Saga Of The European King

Leonard Cohen’s house, which was loaded to the gills with the King’s Adventure Friends, smashed into the Palace that sat on the edge of the city on the moon at around three in the morning. Nobody was expecting something like that to happen so early on, while everyone was still asleep.

Burzum and the hot Jerusalem girls from Michael’s band had spent a long time setting up the cannons on the house’s porch. They were firing them now. They broke down walls that were part of the Palace. They shot out the Palace’s cannons, even though nobody was manning them at that time. Everyone was in bed, where it was warm and there wasn’t any fighting going on.

What I’m trying to say is, the first part was a breeze. The guards and the easy monsters were dispatched of pretty quickly. Nobody even had to leave the house. Between the cannons, Axe Axewound’s mighty axe, Leonard Cohen’s good vibrations and Sally Minefield occasionally shooting out a crossbow dart, the Adventure Friends did a lot of damage. But then they flew the house up to the roof of the Palace (they knew that the boss would be on the top floor or the roof), they found Oranje, surrounded by green Moonmen and a few Moonlions. She was waiting. She pointed at the flying house and the green Moonmen jumped and floated towards it. They had knives. Oranje didn’t care about their lives.

The Moonmen’s knives had been made out of slivers of Ric’s sadness. Ric’s sadness had built this whole Palace and was the energy which kept it going. The knives could even pierce the good vibrations that kept the flying house together, even though the house had been strengthened by lovemaking. It wasn’t long before the green Moonmen got inside the house. That wasn’t so much of a problem at first, since Axe Axewound could chop them into pieces as soon as they got inside, but the house was still crawling with them. There were too many to fight. There wasn’t enough space. Leonard Cohen gave the order to abandon the house while he set a collision course with the Palace. Everyone jumped out of a window or a door or a hole made by Moonmen and floated outside. Burzum picked up the sleeping King and the meditating Michael. Michael was so into his meditating at this point that he didn’t even notice. Then came the part where everyone had to jump from Moonman to Moonman so that they could safely get to the ground. It was pretty tricky, but everyone managed it, even Sally. In fact, Sally was quite good at it. She hadn’t even been stabbed all that much by the green Moonmen. She had a high Agility.

When they all hit the ground (which was the roof of the Palace), it was time to fight Oranje and her Moonlions. There were also a load of green Moonmen still alive. They floated around. Green Moonmen took a few more hits to kill than normal Moonmen, so that was something to consider.

This is who fought in that battle:

Leonard Cohen (Field Commander, Level 99)
Equipped: Good vibrations +3
Item: White suit

Axe Axewound (Axe warrior, Level 40)
Equipped: Magical Flaming Axe
Item: Amulet of Returning Axe

Sally Minefield (Thief, Level 3)
Equipped: Sneaky knife, Stealth Crossbow
Item: Amulet of breathing underwater (it’s blue)

Gappy (Reindeer, Level 13)
Equipped: Reindeer antlers
Item: Magic glittery reins

Burzum (Sludgy Orange Musician, Level 99)
Equipped: Sludgy Orange Guitar
Item: Sludgy Orange Leather Jacket

Ba’al (Desert God, Level 6)
Equipped: Storm cloud
Item: Lightning moustache

David (Child, Level 2)
Equipped: Nothing
Item: Chinese Belt Of Invincibility

Hot Jerusalem Girl 1 (Guitarist, Level 5)
Equipped: Awesome Electric Guitar
Item: Charm bracelet

Hot Jerusalem Girl 2 (Bassist, Level 5)
Equipped: Rocking Bass Guitar
Item: Hot t-shirt

