I walk through a door and the world dissolves. A bright flash of light like liquid gold and when my vision clears, the world around me is changed.

Someone calls out to me, but my ears ring louder before the sound starts to fade. I’m in a massive forest, trees taller than any I’ve seen. A village nestles in amongst the trees, ramshackle and well loved in equal measure.

A young man calls out to me. He waves. I take a halting step, then find my stride and move forward. I realize I understood the man and that he had asked where I came from. I pause and turn to look behind me, at an outhouse, judging from the crescent moon on the door. There’s a hint of of a breeze and the world goes golden and quiet again for a moment.

The young man is yelling, joyful, and villagers are gathering. The golden light clears, the outhouse door opens, and a young woman steps out.

She looks around, blinking the golden glow from her eyes, and spots me.

“Hey, where is this?”

I shrug and before I can speak we’re hit by the wave of villagers. They cheer and weep and lead us to a nearby tavern, praising us as saviours all the while. A celebration strikes up and swallows the whole town.

Drink and dancing run late into the night, music and roast pigs and chickens and ale flowing free, but I have lost the young woman. She had clothes like mine and must have been from home, but she was caught up and swept away. I spend a time looking, but find myself eventually sitting at a table with a few people from the village, all about my age.

I hear the prophecy the first time that night, and every person at my table pledges their life to the cause.

The cause? Claiming my prophesied place as the Sovereign and Saviour of this land, bringing armies to bear against the unfathomable strength of the Dark Lord – the Nemesis of the prophecy.

They tell me this village is one of the last left of the old kingdom of Issachai. The Beast and his dark hordes overwhelmed every force they met. Millions died, and the twin kingdoms of Nowaire and Henniwaire only just stopped the flood. Both kingdoms lost hundreds of thousands and a little over half their total land area to the ceaseless onslaught. The warlike tribes from the mountains held him back with little effort and have grown more and more reclusive. Only the forest itself held back the advancing death here, some trees so old they supposedly up and started walking around, protecting the forest and its dwellers.

Deidamia pledges herself to the cause and catches my eye and smiles. I smile back, half-heartedly, the weight of another world on my shoulders. I cast about for the girl that arrived with me, apparently fated to be the Sage. I stand, a little unsteady on my feet, and the drink wins out, the world fading.

We all awake to panicked shouting the next morning, followed shortly by choking smoke. The runner warns us the Dark One’s armies are coming, burning the forest as they go.

Killing the ents and their groves.

I feel something, then. A deep, hollow ache in my chest. I know, I know that this isn’t my job. Not my problem. I woke up yesterday, took a shower, ate a bowl of cocoa puffs, ran the dishwasher, then went to brush my teeth before I left for work at the shop.

I didn’t ask for destiny. I didn’t ask for adventure.

I smell smoke, but my decision was already made. I’m gathering those who swore themselves to me, and we’re putting a stop to this.

But as I hurry to rouse my newly sworn companions, a tug in my gut sends me around the side of the tavern to a small stable. Not knowing why, I am impelled toward the stablehand’s quarters, a certainty that I am where I should be gaining in strength as I reach toward the door.

Before I can, the feeling shifts to one of alarm and warning and the door swells and bursts outward, and a crush of water sweeping me into one of the stalls. I spend a second pressed to the wall before the tide subsides, then rub the water from my eyes. Before I can get my hair out of my face, a small hand hauled me to my feet.

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“Wow, that strength spell works. I’m so sorry about that, are you okay?” The young woman from before stands to my side. I cough and she slaps my back, sending me straight back into the wall. She lifts me back up and puts me gingerly onto the straw-covered wood.

I look around for a minute, taking in the aftermath of the flood.

“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks.” I can feel her looking at me and turn to meet her gaze. “Can you do that again?”

Her face lights up with a wide smile. Her eyes twinkle. She opens her mouth to speak and the world judders and the smell of smoke is heavy, now. Ayla finishes screaming her spell and I look back to the forces ahead, meeting abominations wrought of shadow and flame with iron and blood. I’m yelling for the villagers to clear her line of fire when the largest creature rears and takes the pressurized blast of water ten meters up. I call for shields and there’s a patter of death and rain from above.

