The warrior's fame spreads far and wide. He is now known by numerous epithets—Darksbane, Nightslayer, and Hopebringer chief among them. He has conquered the evil besetting the kingdom and brought peace to the world, and these heroic deeds have earned him a place in the hearts of all folk.
Yet, the years come and they go and along with them vanish the painful memories of oppression and subjugation under the Dark Lord's regime. No demons remain to torment. No inky clouds hang perpetually in the skies. And soon, no trace will linger of a past evil at all. The people have truly entered an age of great prosperity, peace now reigning in evil's stead.
The warrior who brought it all about, though, now suffers greatly. His entire life he had spent training to slay the demonic, to purge the malevolent. But now that no evil remains, he is without purpose, without function...
He thus vows to shuck the yoke of his heroic past and reintegrate into society—a final victory, well-suited to a hero.
First, he becomes a farmhand, but one day while clumsily pitching hay, he accidentally knocks over an oil lamp in the stable. In the space of a thought, the whole structure is ablaze, burning throughout the night, leaving only ash where the region's most profitable horse stable once stood. Needless to say, the owner was displeased.
Next, he becomes a sailor, very soon finding his sea legs to be made of gelatin. The summer season spent draped over the bow, the hero hangs listless, hopeless, utterly useless to his captain. Wan in face, he incessantly retches the contents of his unsympathetic stomach into the ocean.
One final attempt he makes leads him to study trade. He learns to buy and sell a quarry most mundane—that is, compared to the horns of slain demons. Yet his trusting nature and honesty lead to unwise investments, costing him all of his remaining coin.
Ten years thus pass in the span of a breath, not even the shadow of success in sight. Ten years of toil, agony, and failure have aged his body tenfold. Now looking upon his withered and gnarled hands, he no longer recognizes them as his own. He had once been the strongest in the land, but now none weaker remain.
To his misfortune, news of his legendary incompetence for anything but demon-slaying spreads and he is soon without recourse. Doors shut in his face; dismissive hands wave him away. Even as a beggar he fails, for none are willing to approach him, much less drop a coin into his grotesque hands. Mothers warn children to keep their distance; people divert their course to avoid passing near him. Soon, none even remember who he is or why they spurn him; they just know to do so with religious regularity.
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Soon, ten more years come and go. The former hero now spends his miserable days hunting rats and digging through refuse just to find some half-spoiled head of cabbage. More feral beast than lauded savior, he has become utterly unrecognizable.
One day, as he wanders the grimy streets of a dispassionate city, he decides to finally search for a suitable place to die. And find it he does. Along an unmarked alley in a forgotten part of town, he falls to the ground, kissing stone with cracked, bloody lips, unable and unwilling to move.
Twenty years have elapsed since he freed the traitorous world from their horrific overlord. Twenty years he has suffered the forgetfulness of ingrates and hypocrites. Though two small drops in an ocean unfathomably vast, these two decades were time enough to break the spirit of the one man whose optimism once saved the world. And now, he will die unmourned, unremembered, unwanted...
But out from the darkness of that trash-filled alley comes a cloaked individual, staring down upon the broken man's wretched form. A simple raising of this unknown figure's hand levitates the ragged, dying body from the floor. Yet another deft gesture gently propels it through the air and toward an opened door at the end of the forgotten alley. The cloaked figure follows the floating body in and the door shuts behind them.
In this dusty, ill-lit room are jars housing a frightening menagerie of creatures, at many stages of development, suspended in viscous fluids of many colors—some even thrash about in their glassy prisons. Cauldrons bubble absent fire. Furniture moved by unseen hands carves a path through the chaos. Leatherbound tomes strewn about a table shut themselves and fly to their appointed places upon distant shelves.
When the former warrior finally stirs, he finds his form bound to a cold metal surface. There he lies, naked and afraid. Fear? But of what? Was he not searching for death? The cloaked figure appears before him, scarlet lips curled into a sinister grin.
The trapped man now feels a burning rage surge within him. But he soon realizes this devil before him is not the object of his anger. Then who? The images of all who had betrayed him flash before his mind's eye. All the shopkeepers, the housewives, the sailors and farmers, the merchants and children, all of them appear with their mocking laughter, fingers pointed at him.
These memories, both constructed and real, come pouring forth from the depths of his soul, culminating in a clarion cry of absolute pain. His vision blurs, all colors merging, gaining in brightness and intensity. Soon all he sees is white. And in a flash of blinding light, his body disappears.