July 13^th, 1993

It’s been raining since about 10:00 pm last night, and I’ve got to say it’s fitting the overall mood for the day. The news has been quite bleak across every channel since they found out a bit of the truth that had been kept from the public, about ‘Them’ and what is happening to people inside of the boundary. It’s all talking heads looking sad and demanding answers from people who… probably don’t have any of them yet.

I mean, how would the Army even be able to tell them anything? That there’s some sort of infection that kills people and takes over their bodies? I can appreciate why they didn’t tell anyone about it, of course, but saying that the people infected were ‘just fine’ was a mistake. If they had just been a bit more honest and said the disease was dangerous and lethal and people needed to keep away, then maybe there wouldn’t be an angry mob on the boundary line screaming at the soldiers trying to keep them safe.

I’m still holding out hope though, that the Army will be able to keep things under control. ‘They’ are durable certainly, but not so durable that a machine gun wouldn’t solve the problem. The only reason ‘They’ are still around is that the President probably wants to be absolutely certain that there’s no way to cure ‘them’. It’s not like I can blame him for that either, since I wouldn’t want to be known as the guy who ordered thousands of citizens killed for a curable illness.

This is getting depressing, so let me talk a bit about what I did today to keep productive…

Evan wakes to the sound of Ruth getting out of her bed, just a bit before his alarm was due to go off. No need to let it make all that noise if he’s already up. He does the same as she did and tosses his covers off and twists himself to get his feet onto the floor, letting out a yawn as he stretches enough for his back to crack satisfyingly. “Morning Ruth, you sleep okay?”

“… Yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” Ruth bobs her head in an apology, but Evan waves it off so she doesn’t worry herself about it.

“It’s fine, about time for me to get up anyway. I’ll make us breakfast while you get a shower, okay? You want anything in particular this morning?” Evan asks as he get onto his feet and slips on his slippers to keep his toes warm. It was about ten degrees cooler than normal with the rain and cloud cover, so the house was a bit chillier than it was normally.

“Can we have sweet porridge?” Ruth’s request was simple enough, surprisingly so to Evan. “With fruit and honey?”

“Sure, no problem. We’ve got fruit we need to use up anyway and I know we’ve got oats and honey squirreled away. Go on and scoot while I get to work.” Evan gives Ruth a pat on the back and scoot she does, leaving him to tromp his way downstairs. He passes the upstairs window facing the street and peels back the curtain enough to peer up and down the length of the cul-de-sac.

… He couldn’t see any of ‘them’ taking up residence anywhere here yet, and no signs of them having stumbled their way into the bushes or hedges either. Maybe they’re keeping their distance… or they’re just not drawn this way since he’s been careful to be quiet so far. After all, most of ‘them’ would have been pulled to the west side of town between the car alarm and the gunshot.

Best to keep it that way. The fewer of ‘them’ he has to see, the better. It’s only going to be a little longer now, right? With the whole world knowing, the army has to do something for them now. So he only needs to worry about them for a bit longer.

He makes a quick circuit of the house and peers out each window in turn to get a full angle of their environs to be sure, but yes… there’s none of ‘them’ skulking about in the backyard either. Bagel patiently trots after him, assisting in the search process. Bagel was also waiting to be fed, but he’s being a good boy about waiting for it.

Check complete, Evan sets about doing just what Bagel wants. A bowl of food is set down for his faithful companion, and then he goes about taking care of preparing breakfast for both himself and Ruth. She wanted sweet porridge, and that’s what he will provide today. Besides, it’s good to vary up your intake for staying healthy;eating the same rations every day is bad for morale, or so Uncle Dean says… plus, fruit expires quickly so it’s best to use it now. He considers the idea of planting some of it as well, but it’d take years for them to grow enough to provide fruit so it’s a moot point anyway. It’s not like edible plants grow in just days or a few weeks from a seed… well, except for radishes and some edible herbs, but those are more additive than a primary diet food.

Evan gets his mind out of thinking about extraneous things and focuses on the meal again. They shouldn’t need that level of preparations so it’s fine, right? Once he’s got things started, Evan turns on a radio and starts to adjust it to the correct frequency.

“-Interference- - - storms--- today---- boundary expansion----” In between bursts of static and nearly impossible to decipher gibberish, he manages to grasp hold of those few snippets, and listens passively even as he hears a rumble outside. A glance out the window shows that the rain is coming down heavier now and Evan suspects it won’t be letting up at any point either.

