Questing For Treasure

Back in days of yore, if you had something valuable, you buried it. If you had something really valuable, you hid it in a dungeon, surrounded by traps, monsters, curses and other measures to keep the treasure-seeking public from getting their hands on it. Many times, these people would create maps, these maps hidden behind paintings, in the linings of jackets, in old volumes of various publications and in other obscure locations. In time, these people would die without passing on the locations of these maps and thusly the treasures were lost for ages.

Of course, any attempt to construct a dungeon with traps, minions and curses required the services of lowly-paid lackeys and/or slaves. Historically, the fate of these workers was to be entombed with the treasure, either alive or dead, to prevent the location and layout of the dungeon from falling into the hands of fortune seekers. However, the survival instinct of the lackeys who were left alive would kick in and they would attempt to escape their confinements. The majority of their efforts would be thwarted by traps, dungeon denizens, curses and/or other lackeys, but occasionally one or two would escape. Due to the remoteness of these dungeons, most lackeys/slaves would barely make it back to civilisation, let alone remember the path they took to get back. But they would come back with news of the newly-buried treasure that was out there, somewhere, possibly who the treasure belonged to and thusly a rumour was born.

The rumour of treasure, over the years, would outlive the original owner of the treasure and live for centuries, tempting treasure hunters the world over to attempt to find this treasure. These attempts would invariably fail, with the hunters usually running out of funding, being murdered by savages or finding the treasure and succumbing to the traps, denizens or curses guarding the treasure. Occasionally, these people would succeed in cleaning out the dungeons and stealing the treasures, but would then be robbed by gypsies, nosferatu and/or republicans upon leaving the dungeon with treasure in hand.

Cut to modern era, when most of the buried treasures of the world were found. As most people were poor in ages past and most rich people were too busy oppressing the poor, treasure-hunting as a serious career never really took hold until the industrial revolution. With the sudden emergence of the middle class and the management caste, the wealthy socialites of the world were left with little to do, other than to sit around, consume caffeinated beverages, smoke and complain about the rising middle class. A few of these individuals would then happen upon the ancient rumours of buried treasure and would consequently realise that with an ancient treasure added to the family fortune, they would be that much further from middle class, therefore that much safer from the various diseases they carried. Thus the treasure-hunter was born.

Armed only with cunning, guile, courage, charisma, a whip, provisions, rum and a team of native guides, the treasure-hunter would follow maps found in books, paintings and linings of ancient jackets, that had lain undisturbed or discovered for centuries, despite common reading, viewing or donning of the items, in order to find the treasure. Upon hearing about these treasure-hunters and their success in finding lost treasures, Adolf Hitler decided to create his band of treasure-seeking Nazis to fund his third reich. Unable to locate any books, paintings and/or jackets containing maps to buried treasures, Hitler decided the best course of action was to follow Treasure-hunters to the treasures, fight off the ambushing gypsies, nosferatu and/or republicans and proceed to ambush the treasure hunters as they emerged, treasure-laden, and proceed to kidnap said treasure-hunter, the mildly-attractive-yet-modern-minded young lass he would invariably have picked up and his trusty 12 year old child/monkey sidekick.

Here was when treasure-hunting evolved from a simple dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge played with the denizens of the dungeons to a full-blown artform, with the sudden addition of nazi-punching, disguise, motorcycle-theft, wisecracks and obscene luck added to the repertoire of the modern-day treasure-hunter. With Nazi Germany out to get every treasure-hunter and his treasure, it became a struggle for the very treasure of the ancients. As the majority of treasure-hunters were born in England or America, eventually war were declared.

World War 2 spelled the end for treasure-hunting, as the allied nations employed vast armies of treasure-hunters and nazi-punchers to scour the earth for all ancient treasure to ensure the nazis don't get their filthy nazi claws upon it. In retaliation, the nazis proceeded to exterminate all jews they could find, under the false-belief that jews contained deposits of gold in their skeletal structures. the D-Day campaign was launched when Allied forces uncovered the Earth's last buried treasure and had it shipped to the Allied Command Buried Treasure Vault, where it was boxed and filed, thus ridding the Earth of buried treasure once and for all. Upon taking Germany and discovering what ridiculous lengths the Nazis went to to obtain war-gold, the Allied forces exiled all nazis to Argentina, where they were beaten by natives and buried in dungeons, without treasure.

Scientists theorise that all nations on earth have targeted the Allied Command Buried Treasure Vault with enough nuclear weapons that the contents of the vault will be scattered globally, if ever there were a nuclear war. This would then prompt a post-apocalyptic revival of the treasure-hunter movement, in search for all the newly-buried gold amongst the ashes of civilisation.