John turned the last glass he had placed on the counter a small degree and looked at the lounge he had prepared. Ebony wood and red cloth fashioned into furniture and carpet, with a bronze chandelier hanging overhead and framed glass showing the insides of the closets. Most of it was stacked with luxurious plates and glasses, more assets to look good than items to actually be used. A bar at the back held a number of spirits, and a seamlessly integrated fridge, following the same dark design of the remaining furniture, held a number of non-alcoholic beverages. Their purpose was to serve in mix-drinks or rehydration.

A single, large table stood in the middle of the room, currently under close inspection of the Gamer. The middle of the table sported a large, golden plate. Around it, four glasses had been placed, with a bowl between each of them. Containing various salty foods, nuts, crisps, pretzel sticks and the like, they were supposed to keep their electrolytes balanced while they went through the booze. In a fit of bored perfectionism, John turned all of the whiskey glasses so one of their four corners pointed towards the seats of his soon-to-arrive guests.

‘Hopefully soon-to-arrive,’ John thought and looked around one more time. Taking out his phone, he put on some basic lounge music. Hidden speakers all across the room started playing the melodic tunes. Then he checked whether the ventilation worked correctly. Hidden underneath the plates of the ceiling were several shafts that made sure they would continue to have fresh air. Something quite important, given that the room had no windows. Both systems were controlled via a pretty simple interface Scarlett had programmed for him. To be more accurate, she had copied a system that she had been using for a while and changed what connected to what.

Having a woman that could basically think up code in his harem was a definitive help in his life. Whenever some piece of software didn’t do what John wanted it to do, he just gave Scarlett a call and she fixed it in less than ten minutes. Usually less than ten seconds, but some code was so badly written that even she needed to take a pause and look at it. During those times, John usually was amused by her cursing like a drunk sailor and by looking at her butt.

His mind distracted by memories of the gorgeous, androgynous redhead and her ass filling out her suit pants, John managed to bridge the time, until he heard the knock on the door, with pleasing thoughts. Without waiting for his verbal answer, Aclysia pushed down the brass handle and opened the door for his first guest.

“By Gaia, did you have to put your entire ISLAND on 30 degrees?” Maximillian asked as he stepped inside. Like John, he wore a well-sitting shirt and pants, royal blue and black, respectively, in his case. A suit vest that he had likely worn until he hit the heat of the Guild Hall hung over his arm. While Maximillian’s offense was well-acted, the suppression of his smile did not reach all the way to his eyes. “I thought I was going to melt.”

“Jane has control of the tower-sized thermostat, not my fault,” John retorted and gave Aclysia a thankful nod, before the maid bowed and closed the door again. “Anyway, glad you could make it. Old shirt?”

“Kind of new, actually,” the self-exiled king answered and hung the jacket of his suit over the back of one of the chairs. Leaning his cane against the table, he sat down. Once he was comfortable, he asked, “Why?”

John pointed at the sleeve, specifically the right one, where one of the two buttons that regulated how tight the end sat dangled from a single thread. “Not particularly royal of you, buddy,” the Gamer mocked.

Inspecting the damage closer, Maximillian first mumbled something unflattering. “Must have happened when I was around that new forest earlier,” he then said and looked to John. “You wouldn’t happen to have stuff around I could fix that with?”

“Can you do it by yourself?” John wondered and got a challenging gaze in retort. “What? It’s a justified question!” he defended himself, while retrieving a toolbox from his inventory. Filled with screwdrivers, hammers and other manners of mundane tools, it was one of those things the Gamer carried around just because it didn’t take away too much space while having potential uses. That it still looked brand new testified its lack of use. Regardless, John kept it around. He undid the safety clasps on the lid and looked inside.

“I may have grown up with maids and servants, but I know how to do things by myself,” Maximillian retorted, while taking off his shirt. Seeing the king’s naked torso messed somewhat with the regal feeling of the room, but so did the bowls with snacks and John didn’t care about either. Pointing his chin at those bowls, Maximillian continued, “Speaking of maids, Aclysia did a nice job of putting this place together.”

“That was me!” John complained, while handing over a seamer, a sewing needle and some appropriately coloured yarn.

“No.”

“The hell do you mean ‘no’?”

“I mean that I don’t believe you,” Maximillian responded while making a knot in the yarn.

“I did though,” John crossed his arms. “I specifically wanted to do this by myself. Aclysia is only around to guide you lot to the right door.”

“Suuuureeee,” Maximillian responded with such a level of sarcasm that the Gamer genuinely wasn’t certain whether the gravity mage was messing with him or just did not believe him. “Do you have a second needle and a scissor for me?”

“I have a pair of scissors,” John returned in a smartass tone and raised a small one, appropriate for cutting yarn.

“English is so stupid.” The German man shook his head and then started sowing. There was more to it than John had thought. The button was removed from the shirt, an x-stitched in its place, the button placed above the x, the second needle placed on top of the button, and then Maximillian actually sewed the button in place. Going in an x-shape between the holes, he went through each six times, then removed the secondary needle, leaving some space, wrapped excessed yarn around the underside of the button and then fastened the entire thing up by stitching through the sleeve one more time and making a few knots on the other side.

Once John had his stuff back and the toolbox was safely stored in his inventory, he asked, “What were you doing in the forest anyway?”

“I had a date with Feliunara,” Maximillian responded, putting his shirt back on.

