The King of Bones (Uses Conditional Variables )

You smile and feel a shiver running through your body. Time to make history, you think and turn to the door. The war was long and brutal, many died in its process and to reinstall order will be very difficult. But you are prepared to do so. It´s your destiny. One last smile, then you take the mask in your hand and turn around

You open the door and enter the hall of skulls. The large room only illuminated by pitch-torches is filled with men and woman in dark, dirty clothing, it smells like shit and , and the noise seems to be an entity for itself. You inhale and grin under your mask, while you walk to the one spot where nobody sits or stands. It's a platform at the end of the hall opposite to the main entrance. In the middle of it stands a throne made of human bones. This is your destination, it always was. You don´t know, who made this throne or why. You guess, to put fear into the hearts of their enemies, and you bet it still works very well. You walk to the throne and stand right before it. You look at the audience again. They scream and applaud and shout

"Hail the King, hail the King of Bones. You lift your left hand and try to calm the mob down. With the help of your henchmen, who start beating the loudest noisemakers, the hall eventually turns silent.

"A new time has begun. Up there" you point to the ceiling "the young King Bryce has been incarnated a few month ago and now it is time to turn a new chapter down here too. The ruler will try to fight us, as they all do when they become king. He will hunt us, and us and try to get rid of us all. But like every single one of his ancestors, he will fail.

We will prevail because we are part of this city! Like the carpenters, the farmers, the merchants, the guard, we are part of it too!

I know you all fought each other to the nails for years now. You lied, you stole, you killed each other, and you see no reason to work together, but we have to. We have to unite again. The thieves and whores and henchmen of the capital can't fight each other anymore because we need to fight the king together. You all know me, and what ever you think of me, you know I never give up. I will not give up on you, you stupid shits." Every body laughs, some are shouting "King of bones, king of bones" But you see not only happy faces. There are others too who look grim and displeased. The enemies you defeated to become what you are, finally.

There is Tarik the Viper, a small skinny man with only one eye and the ability to poison someone in 1000 different ways. There is the beautiful but deadly Alithia the Lustful, the leader of the whores of the capital who is said to know every secret of every man in the kingdom, of every man but you. And there is Karl the Butcher, who is indeed a butcher and the most powerful bandit of the capital with the greatest manpower. After years of fighting in the so called "War of the Unknown", after hundreds were slaughtered in the streets, you finally managed to bring all of them together. You had to kill many friends and enemies to get here. You managed to make peace with all of them, but you know they will wait for a mistake and then they will kill you. But not tonight!

"In the name of the underworld of the capital, in the name of all the murders, thieves, whores and tricksters I declare my self, Luzio Darkhound, the 15th King of Bones" You put on your mask which is of cause an old human skull and lift the right hand in victory. The hall explodes in cheers and claps and for a moment, just a brief one it seems they all feel united. It will not last long, and you know that.

After a few hours which you spend in the crowd talking with many different people with many different concerns, somebody taps you on the shoulder. You sign in relief as you see Samantia your Second in command, the most beautiful and most deadly assassin in the capital. With out her help in the past, you would have never been able to conquer the throne.

"It´s time for the meeting, my Lord."

You nod, say goodbye to the masses and follow her through a side door into the conference room.

The Viper, the Whore, and the Butcher are already waiting there together with your friends, Alfred of Pal, a young nobleman who has a financial interest in your business and Ruran the Cannibal, a gang leader you were able to bring on your side years ago.

They stand around a round table waiting for you. The table was your idea to give them the feeling of being kind of equal to you. You greet everyone and sit down, the others follow.

"Congratulations, my king" Alithia say with an ironic grin on her mouth. "This was a magnificent speech! Not true, but magnificent!"

Suddenly a knife pierces the table right in front of her hand, but she does not flinch. She just looks to Samantha and smiles again.

"Do you wish to die, my love?" Then she turns to you "Or do you want a war again."

Samantia hisses. "Do you say the king was lying?"

The whore turns back to her, pulls out the knife and puts it in her pocket. "Overstating, I would say. He said we had peace knowing fully well that this is not correct. War is not over, there still is Dorian, and he will not surrender easily."

You nod, there is no reason to shout. Samantha tries to defend you, and Alithia just tells the truth. You learned a long time ago not interfere in every single dispute your underlings have.

"You are right. My brother is still resisting. He and his gang will not bend the knee, and this means we are still at war, but, we have more than three-quarters of this city under control, and we will have all of it pretty soon. "

The Viper crosses his arms before his chest and ask. "But how? Dorian has powerful friends, some say, he has friends in the court and outside of the country. You managed to isolate him in the underworld but he is not powerless, and he will try to overthrow you!"

"And this is not the only problem," The butcher suddenly says. " The king has started to turn his attention to the underworld. There are more and more soldiers in the city and in the forest too. It gets more and more difficult to rob merchants on the roads."

You know they are right, your reign does not begin easy. The underworld has decimated its self in the last years due to this stupid war, your brother envies you and tries to kill you nearly every day, and this foolish, young king is far too ambitious. You need to take control. The question is, what should you do first? Your manpower and resources are limited. Should you defeat your brother or concentrate on robbing the merchants to get revenue before the king intensifies his patrols even more?