A Soul, Summoned

From that time and that world, a soul was summoned, to another time and into another world.

Said soul was called to a small, insignificant piece of earth. Once, it had been a building, as one could tell from the rough blocks made from crumbling sandstone. Still, there were enough blocks, arranged in a circle, with pillars to hold up the remains of the building’s roof that the small pond in the middle of the building was left undisturbed. The water glittered in emerald tones as the sunlight hit it, and on the gentle waves swam white and pink petals. This place was under the protection of a goddess, whose statue watched over the pond. Birds nested in the folds and creases of her stone figure, and moss bloomed on her neck where once the statue’s head was. The ravages of time had taken their toll on her, and by now it was basically impossible to tell which goddess she was meant to depict.

At the foot of the statue rested an old machine. Its metal was rusted and bent, and on it a few animals had made their home. Like the statue, the machine is made in the image of a human, but where stone has been worked to look like soft flesh, the machine resembled a knight, covered in angular plates from its square head to its blocky feet. And on the inside, it was hollow, filled with nothing but cables and pipes.

And in that machine, the soul took his home. The gem set into the machine’s head glowed softly.

“Where am I?”

His voice sounded strangely rough and brassy. As he looked around, his body felt as if he had slept a century on the world’s most uncomfortable passenger seat. At first, he didn’t know where he was, but slowly, the environment looked more and more familiar.

Did I fall asleep while gaming?, he wondered.

But this was not his MYSTALE ONLINE main account Vrixus. He had spent most of his time on another world shard, mining precious mystalium ore. But this was not a demon’s body, and he hadn’t visited this shard in weeks. Even the UI was different from usual.

Maybe he had opened a new account without remembering it. It wouldn’t be that unusual, for he was known to make dumb decisions in sleepless nights. Trying out a different race and class than Vrixus was fun for a few dozen hours, but he always returned to his demonic swordmaster in due time. Others might call it a boring, standard class but in the thousands of hours he had poured into his character he learned to enjoy the subtleties of swordfighting. But before he could log out of this silly new account and get back to playing as Vrixus, a figure came into his view.

“Oh, by Lucine– it worked! You’re here,” she said.

She was a High Elf girl, with light blue hair that was tied up into a high ponytail with a golden hairpiece. The flowing fabric of a beige tunic accentuated her body and her long ears pointed to the skies. She was beautiful, but something was off about her.

And he didn’t recognize the model. Was she an NPC in a questline he didn’t know? Or just a hardcore roleplayer who actually used the in-game religion for her swears?

“Oh, please excuse me.” She pressed a palm to her heart. “My name is Mikkah, and I am an elf. I summoned you, o Holy Knight of Lucine, here on the world shard of Medrica to aid me in my fight against the demons.”

He blinked. Or tried to, at least. But for some reason the brief sensation of his eyelids pressing together was missing.

His body was not human, or even human-like. Not the body of an elf, a human, or a demon. It was an automaton.

“That’s not possible,” he muttered.

No wonder I can’t remember anything, he thought. An automaton? I couldn’t have made a worse decision while creating this new character. What was I thinking?

“But it is!,” the elf girl chimed in. “Together, we will conquer evil, for we are the heroes of prophecy.” Her smile had turned confident.

Maybe I’m stuck in a cutscene? I know I shouldn’t skip those, but this is too much. Did they implement this change with a new update? It would explain why I can’t access the menu, he thought with a surge of disdain.

“W-what is your name, o Holy Knight?” She clearly struggled with his lack of reply.

“Urgh…” For a moment, he paused to think. He wasn’t a fan of the usual, lore-accurate names of automatons – they reminded him too much of leetspeak – and he couldn’t remember creating this account, much less so which name he gave this automaton. And so, he proceeded with his usual name. “I’m Vrixus.”

It was the name he had grown to be most comfortable with. More people that were important to him knew him under this name than the one his parents gave him.

But the elf’s eyes widened. “By Lucine’s… ah, grace. Vrixus? Like the demon king?”

He managed to suppress a groan. He despised that stupid nickname. That was, in part, why everyone continued to tease him with it, and which lead to some of the guild’s newbies to use that title unironically. It was horrible. And he couldn’t believe someone actually snuck it into the actual game.

“That cannot be true,” she insisted. “Please… you need to have a different name.”

As much as he loved the sound of Vrixus, if the name was associated with that stupid title, maybe something else would be better. And for a holy knight, he knew just the right name. Maybe his name would get an reaction, just like Vrixus did.