That’d explain the trouble with the broadcast. Everything out in Muldraugh runs on satellite and radio signal and with weather like this they’re not going to be getting through clearly, especially not with… whatever’s keeping people inside’s messages from getting out.

The porridge oats come out just right, and the scent of the cinnamon is pleasing to the senses: strawberries, blueberries, banana slices and such. He tries not to overload it with too many varieties of fruit so as to avoid the flavors ending up lost. Still, he thinks that this will be a nice and filling morning meal… enough for them when they don’t have all that much to do at least.

Not even Evan is eager to go out and work in rain this heavy. Even putting aside the risk of getting soaked and catching a cold, he wouldn’t be able to hear ‘them’ as clearly so there’s the terrible risk of them sneaking up on him. The tall fence that surrounds this entire cul-de-sac, save for the entrance to it and a small entrance in the back that leads out into the woods, make that unlikely but not impossible. Maybe he should think about taking down some of the fences between houses and using them to fully encompass the place? No, that’s probably going to be too big of a project to consider doing before the army cleans things up. Besides, it’d be loud and attract all sorts of attention that he definitely doesn’t need.

He quickly cooks up some sausages to go with the porridge as protein to ensure the meal is reasonably balanced once he hears the show upstairs shut off. That’s another thing he’s glad for, that power and water have been kept up so far. It’s at least partially luck, he’s sure, that nothing happened to take out any important power lines or sites, but it also is more proof that they’re not entirely cut off.

By the time Ruth comes down, he’s set the table yet again for her and pulls out a chair for her to take. “Breakfast’s ready. Storm is messing with the signals so no listening to the radio today, unless you like static. TV seems to be out bad too.”

Ruth takes a big bite of her porridge before responding, and the way her face lights up makes the effort worth it. Each time he sees a bit more light go into her eyes is just more reinforcement that he’s doing the right thing and motivates him to keep on doing it. “Uhm… this is really good..!”

Her excitement in that moment has her acting more like the child she should be. Just like a child though, she tries to act sly before she makes a request, but Evan remembers how those tricks work just the same; he’s not that old yet. Glancing back towards him, she asks, “Mister Evan, do you think you could teach me to cook too?”

… Geez, is that all? He was thinking she had a big ask for him with how she was looking anywhere but him for a bit. “Sure, it’s not a problem,” Evan responds. “Since we’re not doing much work today, how about I teach you during lunch and dinner? Say… will all those veggies you planted do okay in this weather?”

“Well… they should, I think? Mostly… the soil is good and strong around there, and I didn’t overwater them so I don’t think the seeds will drown…” Ruth kicks her legs as she thinks. “We’ve been lacking for rain, so it’ll prolly all get sucked up by the ground.”

“I see… maybe in exchange for me teaching you to cook, you can teach me more about gardening?” Evan suggests with a smile, waving a spoon to emphasize the thought. “I only know a little bit about it, what Uncle Dean taught me really. I’m better at spotting and harvesting wild plants than garden varieties.”

“… I mean, that’s pretty cool too… but okay, sure. I can teach you about plant stuff..!” Ruth bobs her head happily, seemingly eager to feel more like she’s a contributing equal that just relying on him. Evan’ll have to keep finding things she can do while keeping her safe. Laundry is safe enough, and letting her work in her garden gives her something nice and involved to do too. Cooking adds to that list, but… he’s not too keen in giving it up himself either. He happens to enjoy cooking. Maybe they can split it up, like letting her take over lunch or something… or helping when he’s making soups that take a long time to cook. Maybe teaching her sewing would be good too?

“… What are we gonna do today?” Ruth asks, which Evan has to admit is a pretty good question honestly. They can’t work out there, so he had some indoor stuff to get done.

“Take inventory of all our supplies, check the house for any issues, do maintenance on equipment… play video games.” Evan adds that last part on with a smile, which gets a reciprocal small one out of Ruth.

“Can we play more Aerobiz?” Ruth asks excitedly. Honestly,making it big in the airline industry isn’t really Evan’s thing, but Ruth seems to adore the game from having tried it out once already. If it makes her happy, he’s more than glad to go along with it.

“If you want, sure. You not interested in some more Sonic first?” Evan prods as he works on finishing his own breakfast so that he can get down to the hard work of sitting down and waiting as he does inventory, and after thathe’ll need to try and modify his backpack to carry all his extra gear.

