Capital City had multiple hospitals, one was large, dirty, and sat next to the dungeon with shlock as the only analgesic on hand. On the other hand, there is a crystal coated outside, gold plated hospital inside the innermost castle reserved for royals only. The floors polished every hour on the dot to a spectacular shine that no civilization anywhere else would ever be able to beat.

A loud commotion in an operating room, as prince Edward cried in pain holding up a bloodied stump where his hand had previously been but was now cut off by his ex-girlfriend. The nurses ran to subdue him as he knocked over a tray of medieval instruments before running into a cabinet and falling to the floor, broken glass, and potion juice from beakers crunching together beneath his hospital gown as he rolled.

“Calm down prince at once! This is a disgrace don’t make us have to get your mother” said an older nurse in a scolding voice.

“Grrrrrrrrrr” the prince growled at them like a feral cat.

He was crawling on the floor, his hair disheveled, he looked like a wild animal. A nurse ran in with a shoulder fired cannon and crouched with it aimed at her target beginning to once again stand up in the corner.

“Twunk!”

The net was launched from the launcher, and Edward was all tied up on the floor wriggling about. The nurses surrounded him with wooden crutches that they had picked up off a nearby wall.

“C’mon I didn’t work you old gals over so hard you got to be on crutches now” said the prince who smiled before biting into a rope that bound him.

The nurses beat him with the crutches. Edward crawled forward slowly to position himself in a better spot for increased damage, he smiled.

“Ewe the sick freak likes it,” said the young male nurse increasing his hits and aiming at the head.

“Get his mother in here as a witness,” said the oldest, laughing.

“I can put on the hook myself, hand it over, why brings up my mother when this is my hospital I run, and I pay you all with crystal!” the prince yelled setting the record straight for all his subordinates.

“Ok, but you instructed us to do all these things to you,” said a nurse.

She walked over to a cabinet that hadn’t been knocked over and started taking things out. First a long hook that snapped into a holder fit up for a hand stub, the prince smiled excitedly. Then she removed a needle and filled it with liquid, the prince quivered now in fear.

“I think he’s afraid of needles,” said a nurse laughing.

“Let's catch him up on his shots,” said another.

“Don’t you dare, for when I get out of here, I will skin every one of you and anyone else in your professions burning each and every cursed hospital to the ground” the prince yelled, his voice trembling with emotion.

“Very well what do we have here?” said the witch doctor entering the room.

“A very naughty patient, who needs a hook attached to his hand at once so he may be sent back out killing into the savage lands to protect us, the only place where somebody like him belongs,” said a nurse.

“Hey nurse get me some shlock at once I know you keep it in here” Edward cried.

The witch bent down with a scalpel and started cutting back the rope net all around him. A nurse ran in with the hand hook and dropped it beside them both on the cart.

“Finally, my replacement hand,” said Edward.

A nurse whispered in the witch doctor's ear.

“Hmm well the nurse tells me that for the splicing procedure you have opted not to take shots of painkillers, and instead want just shlock, unfortunately it has been banned in the entire kingdom,” said the doctor.

“Banned? Who is running this place the jesters now? I must get out for the women I still pin for; she must still love me, and this is her gift a sign of sweet affection” cried the prince his bandaged stub seeping blood sticking out from a hole in the ropes.

“Orders of your mother m’lord but we still have our ways of course” said the witch smiling as he took out a flask of shlock and wet the prince's lips through the netting.

“Now take your painkiller baby” said a nurse leaning in with a shot.

The prince fought with all his might against the net that surrounded him, but despite all the troubles could not manage to escape from it.

“AAAA” he screamed in fear, his face white as ice, mouth frozen open in terror.

The nurses took turns injecting him with needles full of liquids of all kinds of colored potion concoctions. The witch doctor picked up the hook and slapped it onto the hand with clamps. The nurses held it up as the doctor went, grabbing a torch with a small magma crystal on one end purple on the other. He lit it with flint and began to weld the prince and his new hand together. The flesh and material melded together into one smelling of burning while the prince dozed off in slumber unaware of the new deadly attachment, attached to him at the wrist.

Prince Edward awoke queasy on a cot, his hospital office by his desk his gown wet from drops, he needed a chamber pot at once. A passing servant outside the room helped him but from a distance, the sharp swinging hook cut off the rags to soon be soiled.

