There once was a king with a kingdom. The king was a very selfish king, but this was OK, since all the peasants loved him. They didn't know that he was doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons. For instance, he helped with the reclamation of slums so that he would get more money from taxes. The king was a round man, with a bushy golden beard, who was usually seen in his kingly king outfit around his kingly king gold. 
	The kingdom consisted of buildings built around the wall of the king's castle, buildings within the king's castle, and of lots of small farms and small villages each under the protection of a knight. The peasants lived in the villages, and were fairly poor individually but since they were in a closed economy they could basically trade with each other for whatever they wanted. All the wealth circulating came back to them fairly quickly. Although the villages were small, each was large enough so it had one peasant to do each job. Each village had a farmer, a barber, and a chef. Each village even had a merchant who was basically the head of foreign dealings (he knew how to haggle).
	Sir John, along with a couple of other knights, protected the castle and the village around it. Sir John was the king's best knight. Sir John was very brave, very bold, and very knightly. He would have slain many dragons if there had been any around. But unfortunately for Sir John and fortunately for the peasants, there were no dragons to be seen. So the knight spent his days fighting against training dummies and jousting in his spare time.
	One day when the king and Sir John were talking, a scout rushed in, "(pant) I saw a (pant) a... a... (pant) " 
	"Spit it out already!" shouted the king.
	"Um, a dragon! (pant) I saw a dragon," panted the scout. "It was big. It was red. It was mean."
	"A dragon? Nonsense! I'll deal with this later. It's teatime."
	The news of a dragon excited Sir John very much. He had always wanted to slay a dragon, because he knew if he did he would bring home all of the dragon's gold and be known as a hero. He had been certain of it for the longest time. He would, no matter what, slay a dragon for the good of his people. The idea of slaying a dragon intimidated him, since he had never had to fight a thing as large as dragon, never had to dodge flames, nor have his life depend utterly on his shield. He had heard stories about how dragon scales were nearly impenetrable. He knew that to defeat the dragon he would have to stab it in its underbelly or mouth and both were extremely difficult to reach.
	A week later the king and Sir John were discussing what to do about the dragon when a scout came in with news from a neighboring kingdom about an army wearing black suits and carrying dark banners with three stars and a skull. Neither the king nor Sir John knew to whom the banner belonged.
	The king called in his chief librarian and asked to whom the banner belonged. The librarian said that many years ago there was an evil wizard who was not very nice at all. His only known motive was to kill people to gain magical power because he was evil, and every evil overlord wants power. This didn't actually work, which made him all the more horrible. Nobody really knew his name and nobody seemed to care because usually by the time they saw him their homes had been burned to the ground. 
	The evil wizard had an evil legion of doom who wore helmets so dark and large that you could not quite make out their faces. He also never, ever spoke, but he did manage to shout at his evil legion of doom. Nobody knew how (it was a closely guarded secret). The legion also did not talk much because that was the way of evil legions of doom.
	The wizard had a pet dragon which was quite mean. People say dogs often look like their owners. If you lived back in the days of knights, you would know that dragons often act like their owners. The dragon spent its days hoarding gold, eating sheep, and doing other dragonly things.
	 The librarian added, "In recent years there have been rumors that the wizard is back based on sightings of his pet dragon."
	The king exclaimed, "A dragon was sighted just a week ago! This cannot bode well."
	The king then asked, "If the wizard never speaks, then how do you know all of this?"
	"He wrote a book about how to be a professional evil overlord," explained the librarian.
	The king commanded Sir John and the other knights to slow the advancing legion of doom. The king wanted time to pull together an army of his own.
	The next day Sir John and his knightly companions went out to slow the legion of doom. They had to go quite a ways as the advancing legion was still in the distant foothills. They waited at a narrow pass that they knew the legion would have to go through. They set up a pitfall trap and readied their crossbows. As they waited for the evil legion of doom, one of the knights, namely Sir Smith, noticed a dark tower in the mountains. He also noticed a dark figure wearing a dark pointy hat standing at the top. 
	The legion of doom arrived, fell into the pitfall trap, and got shot with the crossbow bolts. This slowed them down significantly. The knights returned to the kingly castle.
	Their report greatly pleased the king. The king told the knights that he had called many knights from many villages within the kingdom and that they would be arriving soon to help stave off the invasion. 
	When Sir Smith told the king about the tower and the pointy-hatted man, the king was glad and distressed. He was glad that he knew the whereabouts of the person who he believed to be the wizard. He was distressed because he knew it would make it much easier for the wizard to send commands to his army since he was so close.
	The king ordered his army to make a defensive formation on the far side of the cultivated fields facing the oncoming legion of doom. He ordered all his knights currently in the castle to go help his army, but as Sir John was leaving the king held him back. 
	He said, "I want you to go battle the wizard by yourself, as a legion of doom is nothing without its leader. You can't go in a large group because you might draw attention to yourself." 