“… I like going fast, but I like making numbers go up too.” Ruth sums up the entire experience of what it is to play video games in a single sentence. In fact, perhaps it can be said that those are both the primary motivations of all humans?

Evan’s getting way too thoughtful; he needs to do something with his hands. He finishes off his breakfast and then picks up his plate while rising from the table. “Well, can’t argue with that. Take your time and put your plates by the sink when you’re done. I’m gonna start doing inventory on what we have in the house and some other boring stuff.”

Ruth nods as she munches on her bacon, leaving Evan to it.

Since he was already going to the kitchen in the first place, Evan figures it’s best to start there and so grabs a notepad to do a quick inventory. The freezer and fridge were filled with the combined contents of all the nearby houses, leaving them in a good position as far as fresh food went currently. It was entirely possible that, if he needed to, he could range out farther to gather food from other homes, but he deemed it best to leave them where they were for now. Besides, they probably won’t end up needing it.

In terms of preserved food, they’re in a fantastic position. Cans upon cans of ingredients and even simply canned meals in the case of soups and the like. With this much, Evan can keep them reasonably well fed for weeks without even having to leave the house. There’s also the jars of freshly sealed produce that his kindly neighbor had made as well further spare jars and the pressure cooker that could be used to to seal them… as well as other preservation methods that Evan has a basic understanding of thanks to the Boy Scouts and Uncle Dean.

He isn’t entirely sure where he’d build a smoking cabin though, or how many elk exactly make their home anywhere near Muldraugh. Probably not many given the commotion that’s been going on. He can’t imagine that they’re any more fond of ‘them’ than they are of humans in general. They probably smelled death on the wind and ran as far as they could.

If they really do somehow end up in trouble with food, he can range out a bit further and borrow from other parts of Muldraugh. He’d… rather not do that unless it was necessary though. His encounter with Spiffo has shown him that a single human is far more dangerous than even a group of ‘them’. He had to believe that there were still other survivors out there in Muldraugh, other people who had managed to wait out ‘Them’ and set up safe spaces for themselves. Given the noise he’d heard leading up to the 9^th he would imagine a number of them attempted to make an escape at some point, and he had heard other sounds over these past few days that suggested other people were still alive and hidden away.

Perhaps some of them had been evacuated by the military, or at least taken into custody by them when they got to somewhere safer. Perhaps some of them fled to Fort Knox, where he was sure the Military had fortified themselves as thoroughly as they could. It’s not like ‘they’ could just ignore machinegun fire or something. The bullets would rip apart their bodies and cut them limb from limb. Even if ‘they’ weren’t entirely stopped by the attack, it would be much easier to put a bullet in their heads after they were dropped to the ground by losing their legs.

Idle speculation does nothing to help him, so he moves on. Ruth has already put her plates on the counter and he can hear her starting to play a game in the living room. It sounds like she’s started up Sonic rather than the Airline Simulator game. He hopes she didn’t take his suggestion too harshly, he just suggested Sonic since it was… well, more of a game and less of a budget balancing simulator.

In terms of utensils he’s already borrowed what seemed useful from nearby houses. Any extra bottles, pots and pans have been filled with water and stored in the wash room and all the excess soap and detergent has been stored safely. Who knows if soap can protect you from whatever made ‘them’ what they are, but it can protect you from every other kind of disease pretty darn well. Cleanliness is right next to godliness, or so the saying goes.

Evan does a quick check in on their ‘luxury goods’ stock for snacks, candy, soda pop and the like. He’s not going to refuse to let himself eat them, but the survivalist mentality Uncle Dean drilled into him makes him take it relatively easy on them since they’re food that will last an incredibly long amount of time if stored properly. That alone makes them incredibly valuable, too much so to just cram himself with puff-cakes and then just lie on the ground feeling like garbage again. In terms of amounts, they’re more than set to host a few parties, which means that he and Ruth have plenty. Honestly, in terms of just storage, he’s filled up most of the space in the kitchen with what he’s appropriated so far. If he needs to store anything else he’ll have to start ‘borrowing’ containers and putting them in the basement.

The basement might make a good root cellar if he put the work into it, but hopefully it won’t come to that. Frankly, the less time he spends down there the better; the idea of being stuck in a room with only one way in and out makes his skin crawl and his anxiety spike like ‘they’ could break in at any second. Always have a way out, that is part of what it means to survive – Uncle Dean didn’t teach that in his televised lessons, but he taught it to Evan off camera about what it took to survive ‘over there’.

