Mondegreen inspired story...

Overlooked by Castle Ahnuddaman, the village of N'at Aindookool sat in a lush green valley where faeries, goblins, pixies and humans lived together in peace.

Cho, an apprentice wizzard sat in his favourite chair watching the sunrise over the mountaintops and wondered about the big things in life. "Why does the sun always rise over the mountain in the same place and set in the same place at the other side of the valley?", "Why are the unicorns disappearing from the magic forest?", and "What ever is that noise?"

Cho stood up and walked in the direction of the noise that had disturbed his train of thought. As he rounded the corner and entered the small square at the centre of the village, instead of the usual sight of the market place, Cho saw a large crowd gathered around a strange looking contraption that was pinging, plonking and gurgling.

"Make way for the Wizzard!" Shouted Cho, pushing through the crowd of onlookers.
"Apprentice Wizzard!" Shouted a person from the crowd. Reminding Cho that, since the tragic death of his master, his Wizzardly had training came to a halt and would never be resumed due to the laws governing the training of a wizzard.

(Royal Lore five; [subsection three, special clause two, amendment one] clearly states "Should a master Wizzard die; Be killed, accidentally scatter his particles, or be dispatched to the dungeon dimensions through the error of not knowing the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon; his apprentice shall not be trained by any other Wizzard, mage or witch.)

"I'm the best you've got..." Cho replied, with considerably more than a teaspoon of sarcasm.
"Only until you make a mistake with one of your spells!" Said another voice in the crowd. Reminding Cho, once again, that his Wizzardly training had lasted exactly four hours, fifteen minutes and twenty-three seconds when his master had mixed considerably more than a teaspoon of sulphur with the rest of the ingredients in the large cauldron and had vanished in a puff of smoke accompanied by a squelching noise.

Cho walked over to the contraption that was clanking and grinding and saw that the local blacksmith had his head inside the machine. Cho quickly grabbed the back of the blacksmith’s heavy apron and pulled him clear.

"Careful Mr Smith, that thing could have had your head off." Said Cho as he dragged Mr Smith the blacksmith backwards.

Mr Smith the blacksmith pulled off the safety glasses he was wearing and revealed two soot stained rings around his eyes. "I doubt that very much Cho, I built this machine and there is absolutely no danger whatsoever." Said Mr Smith.

Just as Mr Smith finished his sentence the contraption made a pinging noise and a large piece of metal sprung out of the machine at exactly the place where Mr Smiths head had been a few seconds previously. Had his head still been in the same place Mr Smith would have very quickly found he no longer had a need for a hat stand.

"What is it?" Cho asked.
"I call it a Carambulator." Mr Smith replied.
"And what does it do?" Cho posed.
"It's a device that allows people to go from one place to another." Mr Smith answered.
"Are legs being banned by Royal order?" Cho asked, wondering if the king had had another one of his turns and was in the process of banning something people really needed.

Mr Smith wandered off in the direction that the piece of metal that had flew out of the car had shot off in and Cho decided that as the noise had now gone he could go home and get back to his deep thinking.

Later that evening Cho was sat beside the fire when there came a knock at the door. Cho got up and walked to the door, pulled it open and found a royal messenger standing there with a scroll of paper in his hand. "A message from His Royal Highness for you Wizzard." The messenger said, handing the scroll to Cho.

Cho opened the message and read it.

"By Royal proclamation it is decided that the Wizzard Cho Senwan shall be made Royal champion and as such shall deal with the problem of the Dragon M'eye O'Laydy attacking Castle Ahnuddaman and the village N'at Aindookool. Failure shall result in the Wizzard Cho Senwan being burnt at the stake, or eaten, whichever should come first."

It said.

The Royal messenger bowed gracefully to Cho and walked backwards to where his horse had been tied to a small tree stump a few feet away. Cho sighed, knowing that the Dragon M'eye O'Laydy was trouble with a capital TROUBLE and knowing that he had only four hours, fifteen minutes and twenty-three seconds of Wizzard training to go on.

The rest of that evening Cho sat thinking how exactly he was going to kill a large and fearsome Dragons who could breathe fire and could bite a fully grown oak tree in half like it was nothing more than a matchstick. No ideas came to Cho and the more he thought the more he worried that he was going to die very soon.

The next day Cho read as many of the Wizzard books that his former master had collected before his squelchy ending. None of the books made any sense to him at all. The lack of Wizzardly knowledge was a decided handicap when it came to reading Wizzard books as they contained Wizzard words and Cho had no idea of what they meant.

The only spell that his former master had begun to teach Cho was the spell that had resulted in his masters’ squelchy demise. Fortunately Cho remembered every ingredient. Unfortunately Cho also remembered the outcome of mixing those same ingredients.

Later in the night Cho fell sleep on top of the pile of books. And dreamed.

He awoke several hours later with an idea. The spell his master had begun to teach him was the perfect thing to deal with the Dragon M'eye O'Laydy if he could find some way to get the dragon to mix together the right chemicals and add too much sulphur. And that was where the idea fell short. Dragons were not known for their ability as chemists, they were more known for their ability to breathe fire and eat people.

As Cho thought of how he could use the only spell he knew to its full potential another idea struck him. He could mix the chemicals together, with the exception of the sulphur and somehow add the sulphur later. But how?

In the end he realised that if the chemical compound was premixed and stored in a container and the sulphur was kept separate in a glass globe he could throw the container into the dragons lair. When the container struck something hard enough to break the glass globe the device would explode and the dragon would disappear as quickly as his master had.

A few weeks later Cho had managed to source all the different materials he needed for the magical container and had carefully put the device together. The next day he took his device and carried it towards the dragons’ lair. As he walked through the Town Square Mr Smith the blacksmith saw Cho and asked him what it was that he was carrying very carefully. "I call it a gone." Cho replied, "It makes things disappear very quickly."

Legend has it that Cho was successful in dispatching the evil dragon and that the king made him Wizzard to the Royal court for life. Cho married the kings’ daughter, they had many children and everyone lived happily ever after. A song was written about Cho and the dragon and to this day it is still sung...

Hey Cho, where you goin with that gone in your hand
I said hey Cho, where you goin with that gone in your hand?

I'm going to down to shoo M'eye O'Laydy
You know I caught it messing aroun with Ahnuddaman

I said I'm going down to shoo M'eye O'Laydy
You know I caught it messing aroun with Ahnuddaman

And N'at Aindookool.