"I challenge you, Dragon!"

“I challenge you, Dragon!”

Sir Duncan looked over the boulder at the mouth of the cave ahead of him. He was hiding behind a boulder because he and his squire, Eric, were tasked with slaying the dragon that lived in the cave.

The dragon in question had been plaguing their kingdom for several weeks now, mostly just stealing sheep, which the king had ignored. But when it burned down the vineyard where the palace made its wine, well that was when the king finally took action, which is why Sir Duncan and Eric are here now.

The king however, had not taken into account just how difficult it is to slay a dragon.

Now, it’s true there is the story where a knight goes into single combat against a dragon and saves a princess, but that story never was confirmed, which is what worried Sir Duncan right now. He turned to Eric and said, “I think we’ll need a plan.”

“Anything in mind Sir Duncan?” asked Eric.

‘Well,” began Duncan, “The king told me that before we slay the dragon, we have to, err, read it its rights.”

“Read it its- why would we do that? It’s a dragon.”

“That’s what I said,” said Sir Duncan. “But apparently the king wants to do this properly.”

“That’s mad,” stated Eric. “So I guess you’ll do that now.”

“Actually, I thought I’d let you do it this time, Eric.” Said Sir Duncan.

“What, why me? It’s a bloody dragon!”

“Well, maybe if you read very quickly and quietly, then the dragon won’t even notice. It may even be asleep. Besides, I’m the one wearing the armor; I can’t jump out of the way if it breathes fire at me.”

“Fine.” Said Eric, taking the scroll that had the rights on it. He then slinked over to the mouth of the cave, unrolled the scroll, and read the rights. It sounded a little like:

“Dragon you are here by charged with stealing about two dozen sheep burning down the king’s vineyard and maybe eating Mr. Jenkins we’re not really sure about that yet.

“Therefore you are to be put to the sword by Mr. Sir Duncan for your crimes, thank you and have a good day.”

Finished, Eric quickly dove back behind the boulder where Sir Duncan was waiting.

“Good job lad, I don’t think the dragon even noticed.”

Just as he finished speaking a jet of flame flew from the cave into the boulder. Fortunately they were on the other side of it.

“Bugger! Did you feel that!”

“It’s awake!”

Both of them hurriedly got up and ran for cover behind the next boulder (there were a lot of boulders in front of the cave).

After nothing happened for a minute, they cautiously poked their heads over the new boulder to see if the dragon had moved.

It had not. Or at least, it hadn’t left the cave yet.

“well,” said Sir Duncan.” Now we know it’s awake, probably.”

“Oh yeah, that helps.” Said Eric sarcastically.

“Of course it does! Now we can take that into account when we make our plan.”

“Which is?”

“That’s what we do now.” Said Sir Duncan. “Now, I’ve heard that the dragon’s belly is weakest. So maybe if you distracted it…”

“Oh of course, I distract it. How am I supposed to do that?” complained Eric.

“I don’t know, throw rocks at it or something. Now I’ve heard reports claiming it’s as big as a barn, although they could have been exaggerating when they said it. Nevertheless that’s all we have to go on now so I’ll have to take their word for it. Anyway, there’s two of us and only one dragon, so I say we just use that to our advantage and try to flank it from both directions.”

“That doesn’t sound much like a plan.” Said Eric.

“Well it’s all we got. Better than just rushing in there anyway. Now let’s go!”

Sir Duncan and Eric got up from behind the boulder and, cautiously, ran towards the cave.

“Dragon!” bellowed Sir Duncan, “I challenge you!”

From the back of the cave, ominous footsteps that shook the cave could be heard as the dragon came to the mouth of the cave.

The dragon was truly a majestic creature, covered in gleaming emerald scales, with three foot long horns and teeth that could tear a man in half.

It is the size a barn, thought Sir Duncan. Bigger actually, or least this close it seems to be. How does the king expect me to kill this thing?

