Loneliness, it was devoid, the void was an expanse of near infinite nothingness. A coldness settled not through means but a lack of means, an emptiness hollow enough in which no thing could possibly exist. The land and sea themselves rejected such a frigid lull for they dared not to exist against such violent silence. Sound was physically incapable of being shared for sound could not carry without another to carry it.

Loneliness is cramped in a sense, there are always many others traversing throughout that quiet vastness. Though the loneliness is crowded with many more beings than which any planet could possibly contain. The loneliness is even more so massive to deny any contact amongst these beings, each lost flailing through the loneliness are doomed to never cross paths with one another, as is the curse of the void.

A heavy mass hurtled itself through the loneliness. A mass sent on its journey by the catastrophic death of its major, a journey it has walked for time memorial; a silent escapade for nobody going to nowhere. The mass never even existed as an idea, as a possibility, a thing of which imagination conjured in the wandering minds of the past. The heavy mass packed with reminders of places once been and things once done could only stupor in memory of times before the loneliness for before the loneliness was the only place in which meaningful experience could even be fabricated.

The heavy mass, weightless and unyielding moved forever accepting the rest of its Sisyphean life.

A child called.

Eddy had just finished collecting all the eggs from the roost; the morning star had barely risen yet but he was already deep into his list of chores. Eddy swiped his sweaty brown hair out of his eyes and returned to work.

As he approached the entrance of the large house, he could hear hearty laughs of people and piercing clangs of cutlery, a sound separated by a door and an impossibly large chasm. Eddy could even imagine this chasm being a physical moat of lava spurting out angry belches of scolding flame, Eddy like a great hero would have to jump and swing across the chasm to escape with the bountiful treasure in his basket. The chasm in reality; however, was not so easily surmounted by physical actions. He opened the door and walked into the dining room with the rest of the family.

Three younger children were happily sat around a long wooden table, two blond twins were mischievously play fighting with their forks while the third child patiently waited for their breakfast to arrive. The dining table was brightly lit by the warm yellow glow emanating from the window.

The children shone in a familial glow, a glow from across another chasm. Meanwhile, in the kitchen Eddy’s aunt and uncle were working on preparing the meal. The uncle turned to see Eddy, before he could walk across the dining room his uncle quickly made his way to Eddy instead. “You finally got the eggs perfect, now we can finish making breakfast.”

The twins cheered in excitement while the third child struggled to hide his satisfied smirk.

“Eddy, you go muck the stalls and you can get your plate after.” The uncle’s words hit harshly as if he desperately needed the stalls cleaned or else the entire world would fall apart, this was an urgent task which had to be accomplished as soon as possible and Eddy was the only one who could do it.

Of course, Eddy knew that the hurried and sharp tone from his uncle was most certainly for other reasons, but Eddy preferred to pretend that his initial fantastical assumption was the case. “Yes Mr. Caitiff.”

Eddy handed over the basket of eggs as his uncle led him to the door. He still couldn’t help but see those small white ovals as a grand stockpile of gems and riches being handed over to those in desperate need, the cheering of the children in the background, they weren’t cheers for eggs they were a celebration of the great Eddy who had saved this town and brought peace to the world. The door slammed shut in front of him.

Eddy took a brief pause to gaze over at the morning star carelessly beating down on him and let out a tired sigh, it seemed like such a gentle caress on his cousins’ cheeks but on him it felt like a terrible blast of fire threatening to melt his very bones. Perhaps, this fire was summoned by an evil wizard, the sodality of cinder with a renewed lust for power instigated an assault on Aegis and it was up to Eddy to stop them.

None of his usual allies could come help him because of the brilliant light cast by the evil wizard. As capable as the great Eddy was he would still need some help from the other historical champions and who better to swoop in but the Saviors. Doyen the hero of New Heirisson conquest rode in with Iatric the holy light on a beautiful white steed soon accompanied by Jocund the Wall, Ken the preeminent, and Forgo the Ballista.

Eddy ducked and weaved making short and accurate movements as he dodged the mental balls of flame that the evil wizard whizzed at him. The saviors fought as hard as they could to open a path for him to get to the barn, as powerful as they were, Eddy was the only one that could do this.

He finally made his way over to the barn where he grabbed a pitchfork and placed it in a wheelbarrow, he began making his way over to the horse stalls. Shirking his duties would never end well and delaying wouldn’t stop him from doing the task, so he obediently entered the first stall and began shoveling the manure into the wheelbarrow. He could see the pile of manure morph and transform into a legion of soldiers bearing flags of the sodality of cinders.

