Saga Of The European King

The Adventure Party rode Gappy on for two sad, somber weeks. Nobody spoke much to anyone else. It was awkward, and they didn’t get to have any showers and everyone stank. When they unpacked the settlement to camp for the night, lights were out almost as soon as dinner was finished. No one was in a talking mood.

The King knew about morale. He was the King, after all, and he knew people. He needed to find a way to cheer up the Adventure Friends, and to cheer himself up, too. Once they were happy and jiving, then the soldiers would follow the strong example and everyone would be pretty cool with the situation. The King went to Colonel Glowfist’s tent one morning. He found the Colonel doing lots of push-ups, with Roxy Tripfoot sitting cross-legged on his back. The Colonel was trying to lose weight, for he was still morbidly obese from all of the birds he ate when the Adventure Friends were in a bind. Roxy Tripfoot promised him that, if he were to become slim and good-looking again, she would totally love him. The King was not aware of this agreement between them. He thought that Roxy was going to marry his son, Prince David, for political reasons. This will be important later on. But for now, let’s hear what the King said to Colonel Glowfist.

“Noble friend and esteemed archmage, we’re going to have a party.” This is the King speaking.
“That’s just the thing we need to lift our enfeebled spirits, Your Majesty.” Said Colonel Glowfist, straining to do a third push-up.
“What we need, for a truly radical party, is the one man who can party unlike any other.”
Colonel Glowfist stopped doing his push-up. His stupid little arms gave out and he crashed to the floor.
“You mean, Michael? We’re going to go all out?” he said, from the floor.
“Dude, it’s going to be off the hook.” Said the King, and he meant it.

The man they were talking about, Michael Allweather, was the coolest guy in Europe. He lived on the way to the North, and it would basically be awesome for everyone if they stopped in at Michael’s town and threw a big party for the troops and everyone. Michael could get his band to play songs, and then they could have a concert. The King could play the greatest bass guitar in Europe, even though his hands were made of wood, because he practiced so much and believed in himself. With Colonel Glowfist on drums, Gappy on back-up guitar, Sally Minefield doing the singing and Axe Axewound just thrashing around and going crazy on his keyboard, in addition to Michael’s already totally rocking band, it could be the greatest party that would ever be seen in Europe.

So the King diverted the course and called up General Majesty and told him about the new schedule and Gappy rode on towards Michael’s town, which was called Jerusalem. Michael was the mayor of Jerusalem, because he was the first citizen to settle there. It had all happened years ago, when the King was a teenager. He had been adventuring around the countryside and had just killed his first demon, Ashleighroth, when Father Dominoes, who had been traveling with him as his tutor, told him that he had a big Physics test in just two days.

The King had forgotten all about the Physics test and was just so bummed out about having to do it, because he hadn’t studied. He’d been fighting demons. Also, he had wanted to sneak off school on Friday and kill Ashleighroth’s father, Ba’al, and score some awesome treasure. So the young King came up with a cool plan to get off school, do the test AND kill Ba’al all at the same time. When he was six, his father had taught him how to breathe life into unliving earth on a fishing trip. Recalling this lesson, the King went down to the river, scooped up a load of clay in his school-bag and went about making a duplicate of himself that could stand in for him on the Physics test. The man he made was perfect, and he was really cool, so the King called him Michael, which he decided was an exotic, Middle-Eastern sounding name that really suited a cool guy like the one he had just made.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Michael aced the test, but the King got in trouble with Ba’al and Michael had to come and rescue him. The King learned an important lesson about responsibility and Father Dominoes punished him by setting another Physics test for that Sunday (!), which was harder than any Physics test in Europe, and reshaped Michael’s face ever so slightly so that he could tell the difference between them. When it came time to move on, Michael decided to stay in the place where he had been born, and the King promised to visit him whenever he could, because their friendship was huge and meant something. Michael had learned the secret to breathing life into earth from the King, and went about making lots of friends for himself in this empty land. Before long, there was a whole town of people that Michael had made. They called the town Jerusalem, and they called themselves the Ashkenazi, but everyone in the neighbouring regions just called them ‘Jews’ for short. The Jews had lots of adventures, but what they liked best was partying, because Michael knew about people. It was as though all of the knowledge the King had about people wasn’t being used by Michael for running Europe, so he instead had the ability to put on really awesome parties.

The Jews had just had a party when Gappy rode up to the walls of Jerusalem. Everyone was all partied out, and no one came to the gate for fifteen minutes. When the tired gatekeeper put his head up over the wall and saw Gappy, he forgot all about being tired and having partied too hard. He ran to fetch Michael, who was drinking lots of water but otherwise fine. Michael ran out of the gate and hugged all of the Adventure Friends and kissed Sally real deep and hard. When he had finished hugging the King for the third time, he said, “We just had the greatest party, Your Majesty!”
“I know!” said the King. “We could hear it three days ago!”
“Wow!”
“Listen,” said the King, you’re going to top the party you just had. You’re going to top every party you’ve ever had. We’re going to put on the greatest party Europe will ever see, okay?”
“Okay!” said Michael. “We’ll need the Jewel Of Gyrolevikar!”
“Cool.” Said the King, drawing his sword.

End Of Chapter 21