The next day the sun was shining out on the patio, a fresh intoxicating breeze only found in the middle of spring. Edward was eating crumpets and drinking coffee black reclined back in a chair under the gazebo by the ocean at his lair out in the sand.

“So, son I hear you are set to be married again” said a voice from behind causing Edward to jump, knocking the rest of his crumpets to the ground, and burning himself all over with hot tea.

The king stood alone, and alive before him, his mother had lied.

“Ow that's hot, Father you live,” said Edward dusting himself with sand found under the shade in order to cool himself off.

“Your mother has told me everything, I won’t beat around the bush with a little persuasion I was able to get her on my side and she and I agreed I should come kill you,” said the king leaning on railing.

“But if I win, I only have one more parent to rid myself of before I take the throne” said Edward rising to battle against his ruler for power.

“Indeed, you do, let us hope that I do my job properly and my wife is not left alone to be terrorized by you the child she has birthed, I can’t believe we had even considered divorce now are paths are aligned again, and we share the same goals for acquiring crystals” said Merdin the 4th.

Indeed, early that morning the king and queen had awoken sleeping in the same bed again after a long time apart they had rekindled. He had surprised her by removing the dining room mirror, after the queen had entered the room that had been set with a fancy surprise supper, candles, and potions brewing set with garlic, and silver.

King Merdin drew his large sword, and Edward lurched forward with his hook slashing at the chest drawing blood, while dodging the blade. The two men backed off from each other, circling around both looking for their next opening to attack.

“We all know now you’ve been helping the elves steal from the center of the planet, this entire time behind our backs, don’t think you will ever escape here alive for this colossal betrayal” said the king.

Guards swarmed in behind the king, trapping the prince in with the only way out over the water.

“C’mon let me and him duel this one out! Just the two of us, me and Merdin will fight!” yelled Edward.

The king stuck up his armored glove, stopping the soldiers with drawn arms from further advancing. The prince charged again, and the king swung his sword at the target who ducked at the last second taking a gash across the face, one eye was bleeding. The soldiers gathered round and laughed as the hooked man had to reach with his good arm at his injured eye no longer seeing and inflicted by the same blood flowing through his very veins that had come on a mission to kill him.

“You want a sword to even out this fight young prince, I feel very unfair when all you have is that hook for a hand” said the king as his guards continued to laugh.

“We end this right here, and my rule starts or it doesn’t!” yelled Edward, charging again.

“I have another son gone mad” said the king, taking up his sword.

Prince Edward deflected, parrying his father's blade then kneed him in the stomach, he then slashed him across the throat drawing blood. The crowd of soldiers gasped as if their king was dead. He gargled, falling back as Edward tackled him pushing him over a railing. The soldiers swarmed to take out the assassin. Edward jumped up to the rafters swinging over them back to the building holding on as he pulled himself up to a vent in the ceiling. The prince growled, dagger in his mouth crawling in on a mission to kill the queen and crown himself king.

Meanwhile, as dwarf mountain was blowing up with molten heat, the wizard rode up the steps to the top, below him Fred, Jed, and the rest of the soldiers took the door lower going out the other side of the large mountain. They ran out into the jungle, as above them on the top of the mountain lava was launched out. Chunks of molten heat rained into the nearby trees lighting them on fire.

“Nobody from the empire is to be seen anywhere Fred, I can’t believe they would abandon us like that” said Jed.

The soldiers were advancing back out into the uncharted jungle, they had become lost when running in panic from the hot molten ash of the erupting volcano. Only one of the groups still carried a machete; he cut out a small path in front through the thick vines. Black smoke bellowed far behind them up in the air a sign to keeping the pace of travel quick.

“We are going to have to find some food and water before very long anybody got any ideas there?” asked Jed.

Fred was stuck in a trance as he spied on a branch a bright and colorful parrot studying him back from the forest below the giant mushrooms. Jed saw a snake hanging and got closer to the rest of the men in the group's center. This was going to be a night of fright spent camping out lost in the jungle.

“We need to get a position fortified and set up for sleeping, somewhere we can engineer to be above the ground” said Jed ordering the men all around him.

“Right on it chief” said a soldier climbing up a tree to get a better vantage point.

