Year 2: The Heroes Descend - Prologue

When Duncan Wilson awoke, he was alone in the dark.

No, more accurately, all he could see was the never-ending darkness.

Confused, he looked down at his body and felt where the mugger had plunged their knife and found no wound.

“…I’m dead, aren’t I? Or.” He looked around a few times, slowly standing up onto his feet. “Is this a dream?”

“Both statements are true.”

Startled by the sudden voice behind him, Duncan spun around and came face to face with a woman he could only describe as a saint.

A woman dressed in a pure white robe complete with a veil, carrying a staff with a set of scales at its peak. He could barely make out her face, but he felt the divine energy radiating off her body.

Reflexively, Duncan went to bow to her, but caught himself before he did.

“Who are you? Where is this place? And what do you mean by-?”

“You, Duncan Wilson, are dead. And this.” The woman held out her hand to the side. “Is the dream space before you start your next life.”

“…My…next life?” He felt the blood drain from his face as his strength left him.

Duncan couldn’t believe it - he was dead.

Why me?

I still had so much more I wanted to do…I-I didn’t even get to say goodbye or-. He began to weep. I didn’t apologise to mum for our dumb fight last night. I thought I’d get to when I got home and now-! His cries grew louder. I’m so sorry, mum! I’m so sorry!

It took him a few minutes to calm down; then, once she deemed him ready, the woman continued her speech.

“Duncan Wilson, death is always a tragic thing, but yours has the unique opportunity to continue your existence in another world.”

“What?”

“I am the Goddess Harmonia, and I beseech thee, good and noble young man to aid me. My world is under threat from a great evil that desires nothing but destruction and death; you and several other young souls hold the powers necessary to fight back against this darkness.”

“What the hell?! What kind of-?”

“Please.” The Goddess held out her hand and smiled gently. “Allow me to explain. Your world is not the only one. They are near infinite in number and we, the Gods, monitor and protect them. However, not all of my kin adhere to this rule.

“Eris, the Goddess of Chaos and Strife, has unleashed a monster she calls the Demon Emperor onto my world and seeks its destruction. Why, I know not, but it is a threat that the inhabitants of my world cannot possibly defeat alone. You, and the other brave heroes I have called to, however, have the chance to turn the tide and destroy that monster.

“Now, I am sure you must be confused as to why you have such powers. To put it in more accurate terms, it is your soul that has such strength. If it did not, then we would not have been able to meet in this place.”

“Right…I-I think I understand…”

The Goddess smiled gently. “That is fine. Your soul is a very rare one that most on Earth lack; it has unnaturally high spiritual power which allows it to move between worlds, with the blessings of the gods. If you were to be reincarnated into my world, then that energy would transform into great powers the likes of which could only exist in your world’s fiction.”

“Like magic and stuff?”

The Goddess nodded. “Therefore, brave Sir Duncan Wilson, I beg of you. Please.” She bowed to him. “Lend me your help in defeating this great evil.”

“…If I accept this, do I get to live another life?”

“You do.”

“If I accept, does that mean that once my task is done, my life is over?”

“No. Your life will continue at the same rate as a normal human’s.”

“…Harmonia, be honest with me - if I and everyone else you’re recruiting work together, do we have a chance of beating this ‘Demon Emperor?’”

The Goddess looked deep into his eyes and said, “Yes.”

Then, there’s no other choice.

“Very well.”

***

Once Duncan was gone, the natural darkness of Eris’s realm returned and a slow clap echoed throughout the world.

“For a moment there, even I was convinced that you were a good Goddess,” Eris mused from atop her throne.

The fake Harmonia grinned as a light green mist enveloped her, slowly dispersing the illusion and revealing the greatest trickster of all the Greater Gods herself: Loki.

Dressed in a crimson and navy outfit reminiscent of a harlequin, with long and black hair and mismatched eyes like her outfit, she was the Greater God of Trickery. With her glittering ruby and sapphire eyes, she beamed after receiving Eris’s praise.

