Farrago sits in the Library of Ettlemont, and the walls shake with sounds of battle. Errant arrows smash through windows, sprinkling glass down onto the stone floors. He covers his head with the bag in his hand, books inside hitting him in the face. Farrago recoils, holding his eye a moment, before another arrow splinters against the wall. He resumes rifling through the books before him, throwing the occasional item inside. His purposeful movements carry him deep into the library, and into his residence.
Standing beside his bed, Farrago hears the door of library explode inward. Shards of wood are thrust past his open door, and a heavy footfall fills the stone rooms. Farrago freezes, eyes trained on the doorway. A heavy shadow creeps forward, lit by the siege filling the chasm of Ettlemont. He begins to crouch, tucking the books under his head. Move footfalls, slow and methodic. The shadows head surveying the room, two tusks protruding from its face.
The massive orc moves into Farrago’s view. Filling the doorway with it’s height, and the breadth of its well shaped shoulders, Farrago gasps at the site. Corded muscles ripple across it’s body as it sees Farrago kneeling in fear, and a cruel smile forms tight around the pair of long tusks protruding from the lower jaw. Moving to stand overtop Farrago, the creature looks down. His bandoleer filled with oddities lays across his bare chest and stopping on his hip where the massive curved blade resides. Reaching down, its clawed hand wraps around Farrago’s neck, sharpened nails biting in to the soft skin at the back of his neck. Farrago’s feet come off the ground, with no strain being shown on the face of the monster. “They’ve been looking for you.” It growls. Its breath is rancid like aged milk and rotting meat. Steps hasten back out of the door and into the frey outside.

"Liam, would you quit always going ahead of the group and stay with us!" Savannah shouted.

Liam shook his head pointedly.

Chris talked in hushed whispers behind them. Oscar walked as far away from everyone as possible.

Savannah glanced at both of them before groaning. "You two are so unhelpful!"

Chris looked up from the ground at her and narrowed his eyes. "Could say the same for you, princess."

Savannah stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around. "I'm sorry, but did you just say, Princess?"

Chris sneered. "What do you think I said?"

Savannah leaps at him and pulls her sword out. He, too, pulls his out and blocks her from digging hers into his skull.

Oscar watched from the side of the trail. Once two people in the group started fighting, there was no stopping them.

Chris's wolf leaped and dug its teeth into Savannah's leg. She screamed and used her other foot to kick it away.

"Hey! My wolf was just defending me!" Chris cried. Be dropped to the ground with his sword beside him.

Savannah took the moment and cut Chris's shoulder. Blood splattered and dripped down his arm.

"Ha." Savannah put her sword back in its sheath and walked away.

Chris stayed leaning over his wolf. Oscar went over to him and stood there.

"What are you doing? Just go with the others." Chris motioned him away.

Oscar didn't move.

"I said just go, will you?" Chris motioned again. "You're kinda freakin me out."

"Nobody deserves to be left behind." Oscar said simply.

In a world without Aurora, the mentalist would find himself lost in a maze of uncertainty. His life would be one of solitude, with little sense of direction or purpose. He'd wander through the mirror world, searching for something he cannot name. Every day would be a journey of discovery, but without Aurora's guidance, he would struggle to find the path forward.

The Mirror Maiden would be a shadow of her former self, wandering through the mirror world alone, guarding its secrets without a glimmer of hope. She would become a symbol of futility, her power resonating only as echoes of her past self. The Maiden would fight to protect the mirror world, but without Aurora's light and guidance, her efforts would seem feeble and inadequate.

The Tower of Song would lose its luster, its shelves of records and the secrets they hold would lose their vitality. They would be relics of stories left untold, mysteries left unsolved. The Tower of Song would embody a forgotten hope, its music would lose its magic, and its colors would fade without a champion to give them life.

The shadowy premonitions would roam freely in the mirror world, hunting the lost without mercy or remorse. There would be no resistance, no one to face them, nothing to push them back into the unknown. They'd grow in strength every day until they overwhelmed the mirror world and it's inhabitants.

