technomancy.”
“Oh no,” Magnus drawled sarcastically, “the man that can learn anything and everything by putting his mind to it is restricted in his applications. Max, do you have any tiny violins around that I can play?”
The monarch was howling at the Fateweaver’s joke. Bowed over the railing, he kept on cackling. Each repeated “Ha!” rubbed up against John’s pride – until he snapped. “It wasn’t that funny!”
“It is – hahahaa – from mister straitlaced over there.” Max sniffed and rubbed the tears of laughter from his eyes. Then, he put his elbows on the railing. A sombre air suddenly replaced their joviality. The three of them stood next to each other, gazing down at the sloping city below.
It was a magnificent and disorienting sight. Looking at the infrastructure of a city descending like that clashed with what John was used to in terms of perspective. It was just odd enough to give him a strange sensation, without actually confusing him. At least the green gardens around the palace were as expected.
“I stood here with my father once,” Maximillian spoke into the quiet. “I was barely big enough to look over the railing at the time. I could only see the horizon, none of the city below. His health had already started deteriorating at the time. He hadn’t said it, but I knew he was on borrowed time.” The king chuckled at what he said next. “My father was a fan of long and grandiose speeches. I had to get that from somewhere. On that day, he spoke to me and me alone. He told me of this city’s history, of its woes, and of its successes. He told me how the Habsburg house was entangled in every decade that passed within these walls.” He pushed himself off the railing. “Now I’m about to descend on a night of debauchery as a last hurrah to the single life, before marrying a succubus… he would probably be disappointed.”
“How come?” Magnus asked.
“My father was a purist, when it comes to the succession line. Knowing that I would end up making the mainline of Habsburg of partly demonic descent would make him turn in his grave… not sure if that’s better or worse than him learning that Maria is a raging robo-sexual.” He gave John an almost pleading glance. “What are the chances you got room in that harem of yours?”
“Low,” the Gamer answered honestly. “Also, since when are you trying to hook me up with your sister?”
“I am starting to lose hope that I’ll get her hooked up with anyone that can control her.”
“Is she even into men?”
“She’s into interesting things,” Maximillian answered. “I have it on Momo’s authority she prefers cock at least. The point is that it’s going to be less of a prestige loss if she gets tangled up with you than when she spends another quarter of the yearly budget on her ludicrous experiments.”
“Honestly, from what I know, your sister is not my type,” John confessed.
“Lucky you,” Magnus said, to the renewed cackling of the king.
“Seriously, next to you I feel like a saint.”
“Thanks, buddy, I’m glad me living in sin makes you feel like a holy man. Would you like me to do anything else so you feel better about yourself? How about I get even richer, so you can feel like you relate to the poor?”
“Psh, you can expand your wealth as much as you want, young blood, but you will never hold my history.” Grumbles were followed by renewed silence. Maximillian let out a long sigh. “Yeah, my father definitely wouldn’t approve… but it is far from the first time I’m doing something he wouldn’t approve of.”
Knocking twice on the railing, the suited man turned around. John and Magnus followed his example with a considerably less flamboyant attitude. Arms were put around their shoulders, the groom in the middle pulling them along.
“Then let it be drinks!” he declared. “Show me what this night has to offer!”
They descended from the high apartment, down the palace grounds, and to the western half of the city below. Once they had arrived in the party district, John reported the plan for the night, “I have contacted every establishment that was reachable online and informed them of our coming. The district has been given a shared pot from which our tabs will be paid by tomorrow, so we can just leave or enter anywhere we please.”
“Wonderful,” Maximillian said. “Good planning. Chance that we’ll encounter anyone trying to shoot either of us?”
“Low but not entirely zero, but when is it ever?”
“Should I fear for my life?” Magnus asked.
A genuine and good question. While John was safe from basically everything and Maximillian was sturdy enough to withstand most assassination attempts, Magnus was exactly in the level range where he could hold an important office but still get killed by a knife to the gut. It did not help that his skillset was of the non-combat variety.
“Not anymore than usual,” John assured.
To a mundane person, that would have hardly served as a calming statement. To a stoic Abyssal, it was enough to hum in an appeased manner.
“As I understand, then, I can head wherever I want?” Maximillian asked.
“Within this district.”
“Hm, are you telling me that I shouldn’t leave this district or urging me to do so in order to brag that you were prepared for it?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Fair enough.” With a shrug and a smile, the king walked ahead.
The night had officially started.
