“Avast, my dear friends!” Cried Sir Ellingsworth, “Before us lies the great behemoth Mt. Mavetos, and betwixt the lot of us, there is by far enough gumption and spirit to summit this mysterious foe!”
The small band of adventurers stared back at Ellingsworth with muted enthusiasm. Despite the nobleman’s claim, they were not his dear friends. In fact, they were not his friends at all. They were his household staff.
Three months prior to Ellingsworth’s speech, he had been sipping tea in his palatial estate on the outskirts of Southampton. He had earned his fortunes through the deaths of his parents, and now lived jovially, letting his skin grow taut over his burgeoning jowls.
His newspaper was delivered precisely as he reached the halfway point of his tea, as it did every morning. On the front page of the paper read the headline: “Deadly Mt. Mavetos claims the lives of thirteen more professional mountain climbers.”
Ellingsworth leaned forward in interest as he read the report, occasionally scoffing at what he perceived to be mistakes in the departed mountaineers’ strategy.
“Bwahaha, they chose to go in the fall! Best to go in the winter, so you know exactly how bad the weather will be!” Ellingsworth said to his nearby butler.
“Yes sir,” the butler said, “certainly sir.”
Ellingsworth continued to read. As he read, he grew more and more confident in his own climbing expertise. Ellingsworth laid an appraising eyebrow at the butler,
“Say old chap, have you any experience hiking?”
The butler was slightly confused, however, it was protocol to agree with whatever Sir Ellingsworth asked,
“Yes sir,” the butler said, “certainly sir.”
“Excellent.”
Ellingsworth strolled about his grounds, the butler in tow. Occasionally, Ellingsworth would point to a worker and the butler would write their name in a small, leather-bound book.
At precisely a quarter till nine that night, Ellingsworth gathered every name into his foyer, a total of twenty-five industrious, lower-class souls, for a grand speech. He retrieved a crumbled piece of napkin, laden with writing, from within his smoking jacket, looked into the crowd, and began to read:
“Greetings; workers, servants, and mongrels,” he said with a wan smile, “I have gathered you here tonight for the most solemn of reasons. Henceforth, we shall journey into the unknown wilds in order to find, and summit, the misbegotten peak of Mt. Mavetos.”
Sir Ellingsworth glanced out at the crowd, attempting to gauge their reaction. The faces looking back at him ranged from confused to fear. Not exactly the reaction he’d been hoping for.
“This journey will etch my name into the history books, and yours’ into its footnotes. Surely you can all see how great of an opportunity this is, and will require no further argument to join me.”
Once again, Ellingsworth glanced out at the group, again they stared back at him. In some faces, he thought he saw anger, it looked like the cowards of the lot were already preparing their excuses from the trip. Ellingsworth had prepared for that.
“If not, I must warn you that any who elect not to partake in the journey will no longer be required of their service, and should seek work elsewhere.”
This was Ellingsworth’s masterstroke. He knew how hard it was for adults to find work in this economy; children had almost cornered the manual labor market.
Finally, there was an audible reaction from the crowd. Groans and complaints of course, but at least it wasn’t more silence.
Ellingsworth took this new reaction as an acquiescence to his demands. A grim smile cut across his face.
“Furthermore, since speed is of the utmost importance, we must make haste and leave on the morrow if we are to make it to the mountain by winter’s start.” Louder groans echoed this thought. Ellingsworth pushed onward, “Rest assured, I have befitted myself quite appropriately, so if any of you need advice on what to bring, simply model your outfit after my own. It cost only about twenty thousand dollars to outfit myself, so it is in fact quite modestly budgeted.”
With that Ellingsworth broke off a stiff salute, and hopped off the stage. The crowd of future mountaineers remained to whisper about their upcoming adventure, but Ellingsworth paid them no mind.
That was the last time Ellingsworth spoke to any of the workers. On the entire journey to the mountain, Ellingsworth insisted on addressing his constituents only through his butler. Despite that fact, the group successfully made their way into the heart of the Alps, suffering only one casualty: a man had died after being squashed by one of Ellingsworth’s travel crates.
Ellingsworth’s crates each weighed over half a ton, requiring at least five men each to drag them along. Ellingsworth kept the cargo secret, however most people assumed it held rations for the fast approaching wilderness.
With that concludes the journey to the mountain, and begins the journey up it.
Thus, we return back to Ellingsworth’s fateful speech.
As he gave the speech, most of the workers were so taken aback by this sudden change in attitude from Ellingsworth, they could not even comprehend the words the man spoke. Others were so poorly outfitted for the environment, their bodily functions had begun to shut down, likewise preventing them from fully comprehending the speech.
Two gardeners were able to understand fully, however they were so disgusted by the fat nobleman that they intentionally chose to tune him out.
Therefore, it was a slight surprise to the group when Ellingsworth spun on his heel, and began to march up the icy mountain, quickly followed by his intrepid butler.
