This idea was part of the 2025 game jam ideas project.
Child Actor
Theme: What's life like after you publicly save the world from an evil most foul? Or what's next after the hero's journey.
After they patched me up…
I did the talk show circuit for a few months, while a ghost writer wrote my story into a best selling book. Didn't make much off of the book and only got two points while the writer got most of the royalty. I was sixteen, an orphan and didn't know much about anything. The movie deal was much the same. I needed the cash and signed whatever they put in front of me. One time up front fee, no backend and it came with a morality clause that clawed back most of the fee.
I got a bit smarter after that and got an agent but by that time I was mostly old news… well that and the press ran me through the ringers after that whole morality clause thing.
I tried writing my own book of the adventure, but writing is fucking hard man, I never finished highschool and wasn't so great at it in the first place. I spent a few years trying to find a publisher, but I was already old news and "Air quotes" My brand, suffered a lot from the morality clause thing. I ended up self publishing and doing my own tour. Well that and two dollars will get you a bus ticket.
There wasn't much left to sell from my journey either, most of that went to auction in the first few years or the government took it to study.
They say the magic dagger is still my property, but won't return it until they figure out how it works. Fat chance of that happening anytime soon. It's magic no one knows how that shit works.
Now, it's mostly personal appearances. Convention, rich tech bro's birthday. That kind of thing. My agent takes about 20% after expenses. I'm not buying cars but I get by.
I don't move around much these days. When you are 16 and take a magic lighting bolt to the chest followed by a twenty foot fall. You can get up again if it means saving the world, it's pure adrenaline, but it has consequences. I lost a few toes, a finger and my knees are shot, I can't move my arms above my head, I don't see very well in the dark, etc… as you know I started taking pills for the pain but that didn't do me any good… see that morality clause issues. I'm off the pills now, two years sober… ish
Karla? We didn't last. She was the girl of my dreams when I was 16. After I rescued her from the dark wizard. Well I think she felt kinda obligated. We don't talk much, she sends me a card on the holidays. I hear she's married and has a few kids now.
My kids? Which ones? All they want is money and when they find out that I don't have any they don't want to have anything to do with me. I keep track of my oldest John but I'm not allowed to see him anymore.
Fuck the rumors. I have been dealing with them my whole life. He was a wizard. He shot lighting bolts out of his hands, his castle floated in the sky above LA. Any one with eyes knows it was real! He killed people, real people, most of my high school was killed, not crisis actors. No movie magic. 100% real. I will punch anyone who says differently.
Regret? Plenty, who doesn't, but I saved the world! They can't take that away from me. You and everyone would either be dead or slaves to that wizard if it wasn't for me. I'm the mother fucking wizard Slayer.