“There was so much blood…” Arthur muttered as Filantriam patted him on the back. They walked together at a slow pace down the curving hallways. They were moving slowly because the old and significantly powerful mage was leading them. “It was two hundred levels higher than me dude.” Filantriam tilted his head “What does ‘dude’ mean?” Arthur shook his head. Not knowing how to explain it grammatically correctly. “Uhh.. it’s like saying ‘buddy.’”Arthur said. That just made Filantriam more confused. “That is an adventurer term. It’s slang for a party member.” The warlock informed. Arthur wondered about that. There were so many recognizable elements from his world but they all seemed oddly out of place. The small group approached a section of bookshelves that seemed to resemble every other shelf in the library. The old woman lifted her cane and banged it hard against the thick wooden shelving. And Arthur got a notification he wasn’t expecting.

Castien Fitrock has cast

Major Mental Shield

A moment of silence later, the section suddenly swung inward; revealing a moderately sized office and an elf with deep tan skin and a surprisingly wide build, His hair was a deep green that would blend well into a forested setting. Arthur was starting to notice a trend of male elves having absolutely no facial hair to speak of. He wore a simple yet elegant set of blue robes that seemed standard for the library staff. Or the clergy of this church depending on the perspective. “Miss Petal, what brings you to my office.” He smiled politely in a way that Arthur could tell was just slightly strained. He turned his head and glanced at Arthur and Filantriam. At the same time, Arthur did a double take at the scary old lady, who was also wearing deep blue robes. “Petal?” he didn’t attempt to hide his thoughts since he knew she could read him. Arthur thought that name was way too soft to be attached to someone so powerful. Luckily for him at the moment he was being ignored.

“Hello Castien, I need you to do some explaining for me.” She pressed the head of her staff into Arthurs's midsection to indicate him; causing Arthur to take a half step back as a cold sweat affected his forehead. He had seen the giant magic laser beam that had shot out of that staff before and couldn’t help imagining the effect of that kind of power on his tiny body. “Tell this one how the world works, and how his familiar contract functions. “Of course Mistress. Making your life easier makes all of our lives easier.” He grimaced just the smallest amount at his own words. “It will take a lot of explaining, especially someone that is an alien to this world.”

Arthur tilted his head “How’d you know I was not from here?”

Castien nodded slowly “The same way you had confirmation you were in a different world.” Arthur spaced out as he thought about it. “Observation skills?” Arthur asked. The Elf rubbed at his eyes. “Your blessing. Dimension Hopper.” Castien replied in disappointment “Ohhhh.” Arthur exclaimed as he realized how obvious it was. Clergy of the church would be able to see blessings granted by their own god. Castien stepped aside and gestured for him to enter his office. To Arthur’s surprise, all four people stepped into the office before the shelf-door swung shut again. There were two simple wooden chairs in front of an elegant desk completely covered in papers and writing tools. Behind the desk on the other hand was a beautifully cushioned chair with a tall back, a wide seat, and comfortable-looking armrests. In the corner, Arthur recognized a recliner of all things. It looked exactly like what his grandma used to sit on, just with a more fancy floral pattern. It even had a wooden handle on one side to kick up a footrest. Petal walked over to the recliner and gently sat on it, pulling up on the handle and kicking her short legs up. Allowing Filantriam and Arthur to sit in the regular chairs as Castien took his seat. Suddenly Casper floated out of his chest and to his surprise floated over to Petal. The old lady chuckled and held out her arms to accept the small dog.

Petal Windpatoar has

cast Phantasmal Touch

“I know what you are doing puppy; come on then.” Petal muses as Casper lands on her lap and thus gets petted by her wrinkled hands. Strands of glowing mana started lifting off Petal and attaching to Casper. Instead of taking from the animal some form of magic seemed to slowly seep into the ghost dog. Arthur turned back to Castien who had also been watching the interaction between his boss and the dog in confusion. “Anyway, Arthur.” Castien turned to him. “You are now on Earth. Welcome to our world!” lifting his arms wide, Arthur scowled hard at that.

“Earth?” Arthur said in confusion.

“I know it must be difficult, everything must be so impossibly different from your world that I couldn’t even imagine.” Arthur clammed up for a second as he tried to work things out in his head.

“My world was also called Earth.” Arthur revealed.

Castien was a little taken aback. “Truly? Let’s do a test.” Castien grabbed a blank note card from his desk and rapidly wrote a few words on it, sliding it over to Arthur who looked at it. It was a short phrase that seemed like weirdly garbled English lettering. Every word looked like the pronunciation guide in a dictionary. He felt extremely embarrassed by his next words. Ever since he had come to this new world he had an overwhelming feeling of new strength and freedom. Arthur hated that in this fantasy world full of mystery and intrigue; he would be an illiterate adult. “I can’t read it.” Arthur said sullenly.

