An old and hollowed king sits on a throne, their body heaving on the toll time has taken on them. They bark orders from the top of the throne as they had a thousand times before, as they had when they took the throne. Once, back when they were full of life and vitality, they had taken it in a sea of blood and viscera, crowning themselves in a blood stained crown.

But time had beaten them down. Now they were withering, obsession over foes beyond their reach taken more and more out. Not just from them, but from the kingdom they had once claimed dominion over. The blood, once red, was now a dull brown caked and dried. Old news never cleaned, and left to decay.

So lost in the obsession denied by a higher power that the old king did not see the knight march in with confidence, until he was directly in front of him. The enfeebled king gave a wispy laugh and stood on weakened knees. With weathered hands he lifted the rusted blade high, and tried to swing down.

Rusted iron met steel as the knight raised his shield, knocking it aside. For you see, the knight had not been caught by his obsession, trapped by the sole revenge against a single man. He had been wandering, seen the world and faced it on. Monsters and men alike had gone against him, only to fall by his might. And against a withering, dying man like this? He never had to pull his sword to take the crown from such a fool.

Obsession, it seems, is a vice of all. But there are few like you are there? So focused on a singular family, so tight gripped on that need to break a singular man defined you for so, so long. And with the snap of a finger, you were forced to let you. The one that got away. And all that buildup, the old king reaching out to something that despite everything he’d never be able to get.

So long you’ve spent focusing down, how rusty have you become? I am not just the man you’ve been chasing, building a narrative around. I’ve been on the hunt, searching far and wide. From the slums to the top I’ve been learning, adapting. And you know what I’ve found out through it all?

That we don’t need a king.

No king on the throne that vacates it for his own whims. No bloody king that wants to drown it all out, bring violence and evil of his own accord. No, Arcadia has seen what kind of a reign that a man who leads with a blade has done to it.

Now is the time to stop the cutting, the bleeding, all of it. Bring down the decrepit king with a rusted crown, and give that power back to the people who need it. Not in the hands of one who only revels in the pain of the past.