Evan didn’t understand it before, but he thinks he’s starting to now; the constant, omnipresent threat that could be anywhere. It could laying in the grass, inside of a dark house, even under the body of someone you thought of as a friend. Anything could conceal a trap, any blade of grass could hide a would-be killer. The mentality it took to survive that hell was something that Uncle Dean hadn’t wanted to teach him, just the few lessons he thought he could pass on. Evan knows that Uncle Dean has a lot of bad memories and regrets from his time ‘over there’. Sometimes he thinks Uncle Dean makes his survival show not just as a way to teach people the skills he has, but to try and make something good come out of his experiences. He said even if only one of his episodes ever saved a life, it’d be worth all the effort.

He finishes tallying up all the supplies for cooking and cleaning within the kitchen and washroom before moving on.

“Are you winning?” he asks Ruth as he moves into the main room, heading towards the closet where he had stored much of the gardening tools, baseball bats and other ‘defensive’ equipment along with some of the tools meant for construction. Others were stored in an upstairs supply closet instead along with some of the clothes he’d recovered that could be useful in the future. He’d check those later, but for now he needs to examine the quality and state of each piece of gear.

“Yes,” Ruth answers as Doctor Robotnik’s Badnik explodes in all its blast processed glory. Sonic does his cool guy pose as Sonic apparently always does and then runs off to the next stage. “I’m the best.”

“You sure are!” Evan agrees. Frankly, she’s pretty darn great at Sonic. Better than he is, really. Evan assures himself it’s because of all the Mario he’d played on the NES so he’s trying to play the game the wrong way, rather than him being inferior to the next generation of gamer.

He holds up a bat and examines the length of it. It seems to be in decent condition, no signs of cracks or warping. However, it has some dents in the wood and he’s pretty sure it’s made of birch. It’s also not a Louisville Slugger, so that makes it inherently inferior as well. It gets put into the mediocre spot and he moves onto the next.

Hmm… white ash. It looks and feels new too, his fingers gliding along the wood that was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Yeah, white ash and a Louisville Slugger branding mark. It gets put into the ‘good spot’. White ash is great, but he’s hoping they’ve got an old maple bat in here somewhere. With how maple holds onto moisture and gets heavier, and with it already being an incredibly durable wood, it’d be perfect for busting heads. Also maple is just a very nice wood that he is fond of in general. It’s up there with mahogany and teak, though he likes those for different purposes and reasons. They have a teak stool for the shower back in Philly so that his mom can sit under the hot spray after a long day’s work, for example.

After going through most of the bats, he manages to finally find a maple one! Regrettably it’s too small for him and much closer to the right size for Ruth. Still… still, he should give it to her so she can protect herself if she needs to. It’s best to give it to her before she needs it to give her time to keeping it around and keeping it in mind.

Leaving the closet for now, Evan heads over to where Ruth is and waits until she finishes the stage she’s on. It’s some sort of strange ‘Lost Ruins’-themed area that reminds him of an Indiana Jones film, full of spike balls, death falls, and water that if you’re in too long starts playing music that Evan thinks can best described as ‘Anxiety in an Audible Form’.

Seriously, it gives him the jibblies.

As she gets to the stage end, Ruth pauses and turns to look at him. Evan takes that chance to pass over the Child-Size Maple Bat to her for her to equip, like this is Dragon Quest or something. Inventory management is an art. “Here, hang on to this. If something happens, use it to protect yourself if you can’t get away, alright?”

Ruth stares at it for a moment before accepting the bat with a nod and saying nothing. She seems to take a moment to feel the weight of it in her hands like she’s contemplating the weight of the future itself. Then she sets it down in her lap and goes back to more important things like Sonic.

Evan leaves her to that and goes back to his own work as well. The wooden bats are almost all in usable condition, except for two which he notices cracks forming on. The aluminum bats are all in fine condition and only a few show signs of much use at all, since they mostly seem to be collectors items of various professional teams. Evan prefers wooden bats to metal ones personally, but these could eventually prove useful.

As for the tools, hammers, shovels, trowels, and the like, they’re all placed in this closet. There’s also a few things that belong to Uncle Dean like the tool chest but those aren’t potential weapons. Screwdrivers are better used as tools outside of the worst sorts of situations, since they’re just worse than a knife by all accounts in combat.

