The citizens of Ajudicus surrounded the Great Mausoleum of the First Emperor, He who gave Law to the World.  Most could not see much of the grand structure, but all who were there were awaiting the heroes which came to cure their world of evil. 

And the evil facing the world was terrifying.  A new demon lord had arisen, one much defter than the previous few.  He had forgone the usual army of orcs and demons which inevitably slammed the castle walls in favor of guerilla warfare.  Fear was his weapon, not death, and he used it far more effectively than any prior demon lord. The citizenry was scared, scared not that the castle would fall but that tomorrow, the town surrounding it would be no more.  No army could move as quickly as this demon, no perimeter defense could prevent his onslaught, and above all, no one was safe from his unending malice.

That was why they watched the tomb with everlasting hope.  For from the tomb would rise the bane of evil.  Heroes had slain countless demon king’s before, and thanks to them no kingdom had ever fallen.

  So they watched as a great pillar of light descended from the heavens, blinding all those present, eliciting a roaring yell from the crowd.  A roar of defiance.  A roar in the face of fear.

*          *          *

I awoke once again in a pristine white room.

For the love of God when would this fever dream end? I died right before someone was about to confess to me, then went into what I imagine an LSD nightmare would be like, then dropped into a somehow even weirder view of a bunch of multicolored people.  Maybe even dying was a dream, as was this.  Maybe I mistakenly took some real wacky drug and this is fake.

Then I hear a chuckle.  A human voice!  I might have cried on the spot due to relief. Lifting my head, I saw a man in white robes.  Oh.  I guess I really did die and met god.  RIP.

“Fortune’s child, you must be so confused.  No you are not dead, nor am I the only God nor do you live in the only world that exists.”

His voice resonated, comforting me yet demanding my absolute attention. 

“Your world is managed, if I can call it that, by my eldest daughter.  Thanks to her slight intervention, you died and were sent to the cycle of reincarnation.  Again thanks to her, you were kicked out of the cycle of reincarnation and sent to this world as her champion.”

So I died due to the intervention of God, and then she transported me to this world?  What is ‘this world’?

“This is the world I manage.  Every couple hundred years we pull one person from each of my children’s worlds for a fun family competition.  Usually, I don’t participate so it’s my oldest son versus everyone else, but this time your God asked if you could be your own faction.  In terms you would understand, it is the Demon Lord versus the four heroes.  Or three now, I guess.”

I was a big D&D nut when I was alive, so I immediately understood what he was saying.  The classic Lawful Evil vs Lawful Good, right?

“No, more like Lawful Evil vs Neutral Good.  And now you are Chaotic Neutral.”

I convulsed slightly when hearing that.  Chaotic neutral was so hard to do, not representing anything, just following one’s whimsy.  If he was roleplaying, he was going to have to decide a role.

Before that, he definitely heard my thoughts.  Not that I was that disturbed, given the prior day.  I honestly did not care as long as I got the chance to be some cool fantasy character.

Suddenly, he (or it?  Not sure) broke out into laughter. “HA HA HA HAAAAAA!  MY DAUGHTER SENDS A CHAMPION JUST LIKE HER I SEE.  NOT WORRIED TO BE FORCED INTO A CRUEL WORLD TO FIGHT BOTH THE DEMONS AND HEROES BUT INSTEAD WORRIED ABOUT HOW TO CORRECTLY ROLEPLAY.  A MAN AFTER MY OWN HEART.”

Still wheezing from laughter, he bellowed, “YOUNG SOUL, I SHALL GRANT YOU THIS. WHAT YOU SAW IN THAT VISION WAS THE NEXT GROUP OF HEROES.  THEY WILL TRY TO KILL YOU JUST AS MUCH AS THEY WILL WANT TO KILL THE DEMON LORD, PROBABLY MORE GIVEN FAMILY POLITICS.  YOU HAVE NO EMPIRE TO SUPPORT YOU AND INTRODUCE YOU TO THE MAGIC OF THE WORLD LIKE THEY DO.”

His words were so loud they shook me.  But the message was meaningless to me.  I had already died once, lost everything I cared about twice, and grappled with depression throughout my childhood and teenage years. D&D had been a major source of entertainment for me, and the friends I had made through it and the adventures that I experienced through fantasy were my escape. 

Suddenly tears were welling in my eyes, remembering all I had lost. First, my parents so many years ago and just as I had recovered some cruel god decided to take away my life for a game of family Chinese checkers.   Would it have been too much to ask for a meaningful death for those I loved?  Would it be too much to ask to take me after I had attained some vestige of happiness?  I started bawling in front of God himself, cursing him as he stood right in front of me.

He started to speak again, but I cut him off this time.  “Why me?  What did I do to deserve this?”

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He answered, pain in his voice this time, “I cannot answer that.  I can only give you my gift in hope you succeed and attain your happiness here, in my world.  Know that you come from one of the saddest of all known worlds in the galaxy, a world administered by luck over fate, ravaged by depression instead of demons, and destroyed by fire and ice instead of loving light.  Most gods truly care for their creation, but my daughter has a rather cruel habit of trying to study it in its ‘natural habitat’ or whatnot.  That is also the reason she is the deity of nature, and why you,” throwing what appeared to be the world’s most dazzling disco ball towards me as he said this “will have a command over nature.  Finally, I give you my gift, as an apology for my daughter’s disservice. 

