Kree and I camped out in the woods. I can’t sleep. She noticed and came over to me. “Autumn alright?” I shrugged. “What is in Autumn's head?” I turn over to my side. She is already laying down next to me. I look into her large yellow eyes. Shining with the reflection of whatever moonlight poked through the trees. They were pretty, it stirred something in me that I haven't felt for many humans before. Not lust, no I’ve had enough of that on earth. It’s messy and worth less than what humans put into it. No, this is something different. It’s an old feeling, but when I try to grasp what it is it vanishes. I do a self check, listing my symptoms. Fast heart beat, wanting to protect, and a longing for nonsexual physical contact.

Shit, I’m in love. A very worrying prognosis. I don’t understand people. I miss social cues, I rely on patterns that I’ve observed. I don’t think I can do this.

This is a thing I don’t do well. I’m distant, have a case of Schizoid Personality Disorder and a touch of autism, or so I’ve been told… by my therapist.

I laugh at myself. Kree looks at me with a worried expression. “It’s so odd Kree, I can meet a lovecraftian horror, hold a prince hostage, and kill people without blinking an eye, but what I thought was friendship, another thing I don’t understand, has morphed into an emotion with even more potential for me to be hurt.”

“Kree not understand.” Normally with someone not understanding I would be angry but with Kree I search my thoughts and rephrase it in a way she will understand, but with her I’m happy to do it. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

“Are we friends?” I ask, Kree nods.

“More than friends?” I ask, Kree raises the spiky ridges that substitute for eyebrows.

“Like mates?”

“Like mates but without the mating.” I’m asexual, but I’m only aromantic until I fall in love.

Kree looks at me oddly. Rubbing her chin with her claws.

“Kree does not know. Kree think Kree can try.” She holds out her hand for me. I look at it perplexed. She grabs my hand and moves herself closer to me. I can feel her cold scales through my clothes. It’s as soothing as the cool side of a pillow. The scales on her hand are small and soft, they feel almost like human skin. I rub my thumb on the back of her hand. This calms me and we both soon fall asleep like that.

After stopping at the blacksmiths and grabbing replacement gear Hiro and the elve girls head to the Adventurer’s guild. Hiro begs the receptionist at the Adventurer’s guild. “Please have you seen my daughteru?” She must have been here. “She’s this tall.” Hiro holds his hand up to about his waist. “White hair, white coat, fluffy uggs that I bought for her. She has one of my Item Boxes, her weapon is a giant hammer. She likes to kill things.” The receptionist’s eyes light up. “Oh the halfling warrior. Yeah she just went off on a mission with those two.” She points to the table with a human and kobold enjoying a meal and occasionally touching hands. Hiro recognizes them. They’re the ones from that cult. “Hey!” He yells, gathering the attention of everyone in the room. He storms over and the elf girls roll their eyes as they follow him.

Hiro slams his fisits on the table. Autumn draws his weapon. Kree pushes herself against Autumn’s back watching in case anyone attacks from the back. “Where is she?”

“Where is who?”

“My daughteru, the loli that went on a mission with you.”

“Oh, she died. An orc killed her in the goblin cave.” Autumn states calmly. Hiro relaxed his fists. He sat down at the chair across from Autumn grabbing at his hair, tears starting to form on his eyes. Autumn dissolved his gun. Holding out a hand and patting Hiro on the back “There, there.”

“Hey!” Another voice shouts. Into the bar area steps a fat man in a merchant hat. Behind him are twelve guards. The elfs move behind Hiro at the table. “That’s them! The people who stole my slaves. I have a 1000 gold bounty on their heads. The other adventurer’s stand up, bearing their weapons at Autumn's and Hiro’s parties. “Guys you’re really going to side with a slave driver than a fellow adventurer.” Hiro asks, trying to appeal to the room. Autumn already has pulled his gun out of thin air. He fires the first shot into the merchant’s head. “There he can’t pay a bounty if he’s dead!” Autumn yells. This display of logic doesn’t dissuade them from attacking. Hiro quickly draws his sword, stabbing it into everyone who gets close. Yellow uses her spirit magic to buff Hiro and Red. Autumn just shoots the guards at the front of the bar.

