Sword Wearing Wanderer, Chapter One: Some Dude With A Sword

By a bend in the road stood the Exposition Bar. It was like any Exposition bar in the land, where protagonists, and sometimes antagonists, came frequently to meet one another and get the plot underway.

The air hung heavy with Character Development Tobacco, which was being used by various wizened figures to establish their experience, manliness, and disregard for blood vessel constriction and lung cancer.

In each corner of the bar, there sat an Androgynous Hooded Wayfarer. As everyone in the Exposition Bar knew, these people were all Quest-Takers On Their Way To Save The Entire World. Some were men, some were women, and no one could tell which was which, but they all were absolutely essential to the survival of humanity. All of them were awaiting instruction from one of the six or seven Wizened Elder Figures, who were biding their time, smoking and drinking and preparing their minds to deliver the Details Of The Quests.

The barmaid's eye was caught by one of the Androgynous Hooded Wayfarers. It had a large shape beneath his cloak, which on closer inspection turned out to be a Sword. Some Dude with a Sword had entered the plot. She didn't know why she thought it was a dude. Maybe it was the Freudian significance of the sword. Maybe it was the subconscious biases impressed on her by a brutally oppressive society which caused her to rule out the existence of a woman who could walk around with a long piece of metal on her hip. But either way, she was wrong. It was a dude, but she was wrong for presuming. 

This plot had a sword. It was going to get intense. She wished she could talk to The Dude With The Sword, but she knew far better than to disturb any of the wayfarers waiting for their expositions. She knew that they were all on Quests To Save The Entire World, and any interference with those plots would Plunge The Universe Into Eternal Darkness And Evil. He sauntered slowly up to the bar. Yep, definitely a dude. He was definitely very adept at the use of the Sword, as she could tell by his Heroic Jawline. 

"I'll have a pint of your best ale." He said, smacking a a few Copper Monetary Units up on the bar. She poured it, careful not to spill, skimming the foam with a wooden slat. 

"Isn't ale usually for celebrating at the end of the quest, once you've already Saved The Entire World From Evil?" Asked the barmaid, "It seems a bit strong to drink before Embarking On The Most Important Endeavor Ever Undertaken."

"Meh, Fuck all that. Let's make it a quart," he replied, smacking down more copper, "My plot's such an Obvious Tolkien Ripoff, who even cares if I save the fucking world or not? Shitty world, if you ask me. Let it go to shit, and tell the bastard to write a better one. Base the fantasy world on Russian literature. Or Chinese, Indian, or Arab. Something a bit more interesting than this tawdry Scandinavian-esque stuff which was all right the first time, but not the four-hundred fourty-first."

"Woah. You've  sure got an attitude. I think I've heard about you."

"What you've heard is probably bull-shit. Now where is that quart?"

"The quart is coming." 

She'd been staring blankly at him for the past few seconds. 

"Thanks," he muttered, taking the heavy quart back to his seat, and hastily gulping down a third of it.

A minute or an hour afterwards, a Wizened Elder Figure approached Some Dude With a Sword. 

"Sword Wearing Wanderer! Is it you?"

"It is I, the famed Sword Wearing Wanderer. What news do you have for me?"

"Sword Wearing Wanderer, A Darkness Gatherers In The East. Obvious Metaphor for Adolph Hitler is coming, and you need to defeat him by exploiting his Obvious Weakness Which Exists Only For Sake Of The Plot! Only you can do it."

"Meh, Post-Nuclear Tolkienist Dystopia isn't worth saving anyway. Come on, let me buy us another round."

"But Sword Wearing Wander! He's got Draconian Metaphor for World War Two Area Bombing!  A Big Fucking Child-burning Dragon! I need you to assist by Taking Action Symbolizing Man's Rejection of Industrialized Evil!"

"Are there any hot chicks in this story?"

"No, there aren't any female characters at all, but--"

"Save it. Maybe it'll be interesting after a gallon of Ale."

"But Sword Wearing Wanderer, we'll all be burnt to ashes!"

"The message we were created to convey was already said best when it was said first, by Tolkien. Our existence has no purpose other than to dull his message with a pointless reiteration, and that is something I refuse to do. You think that we'll be burnt to ashes. But I know that if I never leave the Expositional Bar, the plot can't get under way. It'll stay in a permanent state of back-story limbo. So you can Suck My Not-Phallic-At-All Weapon Of Choice. I'm going to sit here and drink as long as I humanly can. The Exposition Bar isn't going anywhere."

The Wizened Elder Figure slumped off toward the door, muttering angrily to itself. 

And Sword Wearing Wanderer made a failed attempt to pick up the barmaid.