The fight is over, the enemy destroyed, the world is saved… technically.

It had been decades since peace was known. Almost anyone left alive could tell you what they were doing the moment when the world changed.

It was small, at first. Some animals suddenly became more aggressive... your reclusive neighbor decided to attack people for no reason... The first few seasons people began to worry, but they all said it was just some strange thing that would pass.

It didn’t.

The dead began to sit back up. The animals began to change. Geography itself started to move, spewing lava and horrors.

Eventually governments decided it was a threat but they were too late to understand the magnitude of the issue. Great scholars and mages assembled to study and diagnose the issue, but by the time they figured it out it was a world-wide phenomenon.

The Ether. A plane close to our own that some magic and most summons would be drawn from. It was supposed to be the benign other side of our coin of reality. That was true, until something, someone, some… force? ripped the barrier between those worlds apart. No one would ever know what started it.

The Ether is a plane of magic, dreams and potential - a plane of possibilities. When it interacted with physical reality, it created wonders - and monsters.

Possibility is a great thing when added to motivational speeches and posters, but when it actually interacts with reality things get strange - fast.

The great mages of the age were created due to the changes in their nature from the Ether, but so were the monsters that periodically appeared. For all of history, this had been the case. From the first shamans, to the first dire wolves, nature had found a balance over time.

But something changed.

Eventually, they found the tear. It was in a somewhat remote area of the middle continent, in the far north. There were mountains and snow, even in those days, so it took a long time to find the source. It wasn’t just providence that showed the scouts the way, but scholars that found where the harshest of the mutations originated.

By the time the rift had been discovered, the whole world was on a war footing. Every woman was tasked with producing offspring, every man of age was tasked with protection. Eventually there were cities full of women and children, but no one to protect them. The monsters just never stopped coming, and no one lived to old age.

Once the rift was discovered the whole world sent who they could to try to contain it. There were very few left by that time, but the old scholars and grand mages all left their homes to tackle the issue.

A great fortress was constructed nearby so that those with the knowledge could study the problem and attempt to find a solution.

They did; though it wasn’t ideal.

At this point most people with a spark of magic were swept up to learn basic battle spells, and all others were given a spear and boots and taught to march. Hordes of people with little to no training - sent to the front lines. Even women and those too young were drafted, for if they could not get close to this tear, humanity would fall. Training and in-depth knowledge were a luxury that none had the time for.

A solution was created - but one that haunted those who found it. A patch could be formed to hold the rift to the Ether closed, but it would be temporary. A great mage postulated that by binding a complicated Archstone to the nearby ley line, it could handle the energy required to keep the rift closed.

There was just a single issue: the rift was dynamic, and it would need more attention than a static spell could handle.

They turned to the mage corp to find a volunteer whose soul could be bound in tandem with the spell, so that it would be flexible enough to contain the rift. Richard Veers jumped at the chance to finally fix the world that had taken everything from him.

The final battle was brutal and poets could never do it justice. The whole of the mage corp, including the scholars and grand mages, sacrificed their lives in glorious combat to allow the army to approach close enough to begin the ritual.

When the ritual was complete and the ash settled over the field, there were only a few hundred soldiers left. Richard had participated in the battle from the fortress, using the raw power of the ley line to bolster and destroy. He didn’t understand how it all worked, but he played a pivotal role.

When the ritual was complete, there were so few remaining... Richard watched as the survivors slowly walked south. The great scholars and mages that had created the ritual were no more. He could feel that he was bound to the Arcstone nestled deep within the fortress, and could not follow.

Originally, the plan had been for more knowledgeable and learned men to come and seal the rift permanently, but none such remained. Thus, Richard found himself alone in the northern mountains.

The weather was getting worse by the day, due to the ash kicked up during the world-wide conflict, and Richard felt fear. There would be no more supply missions, as those had ceased months ago. There were no great intellects to teach him to control the power he now held. He knew that he must find a way to survive.

Richard moved himself to the medical wing, taking as many provisions as he could carry - there, he activated the stasis function of the arcstone, to be awoken when someone of knowledge could come to help. His soul was bound to the Arcstone, and his body would be safe in a stasis spell. He did not have the knowledge or skill to fix the binding on the rift to be permanent, and he knew it would leak periodically. His only recourse was to hope. Hope that at some point, the soldiers would get word to someone that could help, or barring that, that enough time would elapse that the rift would shrink and close forever.

He knew it wasn’t likely. Almost every city had fallen at that point and most of the scholars, libraries, universities, governments… they were most likely no more. As he watched the soldiers slowly trickle south, he knew it was more likely that they would be killed by the remaining monsters, if not warped slowly by the energies still in the air and never make it to safety.

There was nothing Richard could do but to use his small skill with the arcstone to reinforce the rift, protect the medical wing, and awaken him if something significant changed. He was just as lost as the rest… but at least he wouldn’t have to witness the fall of humanity.

The years passed, the world moved, and Richard slept.