A real brawl, and there he is, not even breaking a sweat as he kills men in full armor. I wipe my brow after sending an arrow into the chest of an adventurer. I watch him from the corner of my eyes. He is the strongest person on this world, how my loins burn for him, but I saw it when we entered the bar. The looks he shares with that kobold. Disgusting. How could he prefer that thing to me? I notch another arrow and a horrible thought comes to mind, a thought that I’m not even sure is my own. If the kobold is gone then he’ll be available again. He won’t notice it was you who did it in the chaos of this bar brawl. I turn my body. Aiming the arrow for the kobold. I let the string go. The arrow snaps into the kobold’s chest. A soft shriek. The strong man with the otherworldly weapon turns around to check on her. He sees the arrow. Looks around the room, locks eyes with me. In a fluid motion he holds up his weapon to me. I see the bright flash of light, but can’t jump away in time.

I create a bubble around Kree and myself. That damn elf shot her with a bow. Kree’s eyes are open. They lock with mine. I check her pulse but it’s already slowing down. Blood flows from the wound. I feel denial setting in. “Kree, are you alright? Can you breath?” Kree shakes her head. She coughs up blood. This indicates that the arrow pierced her lung. I’m not a doctor, or a medic. There is nothing I can do for her. She holds herself up. “You shouldn’t move. You’ll te-” She places her lips to mine. Then falls to the ground. Her breathing has stopped.

As quickly as I started to feel something for her I blocked it. I could cry, but that wouldn’t solve anything. I needed to…

I didn’t need to do anything. I was just exploring this new feeling, but now I can’t. I just killed who’s fault it is. I need to bring her back.

I drop the barrier. The guards have surrounded me. You can make anything. A voice booms in my head. I can. Make anything, so I make the guards and everyone in the room dead. Black spikes fly from body to body. I retract them and let the bodies fall. Only the hero guy in white hair is left alive. He looks up at me in shock. “You killed the slaves I rescued.” He tries to scold me, but that isn’t the information I need. My movements are jerky and stiff. I grab his shirt collar. My voice is colder than it has ever been. “How do you resurrect someone?” He shrugs. “I don’t know if you can. The power Goddess Eris gave me was to break through my limits.” I dropped him. Sending a spike through his heart. That’s the solution. I need to find a god who can bring people back from the dead. The voice comes to me again. I can bring the kobold back to life. I suspected it was the voice of the unpronounceable, but now I know it’s him. “Then do it.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

You’ll need to fulfill your mission first.

“You’ll destroy this world once I free you. Having her back alive won’t do anything when you’ll just destroy the world right after.”

I’ll send you both back to your world.

“Doubt it.”

What other option is there?

I carried Kree in a black coffin through the streets. Like a funeral procession that meant death to anyone who tried to stop it. I didn’t even hear what they said until I got into the room I was first summoned to. Guards kept trying to enter the room but the black needles would pierce their armor. A sizable body pile was growing at the entrance.

“Where did the humans hide the key to freeing the old dark god.”

“We’ll never tell!” I held both the king and prince up off the ground. They were stubborn. “Don’t you realize the dark god is using you. He’ll betray you and destroy this world once he is free.” The prince reasoned with me. I shrugged. I had reverted back emotionally. Where as before I was open to emotions, now I actively snuffed them out. If I was betrayed, I would feel nothing.

“Tell me before I start torturing you.”

“You don’t seem like the type to torture people young man.” The King speaks.

I shrug. He’s right. I don’t know the first thing about torturing. It’s an artform that I could never practice.

I throw open a door in the castles dungeon. There’s a rack and a man in a black hood. “Torturer I presume?” He stands up, readying a scalpel. “Yes, and you are?”

“Autumn Mystic. I need you to torture some people.”

“Did the king send you down?” I retract my black tendrils, pulling the king and the prince into the room. “Something like that.”

The torturer looks ready to pounce. “I can’t torture the king!”

“Then torture the prince.”

“I can’t torture him either!”

“Why not?”

“Cause they’re the king and prince.” I nod. It’s a matter of principle not a matter of ability. I’ll just force him. I summon a bed of needles on all sides around him. “Do it or die.”

“Okay.” He offers a meek response. I expected to have to torture the torturer to get him to torture the king, but the torturer is scared of torture.

After a few hours of watching nails and teeth be pulled the king finally speaks up. I look up from my notebook to hear what he has to say. “A piano key!”

“What?”

“It’s a piano key. The key is a black soul crystal carved into the shape of a piano key and given to the DemonKing.”

“Why to the demon king?”

“Cause if the dark god is released it’ll destroy him first.”

