"Remember, when a friend is frozen in carbonite, don’t overthink it. Just stroll into the gangster’s palace, dressed like you mean business, and hope an ally throws you a weapon in the nick of time. True idle heroism is 90% confidence, 10% luck, and zero advanced planning." The Te of Slacking, Book 5, Verse 14

I’d not wanted there to be too much fuss over my departure, which was lucky, because apparently no one cared all that much.

Aside from Scar and Dema, the send-off crowd was decidedly sparse. Well, unless you counted Jorgen, who kept staring at me from his Forge window like the creepiest Peeping Tom imaginable.

To be fair, I understood the lack of fanfare. Most of the newcomers to Lazytown didn’t know me from Adam, other than as “that guy who lives in the big house and sometimes trips over his own feet.” Oh, and the glowing Rogue of Eldhaven banner that hovered above my head like a particularly ostentatious nametag (I really need to figure out how to turn that off) didn’t do much for my likeability.

And as much as people intellectually understood that Lia—our very own Dark Wren—had been a total badass during the Battle of Lazytown (I), most of them were too busy rebuilding their lives to get worked up about the fact I was about to wander off on a suicide mission to save her. Socks remained firmly unrolled.

“You know this is a terrible idea, right?” Scar said for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Sure,” I replied, slinging my pack over my shoulder. “But terrible ideas are kind of my speciality.”

“And yet, here you are still alive,” Dema said. “Speaking as someone who spent a not inconsiderable time in the Medical Hut after tanking a blow to the head meant from you from a colossally fat fucker, I can’t decide if it’s impressive or deeply unfair.”

“Probably both,” I said with a shrug. “Glad you’re not holding that against me or anything.”

Scar pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Rogue, I get the whole ‘heroic sacrifice’ vibe you’re going for, but at this stage of Lazytown’s development this is just reckless. At our rate of development, we’re going to be ranking up soon, and there’s only so much I can do as Steward. We all appreciate the gold, but a little more engagement with things that affect lots of people would be appreciated!”

That pulled me up short.

I’d explained, over and over again, to both of these guys about the forthcoming apocalypse—laid it all out, complete with divine meddling, ticking doomsday clock, and the Maker’s plan for a total-system takeover—but somehow, the details never seemed to stick.

At first, I thought it was just denial, the kind of wilful ignorance people lean on when the truth is too big and too ugly to deal with. But the more I watched them, the more it felt like something else. Like the information just slid off their brains, unable to find a grip.

It was the same way they glazed over whenever I dropped one of my brilliant, perfectly timed pop culture references. I’d quip about Die Hard or The Matrix, and they’d nod along like I was speaking in tongues, their expressions that perfect mix of polite interest and total incomprehension.

But this wasn’t about misunderstanding Bruce Willis movies. This was the apocalypse.

It was like trying to explain the concept of a hurricane to someone standing on the beach during the first gust of wind. Sure, they felt the breeze, but they couldn’t connect it to the wall of water about to come crashing down. And here’s me, flailing my arms, screaming, “Run, you idiots, RUN!” while they smile and talk about how nice the sand feels between their toes.

I couldn’t help but think of my grandfather. He had Alzheimer’s, and every morning felt like the opening act of a play he couldn’t quite remember auditioning for.

I was ten when it really hit. We were visiting him in the nursing home—a place that smelt of antiseptic and despair—and he’d looked at me with a blankness that froze the air between us. “Who’s this, then?” he’d asked, smiling like I was the paperboy who’d wandered in by accident.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“That’s James, Dad,” my mum had said, her voice too bright, too careful. “Your grandson.”

“Oh!” he’d exclaimed, with a suddenness that made us all jump. “I didn’t know I had one of those!” Then he’d laughed, a big, hearty laugh, as if the whole thing was some grand joke we were all in on.

It wasn’t funny.

Not at the time. But now? Now I got it. Now I saw the humour in how ridiculous it all was. Every day, a fresh slate. Every day, the same introductions, the same explanations, the same wearying battle against a mind that wasn’t playing ball.

