The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 27

The episode opens with Hellgramet, one of the eight remaining aspirants in a winner-take-all magical competition, attempting to contact Akari—the entity he believes is his prophesied mate, his "Echo Queen." He sneaks back to the woods where he previously found a cryptic message scratched into the ground, sends out a telepathic broadcast, and rolls a natural 20 on perception. A small insect emerges from the dirt and speaks to him in the faintest voice, warning him they can only communicate through these means and not out loud. When Hellgramet asks if she's from his future or past, she replies: "I am the past. I am the first. I am the origin. I am your present. I am this moment in which we speak, and I am the future forevermore, and you are mine." She refuses to give him tips about the next trial—the octave member administering it is "infuriatingly secretive"—but promises to help him defeat his fellow aspirants when the time comes. She then shows him a vision of a pristine, unblemished world, fractured and unnaturally stitched together, smaller than the planet he knows. "This is the future that I and I alone am building," she tells him. "I need you to prove yourself to me."

A conversation with Duber