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You arrive in an antechamber and find a retinue of knights standing along with ten others who you can only assume are the champions from the other kingdoms. One of them you recognize, Sasha Toussle, princess of Crain, and it's a wonder you do. The frail, demure girl you remember looks a woman grown, an eccentric one at that. Her hair is tied into tight dreadlocks, and she adorned from head to toe with exotic jewelry made from wood and gem. Her face is painted in a ritual fashion you recognize from your time observing the witch doctors and hags in Crain. If she recognizes you as well, she does not show it.
The other champions, for the most part, what you expected. Well-bred boys and girls of a similar age with you. Just glancing between them, you feel you can probably guess which country they represent, some being more obvious than others. They have surely recognized you as the Chalmuthian champion. Aside from Sasha, the champion who seems the most out of place is a young boy, surely no older than twelve, wearing a bored frown.
They must have been waiting on you. As soon as you arrive, one of the knights knocks three times on a tall, sturdy wooden door, and seconds later the door is pulled open without a sound.
You are led single file into a large, dim room. A massive canopied bed protrudes from the wall to your right, and it takes you a moment to see that someone is in it. The Emperor. One by one, the champions who discover his presence kneel. Even you, despite Free Chalmuth's sometimes flippant regard for Imperial Authority, death would be merciful punishment for disrespecting the Emperor in his own home. You had heard rumors of the Emperor's failing health, but the sight of him shocks you still. His whithered gray skin seems to hang like tissue paper over his bones. His eyes are black and sullen, so that from a distance one cannot tell if they are open or closed, and a mane of long, white hair sprawls out beneath him. An imperial knight stands on either side of his bed, still as a statue. Two young, female nurses in blue robes sit next to him, monitoring his condition.
“Welcome, you may rise.” You startle as the man who speaks steps away from the wall. You had not noticed him before, and based on the reaction of your fellow champions, they had not either. He is a tall man dressed in motley. An Imperial Jester, without doubt. The jesters are an order of the Emperor’s most loyal advisors, spies, and servants. Of the few people even accepted into Imperial service, only a handful become Knights, and even fewer jesters. “You are no doubt weary from your long journey here, so you will be dismissed soon once the nature of your stay here has been explained."
