Matthias looks around the new city. The ruins of the old one are still barely visible, but are barely ghosts against the harsh, flat, clean-swept landscape.

"Finally, we are safe," he says to himself. He sees the remains of old streets, lines of old stones where once there were walls, an empty square of land where the Town Hall once resided.

"Now it is time to rebuild," he continues. "Now we will construct a new city, more glorious than the first, and it will hold fast against flaming death from above. We will rise to glory again."

He looks around, gesturing with his staff, before his eyes fall upon a small scroll of parchment. A remnant, rescued from oblivion, of the crisis that had wiped the city clean.

With a flick of his staff, he summons the parchment into his hands. He unrolls it and reads...

"Why must everything I touch turn to dust," Matthias said to himself. He had made a glorious declaration of success, only to see death rain from the sky once more.

He searched through the rubble for General Ivanova, but could not find him. He shook his head sadly, looking at the remains of the red brick house where a tavern had once been, recalling an old memory of the beginning of a revolution.

It seemed almost pointless to keep going, but it was all he could do. He raised his staff and shifted the wreckage aside. Once again, bricks flew together, but more slowly and languidly than before.

"If only I could get air support," Matthias said to himself, continuing to work.

"Why rebuild now when there are survivors that must be looked after first?" Sir Sup said as he slowly made his way to the man with the staff. "This is not the first time our beloved city has fallen to such destruction, but it is the first time it happened twice in a row."

Sir Sup sat down on what used to be the top of bell tower. He lifted his arm and pulled out an apple from his robe, tossing one to the man. "Eat and wait or you may end up starting all over for a third time."

Sir Sup took a bite into the apple.

Matthias nodded thoughtfully as he deftly caught the apple. "Wise words, good sir," he said. He, too, sat down, taking bites out of the apple Sir Sup has offered him.

"Let me tell you a bit of my story, to pass the time," Matthias said. "I used to be a soldier, a Lieutenant serving with the Special Forces. I still remember my commanding officer, Captain Ramsey, and above him, our leader General Rugal Ivanova, who was, until recently, just here." He paused, in respect for the fallen General, before continuing.

"I was stationed at the city of Pleznik. I still remember when the war started. I remember when, mere hours after the formal declaration, the Bakvins moved in, laying siege to the city.

"And I remember Katherine. We had met almost two years before the war started. We had become close, closer than friends, and I had half a mind to propose marriage to her. But then, war arrived on our doorstep. I told her to flee, to find safety. When the war was over, I would come back to her. That was my promise.

"The next month was one of terrible hardship. Under the Bakvin siege, Pleznik became a wasteland. I remember those times. I remember sleeping in bombed-out craters, not knowing if I would wake up the next day. I remember combing through wreckage not unlike what we see here today, looking for any scrap of food so that my squad could last another day. I remember hiding from the bombers, looking for any cover I could find, desperate to escape the bombs.

"Then, the unthinkable happened. Our own government betrayed us. They dropped an atomic bomb over the city, calling it a victory. A victory." Matthias laughs harshly at the suggestion. "Dropping the bomb on one's own people? That cannot be called a victory by any measure. Millions died that day, and among them was my Katherine.

"I was knocked flat by the blast like everyone else. I don't know how I managed to survive. When I woke up, I found that I had been moved several thousand miles. And I discovered that I can do magic.

"I found a community and joined them as a storyteller. For a while, I took the name 'Algebra', after the mathematical discipline that had intrigued me as a child. Then, a chance encounter with my old friends from the war changed everything.

"An envelope. That was all it took. A letter from General Ivanova's troops, some old photographs, mementos from the front line. Only then did we realize that the destruction had not been so final. We resolved to spark a revolution, overthrow the Bakvins from power. And that we did.

"After it was all over, I came here and settled down, then took a short trip across universes. It wasn't long before I sensed something was horribly wrong. I came back here, and I saw the rubble from the first blast. I resolved to rebuild... then the second wave came. And now, here I am, desperately trying to keep the old tradition alive, waiting for the next blast that is sure to kill us all."

He smiles as he finishes his story. He takes another bite from his apple, which is already beginning to oxidate. "So, that's my story, then. What about yours?"

The two men jumped at the sudden sound of collapsing rubble, of brick against brick and wood against wood. They turned to see a thin man covered from head to toe in brick dust and splinters, "You know," He began as he tugged at his right leg, slowly extricating it from the pile, "I'm starting to get quite annoyed." Suddenly whatever held his leg gave up and General Rugal Ivanova toppled backwards, out of sight. "The universe appears to be having a little joke at our expense," He called out, "If this continues I'll have to start drinking again." His angular face, once the love of women and the envy of men, appeared over the brow of the rubble hill, "Has anyone seen my hat?"

A remnant of the crisis, documentation of what they had done in the face of death. It had been a good idea, Matthias thinks to himself, to commit such things to memory. It would only make the rebuilding process swifter.

"We will build this city again," he continues, "in memory of those who were lost, and in anticipation of those who will be found. We will make this city once again the pride of all the kingdom."

He looks around. "Now, who is with me?"