Uncle Dean makes a point of surviving with only a few tools in most situations, sometimes going out with only a paperclip and making everything on site. For that reason, he doesn’t have much in here that Evan would find especially useful. The rest of the tools he did have were kept at his job location rather than home for when he needed to demonstrate how to use them. Uncle Dean also didn’t keep a gun in the house, though Evan had solved that problem already.

… Speaking of the gun, it’s time to get to it. He’d already made twice sure that he had unloaded the shotgun and stored it properly, but he goes through the standard safety checks before giving it a thorough examination once more. He’s more certain now it’s a Model 3000 and not something else he’s less familiar with; a reliable, durable, pump-action shotgun that is capable of holding 4 shells plus one in the chamber. The officer had been kind enough to have attached a sling to it already, making it perfect for Evan to carry around in the event he ever needed this kind of firepower.

It was a beautiful sight to Evan and had clearly been well cared for by its previous owner, even though it had seen use. You should treat your gun with respect, Mama had always told him – treat it with respect, care for it and never, ever underestimate or abuse it. Uncle Dean said you had to take care of your tools for them to take care of you, so he figures that applies here as well. That’s why Evan takes the time to pull out a cleaning kit from the dufflebag that he’d found in the trunk of the police cruiser and begins to give it a proper look over. It’s pretty clear, given how dirty it is as he does some work, that the officer must have gotten use of it before his… untimely end.

Why did he store it back in the trunk in this situation? Was it just old drilled habits that died hard? Given the positioning of the cruiser… it seemed to Evan that the man had suffered from a car accident and crashed into the school house. Probably he’d been dazed and confused and unable to even think of getting out of the car and arming himself before it was too late and ‘they’ already had him by the throat.

At least, that’s what Evan thinks makes the most sense given the situation.

The 3000 is left cleaned and cared for and is stored away safely yet again for the event he needs it. Evan takes a chance to sift through the rest of the dufflebag and count off on things. Ammunition, both .38 for the revolver and boxes of shells for the shotgun: three boxes of 12 gauge shells, though one was only partially full, for a total count of sixty two shells, and a box of 38 special was also within the bag, along with a baggy of loose bullets of the same type, coming in at a total of sixty-nine rounds for the revolver.

Speaking of the revolver, it was a lovely number. Clearly intended as a gift or showpiece rather than just a workhorse weapon, it was even better cared for than the shotgun had been. It was a lovely weapon, and one that Evan felt more comfortable using than the Model 3000. For one, the Model 10 probably had a much quieter retort than the long arm did… and for another, his mother taught him more about handguns than he knew about longarms. He knew how to shoot and use them, of course, but most of his actual experience was with pistols at the range.

… For all the good that would do against live targets, he supposes. He’d done some rifle shooting in the scouts as well, but that was again at targets and not live animals, people or ‘them’.

This Model 10 was a high-class piece, and unlike some revolvers which utilized the loading and unloading gate method, it swung all the way out to dispense of the used casings in one smooth movement, making loading and unloading on the fly easier in the heat of the moment. He had taken to carrying it on his person in the house now, just in case. He was careful, because you always had to be careful with a gun, but the potential benefits in this situation outweighed the risk.

Besides, misfires were mostly due to negligence these days rather than actual flaws and faults in the ammunition or gun itself. If you carried your gun around in your waistband, you could only blame yourself if you shoot your privates off.

The revolver is checked, rechecked, and then carefully loaded and stored in his holster. It was odd how quickly he became used to carrying around a hatchet, a knife and now a pistol all day. Maybe it was just a sign that he was adapting to the ‘Survival Mindset’?

He finishes checking over the closet and then makes his way upstairs to examine all of that area as well, since it contained both bedrooms and the main bathroom. Uncle Dean’s bedroom is left mostly untouched, save for a few pieces of clothing Evan had borrowed when it was necessary, and a search for any useful supplies had turned up some of the home maintenance tools, another flashlight, and batteries. He had a lot of batteries now, which was great news for him since it meant he could listen to the radio and play Gameboy for as much as he wanted.

Plus, batteries were as good as gold in a survival situation. With how useful electronics were, once power went out batteries could sell for more than cigarettes in a prison… or so Uncle Dean had said.

