The Wanderer meanders west,
Atop his horse,
Topping the dusty mountain crest,
Pulling his steed to a gentle stop,
To give him the moments necessary to process what he sees.

A great forest aflame,
A creature most glorious and terrifying,
Charging up mountains and sending up great pillars of flame.

Tidal waves of orange and red dash themselves upon these ridges,
Sending a mist of super-heated embers down the other side,
Beginning the process anew.

Great billowing towers of black smoke that roils and is in a constant state of flux,
Losing form as it ascends miles high.
Such beautiful and glorious destruction that could ever be seen,
An apex predator that could not be tamed.

The Wander turns his horse around and meanders back,
Changed from this experience,
The likes of which would never be seen again.

The heros were at a crossroads once again,
But a much different one from the time before,
This one was one where they had not been,
And one they would end up not all traveling along the same path.

The Drummer and the Bassist pleaded for the Frontman to see reason,
That the path he chose only would lead to ruin,
But with the spider whispering its words their pleas fell upon deaf ears.

It is here that the Frontman struck it out alone,
Feeling betrayed upon their refusal to join him on this path.

He was alone now,
With only the spider for company,
Too blinded to it all to realize the dangers upon the road he went.

As time went on,
The days grew long,
And the struggle for The Frontman grew ever greater.

Feeling adrift in time,
Without a map or compass,
The spider ensnared him further still.

It whispered wicked things,
Full of malice and hate,
Corrupting the Frontman wings,
A cruel arrow shot through him by fate,
A great gift tainted by the spiders poison.

Like a volcano that lay dormant,
For so long it seemed almost forgot,
But after too long it exploded,
The target of it all were those that were adorant,
Tearing asunder all that it sought.

Objective upon objective,
They stack one upon the other,
Higher and higher indeed,
Until a snag scrubs it entirely away.

A new stratagem was needed,
A long term goal to help better align the rest of your life,
But steps must be taken,
And too soon they always pile up,
And the stratagem must be cast away.

This continues onwards,
Farther and farther,
Leaving The Frontman awash in an ocean of grey.

Numbness spreading like a creeping wildfire,
Carrying heat along the wave's crest,
And that's when it hit,
Ideas spewed forth,
Everything was clearer,
Everything was bright.

The Trio were on fire,
Immortal in their success and youth,
On the rise ever higher,
To some their words were truth.

To be loved by all,
Their following seemingly limitless.
As was their potential.

Look upon thy creation and shudder.

A hiss as pressurized fuel escapes as a gas,
Fumes escaping into the atmosphere.

The crackling of steel scraping on flint,
The cacophony of sparks following,
A fountain of brilliant orange light.

The ignition point is a dark blue,
As one of the sparks finally ignite the billowing fumes,
Spreading almost instantly,
Eating up the latchkey mixture of oxygen and fuel,
Produced in such a violent reaction was...


a singular light


Its flickering warmth
Dancing across the winds as they pass nearby.

The heat deflects off cold steel,
And soon a change was being made.

The Frontman took forth the Elixir,
The gift of the very helpful spider,
Providing him a way to save that which had been lost?

The Frontman looked at the Elixir,
Multicolored & unintelligible patterns flashing through the post mortem aqua vitae.

The Frontman drove the cure into his body,
Hoping to fill the long bleeding wound in his heart,
Hoping he could just speak to them again.

Too late to realize that the Elixir was gilded,
That the game had been rigged from the start,
The flashing covering up the milky white venom,
And the cure?

A nail in the coffin.

It had followed him for most of his life,
Sitting patiently,
Waiting still,
For the Spider knew it would eventually get it's chance,
A cruel judgment bestowed upon him by the fates.

The Spider's legs were long,
It's beady eyes glistening,
Milky venom dripping from a maw of  nasty little teeth,
Shivering with anticipation,
For soon it would be time to strike,
And then it would finally feast.

