"Taco, Taco, wake up. It's your sixteenth birthday." A dark haired young man slowly opened his eyes and rubbed them for a second before speaking.
"What? Mom? No it isn't. I've been seventeen for three months." The woman continued.
"Sixteen years ago, your father Ortega..."
"Ortega? Dad's name is Phil. What kind of name is Ortega?"
"..."
"And I thought names could only be four letters or less?"
"Shut up and let me finish. Today, you must embark on your journey to find and defeat the Demon Lord, Baramos." Taco then sat up in bed, wondering how he could be named Baramos, because surely that's more than four letters. After proceeding to remove an overabundance of sleep-gunk from his eyes, he spoke up.
"Uh, mom", he began, " as he blinked repeatedly, bringing the tiny little room into focus, "I really don't think that's a good idea. I mean, the king's armies have been going at this for years, and he's STILL not dead. What make you think that I can do anything significant.
The mother just kind of stood there with a very blank expression and it took quite some time before she muttered doubtfully, "You'll have three other people helping you."
Still, Taco was very confused. But one thing led to another, and another, and another, like it always does, and eventually, Taco was dressed and with pack in hand, standing awkwardly before the king in this very ornate castle. It's gothic structure and ornate arrangement were the likes of which he had never dreamed of. He had rarely been very near to the castle, and never in it. He had only seen the king parading about town (which was really silly, being a small town) on a few holidays. So being this close and personal was something new for sure.
"Hold up a sec, yo, gotta record my quest in the field of log." said the rather plump and jovial looking king, who sat somewhat oddly in his throne, hunched over some small beeping box. Abruptly, it stopped beeping, and the king placed it somewhere in the folds of his royal robes. "Now, what is it you want Dear Taco?"
"Um..." Taco was quite nervous and still pretty blindsided about this Demon Lord deal. "Well, um...apparently, I have something to do with um...the um...the Demon Lord, and uh...I don't really want to leave town or anything so..."
The king removed his butt from his throne and placed a quite bejeweled, sausage fingered hand on Taco's shoulder. "Son, on this day, sixteen years ago, your father Ortega..."
"I thougt dad's name was Phil."
Silence.
The king narrowed his eyes and whispered "There are a lot of things you don't know. For instance, all civilians are immortal (but not you) and my guards only have an eleven word vocabulary."
Silence. The room must have felt very odd.
"Anywho, continued the king, twirling his curly white moustache, akin to the Pringles man's grandfather, "Your father's name was Ortega. And your father Ortega was surely the most powerful man ever born. He single handedly killed every last foot soldier, and sky soldier...and I supposed all kinds of things working for him. And he even faced, face-to-face, the Demon Lord himself, without an ounce of fear in his heart. But, your father was never very bright. According to legend, Baramos told him his shoe was untied, and about the moment he realized he was wearing sandals, he was pushed into the great steaming volcano of Baramos's lair, and his face was burned off my molten magma."
Taco really couldn't decide whether his jaw wanted to drop or not. "I thought dad's name was Phil..." he repeated dumbly, not sure what else to say.
The king ignored the statement and babbled on, his great, snowy beard bouncing to and fro as he voiced his words. "Now, Ortega was great. Very great. Dumb, but great. But according to some obscure prophecy I saw on the bag of a Munchos bag once (or maybe they were the nutritional facts, I don't rememeber, I am old.), you are supposed to be EVEN GREATER." He poked one of those sausage fingers at Taco's chest and said "YOU." in a rumbly voice for dramatic emphasis. "Plus," he went on, "all my armies kind of got wasted (the bad way, son, I mean dead), and Romaly's not really doing much soo..." The king shrugged, which was not very kingly "Call it a last resort?"
Taco just stood, quiet and dumbfounded and stared at the king. "So...I'm like...a hero?
"More or less." said the King, now hurrying Taco out the enormous door of the small castle. "Now get moving. Baramos has been threatening to destroy the universe for seven hundred years, so he may act any minute."
The great red door slammed deafeningly behind taco and he was left alone, blinking in the bright square, the sun baking him through his thick traveler's gear. "A hero?...no way." Not sure what to do next, Taco took a seat on a short cobblestone ledge near the castle to desperately attempt to think things over. After a few minutes of this, the castle door squeaked open and the King poked his kingly head out.
Quite flustered, he said "What are you still doing here? Shoo! Go off to Rudia's tavern and round up some buddies so the monsters don't kill you. Good luck, you'll need it."
The door slammed again.
"Monsters???"
Knowing nothing about the existance of any kind of monsters, Taco headed toward Rudia's tavern to...round up some buddies?
So the monsters won't kill you...gulp.\