For the most part, Tim enjoyed his sleepy life. While growing up in a small village near the border did not afford many opportunities to make it big or seek his fortune, Tim was lucky enough to be born and raised in a decent family with as good of an education as one could get in a small village. Sure, the capital, or really any important or big city, was a week’s worth of walking away, but the distance was still reasonable by cart and the village could provide for itself well enough. Besides, where else could you wake up in the morning to the smell of fresh bread and no sounds but the distant, familiar cry of a rooster? Yes, Tim was content. It truly was a pity that soon this life would be behind him. For 10 years Tim had studied diligently (if somewhat sporatically), all in the hopes of travelling to the capital, Drassington, and passing the academic exams to secure a place working for the government. If he could do this, his family and his life would be secure, and he would never have to worry again.

With a yawn, Tim slithers out of bed. Shirtless, he shuffles into the kitchen of his tiny cottage and relights his fire from the coals. He takes a scoop of the unflavored porridge from cauldron over the coals and throws it into an only slightly dirty bowl. Blinking sleepily, Tim ambles to the table and sits down, putting his bowl on top of a mess of papers. Tim picks up a pen and scribbles arithmetic in the ledger under his bowl while smacking his lips disgustingly. Figures that a guy from a village like this would enjoy porridge so much.

“YO TIM! YA UP??” his mother shouts, banging on the door.

“YA MOM! LEAVE ME ALONE!” Tim shouts back, only somewhat annoyed. It was nice to be cared about, but couldn’t she see he was an adult now? He only depended on her for a little of his money now.

“I DON’T BELIEVE YOU! YOU BETTER BE UP WHEN I COME BACK! LOVE YOU DEAR!” she shouts.

“MA! I SWEAR!” Tim yells, but she was already gone.

A little later, when Tim heard a banging on the door, Tim was definitely annoyed. “GO AWAY! I’M UP!”

“Well I never!” an older woman exclaims.

“Mrs. Perkins! I’m so sorry!” Tim dashes to the door. He opens it, and Mrs. Perkins, an older lady with a superior air, just looks at him, horrified. Tim realizes he is shirtless, but before he can excuse himself she goes on.

“My husband’s plow is broken. Do fix it at the next available convenience. And get yourself some clothing.”

She zips off before Tim can respond, leaving him standing there shirtless in the doorway. John, the butcher’s son and Tim’s best friend exits the house opposite Tim just then. He looks at Mrs. Perkins, then at the shirtless Tim, gives him a knowing look, and winks.

Tim just groans and goes back inside, praying John would not tell John’s cousin Maria.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

One of Tim’s favorite places in his village was the library. It was little more than charred posts in a sheep field, having burned down long ago. The village children would sometimes dare each other to be brave enough to touch the tallest pole, right in the middle, or take a stone without angering the spirits that haunted there. When Tim was a child, instead of finding a stone to take he found handle. It was to a storage cellar for the books.

The library was made during the Golden Years, when heroes invented the printing press and gifted knowledge to all who asked.

Kept dry with fading runes, it was cool, quiet, and best of all, completely forgotten. Tim could catch a break from the seemingly endless things to do in a small village such as this. And catch a break Tim did, quickly locating his favorite old armchair among the well-worn stacks of bookcases and moving a stack of old, dusty maps off the seat with an audible crinkle.

“Damn it sure is good to get some relaxation on. I swear, if Donna tries telling me that her cart is broken and she needs me to try and fix it one more time, I think I’m going to show her what a broken cart really looks like.”

Sighing with exasperation, the quite unremarkable half-elf began to look around the stacks of books in search of his latest stopping point. “Ah. Here we go” Tim contently said, “The book of heroes. Right where I left off. Hopefully one of these heroes has something to say about academic exams!” Then he scoffs, doubting a hero would ever struggle for an exam.

For any stranger that for some reason would not have knowledge of this famous book, the Book of Heroes was an account written by several former heroes that were summoned from another world. A veritable fount of information, this book covered such amazing things that apparently existed in the world the heroes left.