The noon sun beat down as humid steam emitted from all over the jungle. Rain in the forest drying up with the heat above it. The soldiers began to fasten beds up in the trees, tying poles of wood, branches, and large leaves together with fabric. A small stream ran besides them Fred stood in it with a spear at the ready stabbing at the water over and over. Eventually he stabbed a small trout successfully and returned to where a fire had been stated next to the water. The smoke from the cooking fish wafted up to where they would spend the night and Jed was already hiding.

Night came on quickly, and the men found themselves all drifting off harnessed above the ground that continued to remain alive below. A frog hopped across underneath where Freds head rested, as a monkey called in the distance, and a snake slithered up a tree joining them down range.

“The king lays dead for real this time, read all about it” yelled the child running down the street with a bundle of freshly printed press in his arms.

The queen cried the tears in her eyes increasing in ferocity as she shut the door to her inconspicuous house purchased in the noble neighborhood. An undercover army of privately paid mercenaries paid handsomely in crystal stood guard outside on the cobble streets lit up. She would lock herself up with a large storage of provisions, and mourn the death of her husband for real this time. She was aware of all the contradictions going on in this situation.

A deep rage was burning up in her chest that had once held love for her husband. She would kill this child of hers, Edward, as first order of taking over as ruler of the crown for real. Ruling with an iron hand, clamping down on the ailments of society, and elevating all the population under the spirit of the crystals. If the scientists were to be believed, when one traveled to the center of the core of the planet frequently, one could rule over Tenare forever with a greatly expanded or even infinite lifespan. It was all about getting as close to the core, bathing in it for as long as needed, to increase one's core essence and become infused with the power needed to rule over the kingdom, infused with greatly expanded brain power when it came to ruling. She shuddered throwing a log in the fireplace, before throwing over a thick fur coat. It was nearing the final days of the season, before the year would change over and the cold, and snow would arrive.

She snuck into the basement where two leprechauns were finishing the installation of a teleportation device in her home.

"Take me to the core for my daily meditation there at once, you creatures" she ordered them.

The queen stepped onto the teleportation pad made of crystal hooked by thick cables connected to where the leprechaun operators-controlled switches.

"Turn me on, and send me in" she said.

A leprechaun nodded and began to turn a dial, cranking open a portal slowly forming under the queen's feet. The room began to shake, coming alive as energy was channeled out of the crystal.

Prince Edward prowled the nearby streets, unable to catch sight of Nancy or his mother, the queen. He had a sharp hook on his hand successfully attached in the medieval procedure and was still stained with blood from the slayed king. One of his eyes was a rage filled bloodshot orb fixated in the pursuit of power, the other patched after he had been blinded in the process of taking the crown that rightfully now hung over his head.

Snaggy hid behind a dumpster, out of sight he cowered in fear for his life. This new king looked scary, and the future looks uncomfortable. Jesters were already an endangered profession in the kingdom. This prince had never appeared to enjoy intellectually stimulating entertainment like the 16-ball juggle or an exercise in fire breathing techniques.

"Snaggy oh you fool I see you cowering there stay put I need advice" said the man running forward, slashing with the sharp hook on his hand.

"AAAA" said the jester before darting off down a dark side street then going down another before taking the next intersection a different direction entirely.

The man who wished to crown himself king by morning walked along empty city street in the dead of night looking for his next victim.

Nancy had run into the forest after cleaving off the prince's hand. She walked with a sack of essential items strapped to her back along the railroad track. Her mission had failed she would have to flee to the jungle and go in again in a few years when things had died down for another shot at ending the tyranny and stopping the crown. Her whole life had been spent a rebel, and things were persona; after the empire had burned down her village and taken her family to work in their mines for crystals. That was until the elves had found a better way of mining apparently, and they had been all released back into the cold snowing forests on mass last year. All the people even those ill of health locked out of the castles and told to fend for themselves.

Ned sat atop his stead riding it along the clearing cut to lay the fresh train tracks headed back home. It was just another day as wizard, a profession that seemed to always leave him alone in the end. He removed the stringed instrument folded up in his back sack and began to strum it after it had been assembled.

"Time keeps going, funny people I know keeps going too, ho ho ho, no longer entertaining me no more, hey it the wizard and his steed keep walking along on its own, can't do much but go the only path we are given forward, to have fun and go slow isn't that right you mule" Ned sung and strummed to an audience of one as they kept along the train track path headed back to civilization.