Then something happened that Sir Duncan wasn’t expecting happened; the dragon spoke.

“Finally, the king sends a knight. I mean, how many sheep do I have to steal for him to take notice? He should thank me for burning down that vineyard too, if I stole much more sheep he’d have a riot at his gates.”

Eric, who also wasn’t expecting the dragon to talk, suddenly said “You can talk?”

“Well she can clearly talk Eric; I think that much is clear now.” Explained Sir Duncan. “Now dragon, now that we now you can talk, perhaps we can negotiate, because I’d rather leave here without being burned to a crisp. Right Eric?”

“But what if she ate Mr. Jenkins?” asked Eric.

“I didn’t eat any of the peasants.” Said the dragon, “Only the sheep. But I do not think we are here to negotiate. We are here to do battle, are we not?”

“Well we were at first.” Said Sir Duncan, “But I’ve always said that fighting never solves anything, right Eric?”

“You never say that, sir.”

“Yes I do, sometimes!” insisted Sir Duncan. “Look, why don’t me and my squire here just go back to our kingdom, and you just go back to wherever it is you came from. Or how Lavrabo! They have lots of sheep there, goats too, if you like.”

“I thought we were supposed to slay the dragon.” said Eric to Sir Duncan.

“Not now Eric, I’m negotiating here. Besides, this way is just as good, and we’re less likely to be torched if it works.”

“We are not here to negotiate.” Stated the dragon, “We are here to fight.”

“Oh come on!” shouted Sir Duncan, “Why are you so dead set on fighting? We don’t want to fight-“

“Because it has always been this way.” Said the dragon. “Dragons have always fought knights. It is how it is.

“But clearly that is not how it is anymore. Now there is only cowardly knights and selfish kings.” She looked at Sir Duncan in the eyes. “If you will not fight me then so be it. I will leave this pathetic kingdom behind. Perhaps some there are other knights who are brave enough to challenge a dragon.”

Then the dragon drew her wings and soared into the air, becoming only a dot in the sky in seconds.

“I can’t believe that worked.” Said Sir Duncan.

“But what about what she said?” asked Eric, “about our king being selfish and you being a coward?”

“Eric, our king is selfish. But he’s our selfish king.” Said Sir Duncan. “As for me being a coward, well, only when I can’t win. Know your limits lad, and you’ll live a long life.

“But come on, the dragon’s gone and we’re not even singed I say that’s a win in our book.” Sir Duncan said as he began walking away from the cave and back to the castle, Eric following behind.

The next day, a dragon appeared in the kingdom of Lavrabo. After it stole a few sheep, the king sent his finest knight to slay the dragon, who burned him, his horse, and his village.

Fooled Gold

Here's my latest work. It's about a dwarf achaeologist who attempts to break into an ancient temple only to have trouble getting throught the front door. Enjoy.

Fooled Gold

The sun rose over Remacai on this fairly normal day. Indeed, it was going to be a perfectly normal day for Joeb, a man who lives in a village so small you'd have trouble finding it on a map of itself. But this story isn't going to be about Joeb. Instead, it will be about Grock Grockson, a dwarf archaeologist who's about to break into an ancient temple of Talot the god of vast riches. Sounds more exciting doesn't it?

Grock Grockson always thought of himself as being in top dwarf fashion, which having been more or less the same for centuries, he was. This consists of a chain mail shirt, leather boots, a large, two handed axe/warhammer slung across their back, and an iron helm. The only real difference from an archaeologist and a common dwarf is the small, golden bomb insignia on their helms. Also like most dwarves, Grockson has a large, bushy beard almost to his waist, and is only a little over three feet tall.

Grockson was currently leading his team of dwarven archaeologists up a hill towards the temple. Now, it's important to know that dwarven archaeologists are different than human ones. Where humans take careful steps with delicate tools to find historical artifacts, dwarves use high power explosives to see how much gold they can unearth. Anything that isn't gold is sold to humans for more gold.

