♠️ Exceptis Centrum ♠️ ✔︎

Chapter 9

Sitting in his office with a large cup of soda in one hand and a tray of snacks upon his desk, Alfred flipped through a book that contained everything his father had done in his attempt to solve the mystery of the missing Queen. From what he had written he had tried nearly everything he could do within his power, from consulting the Queens from other Kingdoms to researching the history of the Kingdom, up until the point where the Queen vanished from the Spade court.

After that talk with Arthur earlier on, Alfred decided that in his spare time he should at least investigate the reason behind the missing Queen himself and, should his reign end without a Queen, he could at least pass on his knowledge to the next King and hope he or she would get lucky. He had put his past resentful thoughts towards the Queen behind him, and even though he still thought his Kingdom was still ok without one, he should at least try to seek out the missing member of his court.

“So Philip the Troubled was the first King with no Queen,” mumbled Alfred as he went through the notes and slurped his drink. “He had a lot on his plate and had his guard carry out checks upon the citizens but no one bore the mark. He even enforced a law where every citizen was to be fully inspected.”

That law caused a bit of controversy, in fact his father was the one who abolished it after he became King.

“Next was Michael the Firm, tried using the power of King of Spades to find the Queen, but got nothing. Then Oscar the Mysterious who spent every single day in his study researching, hardly anyone saw the guy. Then my old man, George the Valiant, and he pretty much did what the rest of them did.”

As Alfred went through his father’s notes, he spotted something that caught his interest. A certain mark he had seen in his studies and had been warned about constantly by his tutors and even the other Kings.

“He actually asked a Joker?”

The Joker. No one knew exactly what their role was in this world but some believed that whilst the four Kingdoms and their courts maintained order, the Jokers were the ones who orchestrated discord. They weren’t a threat or a enemy to the four Kingdoms, they were just strange individuals who caused a little havoc here and there, possibly to cure their own boredom. Sometimes they aided the Kingdoms but other times they toyed with them, they never truly picked a side. There were only two of them, which was a relief apparently, one being a young man with scarlet eyes with silver white hair and the other was a child, though he acted older than he looked albeit his mischievous ways. The pair of them neither worked together or against each other, but they were aware of each other.

No one knew if they were ordinary people who eventually received the mark of the Joker, or if they had always been the Joker since the beginning of the Four Kingdoms, no one even knew where they lived or even if they dwelled in this existence. They seemed to come and go as they pleased but they did have some rules they followed, but no one knew what those rules were.

Any of the Kings could call forth a Joker for whatever reason, and they’d come no matter what. Nowadays the Kings usually consulted with their court before doing so, for it was either welcoming chaos into their court or some strange form of aid that may or may not prove beneficial, no one wanted to risk it. However as Alfred read the notes his curiosity began to grow.

“Jokers thrive on mischief and mayhem, they are neither friend or foe. A King may summon one at their own risk and the Joker can’t leave until the King is satisfied. They will answer any question for they know more about the world than any mortal, but will always give the answer in the form of a riddle.” Alfred sighed as he closed the book, downing the rest of his soda. “So ask a straight question and get a not so straight answer. Typical.”

Alfred had been warned over and over about the consequences of calling forth a Joker, that it wouldn’t do him any good... but what real harm could asking a question really do?