The Most Important Amnesiac

After six months working for the Quinto Rock Mining Collective, Jefferson Marlowe had become a little restless. Chipping away at a coal face for fifteen hours a day was not wholly unsatisfying, but it was nothing compared to the thrill of rescuing Princess Yolande from the implausibly tall belltower at Stankingham Castle or hunting for diamonds hoarded by the legendary five-eyed giant Lorcando in the Jungle of Chrysling Grub.

But Jefferson knew that such adventures were a thing of the past. Which was fine, for the most part. It was a relief not to be freelance, no longer to have to hunt for work, to have a more straightforward tax return, to be settled in one location with a recently-established regular girlfriend and three flat viewings planned for next weekend.

Jefferson was sure that this current pang of restlessness would pass - it was time, he knew, to resign himself to the fact that he wasn't particularly special, that there wasn't anything extraordinary about him at all. He was just a bloke - an unusually handsome bloke, but a bloke nonetheless - with a straightforward haircut and a modest talent for chiselling.

Yet, at that very moment, less than fifty miles away, just on the other side of the Aquamarron Mountains, a statue of our humble hero was being unveiled by a grateful race of wraiths. It was a monument to the man who had rescued their community, the man whom they desperately needed to come to their aid one final time: Jefferson Marlowe - in truth, a far from ordinary bloke and the most important amnesiac the world had ever known.