[ WP ] You are a `` hero '' in a fantasy world , but as you `` adventure '' , you are slowly realizing YOU are the antagonist .

I used to be a hero once. 
 
 Going from town to town, I would help the local populace, keeping away rats and bandits, making sure that deliveries were made and assorted herbs were gathered. Then I found that shrine. That shrine, that accursed shrine which led me to this day. When I first touched the shrine, I felt a powerful presence speaking to me, not through my ears, but through my mind. `` Your world will be touched by a coming plague. One not of disease, but of warriors. Countless lives will be lost in your continents desperate plea. Under a single ruler, your homeland may yet survive. Learn from your past. Survive to the future.'' 
 
 My ears rang when I first heard it. I wrote it down, so I would never forget it, and it still hangs like lead next to my bedside. I knew from my studies that if an army was to invade, it would spell disaster. The villages were independent, trading between each other, but only sharing a language. I covered up the shrine, not knowing the time that I had, nor the scale of the invasion, but that it would happen. I started by going to the Manor of an old friend, which resided in a town central to the continent. I feared that should I tell him about my vision, he might think me mad. No, I had to lie. I told him a lie. A dream of a united kingdom, to stand against any threat. He bought it, and we started to bring this lie of a dream to the people. 
 
 Then we started to build better walls, and his manor and the surrounding village became the capital of our kingdom of lies. We went to each village nearby and called for their loyalty. All but one denied it. If we failed at any point to bring the kingdom together, all would be lost. So we sent a gift, a parcel of food and spice to the village which had joined us. Then we took an army of mercenaries, and went and wiped one of the villages out. Was n't going to be the whole village at first. Just stroll up and get them to join the kingdom. But they resisted. We needed an example. So we killed two birds with one stone and slaughtered all the men. A necessary evil if we were going to survive. It was not as if they were not going to die by the invading army regardless. Keeping the women and children alive would allow for the village to survive, and the women were much more willing to join so they were not wiped out entirely. The rest followed similarly. If the village joined, we sent gifts, if they resisted, we sent armies. My friend was the king, at first, until an assassination occurred from one of the villages. He died quickly, at least. We executed the assassin by the way he killed the king, though I ca n't remember how. So I started a spy network, to keep tabs on all the villages, no more assassins would come for me, not before this army hit. Then I hear of a boy, one from one of the towns we had to reduce. He started to become quite popular. I knew from that point the role I had to play. 
 
 I had to be the villain. 
 
 My crimes already would have given me execution by any village. However this young boy, he could be a better king. Not during the war, but after it. He was slowly gaining strength, and numbers, while I was growing older and older. Then the war hit. Our armies held the lines, though so many died. But they held. We survived. Was it worth it? I'm not sure any more. We survived, that's all that matters. The hero turned the war effort into a small group of his, that would come to dethrone me for my crimes. So be it. This is how my story ends. 
 
 He wo n't be long now. The hero. The one who would `` Liberate'' the people from my reign. I've sent some of the hardest men to turn to his side to the slaughter, to make sure that he is hardened for the time to come. Because I went back to the shrine before getting ready for this final battle between us. I told it that I succeeded, I fended off the army. Again it spoke through my head. 
 
 `` You survived the first of them. There are more to come.'' It spoke. 
 
 I was crushed. All of this may have been for naught. So this I've decided is where my story ends. At the hands of the hero. I used to be a good warrior, lets see how my skills are against the man I used to be. May the hero live long enough to see himself become the villain.