In a world without Aurora, the mirror world would be forever teetering on the brink of destruction. Its magic, its music, and its beauty would fade away into obscurity, leaving only darkness and sorrow behind.

By not answering Aurora's call to enter the mirror world, things spiral quickly into disarray. Even her companions wouldn't find the true depth of their potential, their reality only memories compared to the mirror world. The fabric of this surreal realm would eventually dissolve into the ether, time would become meaningless, and the universe would unravel, bringing an end to all that once was. For Aurora's absence signifies the end of hope, and the death of the mirror world.

Mattie pulled herself up from her chair and threw another log on the fire in the cottage. It was colder than a witch’s tit as her grandmother used to say, and she was feeling every degree in her old bones. She sighed and headed into the small kitchen to fix a can of chicken noodle soup and a cup of herbal tea. She hated eating alone, but this is what her life had come to and she just lived day by day not expecting much and not getting much. Today she had been traveling in her memory banks thinking of the years when she had been a famous model, traveling the world and meeting interesting people. The lover who had shared her bed had been legion back then, but now she was here pushing seventy years old and so alone.

Loneliness consumed her sometimes, but she didn’t know how to reach out to people and try to fix all the years she had been dismissive of the people in Wellmore. She had wanted her privacy and had no time for the small people in this small town……or so she had thought. She indulged in a tear or two as she warmed up the soup, pulling her sweater around her tighter and staring out the window over the kitchen sink. How had it come to this?

The stack of papers on Mimi’s kitchen table was not going to go anywhere and she had promised her high school English honors class that they would have their essays back the next morning. She did this all the time, then regretted it when she got home and had to work into the night grading. She sat down heavily into one of the chairs at the table and set a cup of coffee next to her hoping it would give her enough of a lift that she could stay awake and get this mess done.

When she sat down she picked up the card from her dad who had retired to Florida a few years ago. He had taught mathematics at Wellmore High School for years, and now here she was; same house, same school, same job. How in the world had she let all her dreams of a family and children just fly away along with the years? She hated living alone but she had been so picky as a young woman; none of the boys she dated had been exactly what and who she wanted and eventually they all left her along. It’s what she had thought she wanted, but now as a middle aged old maid who actually did live with a cat called Boots, there were nights like this when she admitted she had made a miserable mess of her life.

The police department was an ocean of sounds, officers walking in and out, one-sided conversations, the occasional laugh. Shuffling through a small stack of photos, Hatchett thought back to when he was first assigned to the Martian police department. He had been manufactured military grade and assigned as security for the Lunar National Bank. He had excelled and after thwarting an armed robbery Hatchett had been sent to Mars. Knowing he would be supporting the police Hatchett watched a series of cop movies, dramas, comedies, buddy movies, and action flicks. Hatchett loved research and he took a deep drive into all things cop, the lingo, the stakeouts. Not eating food, Hatchett never understood the whole donut thing but he loved crazy boards. When he moved to Enceladus after the war and joined the police force as a detective in Robbery/Homicide the first thing he did was build an old school corkboard. At first the other detectives laughed but after Hatchett’s high clear rate they grew to accept it as a charming eccentricity. Hatchett rolled out his board. A few eyebrows raised and Gertie in Archives rolled her eyes. Hatchett placed a photo in the center piercing it with an antique pushpin. It was a photo of Griffin, an old sheepdog in front of a barn with his owners, the Saturnines. They were well-known farm worker organizers and successful farmers . ChiChi Saturnine had slate grey spiked hair and an upturned nose, Judy Saturnine was pale as smoke with long silver braids and in the photo they were laughing with their arms around Griffin. He added the arson investigation teams’s photo of the Saturnines’ burnt barn with Griffin’s remains. He tied a red string to the pushpin in Griffin’s photo and linked it another in the upper left hand corner. Slowly Hatchett worked connecting the Saturnine arson to the suspected firestarters the Devlins and the security team of FlorCorp. He added photos of Red’s Bar, the Flamingo, and a handful of other small businesses rumored to be paying protection money to the Devlins. Next came the photos of assault victims who couldn’t or wouldn’t identify their attackers. He added photos of burnt farmhouses and stores, all recent unexplained arsons in Orchid Valley. Detective Ashley got up to take a closer look. Hatchett added images of vandalized farm equipment. Detectives Burns and Johnson walked over to stare at the web of red string. Hatchet began carefully unfolding a map. Doctor Ferrara of CSI wandered over from the detective unit break room with two jelly donuts. Every detective had encircle Hatchett’s crazy board. “What gives? I don’t see robbery. I don’t see homicide.” Hatchett pinned up his map of farmland owned by FlorCorp in green and indie farmers land in red. Hatchett’s hands blurred as he quickly added black map pins marking incidents of vandalism, violence, and fire. Red turned to black. “Not yet, Doc, not yet. But soon.” Detective Ashley said, “If something big is about to blow Enceladus needs to do something.” “Or it needs to get someone,” added Hatchett.

