Royal Trespassing

Chapter 8

Before we went to tell Mr. Crimson the news, I stopped by the bathroom. It's completely furnished. Nice slick tiles line the floor, a shower in one corner, toilet and sink in the other, all perfectly working. How in the world does a regular guy build a bathroom by himself? He had to lay pipes and electricity lines plus install all the fixtures. How did he even transport all the materials here? But then again, Mr. Crimson isn't an ordinary guy. I'm sure hundreds of years of knowledge helps a guy out.

The stairs near the "throne" were already depressed. We traveled through the tunnel, reaching his study. It's filled with bookcases and chests with papers lying around. Junk settles in all corners of the room. There he sits, sleeping at his desk.

"How long have we been upstairs talking?" asked Mia in a whisper.

"It couldn't have been that long."

I walk over to the desk with heavy feet, trying to make my foot steps loud enough to wake him up but not loud enough to startle him. He didn't budge. I wonder what he's working on. I peer over to his laptop. The title "The Isolated Man" is positioned on the corner of the screen, below it, another title reads "New Visitors", then below that a spot to enter text. He's already written several pages. I can' believe he writes a blog. I had a feeling he was similar to James. Maybe he was up all night writing and that's why he's exhausted now.

"Maybe we should let him be." I said. Mia shrugged her shoulders. Suddenly his eyes opened,

"Let who be?" he asked. I hastily jumped backwards to Mia.

"First you ladies trespass and now you sink as low to sneak up on a man while he's resting his eyes. Did your parents ever find it upon themselves to teach you manners?"

I figured I could get angry or have fun.

"No they didn't. They also didn't teach us that stealing is wrong."

I jingled my hand in my pocket.

He smiled making his eyes fire up again.

"Well what is your decision?"

"I've decided on a Big Mac with extra onions please."

"Very comical Miss Foster.

"We've decided to accept the deal."

I wanted to add that we get to keep the stones in our possession but then I realized it would do no good. If he was a bad guy he would let us keep them but kill us when he needed them. I also felt the need to create and sign a contract but that too would be useless.

"Excellent choice. Very excellent," he stood up. "Now it's on to your training. I don't enjoy making assumptions but I believe you both are not in top physical condition or at least in a condition suitable to fight off hordes of mountain lions. You'll need to become competent using weapons and hand-to-hand combat. You'll also need to be able to run long distances incase we have to flee from predators and become strong enough to move rubble from the crumbling castles. I have no idea the dangers we may face so we must be prepared to handle almost anything."

"You better be able to do all those things too mister!" Mia said.

"Don't worry yourself. I've had a lot of time to workout and practice fighting. Back in my day I was quite good with a sword. I fought fiercely in a few wars and countless battles. "

That's right. I keep forgetting he's almost 400 years old.

"So how are we going to start? I don't have enough money for martial arts lessons or a gym membership." I said.

"Leave all the work to me. I have a lot of time on my hands and money too. Here write down your email addresses."

He rushed to find a piece of paper and a pencil. We scribbled our addresses down.

"I'll develop a training schedule. You attend a school that applies summer break correct?"

"Yep."

"Excellent. You both will prepare until the summer when we will explore the castles."

A bossy little thing isn't he?

"How many castles are there?" I inquired.

"I have no idea. From what I remember at least three were built with my knowledge but there are likely more."

"So what are we going to do for the rest of the break?" Mia asked.

"The break?"

"It's fall break. We get a week off from school. We go back next Monday. Rose and I were planning to explore and document the Crimson Castle this entire week but now that's changed."

"Well, you both can choose your weapons."