The Land of Mudo in 983 A.D. was the most dull and dreary place in existence. Even being settled in the middle of Spain, known for it’s color and vivacity, could do nothing to help it’s dull nature. As armies marched onward against spain, never once had Mudo even been considered for conquer. When mythical beasts looked for new lands to pillage, never did they think of stopping at Mudo for even a snack.
It’s unfortunate boredom was not entirely due to the fact that it’s land was flat and featureless, it’s grass a lifeless green.
It was due to it’s unvarying, dull people, all named Bob, or Agnes, or Stan, or Wilma or other dull names. Most were Jrs. and repeats because no one there had any kind of imagination. They all looked alike too. They all wore colorless grey shirts (not the interesting white that most of the world wore, but grey) and brown pants, but not a striking brown like you might see others wear, but a brown that had most of the color wiped away and seemed to have only a resemblance of it’s former shade. The women wore the same but in dress form (For this was back in the times where women wore dresses rather than pants, even though in Mudo, that never seemed to change due to the lack of inspiration and rebellion in the mind of girls there).
The men had bland, uninteresting, flat  faces, hair to match their trousers, and grey eyes. They were as fit as needed, but not enough to attract attention. They rarely smiled and sex was completely dull. It was nothing more than uninterested grunts and thrusting.
The women were of a placid nature. They never nagged, argued, or did much of anything besides the housework. No discussions were held between husband and wife except talk of perhaps the bills and maybe of the crying thing in the next room if they had one. They never asked about each other’s days seeing as they knew the exact routine, for it was that same routine they saw their parents doing and what they would see their children doing.
All of this needed to be thoroughly stated so that it was clear that the region of Mudo is the last place anyone would look for adventure. And yet, here was born one of the most adventurous spirits the world has ever known. He was born as Bob Smith the Eighty Seventh. (the same as his father’s, and his father before him and his father before etc. etc.) but shall be soon known as another name.
When he was born there was nothing special about this young boy. He was as bland as his parents and their parents and their parents etc. etc. and stayed that way until he was fourteen years old. At this time, he found himself in the backyard of his home just meandering about like most of the children did. As he meandered through the yard, he looked down and saw a straight stick. Many of these kinds of sticks littered the ground. Normally used for firewood. But this stick, for some reason Bob could not explain, called to him.
He bent down and picked it up and suddenly, everything changed. It was as if his mind had been laying dormant for the first fourteen years of his life and suddenly sparked to life. It decided to take baby steps to test itself out. Bob swung the stick to the side in a slashing motion. Interesting. A feeling began to wash over young Bob Smith as swung it again. And again. And again. Each swing growing in enthusiasm. Suddenly, he realized what it was that he was holding. Not some plain old stick, but a majestic sword! A sword of might and power and magic!
And suddenly, his yard was no longer his yard. It was a battlefield. He could see the army rising over the hill. Their armour gleamed in the distance. Leading the army was a knight in the blackest of armour. Bob knew the man to be Sir Edric von Stuttgart, his sworn enemy since the dawn of time. The black knight of Prussia who led the Prussian army on their great conquest. Now he had led them to Spain to take over the country’s riches.
Bob Smith took up his sword and shouted to his army that lay sprawled out behind him to ready for the coming battle. Sir Edric looked down upon the army of Mudo with disdain as he called down to Bob, “You have no chance Bob. No knight with such a bland name could claim victory over one of such distinguished grace as myself!”
Bob knew this was true. How could Bob Smith ever hope to defeat the great Sir Edric von Stuttgart? Then he saw the path to victory. He would leave Bob Smith behind and become a true knight of Spain!
“You coward!!” He shouted to Sir Edric, “Come down and surrender to the might and power of the great Don Alcalde del Mudo!!”
Sir Edric’s horse bucked and whinnied at the sound of such a regal and powerful name. But Sir Edric would not be swayed. He raised his mighty broadsword and stabbed forward calling his army to charge down and attack the Spanish soldiers.
Don Alcalde raised his sword with a furious shout to charge against the advancing forces. The armies raced towards each other, their leaders charging with the front ranks and heading straight for each other. This was the battle of the century. The two most powerful knights in the land growing closer and closer, their swords raised and ready. Just as the steel was about to collide-
“Bob! Dinner!!”
