The Green Flash

The Event occurred [DATE PENDING CALLUM]. For clarity, I am calling it the Event in the official paperwork. — T.W.

What happened

On the day in question, the sky ignited emerald. The event was instantaneous and continent-wide. Witnesses report the same sequence: the world flashed bright green; the air filled with an electric tingle; sound seemed to cut away entirely, leaving only a high-frequency hum. When sensation returned, the world was wrong.

Every registered H.E.R.O. operative vanished mid-task. Groups 1–20, all registered operatives across the continent—gone. Support staff remained. Non-registered personnel remained. Only the heroes inscribed into the official Continental Registry disappeared.

Consequences

• Communications: The Sending Stone network has gone silent. The Status-Rune feeds across every town went dark, glitched, or began repeating a single word—sometimes a place, sometimes a person, sometimes something without a name in any language known to scholars.
• Magic: Casters across Edrathia report their magic behaving erratically—spells misfiring, power fluctuating in ways that defy precedent. Raw magical energy now leaks from certain sites in localised, reality-bending ways: towns where the ground shifts between stone and liquid, where every spoken word manifests as visible light, where the very weight of gravity becomes optional.

Cause

Unknown. Investigations are ongoing.

Theories abound in taverns and scholarship halls. Some point to a coordinated attack—a rival power-structure targeting H.E.R.O. leadership. Others suggest catastrophic magical failure, an accident no one intended. A handful of scholars whisper about interference with Edrathia's deep magical infrastructure, though what such interference would look like, and why anyone would attempt it, remains unclear.

The Citadel continues to operate under the assumption that this was not a natural phenomenon. What that means, we do not yet know.

Current coverage

In the absence of established H.E.R.O. operatives, emergency response protocols have been activated. Four unregistered applicants have been mobilised to provide heroic coverage across Edrathia under the designation the Zeroes. See the New Recruits notice for details.

[Records note — T.W.: They're doing better than anyone has a right to expect. I've sent four applicants into the field because there is no one else to send. Either they're clever or I'm insane. I'm choosing to believe they're going to be okay. What else is there to believe?]