“That’s one of your elven lovers, right?” John asked. The name alone was a dead give-away, but he wanted to be extra certain. “Brown hair, was with you in Florida?”

“Yeah,” Maximillian confirmed. “She wanted us to walk through the forest and see how things are coming along while we pick up some wood for carving.”

“At the moment we are just removing the gravestones, really,” John responded. While he did not mind destroying the copy of a graveyard, leaving the gravestones around would have felt macabre. Same was true for the mortal remains, but those, for whatever reason, didn’t actually carry over. John assumed that bones were somehow special in order to prevent necromancers to just stroll up to a world war battle site and create thousands of soldiers.

“I noticed,” Maximillian sighed heavily. “We were looking for ‘organically fallen wood’.” He put large air quotations around those three words. “Forest elves like to carve, but only if the tree agrees with it or is absolutely dead.”

“…so just about everything that lies on the ground?” John asked.

“You would think that, but no, it has to be so dead that, even if you injected magic into it, it could not sprout new roots,” the royal sighed heavily. “That limits things rather immensely, it turns out.”

“The things we do for love,” John sighed. His first impulse had been to make fun of his friend, but then he remembered he let his heat-addicted girlfriend manipulate the temperature in a several kilometre large area.

“At least it’s colder in here,” Maximillian mumbled, likely having thought something similar. “Where did you put the water? I don’t want to start with whisky when I was melting on the way here.”

“Oh, so NOW you believe me that I put the water somewhere?” the Gamer asked while he got up and strolled over to the fridge. “Sparkling or not?”

“Sparkling,” Maximillian requested and soon had a bottle and non-whisky glass brought to his seat.

Another knock on the door caught their attention, and a moment later, Aclysia guided Ted inside. The general arrived just like Maximillian, with his jacket over his arm but otherwise suited up. He added a white shirt to the current mix of black and dark blue. “Hello,” he said simply, offering his hand first to John and then to Maximillian. “Ted,” he introduced himself.

“Maximillian,” the king responded and shook. Of course, they knew each other by name from both getting mentioned by John occasionally, but they hadn’t properly met yet.

Ted was about the same height as Maximillian and John and his dark hair was the shortest among the three of them, barely above a buzzcut on top and definitely a buzzcut on the sides. His dark brown eyes wandered to the table and looked over the surroundings. “Aclysia did a nice job,” he stated.

“It was me!” John complained, to Maximillian’s snickering. “I put this together! I designed the room, including the furniture, I bought the plates and filled up the fridge! Aclysia cleans here, but I made sure it looked nice for today!”

Ted gave him a doubtful look. “If you say so,” he said.

“I do,” John insisted and then pointed at one of the empty seats. “Please, do sit down. You need anything?”

“Whiskey on the rocks,” Ted responded. “I don’t care what. I was told I could get drunk today.”

“Do you mean by me or did Chemilia let you?” John joked. Unusually, especially in John’s circle of friends, Ted was the submissive in his relationship. His wife was also the one that insisted on a harem, although theirs was a lot less binding than John’s or even Maximillian’s. The general couple basically invited other girls to stay in the bedroom but there was no real emotional attachment to those women.

“You,” Ted responded. “My wife doesn’t own me.”

“Right, right,” John waved off with a smile on his face. He knew Ted for long enough now to know that the guy was often intense, with his unmoving face and the large scar on it, but rarely serious about it. Just as John returned from the alcohol closet with a bottle of whiskey, the door opened for the third and last time. “Hello Magnus,” the Gamer greeted the son of Magoi.

“Evening,” the Fateweaver greeted in a similarly short fashion as Ted had. The two men had some very similar behaviours. John was quite certain that this came from them also having similar walks of life. Albeit for different reasons, both Ted and Magnus had to work pretty hard to justify their positions in the world, leaving them with stoic behaviour. “Max, Ted, John,” he greeted each of them with a nod. Since he and Ted were operating in the same guild, they knew each other quite well. With introductions done, he looked at the room itself. “I see Beatrice prepared the room nicely.”

“…Why would you say it was Beatrice?” John wanted to know, confused.

“Aclysia isn’t detail-obsessed enough to turn the whiskey glasses in a way that the corners point at the seats,” Magnus answered while he moved towards the last empty chair. While he had also come in shirt and pants, he had spared himself the trouble of wearing a jacket. His long brown hair was confined into a pony-tail.

“I – prepared – this – room,” John said very slowly, gaining himself a doubtful look for the third time.

“You can’t do things without your maids,” Magnus stated. “You have the household abilities of a first semester student.”

“Which means you can clean surfaces alright and prepare three meals: eggs, frozen pizza and noodles,” Maximillian saw his opportunity and dug a little bit further in there.

“Occasionally you will get fancy and manage to cook a very basic steak,” Ted put some more salt into the wound. “…I guess you can arrange some bowls and put chips in there, though.”

“Thank you.” John’s voice was dripping in poison. Wandering over to the alcohol storage, he grabbed a bottle of sweet wine. He had wanted to start with beer, but the situation called for something stronger. Slamming it and a fitting glass on the table on his return, he quickly started pouring himself a drink. “Really, thank you all for keeping my ego in check. I will now proceed to destroy you in every game we will play tonight.”

“You can try,” Maximillian cockishly responded, grinning as he sipped on his cold water.

“Pass me the whiskey, Ted,” Magnus just requested and subsequently filled his small glass with the amber liquid. Without asking, he stood up and also fetched himself an extra glass just for water.