Clothing-wise, things were looking good for him and… slightly worse for Ruth. If things lingered on too long he might have to consider making a run to her house. Some of the clothes from that house full of baseball fanatics fit her well enough, but it’s probably not much fun wearing clothes that you know belong to a dead person.

Well, it’s not like he was stripping the bodies of their clothes and using those or something. That would be insane… and also probably a great way to catch whatever made ‘them’ come back.

Their position overall seems pretty darn secure to Evan. They have the means to defend themselves, they have the food necessary to survive for a few weeks at least, they have entertainment, they have clothing, they have shelter, they have power and water still…

Things were looking, if not good, then at least survivable. Call Evan a bit of an optimist, but he’s thinking it might actually be possible for them to just wait the rest of this out until the military rolls in to save them.

That puts a bit of a pep in his step as he picks up one last task from upstairs and heads down. The clothing that had been damaged in that scrap with Spiffo had been cleaned, but it still had tear and penetration damage that he needed to deal with. He deemed them to not be beyond recovery, which is why he takes the sewing kit and supplies with him, as well as the jean jacket and shirt, and heads down to the living room to settle down on the couch and watch Ruth play Sonic.

He sets the supplies on the side table and begins to get to work, sorting out where he’d need to apply major patches and where more minor work could be done. He used to do this sort of thing with his mother to help her out and when they were fixing clothing for the charity to give to those in need. He’s not as good at it as she is, but he gets by well enough if function’s more important than form.

“You know, it’s a shame we don’t have my NES,” Evan admits to Ruth as she blazes through the stage at the speed of sound, or the nearest approximation that Sega’s blast processing could manage.

“Yeah?” Ruth’s eyes stay glued to the screen even as she heeds his words. Good, it’s important to say focused when you’re platforming, otherwise you’ll fall down a pit and lose a life.

“Yep, I had Final Fantasy on it. Zelda too, Dragon Warrior One, Two and Three, Excite Bike… lots of fun stuff, basically. It might not have been as pretty as these new Sega Games, but the NES has tons of variety and all those games had heart,” Evan gushes about his beloved NES. God he misses it. Hopefully it’s doing okay in Philly. He knows that the riots have gotten bad in some cities, but surely Philly would keep its cool, right?

… Yeah, probably not.

“You have Zelda on the Gameboy too, don’t you?” she asked as she bounces off of a spring and goes soaring into the air like a flying trapeze.

“Well, yeah, but that’s a different game. It’s still really good though, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that the original Zelda… it was this huge, wide open world for you to explore. You had to figure out the mysteries and map it out yourself. They even included a section in the manual for you to take your own notes and make maps and stuff!” Evan continues gushing. He loves games like that, that just give you a goal and say ‘figure it out’.

He lives for challenges that don’t require socialization with other people, basically.

“… That sounds cool.” Ruth agrees. “Plus… maybe we could have played it together…”

“… Well, you know.” Evan pauses mid tug of the needle, “Phantasy Star and Shining Force look like they could be those kinds of games. Maybe we should set some time apart to try one of them out together. I could use a smart helper to figure out those tricky puzzles… hmmm, who could do that..?”

Ruth pauses the game and gives him a look. The sort of look a child feeling patronized would cast at their guardian for a particularly egregious offense. A look like what a young one would give their parents when they realize that they have been bamboozled, and the spoonful of ice cream was replaced with a spoonful of medicine. That sort of specific kind of look.

“… I’m not five, you know,” she reminds him before unpausing the game. “But… that does sound fun.”

Evan will take the fact that she’s capable of sarcasm as a good sign. He chuckles to himself as he sets about his work again and both of them lapse into silence for a long while.

“… What was Dragon Warrior about?” Ruth is the one who breaks the silence, and about something that Evan seems fiercely interested in, at that.

“Well you see, long ago in the Kingdom of Alefgard a great evil had awoken and terrorized the land. All of mankind was forced to hide within their walls as monsters ruled all the rest of the world. The Dragon Lord, the Wicked Ruler of Dark, had kidnapped not only the princess but the very Orb of Light that had blessed the lands and kept them safe. All hope seemed to be lost… but there was an ancient prophecy. One that claimed in times of need, the Scion of Erdrick would appear…” Evan lets his voice out, low and steady as he begins to weave a tale of the fantastic and magical realm of Alefgard.

Ruth seems enraptured, which pleases Evan. Just wait until she finds out that Dragon Warrior II is a sequel, and III a prequel!