	As Sir John walked away from the castle, he looked over the battlefield. The legion of doom was engaged with the army. He saw smoke billowing up from the battlefield. Already the battle formations of both the armies were breaking up.
	Sir John continued walking towards the wizard's tower. Then he heard a loud roar and spotted the wizard's dragon. Startled, he quickly hid behind a pile of rocks and watched it from a safe distance. It was breathing fire and looking generally upset. Sir John at first did not understand this, but then he noticed it was chained down with a collar around its neck. He realized in order to get to the wizard he would have to face the dragon. It looked much larger in real life than he expected from the pictures in the books he had read.
	Sir John knew he couldn't sneak up behind it because its scaly hide was impenetrable except in the mouth and a small area of the underbelly. So he did the smart thing, he ran up in front of it and shouted at it. The dragon then, of course, breathed fire at him. Sir John made a great leap to the side just in time. Sir John then quickly ran under the dragon intending to stab it in the underbelly, but nothing happened because no matter what anybody tells you dragons do not really have weak spots in the underbelly.
	Realizing this, Sir John retreated to his hiding spot behind the rocks. He tried to think of a second plan. He thought to himself, "OK, the front is out because that is where the fire is. The side is out because there is nothing to stab there. And the back is out because there isn't any weak spot there either. No, wait, why is the back out? Why can't I run up the back and stab it in the mouth?" 
	Setting thought to action, he tried to do it. Unfortunately, this was easier thought than done, as Sir John found out when he took a smack to the head from the dragon's tail. But being a persistent fellow, Sir John tried again. This time he made it onto the dragon's back. The dragon did not like having him on its back so it flew up into the air to try to shake him off. Realizing what the dragon was doing, Sir John did the first thing that popped into his head. Although it is probably not the best idea to stab a dragon in its wings when you are on it and it is flying, Sir John did exactly that. He stabbed it in its thick leathery wings. With a loud roar, the dragon plummeted to the ground. Luckily for Sir John, the fall was not far because the dragon's chain was holding it down. Sir John was safe.
	Having grounded the dragon, he ran up its neck, and stabbed it in its mouth. Writhing in pain it shook its head flinging Sir John off. It then breathed fire all over Sir John's sword, which melted the blade. He grabbed the hilt with the melted, searing hot remnants of the blade. He then yanked one of the dead dragon's teeth out and stuck it on the hilt of the blade creating a dagger of sorts.
	After resting and eating a small meal, Sir John continued on his journey. A while later he arrived at the tower. He found the tower without guards. Apparently the wizard felt no one would get past his dragon. He cautiously entered the tower. The interior was hollow with a stair winding up around the inside of the wall. Sir John climbed the perilous staircase, taking care not to make noise. Slowly creeping up the last few steps, he popped his head up and peeked at the wizard. The wizard was chanting something with his hands in the air in some language unknown to Sir John.
	The wizard suddenly stopped chanting, pointed his finger at Sir John, muttered something, and a bright white ball flew at him. Sir John leaped aside, and the ball caused a large explosion when it hit the tower. It blasted a large hole in the tower and flung a large amount of rubble high into the air. A rock fell not a foot away from Sir John, nearly crushing him to death. 
	Sir John flung himself behind the rock before the smoke and dust settled. The wizard started shooting fire from his hand all over the place. Sir John realized it would only be a very short time before the wizard's fire found him. He jumped up and charged at the wizard while protecting his face from the wizard's fire spell with his gauntlets. Sir John pushed the wizard back and kicked him off the tower.
	The wizard halted his fall with a floatation spell, saving himself from certain death, and floating to the top of the tower to continue the fight.
	Looking over the side of the tower, Sir John was surprised to see the wizard floating back up towards him. Without hesitation Sir John jumped down onto the wizard and stabbed him in the heart with the dragon-tooth dagger. There was a burst of flame, a hideous stench, and with a terrifying scream, the wizard died. Sir John only survived the fall because the wizard's corpse cushioned the fall. 
	Sir John began to walk away, but after a few steps he passed out from exhaustion. Back at the castle the king began to worry because Sir John had not come back yet. 
	The legion of doom was fairly ineffective without anyone to lead it. The legion of doom didn't notice until it was too late that they were surrounded. At that point the king's army and knights found the battle easy to win.
	Later Sir John woke up in a bed, his bed. Sir John put on his clothes and went to talk to the king. 
	The king said, "Well, we've won the war, and we're having your sword reforged. The blacksmith told me that that dragon's tooth will make a great, sturdy core for your new blade."
	So with the battle won, the knight got a new sword and was forever thereafter known for slaying a dragon and killing a wizard who threatened the entire kingdom. Of course Sir John was not the only one who profited. The king was quite happy when he found the dragon's gold hidden in the wizard's tower.


	The Tale of Sir John	
	6-8, p. 1