Eddy’s fork seemed to sharpen and glow in a holy light and every time the fork dug itself into the manure, he felled an enemy. The barn was filled with an overwhelming pressure, an aromatic pressure so putrid and omnipresent that Eddy had to wear a thick linen mask over his mouth and nose to just maintain a grip over his consciousness. The pressure was not aromatic in nature no matter what reality was trying to convince him of; the pressure was from the thousands of enemies stretching out to the horizon and beyond, a pressure from the weight of battle and gravity of importance from this very moment.

Just when Eddy felt overwhelmed like he could no longer hold his own, an arrow came crashing down and knocked out an entire battalion of enemies. Eddy turned around to see Schlemiel the beautiful savage archer give him a cheeky wink. The murugan squad charged through with their genius commander Ad leading the team, The unstoppable duo Emeritus & Emirita and Liederkranz the child of Victory quickly followed behind. The squad quickly made their way next to Eddy and just barely managed to save him from complete defeat.

Just when he thought the whole squad wasn’t going to arrive the scorching heat lifted; the berating star of the evil wizard kept smashing down on him but his skin felt impervious. Although he heralded from the cinders, he was a member of the Pangean entente and the murugan squad and he would not accept this Insubordination; Bennu The Phoenix directly opposed the enemy wizard in a beautiful show of magnificent flames.

Eddy had to make several trips to and from the manure pile to carry the massive load of manure. Eddy found his back aching and his arms losing their will with each consecutive lift and toss of the substance, with each consecutive swing and stab of his weapon. To muck every stall along with the several trips back and forth from the pile took Eddy several hours to complete.

After his grueling combat he and the squad finally managed to conquer his enemy, the evil sodality of cinders had been stopped and the evil wizard in the sky could do nothing but watch. Although his imagination carried a resounding victory the morning star had actually only gotten stronger as it raised higher into the air.

He stood in front of the entrance to the dining room, another impregnable chasm gone blurry from the sweat cascading down his body. This time he didn’t even bother trying to jump the gap, he just let himself fall down the endless pit. The door opened.

The house was empty, quiet. Chairs pushed away from the table and twisted at odd angles, dirty plates and dishes littered the table, food spilled out over the floor and sipped through the cracks of the floorboards. There was a cold plate at the far end of the table, the plate was mostly barren with a tranche of bread and a few dollops of mashed potato.

A terrific rumbling shook the whole house when suddenly a giant stone smashed through the roof carrying a beautiful purple drape that fell onto the table, a magical portal on the tablecloth sprouted a plethora of silver platters filled with large succulent meals of wonderous variety. His imagination wasn’t strong enough to replace the taste of a hard and brittle bread more akin to a cracker but in his mind he could pretend.

After finishing his meal, he began cleaning the room, wiping the floor from the smears of abandoned food. As his stomach grumbled, he couldn’t help but steal a few of the abandoned scraps of egg and meat on the floor. After tidying the dining room, wiping the floor and table, fetching water from the well, washing the dishes, tidying the kitchen, putting the food away and wiping the kitchen’s floor his uncle walked into the room. “Finally finished the cleaning up? About time, we need you to send some of the left-over eggs to Dour’s, she’ll also need your help with sheaving the hay.”

A great depression had sunk deep into Eddy’s shoulder. The weight of his day bore down on him and seemed to drag his skin down as well as his eyes bagged, shoulders slumped, and eyes glazed.

“Hey are you listening to me Eddy!?” His uncle shouted with a boiling temper but also a strange panic of fealty. “You should do as your family tells you Eddy, We’re all you have left and you owe a lot to us, to me. Think of where you’d be if it wasn’t for me. You hear me? Think you could manage on your own, letting our good will go to your head.”

Eddy chose to remain silent, he found it best to not get involved when his uncle spiraled into his hysterical paranoias. “Eddy, you need us, you need me. Without me you wouldn’t have a roof, you wouldn’t have the food you eat or the clothes you wear. Without me you would have no means to even attain, to even think of how to attain these things!”

Eddy brought his chin down to his chest and clenched his jaw closed while keeping his eyelids shut. His uncle approached and a bell chimed in between the two.

In between the two of them there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus that grew out of thin air, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards Eddy holding a glowing parchment: It read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are the Bolide