The remnants of the creature collapses and it’s barely-smoldering remains shatter over its forces, igniting some of the lesser beasts into glowing amalgams. Corpses of friend and foe alike were consumed and fed fuel to the flames. I chance another look back at Ayla and the tremors and bone-white cast of her face fill me with pessimism. We have other mages in our number, but none that could muster her strength.

Or conjure water, for that matter.

The smoke is thick and the air burning orange, forest dying in time with everyone here, struggling to hold back the devouring dark. I want to fight, to take up a sword and charge into the fray myself, but the short days of training on the mad rush to meet their foe were no substitute for a martial education. These villagers dying for their belief in him were hardly better, but the veterans among them made sure most able-bodied folk could swing a blade.

But with each second that passes, another new face – another person I only just met – died screaming, pleading for the survivors to fight on.

I feel that pull in my gut again and I lean into it, trying to let it guide me wherever I needed to be, and it directs me to turn my head. I see a young woman, fingertips into the lake holding our flank, power steaming off her. She turns her head, sees me and gives a smile and nod, her starry eyes holding mine, then points.

I turn, another of the wretches having grown to the size of a house and looming over me and my retinue. The feeling in my gut settles and I close my gaping mouth to face the thing with a smile on my face, old advice about smiling until it sticks bubbling up from somewhere.

The soldiers around me start to panic, but see me grinning at death and calm themselves. I think that they think I have a plan. My smile grows a bit manic, suppressing a hysterical laugh.

And then the pinholes open. Like a field of negative stars thousands of pulsing voids appear before the arrayed forces of Good. A pulse thrums from the woman at the lake and they all spiral into whirls of grey. And then from each a line of white appeared and severed all things unfortunate enough to be caught in their paths. Cut down to size, the creatures writhed in the muddy ground below. Muddy?

I hazard another look at the woman and the power rolls thicker from her frame than before as the lake behind her gurgles like the mother of all bathtubs and lowers.

I look back to the high-pressure sprays soaking everything around in a fine mist of water, killing the flames and the beasts all at once. Another heartbeat shakes the world and the portals move, leaving naught but churned mud steaming gently in their wake, the last wisps of darkness making up our foes fading into nothing.

I look to Ayla and see her, drained of vitality and falling from her perch on a branch above.

I don’t recall moving, but suddenly I’m catching her and brushing her hair from her face. She wheezes and her eyelids flutter and she whispers.

“Sorry. Moving those took a lot out of me.”

And her eyes focus on me and she smiles.

And I jolt awake, my wife’s face hovering in my vision for a moment before I blink and it’s gone.

I’m breathing heavy, the muted thumps of fireworks filtering in through the soundproofing wards. Magic was great, but the sounds of a mortar going off not a hundred feet from the open windows provided a challenge for the sorcery. My heart beats faster than the staccato rhythm of the celebratory pyrotechnics creeping in from the Palace grounds.

My thoughts are racing, and the dreams caught me off guard. The last time a dream that vivid struck, it had been a portent of things to come. I’ve yet to have a dream of the past that predicted my future.

I calm myself, trying to meditate and breathe – managing only the latter – and wonder what it might be that’s causing my ill ease. The Moon Dance begins outside, the beat shaking in alongside that of the fireworks. Eventually, my pulse steadies, and I cast about for my wife.

Finding an unruffled half of the enormous mattress is unsurprising, my beloved spending a great deal of time lost in her research. Best not to bother her with my small worries. I roll myself out of bed and wander to the powder room, the cache of potions and alchemicals waiting in its niche. I find what I seek and head to the balcony, taking in the joy of the people below.

My people. A feeling of peace fills me, knowing that I had no small part to play in making this Empire possible, to say nothing about the celebration itself.

I sip from the crystal vile, the liquid within almost numbing my lips. Smelling sweet and heady, but tasting of nothing, I grimace and finish the liquid. I watch the colorful press of people and excitement for a while. Eventually, the potion settles and my head fills with cotton. I make it to bed before the sleepy feeling passes and the draught gets weird, floating slowly into a fluffy dreamless cloud.

The last thoughts circling the drain before my brain lets go are of the happy ending we finally found. Nemesis defeated, continent united, magitech growing and spreading by the day, I drift off, filled with hope for the future.