Now that that's been said, you'll understand why the dwarves were piling about two score pounds of explosive charges at the base of the temple doors.

When Grockson had decided that they've used enough explosives, he called them back with an ancestral dwarvish saying, “Alright lads! That looks like enough! Now let's get behind that hill lest you want to get gutted by shrapnel!”

They all scurried for cover behind the hill, and Grockson prepared himself to push the switch that would unleash the power of 40 pounds of gunpowder.

“Alright,” he announced, “has everyone been accounted for?”

There were some whispering amongst the assembled dwarves, followed by a chorus of “aye”s.

“Right then,” said Grockson, “let's do this! Three, two, one!” Grockson pushed down of the lever, not setting off the power of 40 pounds of gunpowder, and not setting off a Shockwave that could be felt from a mile away. Instead it was replaced by some rather disappointing silence, accompanied by some birdsong.

“I hate it when this happens.” muttered one dwarf. Grockson glared at the direction he heard it come from.

“Well you all know what this means,” announced Grockson. “Someone's gonna have to see what the problem is.” He quickly added, “And it's not gonna be me.”

Every single dwarf failed to meet his gaze.

Grockson sighed. “Look, I know no one wants to, but there's most likely gold in there! You're all telling me you'd rather not risk a limb at best, for mountains of gold!”

Unfortunately, their silence indicated that they weren't. Someone coughed.

Again, Grockson sighed. “Fine,” he said, “have it your way.” He then pointed to two dwarves at random and said “You, and you. Go check it out.”

This created two very frightened looking dwarves in the midst of many relieved looking dwarves. “But why us?!” demanded one of the terrified ones.

“Because I said so.” said Grockson, “Now just go!” The two dwarves scurried off over the hill towards the temple. While they did that, the rest of the crew waited.

And waited.

This is gonna take a bloody long time, thought Grockson. He decided that if he was going to wait a while, he might as well do it sitting. So he sat. It was from this new vantage point that he saw where the wire leading to the charges had snapped at the base of the switch.

Grockson stood up with a shout of triumph. “Look here lads!” he exclaimed, then remembering himself, “and lasses.*”^*

He then continued, “I found the problem!” proudly holding up the two lengths of wire. The crew burst into cheers, and there was much rejoicing for about five seconds when Grockson started to reattach the wires and the crowd quickly stopped him before he destroyed the two dwarves on the other side of the hill.

After the two dwarves got back, Grockson prepared to blow up the doors a second time. “Ahem, sorry about that,” began Grockson. “But now it's time to blow down those doors!” There were moor cheers from the crew. This was the good part, and it was actually going to happen this time!

“Three, two, one!” Grockson pushed down on the lever as ever dwarf covered his ears. This time there was an explosion.

The shockwave hit the dwarves like a thump in the chest, and some of the newer dwarves fell down. The sound deafened every animal within a one mile radius, including the dwarves.

When the experience was over, the dwarves rushed to the top of the hill to see how much damage they had caused, they were a little disappointed.

It would have been nice to say that the doors were completely obliterated, and that mountains of gold coins could be seen within the temple, but that's not how it was. The doors remained completely intact, pristine as ever. There weren't even any scorch marks, you wouldn't even know there was an explosion.

“ !” “ !” “ !” the curses of angry archaeologists could not be heard by any of the dwarves, since none of their ears had recovered yet.

“What?” mouthed Grockson.

“I said it didn't work!” shouted another dwarf. Grockson put his hand to his ear to signal he couldn't hear him. The other dwarf tried yelling again, then gave up.

They waited for a few minutes, until they could begin to hear each other. “Now,” said Grockson, “what was it you said?”

“I said it bloody well didn't work!”

“Oh, yeah I guess it didn't.”

Another dwarf piped up, “Do we have a plan B?”

“Well,” Grockson began, then realized they didn't, “Err, no we don't.” They all just stood there, staring at the doors.