Within the first hour a maid, who had been unable to purchase appropriate attire and was therefore dressed in typical maid regalia, keeled over with hypothermia. When a landscaper suggested bringing her back down the mountain to seek medical attention, Ellingsworth insisted that he had arranged for a medical checkpoint only a few more hours up the mountain.
Many of the workers took this piece of information with trepidation, however since Ellingsworth was the only one with a map, they decided to follow the jolly nobleman onward.
The group straggled farther up the mountain, following Ellingsworth and his butler.
After several strenuous hours and many tiring miles, during which several more workers had succumbed to hypothermia, the group reached a clearing.
A gutter cleaner called out to Ellingsworth,
“Excuse me sir, begging your pardon, but where is the medical attention?”
Ellingsworth looked back at the man, slightly confused, “The what?”
“You said there would be medical attention farther up the mountain.”
“Ah yes, about that…”
The workers stared at Ellingsworth.
“I’m afraid there will not be any medical attention, my deepest apologies and condolences.”
The crowd raised itself in an uproar. Ellingsworth hastened to stem the rising tide against him.
“Have no fear however, their deaths are but tiny sacrifices we must be willing to make in order to achieve this great victory for me.”
The group stared back at Ellingsworth dumbly. Ellingsworth had thought they would cheer after that rousing speech, so he coughed lamely and spoke again,
“Anyways, I suppose here is as good a spot as any to camp,” Ellingsworth declared. With that, his butler constructed his tent for him, and Ellingsworth crawled inside.
The rest of the group huddled together for warmth. The tents Ellingsworth had suggested had been, like the clothing, out of their price range.
Ellingsworth woke them the next morning with a rousing bugle solo, followed by the shout,
“Wake you sorry lot! It’s time to claim my mountain!”
It was not time to claim the mountain, the group had easily three more days left in their journey, but Ellingsworth did not really know how to read his map. In addition, five people had died in the night. That left fifteen people still alive. Plus Ellingsworth and his loyal butler of course.
The hiking continued for the next several hours. After a while, Ellingsworth called to halt the group. He sat down on a boulder, pulled some trail mix out of his coat, and began to nibble on a raisin.
“Excuse me sir,” a toilet cleaner asked, “could we have some food please?” The group had gone several days without food, which wasn’t entirely unusual for the time, so they hadn’t given it much thought. However, they were getting pretty hungry at this point, and the crates still had yet to be opened.
“I have no food to share,” Ellingsworth said offhandedly.
The cleaner laughed, “Oho, sir, good one.”
Ellingsworth said nothing.
The cleaner paused for a second before asking, “But what then is in the crates sir?”
Ellingsworth said nothing.
The man stared at the fat noble. A slow horror began to grip him. He approached the first crate slowly, stopping momentarily to pick up a nearby rock. Ellingsworth yelled at him to stop. He hammered the rock into the wood, wooden splinters flying all around him.
A board in the crate splintered, the cleaner tore the hole open, fingers bleeding from the jagged wooden edges. He peered inside the crate and gasped.
Inside was a camera. To be more specific, it was newest camera equipment known to man. Five foot lens, lead tripod. It was the lightest camera in the world, only 543 lbs. It was Ellingsworth pride and joy, he had spent nearly half of his massive fortune to acquire it.
A crowd formed around the crate, anger beginning to simmer.
A man opened the other crate and called out to the others,
“There’s another camera in this one too!”
Ellingsworth had spent the other half of his fortune on that camera, in case he broke the first one in transit.
Ellingsworth stood up on his rock,
“Alright you vagrants, hands off my equipment!”
The group turned towards him.
“They are worth more than the lot of you combined!”
The group began to walk slowly towards him.
A gardener called out from the group,
“So you don’t have any food for us?”
“Heavens no, provide for yourself!” Ellingsworth replied indignantly.
“And you don’t have any clothing for us?”
“Do I look like I’m made of money?” Ellingsworth replied with slightly less indignation.
The group fully surrounded him and his butler now. Ellingsworth began to finally grasp the situation.
“Butler, tell these vagabonds to mind their tongues and return to their stations!”
The butler looked around at the group, and then back up at Ellingsworth.
“What is my name?” he asked the noble.
“Come again?” shrieked Ellingsworth.
“What. Is. My. name?” the butler demanded.
Ellingsworth paused for a moment.
“Frank?” he guessed lamely.
“It’s Denzel you idiot.” Denzel the butler said, joining the crowd.
The crowd crept closer to Ellingsworth, hands reaching out. Ellingsworth brandished his trail mix. “Alright good fellows, I’ll let you have some of my nuts if you back away.”
Denzel thought about this for a moment, “No, I think we’re all in the mood for meat.”
Ellingsworth swung his jowl laden head back and forth in confusion, “I don’t see any meat arou–”
Denzel cut him off. “Let’s eat the bitch.”
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