What a fucking stupid riddle. I kill the king and prince. Leaving the torturer alive because I halfway promised not to kill him if he did what I said.

I met a demon on my way to the demon king’s castle. He was a pitch black malnurished human with horns and bat wings.

“You’re a demon.” I stated.

“You’re a human.” He returned.

“I need to borrow the Demon King’s piano.”

“Why?”

“To release a dark god.”

He shrugged. “Fair enough.”

The demon’s were very hospitable.They offered me horderves at the entrance and led me to a waiting room. The food offered was boiled tongues. I took one as not to be rude, but didn’t eat it. Instead I hid it in my pocket when the receptionist succubus had her eyes turned. There was a piano in the waiting room. I walked to it and began smashing black keys. When none of them worked I started smashing the white keys. A eight foot tall demon in a crown grabbed my arm. “What are you doing?” All the keys were smashed so I looked at him. “Is this the piano the humans gifted you?” He shook his head. “No that one is in my personal room.” I nod. “And where is that?”

“Second floor first door on the left.” I broke his grip and began walking up the stairs.

“Wait! You can’t just enter my private quarters!”

“Why?” Thinking that perhaps the door was locked, or traps were laid. If I had Kree with me, and alive, she could detect and disarm the traps.

“Cause it’s my private quarters!” I nodded and kept walking. There are no traps, just principles. The demon king followed me up the stairs and once again grabbed my arm. “Stop human! What is this about!”

“I’m freeing an old god.” His grip on my arm tightened. “But you can’t, you’ll destroy this world!” I laughed. “You sound just like the human king.” With that I encased his arm in my black magic and pulled it off me. I hooked the magic into the wall and held him in place as I opened the door. I instantly saw the piano and instantly began smashing keys.

A large blakc snake erupted from the piano. It sprung from the key like a novelty snake in a can prank toy. Breaking through the ceiling and out the castle. The length of the unpronounceable was a sight to behold, but also a waste of time. His massive body took half an hour to spring out from it’s prison. The demon king stood next to me. He was on the ground bowing to it already.

A tentacle with a puppet of a kid in a japanese school uniform popped out. It set itself down on the floor in front of us. Clapping its hands. “Fantastic. Autumn Mystic. That has got to be the fastest a human has ever freed me.”

I shrugged. I didn’t care for his compliments. “Now bring Kree back to life and send us to my world.” He shook his head.

“Why should I?”

“Cause you said so.”

“Oh little humans, how they will believe anything you tell them.”

I was being betrayed, not a big surprise, but contrary to what I thought I would be feeling I was actually angry.

“Just do it.”

“Or what?”

“I’ll be disappointed.”

“Is that a threat?” A black tentacle pierces through my heart. “I’m a destroyer of worlds. How dare you threaten me.” I look down at the tentacle piercing my chest and shrug.

“Called it.” Where my last words as my vision faded.

I felt a cold lump on my chest. Like the coolness of a pillow. I opened my eyes. There Kree was on my chest. I sat right up. Grabbing her and shaking her awake. Her eyes opened and I hugged her tight. She ran her palm down my back. “Kree you’re okay?” I asked her. Looking down at her body. “Yes, Kree fine.”

I checked my surroundings. I was in my room back on Earth. Everything was exactly how I left it except for the blond haired blue eyes girl in a toga. “Who are you?” I asked. She smiled. “I am the Goddess Eris.” I racked my braid for who that was. “From the battle of Troy. You Threw the golden apple. Greek goddess of chaos and discord.” She smiled and covered her mouth with her hand. “A fan of me?”

“Why are you here? Why am I here?”

“Well, I’ve been watching you. Through Hiro of course”

“Who?”

“The white knight.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, your goals overlapped with mine and you accomplished the goal before I could. Figured you should be due for a reward.” She was the trickster archetype. I knew that this wouldn’t be free.

“The catch?”

“Try to use the dark god’s power.”

I tried to summon the gun that I was using back on the other planet. To my surprise it actually came to my hand.

“Ol snakey boi now knows that your planet exists.”

“What a clever way to spread chaos.”

She winks. “I know right.” With that she faded.

I laid down in bed and held Kree tight. The emotions that I had ignored came flooding back to me, but I kept them away from manifesting. I looked back at that week long trip from Earth and had only one thought.

“What a fucking dues Ex Machina, and stupid sequal bait, but atleast I have Kree with me.”