...okay. This is poking at the contrarian in him but on the other hand not following the advice of the mysterious feeling is the kind of thing he'd yell at a character in a story about, so he's gonna follow the feeling.

He walks along the lakeshore for some time, encountering nothing much, then comes to a gnarled old tree. In the center of the trunk is the bronze hilt of a sword, set with gems and inlaid with gold. No sap has oozed out around the blade; the tree grew naturally around it. The gold inlay on the guard forms a tiny inscription showing a stylized figure battling a host of demons. The handle is wrapped with red leather that shines glossy and new in spite of the many years it must have taken for the tree to grow so thoroughly around the blade.

He could try to pull it free.

Whoever's looking out for him (?) obviously wants him to do that, and being armed is definitely better than not, so, yep, sure, he'll try it.

As he pulls the sword from the tree, wood fills in after it. Once the sword has been removed, the trunk is left whole and unmarred.

The blade is three and a half feet of silvery watered steel, shining bright in the sun. As Sadde beholds it, the voice from yesterday returns, no longer distant and ethereal but sharp and somewhat nasal. "Hello, Champion."

He yelps and jumps back, letting the sword fall onto the ground.

"Ow," the voice says in a deadpan.

"You nearly gave me a heart attack!" he complains, approaching the sword gingerly and picking it back up. "But hi, mysterious voice."

"I apologize. I am the spirit of this blade... well, the spirit attached to this blade... I'm a spirit and there's a blade involved. My name in life was Enserric. Perhaps you have heard of me?"

"—yeah. The first Champion. You're—in pretty good shape, honestly, that first imp I met said these Champions usually become mindless sex slaves or whatever."

He should really not be thinking about putting a sword in his butt but here we are.

"He wasn't wrong," Enserric sighs. "I've seen nineteen previous Champions come and go. You're in the top five just for resisting the imp Lethice sent to intercept you. Although she seems to have lowered her hiring standards since my day. I have high hopes for you, regardless."

You really shouldn't, he wants to put you in his butt, this isn't very confidence-inspiring.

"Why? And how'd you even know about me?"

"I didn't say high expectations," Enserric drawls. "However, I'm hoping you're the one who finally kills that bitch Lethice and frees the world from this corruption once and for all. And for a spirit, especially one who used to be a wizard, it's not hard at all to keep an eye on that portal once a year. I saw your little slapfight with Zetaz, and your... whatever that was... with the mouse, and your inadvertent study of magic. I can help you out with that last, by the way."

"And just to be clear, you're not going to turn to dust the moment you teach me a spell."

The sword snorts, an odd behavior for something without a nose. "I have no intentions of doing so. The copy protections on those old library tomes always irritated me as well."

"Is it harder to circumvent than my just personally deciding to write down the instructions again in a new book?"

"No, no, it's only the tomes themselves that are protected, so if you have a burning desire to see information made free, go ahead. -and the tomes aren't turning to dust, per se, they're simply returning to the Great Library in the desert. Unfortunately, the Sand Witches took control of the Library before I got here, so we have no access to the really good stuff. Alas."

"Right. Okay. So now are you going to be my mentor and guide me as I overthrow the evil demoness and save the realm, because I've read this book and I'm not impressed with it."

If the sword had eyebrows, he'd be raising them. "I do apologize for the cliché. Do you have an alternative to propose?"

"I figure out a way to get real rich and fund a revolution?" he suggests.

"A revolution. My. With what will you arm your footsoldiers?"

"...the money? Presumably I can pay for magic and weapons and maybe potions—you all have words that imply things in fiction but back where I'm from I don't know what things can be gotten or not."

"Yes, we have all of those things. Very well, then where will you get the money?"

"Don't know. This—I'm sorry, I don't want to come off as knowing how to solve all of this realm's problems with one fell swoop. It's just, I don't think 'fight demons until I get to their boss and then kill her' is what I'd be good at? I didn't resist that little imp by being good at stabbing things, I did it by being good enough at being me and by not being rendered useless when I'm horny out of my mind..."

Enserric sighs. "Did I say stabbing things? I did not. I said that I would train you in magic. Not at all coincidentally, the two traits you have just mentioned are the defining requirements of light and dark magic respectively. I can make you the greatest archmage this world has seen since, well, me. And then we will make you better, because my power was not enough. And it must be you, because humans have a greater capacity for magic than any morph; and it must be now, because Lethice's power will only continue to grow. I apologize if this is not the trajectory you had intended for your life. If it's any consolation, I'm offering to make you the greatest archmage in history."

"—I mean, I'm not opposed, it's just that until you said what you, uh, just said, I did not know the two traits I had just mentioned are the defining requirements of light and dark magic respectively." He blinks a few times. "Huh. Okay. I suppose that would work." Pause. "But I'd still feel much more comfortable about this if there were a bunch of other people also involved in the project, it sounds really unwise for me to try to singlehandedly—or, well, singleswordedly overthrow the political ruler of the realm with just magic."