Chronos was lazily walking down a hallway in the west wing of the royal castle after finishing his morning's work. With nothing else to do he had chosen to arrive a bit earlier than the seniors of the court had expected.
With so many visitors and ambassadors from various nations and tribes seeking aid, the royal court was usually held in the west wing of the castle, except during award ceremonies, which took place in the castle's main hall.
But that didn't mean it was any easier to reach. You still had to pass through several hallways and numerous checkpoints before you reached the court.
And along the way the Leighla Kingdom naturally wanted to boast about their history. So, there were stained-glass windows of knights fighting monsters across the plains and murals of the early days of the Leighla Kingdom on the walls.
Even Chronos, a resident of the kingdom, couldn't help admiring his kingdom's history and just how difficult it had been for them in the early days.
In the present day the kingdom was nearly three times as large compared to the past. That was thanks to those brave knights and early pioneers who broke new land and established settlements all the way to the borders of other kingdoms.
It was something he had once wanted to do but now it looked like he would never get a chance to be an exploration knight.
Passing suits of shining armor, he turned another corner and exited the hallway into the vestibule of the Royal court.
Wandering around the edges were clerks and assistants carrying signed documents as they used the servant passages to deliver messages to the court. Knights in golden armor stood at attention along both walls and at every entrance in the room.
In the middle of the room, where the knights could easily watch everything you did, there were several rows of seats for those waiting for an audience with the court.
Everybody spoke in whispers as if this was some type of holy place. Or maybe the Golden Knights just didn't like loud noises right in front of the Royal Court.
The benches were arranged so that the first of those who came to seek the court's aid without an invitation would be seated near the front while those who came later seated near the back.
Sometimes they would have to wait several days before the court had time to meet them so there were rooms set up in the west wing for them to rest in.
They would be under strict watch of course but many of them still preferred resting here instead of finding an inn in the city.
It was nearly his time to meet with the court, so Chronos moved to the front of the benches.
Passing several rows of cushioned benches Chronos heard upset muttering from those further back as some of them had patiently been waiting all day for a meeting.
Apparently, they didn't like some young man moving ahead while they had to wait.
Taking his seat Chronos watched as the clerk assigned to keep order in the vestibule looked up at their mutterings then approached him.
"Sir, if you've just arrived, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to go to the back," he said with a subservient attitude.
You could never quite tell who would show up in front of the Royal Court so those who served here were always taught to be subservient and if things got out of hand the Golden Knights would handle it.
Chronos smiled at him, "I have an arranged meeting with the court and his majesty within the hour. I can promise you that I'm not taking anybody's chance to have the court hear their request."
That quieted the angry muttering behind him some but even if he did have an arranged meeting arriving so late seemed to rub several of them the wrong way.
Chronos just shook his head at them. What was the point of arriving super early if your meeting wasn't for 3 hours? All you would do is waste time sitting there, especially when you had a scheduled meeting.
But in the end the only reason they dared mutter these things was because they thought Chronos couldn't hear them.
The clerk checked his schedule before nodding at Chronos.
"Ah I see the 3 o'clock meeting with Young Lord Ulv. I'll notify the court of your arrival."
"Please and thank you."
The clerk was surprised that Chronos thanked him as nobody paid attention to the staff most of the time. There wasn't much point in paying attention to them when they held no authority after all.
But Chronos believed that being polite to the staff would win him favors in unexpected ways, you never knew what one of them might overhear and decide to warn you of just because you were nice to them.
The clerk bowed then returned to his desk near the door. He signed a paper and passed it off to an errand runner who left for the servant's passage to the court.
A moment later a short red-haired man with thick arms nervously paced in front of Chronos. He was sporting a large beard that nearly reached his waist and was wearing thick boots normally reserved for hiking in the mountains.
Such a combination of features could only belong to one race near the Kingdom.
"Hello, you're a long way from home, friend dwarf. May I know your name?" Chronos said while offering the traditional dwarven handshake of holding the other's fingers and sticking your thumb into the air.
He stopped pacing and turned to face Chronos.
His clothing was an official ambassador's suit from the kingdom of Kharad Vorn, the dwarven nation bordering the southwestern edge of the kingdom. But the pockets that would normally have something for the dwarf to distract himself with were shockingly empty.
In fact, Chronos couldn't spot any of the traditional metal pieces that usually adorned dwarves' beards and clothing to distract themselves anywhere on his attire.
The dwarf gladly took his hand and immediately started a thumb war.
"I'm Rurik Emberbraid, trade ambassador of Kharad Vorn. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance," he replied with a big smile.
Chronos's eyes twitched.
He might not like politics very much, but he knew enough about other cultures to tell that when a dwarf changed their traditional greeting into a thumb war, they were very stressed out.
Dwarves by their very nature were a bit of a strange species in that they couldn't relax unless they were doing something. It was a result of nearly every dwarf being hyper-active, what some scholars and healers were calling ADHD in more recent times.
But it wasn't just that they couldn't relax. Dwarves were so hyper-active that if you locked them in a room with nothing to do for a few hours, they would literally go insane.
Starting a thumb war the moment they shook hands was a dwarf's way of saying that someone had intentionally taken away Rurik's tools that he would normally use to distract himself and kept him in this state for several hours.
Which was unacceptable as the nation of Kharad Vorn was a close ally of theirs.