FirstWorld is at the centre of the multiverse and it is under threat. If the Balance tips entirely to Chaos then time will end. A Hero is needed and the Hero needs a powerful Sword, perhaps the most powerful weapon in the multiverse. An inexperienced young man, Simon Redhead, is saved from nuclear annihilation in Melbourne 2043, and reluctantly pressed into service. Will he accept the fate that his genes dictate, retrieve his sword. and adopt the role of killing machine to aid his new friends? Or, will he find sanctuary and peace in the past with a Palaeolithic tribe? Who is the evil wizard Weylyn the Wolf working for and why does his master want time to end? Will Simon Redhead embrace the role of Everlasting Hero and become the saviour of not only his friends but the entire multiverse? And if he does, what will it cost him?
The story opens in Melbourne in the mid-21st Century, as the world is on the brink of a calamitous nuclear conflict. Our hero, Simon Redhead, is a young university student who is unaware that his genetic make-up has conspired to make him a manifestation of the 'Everlasting Hero'. Simon is saved from the forces of evil that are also looking for him, and taken to FirstWorld, where he learns about its history and the eternal battle between Law and Chaos into which he is to be thrust. FirstWorld is at the centre of the multiverse ? perhaps an infinite number of dimensions that reflect the various probabilities of existence. Originally, there was a single universe and time was linear. Simon is ill-prepared to be the saviour of the multiverse, but agrees to seek the Sword that will give him his power, unaware that he might be the catalyst for the Sundering - the formation of the multiverse. Meanwhile, his newfound home and friends are threatened by a great evil that only Simon is capable of saving them from - if he believes in himself.
We discover that Simon and another manifestation of the Everlasting Hero were responsible for the Sundering, which caused the formation of the multiverse. We are confronted with the possibility that Fate controls everything we do in life and that we have no control over our own actions.
Simon finds a group of friends and colleagues to help him in his great quest. There's a wizard (one of the last of the wise, created by the Great Old Ones to maintain the Balance), an elf, a dwarf, a human warrior, a being of currently uncertain parentage who is the Hero's companion, and a strange fellow who is perhaps a bard and could be either a friend or a foe. There are possible friends and potential enemies around every turn. There's a wizard turned evil, who is the main protagonist in Volume One, and there's the big evil bad guy who won't be vanquished (or will he?) until Volume Four.
We follow two groups of this fellowship as they travel within FirstWorld and through the dimensions and have to overcome many challenges, as well as Simon's individual journeys through time. Simon's first quest is to find his Sword, a very powerful talisman, and learn how to control and use it. Others seek it too. When he finds it, there's an internal moral struggle as to whether he should use its great power. After great soul searching and hiding away in the past, Simon realises that he must accept and face his destiny as the Everlasting Hero and he must use the Sword to save his friends and attempt to defeat the evil wizard, just when all seems lost.
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