Disgrace
- Greetings! Well met, Carehim the Bold! It's been a long time we have last seen you!
- Oh! Sorry, Byne Trollskinner. I didn't see you, oldtimer. Sit down, sit down.
- Don't mind if I do. So you have the money for the full wine skin?
- Not for long I don't.
- Now, why do you look so glum?
- I've been doing jobs for the Adventurer's Guild. Thought not the kind that would bring glory.
- Something bad?
- Well, there's the matter of Ergeron Dragonslayer.
- Who?
- The fact that you haven't heard about him is part of the problem. He has not been properly vocal about his exploits.
- But.. That's against all the traditions! True warrior must proclaim his glory.
- That's only the beginning. See, his name is actually well established. He has killed hundreds of dragonkin. So many, in fact, that the dragons respect his skills enough to yield if he appears.
- Then why he isn't a man of great renown?
- Well, all this begun when one young dragon who tried to eat a herd saw Ergeron coming and fled. The Brotherhood of Dragonslayers heard about it and thought the dragon must have been a coward. So they attacked the dragon.
- I take it they didn't succeed?
- No, The dragon ate them all. Including the self-declared archmage. Sewer goblins in their town are now safe from them.
- But what makes Ergeron a problem?
- You see, Ergeron begun his career the usual way, back in the day when local bumpkins in his area tried to keep dragons away by feeding virgins to them.
- When a cow would have been enough.
- Yes. Ergeron saved many of those young women. Dozens of them.
- Dozens? But -
- None of them were princesses.
- Well, of course not, there were never enough of them to go around. But it surely goes against the hallow traditions. Unless -
- He didn't rape anyone of them.
- Oh, Very well, but then -
- And he didn't form a harem.
- That ingrate! Didn't even prove his manhood in that way.
- Quite, quite. But the fact is that he saved dozens of them and now even young dragons steer clear of him. The elder ones always lose the interest eventually.
- Well, what the Guild is going to do about this... reprobate who has violated the terms of manhood?
- I don't know what they tried but afterwards they hired me to snoop around a bit. I was glad to do that, I thought maybe I could secure some of those wenches for myself. So I tried to find out what had happened to them. And no, troll slavers laughed at me.
- Well, that proves my point; whatever they'd ever do with all those women. But that means that Ergeron didn't even use them to make a profit. So what had happened to them?
- Well, locals often tied up the virgins that were bothersome or simply didn't give in to the amorous advances of the town marshall or something like that. Ergeron didn't take them back but took them away and introduced many of them to families of lower nobility.
- So they are now their maids.
- No. He knows something we don't because now most of those women are happily married to number of knights around the realm. And those families are very grateful to Ergeron.
- Oh.
- There's more. The two illegitimate princes wouldn't like at all if something would happen to their ”uncle”. And no, His Majesty is really their father.
- So the official Royal Mistress is -
- One of those women, yes.
- I heard that they have made clear that they have no claims to the crown, against the wishes of his Majesty.
- So you see that the path of Royal Displeasure is closed. Royal Astronomer was also happy to get his kidnapped daughter back.
- So the girl really was abducted.
- Yes, by the Royal Chamberlain. Which is probably one of the reasons why he is still somewhere in the Void.
- Well, then you have to use the final -
- There's the matter of the Supreme Mistress of the Assassin's Guild.
- You mean - ?
- She is one of those women. And fought her way to the top.
- By the Holy Sword. So the Guild cannot do anything to this... this...
- No.
- So this... blight of all manhood is going to get away with all this.
- Barring divine displeasure. And can you guess where he took some of the girls?
- So they are priestesses?
- Too many of them.
- Well, this surely is a bleak day for the Guild.
- Quite. Pass the wine skin, please.
- I'll go get my own.