Act 1: The Mighty Prophet

You wake up to the sound of knocking at your door. You groggily rub your eyes. "Who is it?"

"It's me, sir, I'm afraid we have a bit of a situation."

"Scale of one to ten, ten being the castle collapsing, how bad is it?"

"...Thirteen."

You groan as you rise to your feet. First day and things are already looking real promising. You open the door to come face to face with a red-headed girl with emerald green eyes looking deeply into your own brown eyes.

"Glad to see that you're up, sir, I barely saw you at the party yesterday so I thought you may have ran away."

"Would you have blamed me?" you question.

She doesn't answer but her silence is telling.

"And what's with this sir stuff Tayla? We've known each other for a while, don't go addressing me like my old man just yet."

"Well, I can't just go around addressing you as John can I?"

"Sure you can. In fact, I decree it."

Tayla laughs, "I'm not sure that's how that works."

"Laughing at me huh? Ten years in the dungeon for each singular 'ha' that exits your mouth, you're looking at about 30 so far."

"Go right ahead, let's see you find as great an advisor as me anytime soon." she replies in a chiding tone.

You both laugh, just as you used to when you were kids. Tayla's what you would call a childhood friend. Abandoned at the local church as a baby, she was found to be incredibly gifted intellectually and at a young age, was adopted by your father keen to make use of her as an advisor. Throughout the years she's spent in the castle however, she's also branched out into learning multiple other skills, such as combat, espionage, cooking...in other words, she's a jack of all trade, and the glue whose been (barely) holding the dukedom together with you.

She suddenly gets serious, "As much as I enjoy the banter, we really dont have time for this." she says as she walks off.

You catch up to her, struggling to keep up with her quick walking pace. "What's the issue?"

"The Shepherd of Revelations."

Your heart sinks, "What about them?"

"Take a look for yourself," she says as you stop in front of the castle's main doors.

You push them open and to a sight that leaves you speechless. Maybe you should have run away after all.