A Narrator's Tale: The Dubious Efforts of Poor Men (SAMPLE)

**1st Place in the 2019 Ruby Awards for Humor**

Since creation, humankind has promptly freaked out over three big truths: the existence of the omnipresent Writer, the World apparently being a massive hibernating lifeform, and the roving voice in the sky, known as the Narrator, solely existing to entertain the other gods at humanity's expense.

The Narrator's newest adventurer is Horluf, a poor man in a big city with a chance to win a fortune. Before anything good happens, the Narrator's all-knowing knowledge falters and things take a turn for the worst, right before more adventurers tie themselves into the story. There's Dun, who needs a fortune of his own to pay off a mobster; Sinclair, a mute and loyal friend with brave intentions; John Carl, a theatrically-merry debt collector and proud owner of a sharp axe; and an impossible "metal man," who really isn't any more absurd than the otherworldly servant with a slight memory problem. With varied levels of enthusiasm, they decide to seek out a haunted treasure with a bizarre and violent past, while the Narrator makes do with a tale that continually strays further away from what was ever intended.

(A Narrator's Tale: The Dubious Efforts of Poor Men is a comic-fantasy / meta-fiction novel. What you see here on Wattpad is a SAMPLE of the full novel of the same name. I have included as much as possible--10% of the story--so that I may be able to at least share that much. See the first "part" of this story for more details.)