Most among the mortals and Greater Gods thought Loki a man, but Eris knew that her fellow God had no true form.

Eris had seen her take the form of a handsome man with pitch-black hair and even a great white dragon who stretched for miles through the Endless Space, but Loki often chose the harlequin form to appear as, citing it as her favourite.

Loki spun on her heel to face Eris and took a bow. “Thank you very much for coming to watch our company’s play this evening, your majesty.” She shot up again and grinned. “Ah, it’s been so long since I got to impersonate Harmonia. I was nervous that I’d mess it up.”

Eris laughed. “Even if you did, only I would know.”

“I suppose, but as an actress, I would feel some shame for not playing my part right.”

“Oh?” Eris’s lips curled into a smile. “I wasn’t aware that you could feel such things.”

Loki sniffed and pretended to wipe a tear from her eye. “Oh, how you wound me, most cruel and vicious Goddess. Of course I can pretend to feel such things.” Loki’s smile returned and she skipped towards Eris. “So, was there anything else you needed me to do?”

“No. Does that mean that you won’t be staying to watch?”

“Oh, there’s nothing in existence that would make me miss this. This is quite the show you’ve put together, Eris.”

Eris giggled. “It means a lot to hear that from you.”

“I wonder about that.” Loki kicked off from the ground and floated down to the last human frozen in stasis in Eris’s world; a girl with long brunette hair. “You sure you don’t want me to give this one the same introduction? Seems a bit unfair to have her at a different starting point, don’t you think?”

“Loki, dear, that’s the point.”

Eris stretched out her arm towards the frozen human and beckoned her over with one of her fingers, making the girl float towards Eris. She stopped just before Eris’s throne as the Goddess descended with a gleeful flutter of her wings down to the girl.

“This is the only person out of all our thirty heroes who knew our beloved Demon Emperor before he went over there. She’s too special to give the routine treatment too.”

Loki grinned, fell through the floor and sprung out behind Eris, and hugged her tightly. “What do you have in store for this one then?”

“You’ll have to wait and see, my dear,” Eris said, patting Loki’s head.

“But aren’t you going to tell her now?”

“I was going to, but.”

A part of the surrounding darkness shattered into glass-like fragments, before freezing mid-air.

The barrier protecting Eris’s realm had been breached.

“Our resident kill-joy has arrived.”

Blinding yellow light burst through the gap, shattering a large door in the darkness, illuminating the otherwise endless night of Eris’s realm.

From that light stepped out a woman.

A woman with peerless, perfect features, with long golden hair, draped in a pure white dress complete with a see-through veil. A cloth was tied around her eyes and she wore tall golden heels on her feet. Around her neck was a golden necklace in the shape of two serpents with many precious gems laid within it.

In her right hand she held a tall staff with a set of gilded scales at its top which remained perfectly still as she walked.

“Yo, Harmonia!” Loki waved cheerfully. “How have you been?”

“I have been neither well nor unwell, thank you. It is pleasant to see you are in high spirits.”

“Ah, well, isn’t that nice?”

Harmonia’s voice was monotone and she did not even glance over at Loki; she did, however, smile politely.

Despite the screaming desire in her chest to kill Harmonia, Eris kept a bemused smile on her lips.

For Eris, the Goddess of Chaos and Strife, Harmonia, the Goddess of Balance and Harmony, was her natural enemy, one who often interfered with her plans.

Normally, they did all they could to avoid one another, unless Harmonia sensed Eris was doing something she considered entertaining. Harmonia took it upon herself to ‘regulate’ it.

Or, as Eris described it, ruin it.

“I don’t recall inviting you here, Harmonia. And I don’t think the other Greater Gods would take too kindly if they learnt that you’re violating the boundary treaty again.”

“It is interesting that you say as much when you have employed Loki to do what is the most forbidden act among the Greater Gods.”

“I’m not violating it. I received permission from Themis to do this.”

“To impersonate me?”

“To play with her world as I desired.”

“Regardless, perhaps the High Council, or even the Creator, would like to hear what you are up to.”