“You'd think two scores of gunpowder would do the job.” said one dwarf. This got a couples of “aye”s from the other dwarves. They all continued standing at the top of the hill, trying to think of what to do next.

The sound of hoof beats coming up the path answered that for them. They all turned around to see a figure on horseback trotting towards the temple. It was human, they could all see that. They could also see that he was wearing a green and gold suit that identified him as a member of National Association of Talot.

Some of the dwarves panicked. “But I thought this temple was abandoned!” exclaimed one.

“It is!” hissed Grockson, “Now just pretend we're supposed to be here and we'll be fine.” The dwarves all immediately went into what they each thought looked like a nonchalant pose, which was mostly just a lot of whistling.

The rider heard the whistling and looked up. He looked puzzled at first, but quickly switched that with a fixed grin. “Hello there,” he greeted them, “Uh, why are you dwarves here?”

Grockson was about to lie when another dwarf said, “We tried to break into your temple; only it didn't work.” Grockson glared at the dwarf.

This however, only made the priest chuckle, “Well I'm not surprised. Those doors are stronger than the walls.” This made the dwarves look at one another, they never thought of that.

“So, ah, why are you here?” Grockson asked.

“Good question,” remarked the priest, “I'm sure you dwarves probably thought this temple was abandoned, am I right?” Some dwarves nodded. He continued, “Well it is. The only reason I'm here is because we've sold the land the temple's on and I need to go in and get the deed. Some company wants to destroy the temple and put up a theme park. I figured-”

“So they don't care what shape the building's in since they'll just blow it up anyway?” asked Grockson.

“Well, no. Not really. But-”

“Ready the cannon boys!” commanded Grockson.

The crew hurriedly pushed the cannon they brought with them up the hill and prepared it to be fired. “Now wait, I know we don't need this temple-” started the priest.

“Fire!” ordered Grockson. The cannon gave off a loud pow noise and broke a roughly dwarf size hole right next to the door. The cheering dwarves surged forward to get through the hole and get to the gold.

And what a sight it was! Vast mountains of gold coins piled high into the air, chests overflowing with treasure. The dwarves threw themselves onto the piles and celebrated. That is they did, until they realized that it wasn't real gold, it was all made of plastic.

“What's this?” demanded Grockson. The priest, who had climbed in through the hole, explained.

“I thought it was obvious. Why would we leave mountains of gold in an abandoned temple? Even if we did we'd have to spend most of it on booby traps, and then some dashing young lad would just come in and get past all them anyway. We always take our gold with us when we leave.”

“Well then why all this?” asked Grockson, gesturing to the mountains of false treasure.

“Those where always there. There never even was that much gold here, I assure you.”

“Oh.” Grockson sat down on a plastic chest dejectedly. “I just thought Maybe I'd find some gold this time. I've never found any gold before you know. I mean, sure I've found some lizard bones, and some ancient pottery. But I've never found any gold in my career.” He sighed, then continued sulking. The other dwarves followed suit.

The priest stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, then walked off saying he needed to find the land deed.

Eventually, a dwarf said, “Now what?”

Another dwarf piped up, “I know! How about we go to the pub!”

This brightened Grockson up. “Aye! The pub!”

The crew gave a shout of “aye”s, and they all raced off to the pub.

* * *

About ten minutes later, the priest returned to the fake treasure room. “Hello?” He shouted. “Dwarves?” He looked around. “Now where are those little buggers?” He climbed through the hole back outside, and gaped.

The scene before him looked reminiscent of a military bombing range. Apparently, in their good spirited race to the pub, the dwarves had set off every remaining explosive they had left, so they wouldn't have to lug it back home.

The priest groaned, “Great.” he said, “Now I'll never get this place sold.”

*Females dwarves also have beards. This unfortunately, can lead to some very awkward situations at public restrooms. More than once a poor bathroom attendant has said, “Excuse me sir, but you can't go in there.” only to find out he's talking to a women.