If Malka didn’t exist, Barak would probably get eaten by an owlbear right off the bat. Assuming he survived and found Shiri anyway, things would quickly go off the rails. There would be no tavern brawl, no meeting up with Paz and Lior, and no saving the mayor. Shiri and Barak would argue over whether to save the gryphon, with no one to mediate, and this conflict would escalate to the point where they would never really become friends at all. They would not care about each other; they would not work well together. They might be killed along the road by bandits; Shiri might allow Barak to die and return home to her forest. If they made it to confront the Void for the first time, without Paz and Malka to help them flee, they would both be killed.

If Paz didn’t exist, Lior would not have a way to break out of jail, and would probably never make it to the tavern to meet Barak, Shiri, and Malka. They would continue to wander, miserable, without hope. Maybe one day they would attempt to reach out to their family, but I doubt it. Barak, Shiri, and Malka might escape their first encounter with the Void. They might even figure out how to defeat the Void. But without the “breaking Lior’s curse” sidequest, they’d never be able to convince Shiri to go back with them, and the Void would win.

If Lior didn’t exist, Paz would calmly stay the night in jail, get a job on a ship the next day, and never look back. Things would go similarly for Barak, Shiri, and Malka as in the “no Paz” scenario.

If Shiri didn’t exist… Barak might find and convince another Child of the Stars to join him on his quest. But who’s to say what that person would be like, and what choices they would make? This is a story of five, and all five heroes matter. Changing one might change everything.

The five heroes are equally this story’s protagonist, but Barak is the one who initiates the call to adventure, beginning his journey across the continent. If Barak does not exist, then no one notices the Void affecting the southern farmlands, and so no young wizard goes stumbling into the Children of the Stars’ forest.

Malka would likely just keep walking north through the forest, uninterrupted and directionless. She’d find adventure out there, certainly, and would probably get herself into too much trouble with no one to back her up. I doubt she’d survive well. It’s possible she would come across Shiri anyway, but Malka would not ask Shiri to leave the forest. Either way, Shiri stays home with her people, never learning to care about the outside world.

Paz and Lior would still meet, and Paz would still break them both out of jail, and Lior would still save Paz’s life on the road. There would be no Purim tavern brawl without Malka, and so no new friends found there. Paz and Lior would travel together, eventually learning of each other’s pasts. Paz may make a significant sacrifice to break Lior’s curse - an oath of solitude, perhaps - or she might find the price too much to pay. Lior would not believe it to be possible to destroy the Void, and so would not suggest that they try.

A mayor would be murdered. A gryphon and its child would be captured by poachers. A plague would decimate a small town.

The Void would continue its northward spread, consuming more and more of Besh. Without a Child of the Stars around, no one would realize that it can be stopped. People would die; people would flee. Maybe, when it reached the forest, the Children of the Stars would stop it. Or maybe they would not realize it was coming until it was too late. Maybe the world would end.