Our heroes took a request to rescue a team of researchers in a nearby labyrinth. The labyrinth consisted of old tombs built by the citizens’ forebears, containing the history of their civilization and the secrets to magic and mortality. These would be excellent topics for research, however they were primarily concerned with means to add to the king’s hoards.
The labyrinth was dark, humid, and full of dust, all attributes our hero disliked. The healer traced the researchers’ steps and came across their bodies in a heap.
The healer heard footsteps in the distance. A tribe of goblins had made their home there.
The goblins took no pleasure in the presence of humans and picked up their knives and clubs to protect their children. They surrounded our heroes and shouted angrily. The healer understood that they wanted them to leave, and unrolled a scroll, whose letters erupted into a ball of fire aimed at the goblins. The labyrinth was old and shook, and collapsed. The healer was quick, our hero was not; he fell and plummeted deep into a hole.
The healer reported this situation to the Adventurer’s Guild, members of royalty, even the king himself. He went through every personal connection, but none were willing to save our hero, much less thought him worth saving. The labyrinths were designed in strange ways, meant for rituals, and our hero could have fell however many feet into danger. Furthermore, the dust raised from the collapse made the labyrinth unbreathable. The healer hung up his head, drank for several days, and returned home without a shirt or a gold piece, feeling unhappier than when he lost our hero.
However, our hero did survive. The corpses of the goblins and the researchers cushioned his fall.
As he had been in this situation not long ago, he gathered these same corpses, which saved his life, around himself, so he may eat them.
As there was no water, he chose the most attractive of the corpses, opened its mouth, and urinated into it, so he may drink out of it like a goblin goblet of wine. He disliked this method, but a complete lack of flexibility disallowed him from drinking straight from the source.
As there was no exit, and no light, our hero felt his best option was to stay put. However, as a result of his recent adventures, he had begun to realize that doing nothing was not always a viable action, that doing nothing, after all, was doing nothing, and he could not be certain whether anyone was coming to save him.
Thus, out of anxiety, and out of his control, he began passing wind, whose odor came from the corpses. He tried to prevent himself from passing wind, as he felt that doing so expended energy, by cupping his hand over his bottom. Over time the gas filled the hole, and steeped in his own fumes our hero thought.
He conceived of a light novel based on his adventures. The promise to not be a light novelist in this world, that he made himself, would have to be broken. The novel would be concerned with peace and justice, good and evil, of a muscular and impossibly handsome but meek and artistic hero of six feet height, of an impossibly beautiful girl who fell in love with the hero and struggled to find clothing to conceal her large breasts, and of a villain so evil he was willing to destroy the earth that he himself lived on. The twist is that the girl would not be in love with the hero initially, as, despite his muscles and his good looks, he was too meek. Eventually she would see all the virtues in him, and they would consummate, dressed in strawberries and whip cream.
“This is a good idea,” our hero thought, breathing in his own wind.
Though the goblins did not enjoy the presence of humans, their widows and children felt something like compassion for our hero, possibly as a result of the recent deaths; they also did not think smelling one’s farts was healthy; they were also disturbed by his cackling at his own jokes.
They approached the hole, their arms full of food and drink; they smelled the gas; they died; and they tumbled into the hole; and as the hole was very dark, our hero had none of their food and drink, and ate their bodies, their clothing, and the possessions on their person instead.
The bodies soon piled high enough for him to leave. He found that leaving his own smell made him less creative. He also found that this experience made him gain more weight, not less. He was hoping to acquire abs from starvation.
Our hero was reunited with the healer, who felt the taste of his tears was better than any wine brewed. As a result of the dangers of this adventure, and our hero’s indigestion, they took a reprieve from adventuring. This would have made our hero happy if the indigestion were not so painful.
Finally, after many hours over the pot, our hero pushed it out: a brooch whose jewel shone a brilliant complex green. He had pushed out many things, and would push out many things, as pieces of dresses, toys, canes and baby teeth, though this was the most prominent thing.
© 2025 François-Marie Lee