Amazing things like “airplanes”, “telephones”, and other inventions, while the way to create them is still unknown, were still fascinating for the general population to read about. And, stories about fantastical devices are not all the book of heroes has to offer. Almost as if past heroes tried to inspire anyone who reads the book, the writers included various tidbits of advice from these wise and powerful existences. In school, children memorized bits and pieces of this book which had shaped the nation’s culture for generations.

“Hmmm. What would the great scholar-hero Anna say in my situation? It is said that the collage place she went to in her world had a great many academic exams, so I am sure she would say something about it.” Tim muttered to himself as he leafed through the yellowed and aged pages one by one.

Finally, after what seemed like an age, the correct page revealed itself with a poof of dust and a coughing Tim. “Whew! Perfect! Now, it says here that Anna suggests lots of some drink called coffee. Whatever that is, haha!” With the strange suggestion by the long-dead scholar hero cheering him up, Tim resolved to ask the local alchemist what this “coffee” drink was, and how to get some.

Tim leafed through the book for a while, until the sun filtering through the crack in the door faded. Gently closing the book, Tim gets up and smiles ruefully. “I guess I had best go fix Mrs. Perkin’s plow.” Tim laughs at the embarrassing memory. “I leave tomorrow, so I should help out the others while I can. Who knew that at the age of 24 I would be finally leaving this place.”

Chuckling at his life about to change dramatically, Tim failed to notice the first of the screams. However, no one, Tim included, could miss the massive, ear-bursting explosion, the force of which rattled the timbers of the foundation and shook dust from the ceiling.

“What the hell? Did someone piss off a wyvern as a prank again?” Tim shouted, as he shot up the stairs with a burst of speed. Tim pushed open the door, praying that it was just an innocent prank gone wrong. Instead of a mischief inclined youngster being scolded by the elders for messing with the poor animals, Tim was met with a rather large and hungry-looking Giant facing away from him. As Tim stared at the behemoth in shock, his eyes travelled across the nightmare of a scene. Failing to process, the only thing Tim could think of was Is that a human arm that giant is holding? A closer look proved that yes, it was a severed human arm. Pure fear took over Tim’s body, and with a burning sensation starting to hit his palms, all he could do was flee, down the stairs and away from the horrible, strangled screaming. “Holy shit holy shit hol-!” Tim whispered frantically, leaning against the wall, hoping that somehow he could make sense of the insanity that was happening outside.

“Alright Tim! Calm down! Like the great Hero Tansmith said, list the facts! Only then can the solution be found.”

Tim strained his brain to understand all of the details without puking. “Okay. Fact one. There is a giant outside of my door, and he might have killed someone. Fact two, that giant has likely not noticed me and is definitely unfriendly. Fact three, the village is in flames. Fact four, I am inside A CELLAR FILLED WITH KINDLING!” Time finished with a scream, hyperventilating with the realization that he may soon experience one of the more painful deaths known to man.

“Okay. Death by giant, or death by burning alive. What’s it gonna be Tim?” He asked himself, already knowing the answer as he cautiously sneaked up the stairs. As quiet as a mouse, Tim cracked open the door, met once again with the jarring sight of flames and unmoving bodies. Luckily, the giant seemed to have found other distractions, as it was noticeably missing from the carnage. Seeing his opportunity would get no better than this, Tim bolted like a man running from death towards the visible unchanged tree line near his village. Reaching the tree line with no more bad luck, Tim dove into some bushes, looked back towards his village, and fully realized the scale.

“Holy shit. The whole town is burning.” He cast his eyes left and right. “Wait. Grey skin. A demon? I thought they were all dead! The heroes said they killed all the demons!” As this terrifying realization that the demons still existed tore through Tim’s mind, the fact that the heroes failed at their job was the only thing he could think about as his world started to tilt and go black, passing out from shock.