Carolyn (Naked woman, Level 10)
Equipped: Emotional manipulator
Item: Despair

Oranje (Evil ex, Level 34)
Equipped: Crazy scythe
Item: Gypsy headband

The first thing that happened in the fight was that Ba’al made it rain so that the fight would look a whole lot cooler. Making it rain on the moon took some doing. Then Burzum looked at Carolyn and Carolyn looked at Burzum. They knew what they had to do. They held hands and then they opened up with their Extra-Marital Tackle Attack. This was a powerful attack that had all kinds of residual effects. It was a good thing to use at the start of a fight. They had practiced it many times, usually after psychoanalysis sessions. Burzum was Carolyn’s psychiatrist, after all. He had worked on the psychological side of the attack. They had known for a long time that they would some day have to fight to save Ric. Even though Burzum was profiting from Ric’s absence because it meant that he could spend time with his wife, he missed Ric and he forgave him. He didn’t want Ric to float in space, alone, forever, his sadness filling up special pockets in his spacesuit that would be radioed back to the Palace so that the mysterious woman and her spy-bird could keep the whole city running. It hurt him that Ric was made to suffer just so some assholes could build a city on the Moon. He’d tried calling NASA, but NASA was okay with the whole thing. They were letting these things happen to Ric so that they could monitor the science. They were going to bring out new products.

Oranje got hit full on with the Extra-Marital Tackle Attack. She didn’t have time to block. She was stunned and frozen and confused and blind. The Moonlions had to attack instead of her for a round. They made short work of Sally, who had been doing so well up till then. Then the Moonmen attacked, so there was a shower of knives. Everyone had to take up defensive positions. Leonard Cohen put up a shield that helped everyone out a bit. But by the time everyone had got back to their feet, Oranje had recovered and jumped right in to the group and attacked Axe Axewound. Axe wasn’t quick enough to dodge or block that scythe and got hurt quite badly. Fortunately, he had some herbs, so he rubbed a few into his open wounds while Oranje jumped back to her original position and the Moonlions charged up their attacks.

The fight went on like this for a while. Leonard Cohen’s strategy was to eliminate the Moonmen first, so that he wouldn’t have to put up a shield every round. After that, they would take on the Moonlions with splash attacks, and only then would they go for Oranje. Ba’al came in really useful, even though he wasn’t quite as formidable as he had been when the Adventure Friends had fought him. His storm magic could damage Oranje, the Moonmen and the Moonlions all at the same time. This was good, because it meant that Oranje had to keep on stopping to heal. Oranje was wise to this, though. When all of the green Moonmen had been beaten, she turned her attentions directly to Ba’al. He kept on getting mauled by Moonlions and slashed with Oranje’s scythe. Leonard Cohen and Burzum’s magic couldn’t keep up with the damage Ba’al was taking, so he went down. Leonard Cohen ordered Axe Axewound to switch weapons and use David instead of his axe. David had a higher chance to stun than Axe’s axe and Oranje had resistance to fire, so it was a good move. David, however, was still too traumatised to be thrown at either of his parents again. He just ran away and hid under a chair. So they were down another fighter. Oranje’s attack was focused on Axe next, but her Moonlions were weakening. She didn’t bother to heal her Moonlions, she kept all the herbs to herself. Eventually, the Moonlions went down, but so did the hot Jerusalem girls and even Burzum, and Axe was on low health. Leonard Cohen realised that he would have to sacrifice a few rounds to charge up a really big spell. He closed his eyes and composed a song in his head that would damage Oranje so bad that anyone could pick her off afterwards. While he was doing that, Oranje kept on slashing and kicking Axe Axewound, who was nearly out of herbs. Gappy was the only one not defending or healing, but even his mighty antlers didn’t do much damage to Oranje. It looked as though Axe might fall. He was wobbling and out of breath. He had been slashed with Oranje’s scythe two dozen times. He would have been dead long before if he hadn’t had those herbs. Then Leonard Cohen opened his eyes, and they were shining blue. He sang about every emotion there was all at once. Oranje knew that every word he sang was true and she couldn’t help but cry, because she knew that she was the person in the song and it was exactly the story of a breakup she had went through. Leonard Cohen kept on singing. Oranje knew that she would melt if she carried on listening and being exposed to truths, so she jumped away. She was gone. The Adventure Friends had won.