And with that one shout from his mother, Agnes Smith, Don Alcalde was pulled from his reveries and forced to see the reality of Mudo. But where it was once was satisfactory, it now was grossly incompetent. This place was not fit for such a knight of Don Alcalde’s status. He sheathed the stick that just moments before was his mighty blade within his palm and headed back into his home.
“Oh wonderful Bob, you got us some firewood.” His mother said looking at the stick carried in Don Alcalde’s left palm, ready to be draw once more at the sight of Sir Edric.
“No, Mom,” Don Alcalde began, “this is not firewood, but my trusted sword, by which I shall defend the great Land of Mudo!”
Don Alcalde’s mother looked at her son with confused eyes. Never had a child of Mudo spoken that way to their mother with such a passion. She was bewildered as to how to respond. Did she take the stick? Let him have it? She finally decided that the right path was unknown to her and she would discuss it with her husband. Until then, she merely said, “Bob, you need to put it away so you may eat your supper.”
“My name no longer is Bob Smith, but Don Alcalde Del Mudo!!!” He said raising the stick high above his head. His mother was once again astonished. Where had this come from? Was it that stick? It must be, seeing as he was his normal self when she sent him outside that afternoon only to return with that stick and a new personality. She made her decision then that the only way to return her child to her would be to remove the initial cause.
She quickly snapped up the stick and broke it over her knee and plunged it into the fire. “Your name is Bob Smith, and don’t you forget it!” She said scolding him. Don Alcalde was shocked at his mother’s sudden ferocity. Seeing the stick suddenly turn black and glow with red cinders, Don Alcalde faded and Bob returned from where he had hidden.
He then went to the dinner table and for all intents and purposes was once again Bob Smith, but his mother knew better. She could tell something within him had changed. And she worried if it was permanent or worse, her fault.
Bob spent most of his years after the incident generally normal. He was back to his old, dull and boring self. The family never talked about the stick again. He wasn’t allowed out to meander outside or collect firewood.
During school he would be just as dull as the others. Except in his writing classes. There, he would pen down such romantic and inspiring stories the likes of which Mudo had never seen, all about Don Alcalde fighting and overcoming his lifelong foe, Sir Edric von Stuttgart. He would turn them in and his teacher during his seventeenth year of life, Stan Johnson, (Thats me)  would read them, and something within me stirred when I did. I had no choice but to give Bob good grades except when Bob would pen such strange and bewildering sentences like, “The high heavens that, with your divinity, divinely fortify you with the stars, rending you meritorious of the merit merited by your greatness.” Or, “The reason of the unreasonable treatment of my reason so enfeeble my reason, that with reason I complain of your beauty.”
I would struggle relentlessly attempting to unravel the complex wording of this young boy. He most certainly didn’t speak this way, so my first thought was that someone else wrote it for him. And yet there was no one else who could have. There was only one possible source of this magnificent piece of literature, and that was from Bob.
One day, I asked Bob to stay after school for a time. I asked where he got his ideas. “From my head sir.” Bob replied.
“But what made you think of it?”
At this Bob looked from side to side to make sure no one was looking and then leaned in to speak to me, “Can you keep a secret?”
I was immediately conflicted between saying he would have to tell about worrisome details and the need to know where such words came from. “Yes, I can.”
“I didn’t write those papers.”
I knew it! I thought, “Then who did Bob, you need to tell me.”
Bob looked nervously about again and said, “Don Alcalde wrote those. He lives in my head. Would you like to meet him?”
I didn’t know what to say. I just nodded his head. To my surprise, Bob walked over to the chalkboard and picked up a yardstick sitting there. He stared at it for a time and then looked to me and gave a sudden bow.
“Noble teacher of the youth.” He said, “I am pleased to meet your esteemed acquaintance, I am Don Alcalde del Mudo! Now, I hear you have a problem with some of my more complex phrases in my writings.”
“Uh... Yes.”
“Well sir, I am glad I have you here, for I shall recount to you how I went forth and saved the minstrel, Arbogast, you know of Arbogast right? The greatest minstrel to walk the land?” Stan simply gave a slight nod as Don Alcalde continued, “Well, I was traveling with my squire, Yacapo Vega, when I came across an abandoned carriage laying on the side of the road. I stopped my horse and Yacapo’s mule and went to investigate. I found a survivor, a lowly foot soldier, who said they were escorting the Minstrel to the king’s camp when the evil Sir Edric, you remember him, I wrote of him plenty. So, the villain had captured the Minstrel in hopes of torturing him into revealing the location of our king’s camp.
