Wel­come to Avalon; a won­der­ful world, a mag­i­cal world, a world where dreams come true. The patch­work of a planet that lies before you is at once a rugged cloth and a majes­tic tapes­try, an inter­twin­ing net­work of sto­ries that branch, knot and dance their way to their con­clu­sions. Any­thing you dream, any­thing you want, any­thing you can imag­ine is real here. And in time you’ll come to realise the myr­iad rea­sons why that’s not always a good thing.

It’s a beau­ti­ful world, a glit­ter­ing world, just like a fairy­tale. In fact it is every fairy­tale and so much more besides, all unrav­el­ling and becom­ing real around you. Unless, of course, you hap­pen to believe that they’ve always been real. After all… in a world that is only story, who’s to say what’s real and what’s not?

Who, indeed.

That would be you.

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From the top of this hill, it feels like you can see for­ever as your eyes cast their gaze across the green woods and golden fields, all the way to the hori­zon and the sky of deep­est blue. The sun beats down strongly, no sur­prise in a region that the locals call the Sun­shine Plains, and it glit­ters play­fully over the rip­pling river that rises where you stand and threads its way across the land through vil­lage after village.

The near­est of these is one they call Arca­dia. By local stan­dards it’s a big place, for it sup­ports nearly fifty cit­i­zens and even boasts its own weekly mar­ket — which, it seems, would explain the colour­ful flags and pen­nants that dec­o­rate the vil­lage today. Peo­ple from all around the coun­try­side are already flock­ing there, and in the dis­tance the first of the mer­chants’ wag­ons are mak­ing their way to Arca­dia too.

From the youngest to the eldest, vil­lager and for­eigner, every­one is in espe­cially high spir­its today. Today is no ordi­nary mar­ket day — it’s the day everyone’s looked for­ward to for a year. A day when every­one is rejoic­ing; a day when every­one feels blessed to be alive. Today is the Fes­ti­val of the Sun, the begin­ning of Sum­mer. Down in the vil­lage, the prepa­ra­tions are just get­ting started. It’ll be a day to remem­ber, for sure!