Behind the massive golden doors was a short, tubby man dressed in vibrant, multicolored silks. Over those silks, he wore a thin protective garment intricately woven with gold threads. The man carried with him a delicate white robe that was so sheer it bordered on complete transparency.

  Completely unaffected by the spirit's dejection, the naked king approached his servant with a casual smile.

  Lade, now no longer obstructed by the doors, could finally speak clearly. "Your Highness, we are going to be late for your hearings if we don't depart soon."

  The two stopped a fair distance from each other. Lade extended his hand, holding the delicate white robe as far from himself as possible. The naked king took the robe, and the moment his soft fingers brushed the fabric, its colours began to shift. A fine, pristine gold washed over the cloth, spreading outward from the king's touch until the entire garment transformed into a shimmering yellow metal.

  The once plain white robe, as light as the wind, was now a beautiful, if not heavy, garment fabricated from solid gold.

  The king donned the golden robe, its metallic form rendering it completely opaque and shielding his nakedness from view. Though gorgeous, the new material came with its own drawbacks—namely, the cold bite of the metal against his bare skin and the notable increase in the robe's weight.

  Goldy noticed the king's frown as the heavy metal robe chafed against his skin, and it revelled in his discomfort. "Irritating, isn't it? I bet you wish you could wear normal clothes again—just a simple pair of socks or a coat. How torturous it must be for your squishy flesh to bear the toll of a go—"

  The king casually interrupted Goldy as if he weren't even there and responded to Lade, "How many more of these do I have to do before I can start doing actual work again?"

  Goldy felt like it was slapped in the face it didn't even have, flabbergasted by the king's blasphemy in ignoring a prodigious being such as itself.

  The king, now grinning with a victorious glint in his eye, let Goldy know that the interruption had been entirely intentional.

  The king's smirk was a second slap to Goldy's pride, and the second slap always stung more. In a fit of spontaneous vengeance, the temperature of the robe's gold around the king's nipples dropped to a freezing so absolute it was downright painful.

  The king's smirk immediately vanished, replaced by an inapt grimace as he desperately tried—and failed—to maintain his usual stoic composure.

  To a layman such as Lade, who had no means of perceiving the gold spirit's meddling, the scene appeared rather perplexing and slightly alarming. "Is everything alright, Your Majesty!?"

  The king cleared his throat, composed himself, and regained his usual imperious demeanour. Even so, his voice came out an octave higher, a faint tremor betraying the persistent cold.

  "It is nothing, Lade; now, can you please tell me how much longer it is until I can get back to my real duties."

  Without waiting for a response, the king strode out of the room, his every step a silent testament to his desire to escape the chill that refused to relent.

  Lade hurried to keep pace with the king, his short, stumpy legs forcing him into a tiring jog to match the taller king's leisurely stride.

  "Still a while longer, Your Highness," Lade panted. "You can't take any major action until, at the very least, Bemean recovers a bit more from the war. With our… um, drastic impact on the world economic stage, the rest of Trammel is already looking at us as a potential disruptor. If we appear too ambitious or eager to take advantage of others' weaknesses, they will step in to intervene."

  Lade's voice softened as he continued, his tone a touch more reassuring. "Besides, the people love the hearings. It's not like anything truly pressing needs to be attended to anyway. Unlike the rest of Trammel, we have never been better off."

  The king sighed heavily, half in annoyance at his political handcuffs, half in relief that Goldy had finally released his freezing grip on the robe's gold. The spirit had failed to extract the satisfying reaction it so fervently sought.

  Goldy could never pull off being a proper torturer. The spirit simply did not have enough patience and would always break before the king's will did.

  It was strange how low Goldy's attention span was, considering it was supposed to be a primordial entity nearly as old as time itself. At least, that was Goldy's claimed to be. But given what the king knew of the spirit, he had his doubts about those grandiose assertions.

  The three made their way through the labyrinthine halls of the castle, their footsteps echoing against the golden floors. The walls were adorned with potted plants and ornamental armours, all statues gleaming with the same metallic sheen as the once-affluent material. Golden Handprints and peculiar gold streaks were visibly blended into the stonework of the hallways. To the shock of many royal servants, a series of golden imprints could even be seen on the ceiling.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Goldy grew bored of listening to the king and the loathsome Lade drone on about politics. But then, as they turned a corner, something caught Goldy's attention—a maid dusting a series of hung paintings. A mischievous idea began to form in Goldy's mind, one that promised to liven up the dull procession.

  The maid paused when she saw the king approaching, quickly straightening her posture and giving him a perfect ninety-degree bow. Her gaze remained fixed on her feet as the two nobles passed by, too absorbed in their conversation to pay her any mind.

  The maid wasn't much for the gossip of noble happenings; she paid attention to their conversation enough to ensure they were not addressing her, but other than that, it was all in one ear out the other.

