Herrol's Journey/1

Nonimportant

Chapter I - In which the valiant narrator courageously explains the intricate backstory
It all started, as most of readers will probably guess, a long time ago in a far, far away land. The land went by the unassuming name of Gargathor, a name described by the wisest of the scribes of the famous library of Tynellias as "Nice." According to legend, that was the sound that King Jeoffrey I usually made when he burped. But this legend is disputed.

A much less disputed legend, and much more pertinent to the following tale, is the legend of Infernusius Gevil, a wizard of old, that aeons ago created the ancient magickal rite of kingmaking. As far as it could be ascertained, Gevil tried to conquer the land of Gargathor, demolish every building and make a parking lot. The counselors of the time damned Gevil's cunning. Recognizing the financial genius of the idea, but irritated at the prospect of having their houses levelled.

But noble king Jeoffrey IX disliked the idea by principle, in fact, he sternly reprimanded his counselours for suggesting the idea of adopting Gevil's project, claiming that "The fine peasants of our great nation must have somewhere in which to raise their livestock, grow their crops and make sweet, sweet outdoors love!"

Jeoffrey IX had a reputation for punctuating his invigorating speeches with lewd comments, which made him a much loved king, despite criticism from media watchdog organizations.

Jeoffrey IX rode to the battlefield on his noble red-haired steed, in front of an army of more than two hundred soldiers. Infernusius Gevil, despite his nature-defying sorceror powers had poor social skills, and only managed to recruit two of his retarded friends and a girl that digged his bad boy 'tude. He did try to summon an evil army of creatures of darkness to fight for him, but apparently, as demonic creatures of the lower planes later explained, the finals of the championship were on that day, and no self-respecting army of darkness would lose that.

He had no choice but to surrender, which he did.

In order to get on the good graces of king Jeoffrey IX, Infernusius offered a deal. With powers that were above and beyond the laws of reality itself, he prophesied that, in the far future, the lineage of Jeoffrey would come to an end, and the kingdom would fall into civil war, and be destroyed.

Infernusius' deal was to create a magical ritual that could only be completed by he who Destiny would choose as a fit successor for such a great lineage: The Chosen One. The rite of kingmaking. The powerful magicks of the rite, woven into the very threads of Time and Reality. And thus Infernusius created a magickal artefact: a sword. He thrusted that sword into a mystical stone, and bound it with powerful magicks.

Only The Chosen One would be able to pull the sword from the stone, and when He did, he would still have to complete the complex and intricate tests of kingmaking to their end, in order to prove himself as the rightful ruler of Gargathor.

Gevil was about to explain how then the new king would make a "round table" or some other insanity when Jeoffrey IX said "Sure, sure. Go ahead with it, if it'll make you happy. I fought today for a nation where everybody has the right to make overly complicated rituals to test people that will only be born aeons in the future. Including my bitter enemies. I, however, have people to see and places to go. More specifically, I have to meet my wife. In bed. In order to have sex."

Gevil then wrote the terms of his kingmaking ritual in a magickal contract, that he signed with blood; the contract was stashed away safely in the coffers of the archives of the palace, where only low level clerks went, when they were looking for adventure. The contract would be mostly forgotten, until it was needed. Jeoffrey IX was killed later that year, bitten by a rabid prostitute.