Eris lost her smile as Loki took a few, slow steps away from Eris.

“Are you really threatening me?” Eris growled.

“I am not.”

“You’re not doing a good job then,” Loki joked.

Harmonia glanced at Loki and the trickster began to awkwardly laugh, before sinking down into the ground.

“I’ll just come back in a few,” she said before disappearing.

Eris snapped her fingers and the barrier Harmonia had broken became covered in thick, black tree branches, gradually sealing and repairing the damage. Harmonia took a few steps towards Eris, then glanced at the girl in stasis beside her, and then back at Eris.

“You have already sent the other twenty-nine through, correct?”

“I have. Hailey is already scheduled to join them, I’m afraid.”

“I am aware and I will not stop her departure.”

“How kind of you.”

“However.”

“Here it comes.”

“Excuse me?”

Eris sighed and leant back against the darkness, her branches forming a new throne for her to rest on behind her. “If you’re going to tell me to regulate my game again, we will have a problem this time. This is one that I have wanted to do for a long time and the Council have already blessed this. So, whatever ‘balance’ you hoped to bring, it’s too late.”

“On the contrary, Eris, I am only here to help you make this a more interesting game.”

Eris raised an eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?”

“Truthfully, when I first set off for your territory, I had come because I sensed a great disturbance in the harmony of your game. However, after inspecting the pieces you have sent to the world against David Athelward, as well as this Hailey girl, there is only one amendment I would ask you to make, and one that I can help you justify to the people of that world.”

“I’m surprised. I never thought you’d show this much restraint, and.” Eris laughed. “You want to help make my game more exciting. Why?”

Harmonia stepped to one side, tapped her staff to the ground and, beneath the two Goddesses, the world David had been summoned to appeared from a bird’s eye view, frozen in time. Harmonia tapped her staff again and the world changed around them, this time now showing David’s throne room with the man himself sat upon his mighty seat.

“David Athelward has, in many ways, exceeded your expectations but, at the same time, the game has become too easy for him. He is the last boss of this world in effect but, if left without any rules for the time being, the heroes and their allies would all be destroyed before there can be an interesting battle.

“If I were to put it in simple terms, it would be the equivalent of the main villain killing the hero before the first act of a story has begun. Therefore, given David’s previous overwhelming success in subjugating almost half of the continent, I feel that there should be a temporary limit on his actions.”

Eris grinned. “What a coincidence. I was thinking about doing something similar.”

“It is most pleasant that our thoughts have arrived at the same place.”

“Indeed. For once, it doesn’t disgust me having you here taking part in my game. So?” Eris met Harmonia’s gaze. “What were you thinking?”

“In all likelihood, you have already reached the same conclusion, so I would be honoured if you spoke for the both of us.”

“Alright. For the first year that the heroes have been summoned, David Athelward can only launch an invasion into the west against the Free Peoples once a month. These attacks always have to be on the same day each month and must not last longer than a week. This way, it gives the Free Peoples time to gather their forces and gives our heroes time to train themselves and become worthy opponents to the Demon Emperor.”

Harmonia’s smile, for the first time, grew a little wider. “You have spoken the very same words I would have.”

“That’s all you wanted to do for balancing my game?”

“In its current state and with the new rule implemented, harmony and balance have been restored to the game. Both sides will have an equal chance of acquiring victory in this fight and thus the outcome is unknown even to us Gods.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true, is it?” Loki mused, poking her head out from the ground beneath them.

Then, in an impressive display of acrobatics, she did a triple somersault from beneath the ground, landed on her feet, spun and took a bow to the two other Goddesses.

“If we really wanted to know the ending, we could just skip ahead to the finale and see for ourselves,” Loki mused.

“However, there is nothing interesting about that,” Harmonia said.

“Indeed.” Eris's usual, sadistic smile returned to her lips. “Therefore, Loki, Harmonia and anyone else who wants to watch my game, please.” Eris curtsied a little and giggled. “Sit back and enjoy the show.”