The summoning circle flared to life as this generation's hero summoned to the aid of the Free Peoples-

Who promptly vanished out of the summoning chamber in a blur of speed. Vaklos the court wizard blinked for a moment before hurrying after them.

"Which way?" he demanded from a very confused maid. She pointed towards the throne room with with her mop.

Vaklos nodded in thanks and took off with an undignified run. He managed to reach the throne room where the king was waiting to brief the hero upon their arrival, just in time to see the heroine (they were a woman this time, rare but it sometimes happened) waving her hand in front of the king.

"The Eldritch-" was all the king managed to say before she waved her hand again.

"Skip," she said in a flat monotone.

"The gates-"

"Skip. "

"Monsters are-"

"Skip. "

"You are-"

"Skip. "

And then suddenly the Sword of Light was in her hands, despite the box where it traditionally rested behind the throne still lying closed. Vaklos blinked at the impossibility but before any of the bemused nobles or even the fair princess could react, the heroine was already on her way out of the throne room.

Vaklos managed to see a strange stutter step motion her feet were making that really should have just tripped her but instead propelled her out through the doors in a dizzying blur. The royal guard knights had barely reacted before she was already gone.

"Vaklos, quite an impatient heroine we've got," the king mused as the nobles muttered among themselves. "I tried variations of our prepared speech but she seemed uninterested. "

Vaklos was about to reply when he felt the wards on the Royal graveyard ping about an intruder- and fire their traps- and report that the defences had failed, in the span of a single second.

"She's in the Royal graveyard," Vaklos reported dutifully.

The king sighed, "I think it is time we asked for some advice. "

"Are you sure? The Higher Powers are known to be... cryptic. "

"Any guidance is better than none. "

Vaklos nodded and began to incant the rite to contact a higher power. The king and princess and nobles watched with interest, keen to understand the mystery behind their speedy heroine.

In the middle of the rite, the two royal guards from the graveyard came running into the throne room. "My liege! The heroine has broken into the royal graveyard and stolen a glowing sword!"

That the graveyard wasn't supposed to contain swords didn't matter to the heroine's logic apparently. The kingdom would not have let a magical sword of any potency lie in a tomb when it could be put to use in these dark times.

"Where did she go?" the king asked.

The pair of guards looked at each other, then one of them said hesitantly, "she triggered the explosion ward on the inner castle wall and flew away. "

The throne room was in silence apart from Vaklos's muttering.

"What?" the king mumbled.

"She hit the wall with one of her swords and jumped over the explosion ward just before it triggered. The explosion sent her flying. "

Never mind that siege wards were not supposed to be triggered by sword strikes, nor that the heroine had somehow not been blasted into small chunks across the castle gardens.

"Where?"

"She seems to have been sent flying over the mountain range to the south. Straight to the Tower of Doom. "

Nor that not even siege wards had enough energy to send a person flying over a mountain range. She was apparently headed straight to the Dark Lord. At least it appeared their heroine was dedicated to stopping the Dark Lord from taking over the world with power stolen from a sealed god.

Vaklos's incantation completed and the outer gods reply manifested in his mind. He blinked in confusion and turned to the expectant king.

"When asked 'what is the hero doing?' the Higher Powers replied 'TAS speedrun. Sequence breaking. ' "

The court muttered in confusion. No one had any idea what those words meant.

Vaklos was about to ask for court historians to examine the records of all past Higher Power revelations when the cloudy sky parted in a sunbeam and singing angels descended to herald the destruction of the Dark Lord and the saving of the world.

- dramatized account of the Five Minute Heroine, adapted from interviews with Vaklos, court wizard