The king allowed adventurers in the dungeon built beneath his castle. All the treasures, dangers and revelations were for the public’s taking.
The king had an obsession with his lineage, particularly concerning an ancestor who was purportedly a god. Though he often cited this fact, he had never been able to prove it. He held hope that the labyrinth beneath his familial land possessed the proof of this connection. He also laid claim to a certain proportion of any treasure found, as he of late became much jealous of a certain noble, the replacement.
The local Adventurer’s Guild gathered to elect a leader for this expedition. They proposed an election between the two most senior adventurers. One had lost his mind, and the other was made crippled and incontinent by a chimera. Both of their faces sagged, both ate food mushed, and both only remembered where the bathroom was.
On the day of the election, both deceased. Their sons were nominated, neither of whom had experience as adventurers. They made grand promises about the things that were to be discovered and grand lies concerning their method of achieving success. These arguments were met with cool reception. The nominees then began slandering the other, calling the other impotent, lame, stupid, and traitors to the Adventurer’s Guild. This was met with far greater enthusiasm, for they both were impotent, lame, and stupid, but they were the only candidates available for voting. The guild was so inflamed by their speeches, and so moved by the fact that both candidates were unworthy, that both were assassinated by the end of the week.
After many speeches where both sides accused the other of stirring violence for their own gain, two new nominees were named. Not only did the slander intensify, the nominees found they were capable of doing every kind of harm to their constituents, as taking their wealth and their wives, and slaying anyone they did not like, not based on their own merit, but on their opponents’ lack of merit, which, as we recall, was half a truth and half an invention. As both parties were desperate to defeat the other, they gave their candidate access to more and more power, which each believed to be granted by their own merit rather than the mob, and so both were felled in a duel, which they thought they could win, though neither knew how to use swords.
Two new nominees were named. These same two promptly left town the same night, as they desired to live, and they did not enjoy making speeches.
Now no one wanted to be leader, and people were forced to accept nominations, and consequently people were forced to excuse themselves from running, as choking on a meal, being kicked by a horse, slipping in a bathtub. One very fortunate man had won an election, a man who deserved to be leader for his accomplishments yet was passed up for louder men, stood up to the applause, sat down, and died on that very seat, for reasons unknown to this day.
Finally our hero and the healer nominated themselves. This was long after the adventurers, who consisted only of nobles, began nominating their horses, dogs, and cats, so the precedent had been set. The healer made many good arguments, as filling the dungeon with air, using salamanders to light the way, and had many opinions on armaments and tools. The audience, however, preferred our hero, who said very little and thus had little to scrutinize. They also empathized with him more, as they too were not adventurers. Our hero won by a landslide, and the healer accepted a role as his advisor, whose duty involved beating the sense into our hero occasionally.
© 2025 François-Marie Lee