  The maid saw two sets of feet graze by her vision when she suddenly felt a hard smack on her behind. The unexpected slap caused her to squeak out in startled surprise.

  The two nobles halted briefly, and she froze, maintaining her bow and praying that they would ignore her, assuming they misheard something. Thankfully, they resumed strolling past, continuing on with their conversation.

  Once the nobles were out of earshot, the maid straightened up, still trembling from the shock. She craned her neck around to look at her skirt at the spot where she felt that surprising strike.

  On the back of her dress, hugging her rump where she felt the slap, was the clear imprint of a golden handprint. Her cheeks flushed a deep crimson, and she whipped her head left and right to confirm no one had seen.

  Hahaha yes! Lament fragile peon lament! Goldy could see it on the king's face; he knew exactly what had just happened.

  Goldy reveled in the king's discomfort, the quiet, calculating rage bubbling just beneath his stoic exterior. "You can ignore me all you want, 'King Rex,' but that won't stop me. How does it feel to have your reputation crumble to dust? What will the other nobles think when they see that you have marked the women of this vapid building?" Goldy basked in its malicious triumph.

  The king's face remained impassive, a mask of calm to anyone who wasn't accustomed to his behaviour. But Goldy had spent enough time with him to know that beneath that composure, the storm raged.

  Goldy knew this torment was a bit off-script—sort of betrayed the whole karmic monkey's paw theme which it had originally intended—but torment was torment, and at this point, that was good enough for Goldy.

  They soon arrived at the throne room, entering through a small door at the back. It was a vast room—incredibly long and equally wide. Every inch, every object, every aspect of the room was bathed in that familiar cold yellow. The gold was so absolute that the seams between floor and wall, wall and ceiling, were impossible to distinguish. It was as though the entire room were one seamless, shimmering plane—save for the throne, the lone object that dared to break the monotony of the space, and even it was bathed in that same flawless, golden vibrance.

  Rex walked to the throne and sat, the weight of the room pressing in on him. He stared blankly ahead, his gaze fixed on the golden doors at the far end. "Alright, I'm ready for the first hearing. Let them in." The words escaped him with a hollow sigh, his expression far removed from the dignity the room demanded.

  In compliance with Rex's orders, the heavy doors swung open, pushed by two guards on the other side. A tall, gangly woman entered the chamber, pushing an odd wooden contraption before her.

  It was a large, flat board resting near the ground, supported by four wheels at its corners. Upon this platform rested a half-constructed device, its purpose entirely unclear, an enigma wrapped in a tangle of strings, gears, and pieces that made no immediate sense to anyone watching.

  Rex raised a brow at the contraption. He gave it a few moments of thought, idly trying to see if he could predict its purpose. Before his mind could settle on any predictions, a shrill, high-pitched noise cut through the air.

  “LALALALALALALALALALA! Hey Rex. LALALALALALALALALA! Is this annoying? Am I annoying you? LALALALALA! Tormenting, isn't it? LALALALALA!" Goldy floated right next to the regal monarch as it erupted into an earsplitting barrage of noise. Its voice, devoid of vocal cords, shifted effortlessly into the most maddening, piercing pitch, each sound wave tailored to be as unbearable as possible. Every few moments, Goldy's shrieks would crack into an inhuman frequency, skimming the edges of Rex's hearing range.

  The woman's lips moved rapidly, explaining the miraculous purpose of the contraption she had brought. Rex couldn't hear a word, drowned out by the relentless noise in his ear, but Lade's slack-jawed expression spoke volumes—either it was a marvelous innovation or a disaster waiting to happen.

  After a moment, the woman retrieved several wooden segments, a few beams, cogs, and even a large ball of yarn from her contraption. She laid the pieces out before her with a spark of excitement, presenting them eagerly to Rex. Then, almost as if anticipating his reaction, she took a cautious step back, retreating behind the contraption with a nervous glance.

  King Rex rose from his chair and strode toward the objects presented to him.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Ooh, wait—what's that?" Rex ignored the bothersome gold spirit, focusing instead on the contraption. He crouched down, his fingers brushing lightly over each item, his faintest touch turning each piece, one by one, to pure gold.

  "Hey Rex, there's a thing doing a thing."

  Rex closed his eyes, blocking out the irritant spirit from his consciousness, and kept moving down the line of wooden items until they were all turned to gold.

  "No, seriously, Rex, this isn't me playing a game anymore. You got company."

  Rex maintained his composure, pretending to be just another ordinary human, oblivious to the pestering spirit that buzzed around him. Just an ordinary human whose most annoying pest they had to deal with was a mosquito.

  He stood back up, glancing at the woman. To his surprise, she wasn't even paying attention to him or her newly transmuted components. Her gaze shot straight over his shoulder to some apparently astounding thing behind him.

  Turning around, Rex's eyes landed on a strange sight—a pink, featureless figure, its body lacking any distinguishing traits except for a single outstretched limb. In its hand, it held a glowing parchment: it read.