“So I immediately rode out to free the Minstrel from his clutches. I rode for days, trying to find his armies. Finally I did and set up camp a mere 20 leagues from their camp. I awaited until the darkest of night to sneak in and free the Minstrel. Sir Edric had tortured him mercilessly, but he had assured me that he would never tell the location.
“But then, Sir Edric and his men leapt from the shadows. A trap. I drew my sword and readied to fight off the heathens. But I knew there were too many for even the great Don Alcalde del Mudo to handle alone. Sir Edric and his men began to close in on me, but just as I was about to lose hope of surviving this encounter, we heard an explosion nearby. The men all turned and looked away, giving me time to quickly spirit the Minstrel and myself out of the tent to my horse. Edric ran out after us but was slowed by the blast of the tent that once held the great Minstrel as it exploded behind him.
“I rode fast and furiously to where Yacapo was supposed to have waited for me. When I got there, my faithful squire was nowhere to be found. Just as I was about to be forced to abandon my companion, He rode up with a large grin on his pudgy face and several sticks of dynamite in his hands, ‘We must hurry M’Lord, my dynamite will not keep them busy for long.’ And so we quickly rode from the place as Sir Edric and his men tried desperately to put out the fires set by my Yacapo.
We rode fast and hard, our animals heaving from exhaustion, but still we pushed on, finally reaching the king’s hidden encampment. There, the Minstrel was returned, and as payment for my heroic actions, he taught me how to mold and shape words into magnificent stories of heroism and valor. He found that I had an innate talent for it and wondered if ever I desired to have a profession akin to his own. I told him that the way and life of a knight was the only path that I could ever wish to have.”
I was stunned. Such a tale to be told seemingly off the top of the boy’s head. He was so animated. It was then that the thing that Bob had set stirring within me bloomed into the most gorgeous flower. This flower, rather than being fed off of the waters and light of the sky, needed nourishment from this boys majestic words. I told Bob that he would become my assistant and I shall pay him several coins a week to come and have Don Alcalde tell me stories of his adventures.
And so we did. Each evening, Bob would go and turn once more into Don Alcalde and retell his adventures. Each time, I grew more and more enthralled, until just listening was no longer enough. One day, I dug around my home and found two sets of armor, old and rusted from disuse, having not been touched for centuries. I donned the larger one that fit him and waited for Bob.
When the boy arrived, he was shocked to see his teacher in the armor. I stepped forward, kneeling, and said, “Great Don Alcalde del Mudo, I ask that you knight me and make me your companion in your quest to defeat the dreadful Sir Edric von Stuttgart.” I handed him a sword and as soon as the sword touched Bob’s hands, Don Alcalde took over and Bob was gone, much to his happiness, for he had always preferred this existence over the bland reality of his home.
When Don Alcalde looked down at me, he said, “I will do this for you, however, you shall need a new name. Stan Johnson is far too ordinary. So, from henceforth, your name shall be Don Octavio de Martinique!”  It was fantastic. I helped Don Alcalde into his armor and we went outside to practice our swordplay.
From that moment on, we were out in my yard, clashing steel with steel, retiring with bruises and scrapes received more from ourselves than from each other. It wasn’t long before our skirmishes began to draw the attention of our neighbors. They would come out and watch our exchange with bewilderment and astonishment. But they would never interfere. That is until one day several weeks after my renaming, when John, our blacksmith, stepped forward.
He was dressed in gleaming new armor and was carrying two new sets, one for each of us. We quickly had some of the spectators help us switch into our new armor and then looked to John. He kneeled before Don Alcalde and asked to be knighted and renamed as I was.
Don Alcalde looked at him and drew his sword, “By this sword I knight thee and name thee, Don Diego de Sorba. Arise errant knight!” Don Diego rose and drew his sword. We then began again with our new member. Soon, everyone was asking Don Diego to make them armor that they would wear to our practice. They then brought horses and fashioned lances and began to Joust.
Don Alcalde did all of this. One boy with an imagination unparallelled had single handedly changed the minds of an entire land. Mudo began to be noticed. Suddenly people began to visit. It was only a few years later we encountered our first dragon. It was a bit difficult but we survived. Mudo became the jewel of Spain and was soon made it’s capital and renamed, Madrid.