| abstract
| - The beginning, like most beginnings, was halfway through the middle of the middle, without significantly interfering with the end. According to the legend, starring in the ironically-named Forgotten Realms (which can be found a hundred feet below a minor city in Wisconsin), a fellow wearing well-tailored pants and a big black cloak entered a bar. The fact that the pants were well-tailored is obscenely important – these were no ordinary slacks. Heavily embroidered, loose-fitting, and smelling slightly of orange juice, the pants were originally crafted, forged, and smelted in Singapore (for the material), Scotland (for the fine fit), and in Cuba (for the orange-juice smell and the Communist flare around the ankles). The fact he was wearing a big black cloak filled with funny smelling herbs, wasp skulls, and Rhode Island is totally insignificant, and is just mentioned because it will be incredibly relevant to the story later. Anyway, the fellow in fine pants and the black cloak was a bit of a humorous sort and was named Pharaun Mizzrym (most people called him Archduke Harold or jackass, depending on the mood). He was also a wizard with excellent tastes in alcohol, ladies, and cinnamon rolls – truly a fine man. Unfortunately, he had somewhat a sarcastic wit, with the unfortunate habit of pissing off local authority figures, like the Pope, the President, your mom, God, and Chuck Norris. Only quick spell-slinging (see Magic missile) managed to keep him out of trouble and knee-deep in bat dung (why this is relevant has been revealed earlier in the article). So when Pharaun walked into the bar, he did the first thing most people did when entering such a divine establishment: he let out a long sigh, sidestepped the dance floor and explosive-throwing competition, and approached the bartender. Now Pharaun was a bit of a connoisseur, and he was new to this part (having come from the debauched cities of Boston, Toronto, and Baghdad), so he enquired of the bartender of which of the numerous drinks would be best for drinking, chugging, and overall consuming without passing out near-instantaneously. Unfortunately, the bartender was a tad slow, only having an IQ score of 829 and having a total kill score in Halo equaling six billion. Leaning in close, he whispered the words that would inspire a world-wide quest, one that would span space, time, and the American National Debt: Normally, a typical man would have frowned, scratched his head, defecated, and ordered a beer. But Pharaun was no ordinary man (not to say he was a woman or duck or droid; it was just that his little twinge of madness in the morning made him a bit more extraordinary than that guy), and his eyes lit up with glee – the fanatic, slightly off-balance glee that lit up most conspiracy theorist’s eyes when he discovers that he was right all along – the squirrels, ink-jet printers, and sporks really were trying to take over the universe (which they are, by the way, but they don’t want you to know that). So Pharaun, after imbibing a few liters of beer, a few tons of cheese, and a few large volumes of helium, stood on the bar and yelled out his quest in what can only be described as a prophetic tone (or possibly semi-drunk; they are so similar, after all). And with that, the mildly inflated and ecstatic well-dressed mage-turned-prophet passed out, and the thunderous collision of his head with a nearby table inspired a bar of drunks, a nation of brilliant men, and sent Nortel’s stock up 0.02% - a true miracle if there was one (which there was, it just happened last Thursday twice removed).
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