Ball of Nothing

It took two days before Zero and Truen were able to have an audience with King Darius Hills. In those two days, Zero went around the capital trying to find out more information about Princess Dorothy's diet plans over the last six months. He was able to get some information from the adventurer's guild and a record of the princess' diet plans from the day it started.

On the other hand, Truen started his quest to gather information about Dorgon Flintstock. The crafting guild only told him that Dorgon had a dispute with the King and left the capital in a huff without telling anyone where he was going. While the master crafter was still technically a subject of the king, his post had been empty for months now. The crafting guild master told Truen that Dorgon was not someone easily replaceable so King Darius did not punish his Dorgon's act of insubordination. In fact, there were rumours that Darius and Dorgon were old friends so the king didn't even put out a search warrant when Dorgon left. The guild master believed that King Darius must have an idea where to find his old friend should he change his stubborn mind.

Zero took the time to study the diet plans the princess made over the last six months. He could see that clearly, the one that needed fixing was the father and not the ignorant daughter. Mingling around the capital with his transformation skill was helpful. He gathered information from all sorts of dwarves and was able to ascertain one thing.

King Darius was a foolish king who deserves to be taught a lesson.

Zero never really thought that there were puppet kings in this time and age but after listening to how King Darius ascended the throne, Zero took his words back.

It was a rather strange string of coincidence that made the throne lend in King Darius' lap. The previous King was Darius' older brother. He led a courageous war and defended Rocket Mountain's borders against the elves and humans who wanted to invade their land and take over their mithril mines. In one of those battles, Darius' older brother passed away and with no other siblings left, Darius took the crown.

Initially, nobody was worried about Darius taking the crown because standing beside the foolish king was his extremely capable wife - Warrior Queen Demora. Queen Demora established strong dwarven fortresses on Rocket Mountain and established an alliance with Magnus Hilda and Derby Desert. Under her rule, Rocket Mountain held their own against the attacks from Smargdas and Altear. Queen Demora's most notable contribution was the creation of something called the crossbow and catapult that rivalled the power of cannons used by humans and bows used by elves. Unfortunately, after giving birth to four princes, Queen Demora died from complications of childbirth trying to bring Princess Dorothy to the world.

King Darius was now left alone and often listened to his advisors, ministers and children to make a decision. People called him the foolish king for a good reason because many of his laws were created on a whim based on hearsay from external sources. While Rocket Mountain has no political strife, King Darius was greatly influenced by gossips of neighbouring kingdoms. His cowardly nature often made the people beneath him suffer. On top of that, Darius had one weak spot. His believed daughter Dorothy was someone Darius would sell the world to make her happy. Some of the more ridiculous things King Darius did for Princess Dorothy included selling his crown that was a family heirloom so that he could pay the crafting guild to make a golden merry-go-round for the Princess' garden.

Zero felt his head hurt. There were two things his shifu said that doctors couldn't cure no matter how hard they try. The first was lovesickness and the second was foolishness. King Darius was terminally ill till the day he died from a severe shortage of intelligence. It didn't matter what Zero did, King Darius would be doomed to remain a fool for the rest of his life. Yet, Zero couldn't let matters be. If Princess Dorothy continued to diet extremely, not only would her health and body be destroyed, the citizens would follow the same fate.

Then again, Zero wasn't sure if Princess Dorothy was aware of what her father did or what was going beyond the castle walls. If the princess saw her people starving because of her, would she stop? Also, Zero kept hearing the name of the Fae King Princess Dorothy fell for but he didn't know who this person was. Fae King Vivian was apparently married and very in love with his wife Queen Rihanna for several centuries. However, something happened and Queen Rihanna passed away around the time Princess Dorothy was born.

Fae King Vivian visited Rocket Mountain every year to offer his condolences for Queen Demora's passing and that was how Princess Dorothy fell for him. Nobody understood why such a young girl would fall for such an old bachelor but Zero didn't particularly care. What was more important was stopping Princess Dorothy from doing what she did and give King Darius a wake-up call. Even if the princess succeeded in slimming down to become King Vivan's ideal woman, he doubted that the Fae King would ever love the dwarven princess the way he loved his late wife.

The plan was simple. Now that they had an official audience with the foolish king, Zero had to prepare something of importance to entice the princess to meet him in person. Once he had their attention, Zero would sell his services so that he could investigate the matter more deeply while Truen searched for the missing master crafter.

Zero might not be able to change the foolish king but he might be able to groom his young daughter into a woman respectable like her mother. He only hoped that the noble queen's genes were not dormant in her daughter or this might just be the end of Rocket Mountain.