Out-of-towners ask me all the time: So, Geoff… How was the Dark Lord toppled?

 

My answer depends on when and where you catch me. As a tweed swaddled panelist on the lanyard circuit, I will happily sing the praises of the Crystal City’s heroes and expound with many an arch’ed eyebrow the myriad economic and political vagaries of our time. 

 

What can I say. You get what you pay for. As a mumbly bucket-hat wearing colleague of mine once said, “Buy the ticket, participate in the contractually predetermined episode described therein.” 

 

You’ll find this old newsman in his purest form, however, when the red and gold suns have set. A leering tusked and bat-eared thing, perched on a polyp in the humid bowels of the Drunken Dragon, where—in answer to your query—I will name you Gristle Nerd, kindly smash my bottle against your face, grind peanut shells into the wound and howl, “T’was the power of the FREE PRESS felled Sharklaw the Magnificent!” 

 

But anyone from here knows I’m just kidding around.

 

You get what you pay for. What goes in must come out. And sometimes what you paid for—whether you knew it or not—is the rich and bilious Truth splattered across your peasant boots: That there was a lot of meaningless talk and only a precious calorie of meaningful action. That in our darkest hour, right before it was too late, a funny thing just sort of happened and all the sudden the world was “a better place again”. 

 

Out-of-towners don’t like hearing this. Certainly not from me. 

 

An orc in a necktie. 

 

No. What you really want is a checklist, an instruction manual to follow for when the Big Shit comes ‘round again. Something tidy. A comforting fable of how the chisel-pecked champ defeated the horn-crotched termagant. Righteous orderly causes with happy obvious effects. Zero friction a plus. Sound internal logic highly desired.

 

There may be something to that, but I’m here to tell you: That’s not how the world works. Not this one at least. 

 

If you’re turned off, go buy a postcard. What you’re after is a fantasy, and that’s not what we’re selling here in the pages of The Daily Bard—a real newspaper.

 

That’s right. We’re back. Lord Sharklaw’s death squads may have bombed our old offices into concrete confetti, but Qan’Tyr’s antediluvian paper of record is risen from the ashes. Now, a mere century since the grisly dismemberment of our original news team by baby pterodactyls, we at the rebuilt and rebranded Daily Bard are proud to present this inaugural issue hot off the presses.

 

So. How did we do it? How was the Dark Lord toppled?

 

I spent most of those hundred years eating raw potatoes in the dungeons of Harkhold, so I’m probably the worst person to answer that question. 

 

What you should be asking instead—as you buy me another tequila sunrise and stare slack-jawed into the eyes of the legendary Geoff Bonerider, Managing Editor of The Daily Bard—is why we replaced the Dark Lord with a little dog named Dagwood (A Very Good Boy, long be his reign.) 

 

Lean in. Wipe the blood out of your eyes and keep reading. This story and many more. Here, once a week until we’re arrested again. Or find something else that pays better.

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Geoff Bonerider

Managing Editor for the Daily Bard