Leonard Cohen surveyed the battlefield. He found 500 gold, which was sweet, but he was saddened and irritated by how many of the Adventure Friends had been knocked out in the fight. He helped them all up to their feet, but they weren’t looking too good. They needed a healer, but Roxy Tripfoot still hadn’t turned up. He wondered if Carolyn could do any healing magic. She was a girl, after all. Carolyn hadn’t done much in the fight. Oranje had ignored her and after Burzum had been knocked out, her attacks didn’t do much damage. He turned to talk to her, but she was walking towards the Palace, past the ruins of the once-flying house. It had exploded on impact and made a hole in the roof. Rising out of the hole on a cushion of magic was the mysterious woman. Flying by her was the zombie of her spy-bird. It had been reanimated by dark powers. A whole bunch of Moonlions were coming out of the hole, too. The Adventure Friends had learnt to hate Moonlions by this point, so that was bad news. The mysterious woman hovered many feet above the hole in the roof, glowing blue.
“Leonard Cohen, ally of the King Of Europe, I am Carolyn. Your infractions against the people of the Moon have earned you and your disciples a terrible death.” Said the mysterious woman, who was actually Carolyn. As she was saying this, the normal Carolyn who we knew was coming apart and her essences were swirling up into the air around the evil Carolyn and becoming part of her.
“Ric is almost used up,” said the complete Carolyn, “I need a replacement. You have brought him.” She held out a finger towards the sleeping King, who was safe.
“You’re after the King,” sang Leonard Cohen. “The soul with the heaviest sadness of all.”
“Yes!” screamed Carolyn, with delight. “Do you know that he once ripped the jaw off his best friend? Can you imagine? The man must have really complicated feelings. I can build cities across the whole Moon!”
“The King has a destiny.” Drawled Leonard Cohen. “I have seen it. I have sang it. You will not take him.”
Carolyn responded by shooting out green magic at Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen had never known power like it, except from the sadness of a girl leaving you. Axe Axewound leapt to his defense and hurled his axe at Carolyn. The axe hurt her, but it only made her turn her attentions to him. Axe was low on health, so he went down almost as soon as the green energy hit him. Gappy growled and leapt gracefully and beautifully at Carolyn, brandishing his mighty antlers. Carolyn hit Gappy so hard with the back of her hand that Gappy flew almost halfway across the Moon.
“Fools!” she laughed. “While sadness makes you and every other creature weak, it makes me strong! Only the King can match me!”
But then the King’s voice rang out across space and made the Moon shake. It was a scream, a scream of total anger. Carolyn looked again at the King, who was being carried off to a safer place by the two hot Jerusalem girls and David. The voice wasn’t coming from him. She had one second to be confused before Colonel Glowfist dropped the sky on her and punched her so hard in the head that her Moonlions disintegrated and she was smashed downwards through every level of the Palace and bounced off the bedrock of the Moon itself, whereupon she was struck by lightning fifty seven times every second for fifteen minutes by a thunder cloud that followed her around. Then a dragon made of energy breathed yellow fire at her, then bit her in two. As she charged up her healing spells, the dragon made of energy turned back into Colonel Glowfist. He was fat again. He was naked. He was having a heart attack. They were both miles from the Palace. Carolyn was shaken and weakened, but she was on the way to recovery. Colonel Glowfist was shaking and gasping for air.

The two hot Jerusalem girls and David had dragged the King and Michael into the remains of the flying house. They had put him in a mostly-intact bedroom and tucked him into bed. He needed rest. Outside, a figure had floated down onto the roof. Roxy Tripfoot ran past the figure. She was following Colonel Glowfist. She knew that his License To Kick Ass would run out and that she would need to stop his heart attack. Just as the figure touched the roof, the King opened his eyes.

He knew what to do.

End Of Chapter 41