The thing about my granddad, though, was that he didn’t choose to forget. He wasn’t sitting there thinking, You know what? I don’t feel like remembering my family today. His brain just... wouldn’t. It couldn’t. It was heartbreaking and maddening and absurd all at once.

But this? This felt different. Like the Maker had flicked a switch in everyone else’s heads, cranking up the “Blissful Ignorance” slider to max. It wasn’t that they couldn’t remember—it was like they weren’t allowed to. Every time I tried to explain the apocalypse, the terror and urgency of it, they’d nod and frown and seem to get it, but an hour later it was gone, replaced by talk of normal quests and mundane concerns.

Frustrating didn’t begin to cover it. And unlike with my granddad, there was no softening layer of love or nostalgia to cushion the blow. Just me, carrying the weight of the end of the world while everyone else was blissfully unburdened.

My granddad once told me, in one of his rare moments of clarity, that forgetting wasn’t the worst part. It was knowing, somewhere deep down, that you were forgetting. That the pieces were slipping away, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t hold onto them.

I wondered, now, if that’s what it felt like for everyone else. If, deep down, they knew something was wrong but couldn’t quite grasp what it was. Or if they were just... oblivious.

Either way, it left me standing alone, the only one who could see the fire spreading while everyone else admired the curtains.

Scar and Dema, for all their concern, were treating Lia being taken as just a ‘normal’ quest—like it was the sort of thing that happened every Tuesday in this messed-up world.

That idea was a vibe in itself: the girl destined to bring about the apocalypse had been kidnapped, and the general consensus was, “Well, better fetch her back before lunch.”

How was I supposed to stop the apocalypse if no one else could even acknowledge it? It was hard enough wrapping my own head around the idea that Lia’s disappearance wasn’t just another crappy thing to deal with, but a full-blown harbinger of doom.

What if they were right, though?

What if it really was just another quest?

What if I was the one reading too much into it, seeing patterns where there were none? No. That wasn’t it. I felt it, deep in my bones, the weight of something massive and inevitable pressing down on me like a storm cloud ready to burst.

And yet here I was, heading off to save the day with my only two allies who’d come to say goodbye thinking this was just another a typical adventure, and a town full of people who’d probably throw a parade when I got back, blissfully unaware that the world was one bad dice roll away from oblivion.

“I’m starting to think this apocalypse thing might be harder than I thought,” I muttered under my breath. No one heard me. No one ever did.

Scar huffed some more. “The Tower of Perdition? Really? Why not just jump into a pit of spikes and save yourself the trip?”

“Spikes,” I said. “That’s Floor One, right? So technically, it’s part of the itinerary.”

“Oh good, he’s making jokes,” Dema said. “That’ll definitely help when an Ogre decides to eat his face.”

“You say ‘eat my face’ like it’s a certainty,” I said back. “I prefer to think of it as a strong possibility. And you know, if you’re up for that at any time, baby, I’m game.”

“James, we’re only saying all this because, against all odds, we actually like you. Mostly.”

“Mostly,” Dema echoed.

“And we don’t want to see you become monster chow,” Scar finished. “I mean, who else is going to keep piling gold into the economy? Can you make sure you’ve left enough to tie us over whilst you’re away?”

“Well, when you put it like that, how can I say no?” I said. “I’m touched. Really. And I totally don’t feel like an octogenarian newspaper baron when then the Page 3 model smiles my way.”

Dema rolled her eyes, but I caught the faintest twitch of a smile. “Just try not to get yourself killed, alright? Some of us are used to you now.”

“Aw, you’ll miss me,” I teased.

“Like a rash,” she deadpanned.

Scar just shook his head, muttering something about idiots and doomed quests. Personally, I kind of thought I was Luke Skywalker entering Jabba’s Palace to rescue Han. Except, you know, without the lightsabre. Or the plan.

Without any further ado, I stepped up to the Well and activated the Shardspire Vale option.