Your job: Keep an ungrateful monarch alive. Your tools: 8 expendable guards, gallows humor and questionable moral standards.

Command your warriors through a downward spiral of danger and misfortune, strategically escorting shoving the king through a maze of traps, assassins, angry peasants and the occasional donkey.

Position your warriors as human shields. Use them to trigger traps. Talk them out of healthcare. Dig into their retirement funds. Spend money on gear and upgrades for your soldiers.

Turn your units into trap detection specialists or crazed butchers. Identify traitors in your ranks. Bit by bit, uncover their personal stories and clues about what happened to each of the kingdoms you visit.

Like chess, without the dice.