After putting the rough sketch for this in scraps, I thought it would be a good idea to put the final version in my main gallery.

The picture depicts a moment out of a second imaginary Scrooge McDuck adventure I cooked up. (The first was "The Constantine Donative". You can find a couple of sketches for it earlier in the gallery.) The basic idea is that Scrooge has plausible evidence for the actual existence of this lost fantasy kingdom, and believes it must hide a vast treasure. The adventure takes him, his nephews (Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Looie), and his casually adopted/personal assistent Loona to the Central Asian desert. However, his arch rival Flintheart Glomgold has learned about the lost city too, and is hot on Scrooge's heels. Various dirty tricks slow the McDuck party down enough for Glomgold to catch up. He has hired four "bodyguards" to accompany him. But their real purpose is to counter Scrooge's nephews and Loona.

This isn't so easy. Donald is something of a doofus at times, but Huey, Dewey, and Looie are clever and resourceful. Also, Loona is an ophaned Kjola, one of the XT's I often draw. Right away, you have to ask, "huh?" How in the world can they be a part of the Barks world? They can't, of course. This is a totally bogus, non-canonical story that I'd have to overhaul considerably if it were ever to see print. But I didn't draw this for money, just for something to remind me of the idea. Now, if you know anything about the Kjola (which means have read my writing on the subject before), you know that siccing muscle on them is poor judgement. One of Glomgold's bodyguards is plain mean as well as muscular, but for once overreaches himself and has his head handed back to him on the proverbial plate. The other bodyguards aren't as foolhearty. (For more about them, see the next illo.)

The upshot of the story is that the McDuck party manages to give Glomgold the slip and discovers the *real* trail to the lost city from one of the natives. It's nowhere near where the lost city was supposed to be, so while Goldglom is wasting time on the wrong trail, Scrooge discovers the city for himself. Unfortunate for him, a landslide has blocked up the canyon and water has dammed up behind it. The city has been under a lake for centuries, and whatever treasure it might have had is buried under meters of silt!

There are complications leaving the lost city though. Glomgold has caught up with them and blows up the landslide that created the lake, hoping to drown them with the flood. But he only ends up trapping himself on the wrong side of a new landslide, and has to wait for the McDuck party to get home and send a helicopter to rescue them. That's it in a nutshell, minus a million details.

WIP can be seen at http://www.furaffinity.net/view/823529/