Peace is your reward.”

With that, I once again faded out of consciousness.

*          *          *

The three heroes had just arrived at the central temple, and the city was ecstatic.  Although the heroes could not attend, a festival was had and young men and women enlisted in droves.

Mages burnt their mana stores to light the sky ablaze, innkeepers and tavern owners pulled out all of their stock, and children across the country left school early to participate in the gargantuan festivities.

One small part of the country was not partying, however.  And it just so happened to be very group which caused the rest of the country’s jubilation.

“Listen up, venerable heroes.  Although you may have been strong in your respective worlds, the concentration and power of mana was severely lacking there.  Furthermore, you don’t truly understand the power of this world.”

Hammurabus was the only surviving former hero, the only person in the entire world who had fought the demon king and lived.  Old age had sapped him of much of his power, but he still was the strongest living man in the kingdom. 

Borus and Arungi both took this as an invitation to show off their skills.  But the very moment they formed spheres of their respective elements, the spheres were split in half, causing them both to release their energy. 

“First of all, I need to understand where you came from.  Each of the four outer worlds has a different font of magic.”

Arungi, perhaps eager to make up for his mishap, readily replied even though we was slightly confused.  “I am from the world of Hanan, the astral sphere of the True Law.”  He then looked around, and when he saw the other two staring in shock while Hammurabus held a knowing smile, he was flummoxed.

Borus tentatively spoke, utterly confused by what he had just heard.  “My homeland is the world of Maceron.”  He continued, albeit hesitantly, “I know not of what ‘astral sphere’ this is.”

Daliah, the last to go, replied after overcoming her confusion. “I am Daliah, from the Free world.  The ancients called it by another name, but once our people reclaimed the land, we renamed it in celebration.”

Hammurabus stroked his beard for a bit, before coming to a jarring realization. “Where is the one from Earth?”

“Earth?”  The three were still recoiling from the sudden information dump.  All had only ever been aware of three worlds, and had assumed the others the chosen of a different continent.   This was however not too surprising, as each had been unparalleled among those their age in their respective worlds.  Now, however, there was a fourth world, one that presumably did not send a hero for an inexplicable reason.

“I come from the world Arungi inhabited, but I came with three other heroes.  Three of us were aware prior to our summoning of magic and our eventual transportation.  We were proud to be chosen as heroes and, like you, walked in ready to do what we must to defeat the demon lord.  The last person, however… he did not know of any sort of magic, how he got here, or what his purpose was.  He simply had been in a school learning about the essence of soap or something like that before he arrived.  The previous batch of heroes had all since perished, but I was always curious if that was just him or a standard feature of Earth heroes.”

“Heroes coming in threes is not rare at all, actually.  Historical records have always shown either three or four heroes, but never explained why it changes.”

Arungi was the first to interject.  “No magic?  Then what did they use to grow crops?  To create fire?  To exit the dirt age?”

For once, Hammurabus did not know the answer.

*          *          *

I woke up as a seed.  I simply knew I was a seed, a seed ready to germinate.  I had no eyes to see, no ears to her, and no tongue or nose to taste or smell, so I simply felt.  Felt the shifting sands around me, devoid of life.  I felt the sturdy shell – or coating, given I was a plant – around me, saving me from the burning touch of the hot desert sands.  I felt that it was wrong to begin to grow, for I felt no water.  I did not understand, but simply followed what I knew. 

I grew tired of waiting after an untold time and searched around my home.  There was nutrition, food I had to not even think to eat, food rich in mana that made me grow stronger by the day.  It surrounded me.  What was I?  I felt my very being, and found just a single root and two leaves for arms, connected like a fetus to the food. 

As I waited for water to come, I started to experiment with the mana around me.  Even in the dry desert sands mana was everywhere, and I tried to suck it up like a drink through my seed coating.  I could feel my consciousness feeding on it, gradually gaining the ability to feel the desert around me.   The expanse of sand was all the same – dry, uninhabited, and boring – but I had nothing else to do. In addition, I felt that the amount of mana I was receiving was increasing exponentially the larger I cast my net.

This continued for days, even weeks, until something surprising happened.  I had expanded my consciousness in a sphere, and had found the first sign of life – a tall, barbed, plant with a tall, thin stature and a few appendages.  I somehow had a name for it – cactus – and observed it.  My mana focused on it, so much so that my ambient collection was no longer enough, and I started to burn through my limited food supply. The cactus had not seen water in years, but its body had held water for all that time and still held strong. 

I started to panic.  How would I change my structure?  How long would I have to wait for water?  I then frantically expanded my search, ballooning my aura of sense until I could find an escape from this hellhole.

An escape, which, contrary to expectations, came from under me.  I sensed it.  Water, deep in the earth, a pool from a bygone era protected by a substance other than sand.  It was cooler, stickier, and upon further observation, much smaller.

I moved without thinking, spearing my shell with a root and driving it through the sand, through the clay, as I learned it was called, and straight into the water.

And I started to grow.