Owen, or more commonly known as Kyrian Vantabloom, was tired. As one of the gods chosen heroes he was duty bound to do everything he could to help the people, a duty the other heroes were happy to disregard. After saving the world from the demon king, he helped rebuild society from the ground up, from the farmland allocated to the peasants, to placating the nobility to prevent wars over the scorched ruins. He also took it upon himself to prevent the chaos caused by the now vacant thrones throughout the continent, he did this by ruling the vagrant nations through close aids he elected for the position. He, however always stayed keenly aware that power corrupts. And that as humans, he and his aides could easily become an oppressive and tyrannical force. To stop this, he had a curse cast upon him and the other rulers, that if enough of the country wanted them dead, they would die, while keeping the specifics of the curse hidden, even to himself, only adding to his stress.
Kyrian stood in front of a mirror, staring at his once full and majestic blonde hair, now thinner and less vibrant than before still looked perfect, but people who knew him during his heyday could see the difference. His slightly creased skin, his pale golden eyes, the semi-permanent eye catching smile on his face, all looked a slightly unhealthy breed of perfection.
The only of his former companions he respected were those who had died.Those who didn’t die either settled down in some obscure corner of the world, ignoring the plight of the people, or did take charge of a nation, but not on as nearly as large of scale.
Sometimes Kyrian longed for the times before the world became this way, when he still had his family and his friends, when the world still had its colour, when his biggest problems were homework, when he was just an ignorant teenager playing games on his Xbox, not knowing he would one day have to role play a mighty hero in a different world. At the very least he wished for his sister back. She had been everything to him, even back before they left Earth behind. Some would have called him obsessive, and while Kyrian didn’t deny it, he considered it a healthy amount of love for his family.
Crystal had also been summoned as a hero, and like him had been made to give up her true name, in a bid to avoid attacks from anyone who didn’t like them. Now that she was gone, he refused to use the name forced upon her by the gods. Kyrian sighed. It all came down to the gods in the end, didn’t it. They knew the burden they were placing on her, they just didn’t care. “The brightest flame” they called her, she had the most skill and strength out of all of them, her strength, speed, skill and kindness dwarfed that of everyone else, eventually making her the face of the chosen heroes. But the gods never finished the saying, “The brightest flame, burns the quickest.”
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When the demon king first attacked us, he threw a quarter of all his military might at us, the only ones who could do him harm. We fought while we could, but we were still inexperienced, weak. Crystal took it upon herself as the most matured hero to protect the rest of us. She tore through the horde, a brilliant cyclone of blades and magic, dancing through the battlefield as if she could see the future. This was the moment we truly realised what it meant to be the brightest flame. That we would only bring her down with our presence, so we ran. We later received news that Crystal had won, but at the cost of her life. We also learned, the true terror of The Demon King
Owen bottled his feelings and locked them away, fighting tears as he recalled the memories. He drew breath after breath, trying to calm himself down. He turned around to go back to his work, but his eyes were drawn to her diary, the only thing he had left of her. She had always been a pragmatic person. She had even given everyone free reign to read through her journal, since “It was a waste to write something no one would read.”
Owen felt the small, leather bound journal in his hands. It had been personally embroidered by his sister with an illustration of an owl in a tree. From the obvious traces of owl shaped tears in the leather, he could tell she had tried many different times to get it right. Owen briefly smiled as he opened the journal and flipped through the pages. They were filled with observations of the new world they were in as well as mundane recollections of their past lives. This continued for about a month worth of entries, then Owen reached the last page.
Dear diary, and probably Kyrian(I absolutely hate that we had to give up the names mom gave us T-T)
I’m writing this because I have a bad feeling about tomorrow, a terrible sinking feeling, like I’m in a capsized boat at sea you know. Like sleep paralysis when I’m awake. I know it’s probably nothing, maybe just the strange situation finally catching up with me. But I just can’t shake that something bad is going to happen. Good night I guess.
I know I already said good night but I just had a really freaky dream and i kinda got too scared to sleep again. Exemplary hero behaviour right there, I know. I dreamt that I was living in a cozy little cottage by the woods married to a hunter with a little girl. You won’t understand since you weren’t there but she looked exactly like me as a child, from the slightly unkempt dirty blonde hair, to the way she walked. The only difference was that she had her dads brown eyes. It was literally the perfect life I used to daydream of, it actually feels kinda nostalgic, thinking of that imaginary life. Everything should be fine but with this horrible feeling and that perfect life I dreamt of it makes it feel like I’m going to die and I dreamt of heaven. I think my nerves have calmed down a bit now so I’m going to try and get some sleep. Good night, for real this time.
Owen looked at the date on the entry and saw that she wrote this the day before she died. This couldn’t be a coincidence, Owen had learned by now that such unexplained occurrences were related to a hero’s supporting deity. Though Owen had no idea who Crystal’s supporting deity was meant to be, he decided to look into it further, while trying to not to get his hopes up.