To our hero's who were celebrating,
To the spider they were completely unaware,
Hiding amongst the guests,
Some of them the Spider had been feeding on for years,
But now it was time for a new dish.

The Bassist had turned in early,
The Drummer in another room,
The Spider closed in on the lone Frontman,
Who defenceless and alone was introduced to his doom.

Their message was sent,
The people,
They had rallied,
And at the front of this force stood The Three,
They traveled far,
They traveled wide.

By now The Frontman was a full adult,
The face of a man you'd trust,
Well spoken and confident,
Ready for anything that could come.

Their faces we're everywhere,
Their voices and sound being sent on all the wires,
Bound for History were The Three,
The only factor was time.

The call went out,
The people,
They answered,
For it was something they all heard in their heart of hearts,
The outcry of "ENOUGH!!!"
Enough of the tyranny that was the monotony of daily life,
Like puppets on strings,
Or the marching on of drones.

The call went out,
Both far and wide,
And the people,
They answered.

In the blink of an eye the lightning flew across the ocean,
Flying far and wide.

The room was lined in foam,
Several microphones littered the booth,
Like corpses abandoned on a field of battle,
Grave markers of bands who came before.

Their hands sweaty,
Emotions tumbling about like clothes in a dryer,
As a small red light came on.

A lone guitar starts out,
Steadily rolling on as more and more instruments join in,
A vanguard to the symphony of rock to follow.

The Frontmans vein's bulging in his neck as he comes into the beginning of the song,
An outcry for those of like mind to join,
A rallying call.

Their sound was influenced by their city,
The Denizens of such a royal city,
Giving it an edge of steel as they tore into the instrumental,
Then suddenly a lull,
Only stopping long enough to catch ones breath, before it plunges back in for another round.
Ebbs and flows,
Until it is back to just the one guitar,
Destined to plod along alone.

The Three had been delivered into the valley of fate,
it was there that they were armed with only their instruments,
seemingly shrunken in comparison to the valley's reaches.

So it was here they marched on,
their Frontman blazing the path,
the bonds between them strengthened,
through their shared success,
reinforced by shared lows,
when the weight was equally heavy upon all their shoulders.

It was there that momentum was gained,
a confident crew that had just hit its stride,
with faces that hadn't entirely lost their boyishness,
their walks and actions, however, told a completely different story,
for these new up-and-comers.

It was time.
They had to create an epic of the histories,
They had to make an album.

It was after the show,
That the Agent approached,
His eyes glinting and flittering with a wondrous glow.

He showed them that he had but a simple and loose contract,
A Retainership that would benefit both parties,
Of which they would agree to.

It was then that the Agent presented them with a significantly larger contract.

It was then that they realized what they were being handed,
Their way to a better life,
A key to a very difficult puzzle,
A planet taken from their shoulders.

They had been discovered.

The anthem ripped out from the Frontman, the Drummer, and the Bassist,
Making a sound larger than should be possible,
Their anthem ripped out through the old amps,
The music revitalizing the old speakers.

The Drummer hammered out powerfully yet precise.
His feet rattling off like machine gun fire,
His bandana tied around his brow.

The Bassist laying down a metronome-like effect to it all,
Notes swaying and dipping to the tune,
Flaring out occasionally to add more gravitas,
Showing he was still his own musician.

The Frontman declaring to the crowd of transgressions committed,
Of battles won and lost,
But also the views from the other side,
That the enemy may be man still.
A story of agony and anger,
Sorrow and Savagery,
With jubilance for the act of violence.
The Frontman's solo soaring high before axe kicking down upon the audience's heads.

The Agent was stunned,
His dropped drink forgotten,
As he reached for the payphone on the wall
The experience in front of him spurring him faster.

The Band continued,
Their sound crescendoing,
Coming to an almighty peak,
Only to begin it's decent to the earth,
Crashing down magnificently,
Down upon a dive bar in the run down part of town.