“Then, call me… Berus.”

His best friend, the one who had played with him all this time, was the most radiant paladin player he knew. And now, he hoped he could live up to that name.

Mikkah nodded. “That is a wonderful name. It has a nice ring to it.” But it was clear that she didn’t recognize it. How strange.He still didn’t understand this world, but he knew that he had to find out more. How did she know about his player character, but not about his friend’s, who was just as famous on their little server as he was?

“Please… tell me more about this… Demon King figure.”

“Oh, of course. Since you’re from a different world you couldn’t know. The Demon King has been terrorizing us for many years. Though he originally came from a world shard close to Nys’ bosom, he helped the demons to gather their strength and climbed closer and closer to Lucine’s realm. Many shards, and the people that live there, fell victim to the darkness.” Despite her words clearly tinged with rage, she smiled at him. “And this is where we come in. We are the light that protects the humans and which will extinguish the demons.”

But he didn’t hear those last words, for he was still stuck on her first few sentences.

I was summoned from another world?, he wondered. That’s new. The devs must have gone mad. It’s completely lore-breaking! When did they introduce this crap? That must have been before I—

For a moment, everything inside of him clenched together, as if shielding him from the memory. His metal body didn’t show it.

— died. Wait, what?

He pushed the thought aside. Something was wrong with his memory. For example, him remembering his death when he was clearly alive, thank you very much. Maybe a bug in the game’s system that messed with his brain?

“One moment,” he said, and got up.

“Log out,” he commanded.

Nothing happened.

“Help.”

Again, nothing.

“Contact a moderator.”

Everything was silent.

“Um, holy knight? What are you doing?”

“Menu.”

Finally. Before his eyes, that familiar game interface appeared. He could see his status, the icons of his skills. But the main menu was missing.

Instead, a familiar hologram of the assistant appeared. For the faction of Nys’ Children, it looked like an imp girl, who floated around she twisted and turned. Her design was cute. Someone had spent a lot of time and effort on designing her, thought they clearly got carried away. Her horns were bigger and bulkier than any of the options in the game, and each of them was almost as big as her whole head. She wore a skin-tight, striped clown outfit with ruffles accentuating her ankles, hips, wrists and neck. Her tail, with a razor-sharp, heart-shaped tip, swished around with excitement. .

“Eheheheheee! Finally! Finally, I am awake again! Tremble, o poor soul, for you—”

“Skip.” He didn’t have time for this. Had she always yapped this much?

She froze. “Huh? What did you just say.”

“Skip dialogue. Open main menu.”

“What’s your problem, huh?!” Suddenly, she was all up in his face, and he could see the fangs in her open mouth. “Don’t you understand the position you’re in? You’re a soul, without a body, stuck in this cruel automaton, a war machine for the demons.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the lore. I just need to contact a moderator. Can you do that for me? Or at least open a ticket? I think this is a bug.”

She closed her mouth. And stared at him.

“Do you think I’m your personal assistant?,” she hissed.

“Uh, yeah? So can you please do as I said?”

“I. Am. Not. At. Your. Service. I am Ki-Rai, your tormentor! A curse, born from twisted desires, here to make sure you will suffer each and every moment of your existence, to make your cries of despair the music that pleases Nys’ ears!”

“Skip.”

“Shut it. Don’t you dare treat me like that,” she growled.

“Skip.” He was getting annoyed. The game really went down the gutter with this new update.

“Heh. There is nothing to skip. This is reality. Nothing you do will make you return to your old body, hehe.” Her eyes were so close to him now that they engulfed his entire field of view. “And to show you that, I shall make you kill that girl.”

“Uh, no.”

The wind gently moved the grass around them, and he could hear the water lapping at the edge of the pond. The weird elf girl was shooting nervous glances at him, but otherwise, she waited patiently.

“Eh… Wait… why can’t I…” For the first time, there was a crack in Ki-Rai’s confident demeanor. She muttered something to herself, but he was also lost in thought.

Everything about this was strange. Not only the world itself and its rules. Everything was familiar, and yet not quite the same as he was used to.

And he was dead.

He didn’t remember how it had happened, exactly. But he couldn’t shake the growing realization that nestled deep inside his soul. He was dead, and yet, he was alive. Caught in an demonic war crime machine, designed to maximize the suffering of the soul trapped inside, and the poor people it came across.

“Um, a word, Berus?”