Words by Jonathan Green...

And so it was that in the Third Season of the Stoned Age, the Bloody Bishop – that blood-soaked yet benign Celestial Overseer – turned His Pan-dimensional Soulscope upon the Lux Quadrant, in its turn, and the Sol system at its heart. But, lo, His view of the planet Earth was obscured by the penumbral clouds of a melancholic astronomical aura.
Greatly perplexed and deeply concerned, His Inquisitorial Highness retreated to the Sanctuary of Silence, and there descended into a state of transcendental meditation, at last freeing His astral body from His physical form and sending it out into the interstellar gulfs of space. His ethereal-projection shining as bright as a supernova, He crossed the stars, traversing nebulae a million light years across in a blink of an eye, until He reached the Sol system. His immaterial essence surfed the ice rings of Saturn and bathed in the nuclear heat of plasma flares thrown a thousand miles into space from the coronasphere of the Yellow Dwarf Star, before finally approaching Earth.

Here the Bloody Bishop’s astral journey ended, and He studied the planet from afar, lest the strange melancholic affliction cause His own spectral form to dissipate and be lost amidst the stars for all Eternity.
He soon diagnosed the cause of the Earth’s sickness, for it was a world wracked by War, Famine and Pestilence, where Death held sway. The cost to the planet’s soul was that this affliction had caused the Righteous Vibes of Earth to ebb way and for such a malady there could only be one cure. In His wisdom, the Bloody Bishop deduced that the planet could only be saved by the panacea that was Rock and Roll.
Returning to the Sanctuary of Silence, where His physical form sat waiting, the Bloody Bishop reunited body and soul, and made His way to the command bridge of the Sword of Truth. And once there, with the Music of the Spheres ringing from walls of the command cathedral, climbing the ninety-nine steps to His command pulpit, He issued His decree to the Faithful.

And so the course was set, and, its Belief-Engines burning, the inquisitorial battle-cruiser set off for the Planet of the Celestial Monks.
But the voyage across the heavens was long and arduous, beset with many Trials and Tribulations, for star-spawn of cyclopean magnitude – such as the Star-Whale and the Void-Kraken – threatened to sink the Sword of Truth amidst the Sea of Stars and devour its crew of True Believers. But every time the ship was threatened, at His Inquisitorial Highness’ command, its Faith-Cannons spake and the void-born beasts were undone by Clashing Chords of undiluted Rock.

Having braved the horrors of the Black Gulf, the Sword of Truth made orbit above the Planet of the Celestial Monks. Donning His righteous battle-dress, the Bloody Bishop descended to the surface, accompanied by the blade-maidens of His Inquisitorial Honour Guard. But more Ordeals awaited Him there.
He slew the Pyre, the Living Furnace, and He conquered the Forest Maze of the Leaf-Witch, until He stood before the Temple of the Celestial Monks. And having taken part in the Tournament of Tongues with the Sisterhood of Sin, and a final Axe Duel with the Grandmaster of the Temple, having passed their final test and earned their trust, upon bended knee the Bloody Bishop beseeched the Celestial Monks to aid him in the Liberation of Earth.

And so the Sword of Truth departed the Planet of the Celestial Monks, with the Bearded Ones on board, and crossed the Milky Way once more until the battle-cruiser broke through the barrier of the Miasmal Melancholia and burned through the atmosphere of Earth, on wings of fire, until it hung in the sky above the ancient desert kingdom of the Pharaohs of Aegpytus, and the people of that benighted planet were sore afraid.

Then, from the belly of the battle-cruiser, the Messengers of Truth descended upon golden wings; they who were as Gods of Space, Alien Kings come to bestow their beneficence upon the beleaguered word, the last bastions of hope having been brought low by the warmongering rulers of the Divided Nations.

As the first rays of dawn on that Blesséd Day struck the Eye of Infinity carved atop the Obelisk of the Eternal Sunrise, the Bloody Bishop declared, “Let there be Rock and Roll!”

With the man-made mountain of the Great Pyramid of Giza looming behind them, the Celestial Monks – saviours from a parallel world speaking in tongues – performed a set of Astounding Awesomeness and Righteous Rock and Roll. And thus, the stars aligned, the grey clouds of gloom were dispelled, freeing the planet from its Impending Doom, and the Righteous Vibes returned to the planet Earth.

All hail the Celestial Monks!
All hail the Bloody Bishop!