He did what he always did in a moment of stress and sadness. Arthur pulled out a cigarette from his bag and attempted to light it. Castien scowled at him as the flint failed over and over again to produce a flame. Arthur then noticed the large, flat sign on the wall with the depiction of a flame and a big bright blue cross stamping it out

. “Anyway, Sir Tyson.” Arthur raised an eyebrow at the elf. He put a lilt on some of his words that reminded him of Vulwin. Arthur hoped that passive-aggressive snark wasn’t universal in the elvish race; though he knew he'd be a hypocrite for calling it out. “You are lucky in quite a few ways. Firstly, you are not the first person from your world here.”

Arthur beamed unexpectedly. “You mean there are others who were swapped? Does that mean you know how it happened? Do you know how to send me back?!” Excitement spurred him to almost shout his questions and move. Arthur stood out of his chair halfway before Castien gestured for him to sit back down. “Sadly, it’s nowhere near that simple.” The Scholarly elf frowned and held his hands together on his desk. “To be honest, we aren’t exactly clear on the details ourselves. You are only the fourth dimension hopper we know of in all of our recorded history.”

Arthur paused and slowly sat back down into the chair with slightly wide eyes locked solely on Castien, which concerned the scholar with its intensity. “And how far back does that history go?” Castien uncrossed his fingers and tapped them against the desk, a focused expression on his face. “How many days are in your yearly calendar?“ Castien asked. Arthur responded automatically without hesitation. “Three hundred and sixty-five, I think.” Arthur knew he wasn’t the brightest boy in his time in school, having been focused on sports and being the best athlete possible. For that same reason, he made sure he got decent grades and absorbed all the relatively useless information that the public school system was more than willing to teach. He had always wanted that sports scholarship, and did everything in his power to achieve it at the time. Arthur started grinding his teeth together as he thought about the past.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Arthur flinched when Castien spoke and brought him back into the conversation. “This is a rough estimate of how long written history has existed on our earth.” He pushed forward another small notecard with a number on it. Arthur squinted at the piece of paper and the long line of numbers. “Over a billion years!?” Arthur yelped as a book struck him in the back of the head. The heavy book slapped against the floor and Petal shouted in the way only cranky old ladies had the capacity for. “Keep your voice quiet in my presence, fool!” Arthur grimaced and looked back as the old woman kept petting his dog after assaulting him with knowledge. He just turned back to Castien since no form of retaliation was anywhere near viable.

“Are people from different universes a new thing?” Arthur asked. Castien nodded slowly, not so much in agreement as contemplation. “Relatively speaking. You are only the fourth recorded interdimensional being we know of. One was tens of thousands of years in the past, another was about five hundred years in the past, and the last was sixty-eight years ago. From what we’ve gathered, the way these beings traveled to our world, who they were, and what they did were all completely different.”

Arthur chewed on the cigarette at his lips. “That’s not very helpful.” a moment of silence passed before Arthur unintentionally interrupted Castien as another thought sprung to his mind. He almost shouted the first word, then cut himself off before the old mage threw another book at him. Arthur spoke quietly. “Am I not a human anymore?” Castien waved his hands in the air like he was clearing away smoke.

“No, no. You are probably just a Variant human now. You’ll almost certainly see some kind of skill relating to your soul traveling across the infinite void when you… settle in.” Arthur stared hard at the elf. “If I came one way can’t I switch to my old body? Swap again?” Castien shook his head slowly. “We don’t believe we’ll be able to find a way before you cross the point of no return. I seriously doubt you’d be comfortable putting your life in the hands of people who would experiment with it. To be completely honest, you would probably get evaporated in an experimental ritual before we’d ever be capable of that.”

Arthur consciously stopped himself from grinding his teeth, at least the guy was being utterly honest with him. “Yeah … that doesn’t sound very efficient.” He sunk into his chair. He tilted his head back and looked blankly into the ceiling of the office as he tried to push his feelings down into his gut. Filantriam shifted in his seat and spoke up, reminding Arthur that he was still there. “I’m surprised this scenario doesn't happen more regularly.” Castien nodded in agreement with the Warlock. “The world is warded against many different forms of magic. After the first dimension hopper, the Great Mage put up safeguards against hostile forms of teleportation. Though obviously, no ward is perfect.” Gesturing towards the brooding berserker.

“That makes sense, also he did get here in a very specific way.” Filantraim rubbed his hands together as he always did when thinking about magic. “I only have a very basic understanding of souls, but they store information in a way, correct?” Castien smiled slightly “Absolutely. And I know what you’re thinking.” Arthur at the moment was rubbing at his eyes and trying not to break a tooth, and not truly paying attention to the conversation. Overwhelmed by the knowledge there is no easy way back. Castien continued speaking to Filantriam after seeing that Arthur required a moment. "The brain and the soul are connected in ways not even we have a full understanding of yet. The fact that Arthur can function at all can only mean that he, to Atreus, is what we call a ‘parallel version.’” Filantriam paused hard at that. His mind quickly filed the information away and brought conclusions to the forefront. Conclusions that the young warlock wasn’t sure he was comfortable with.“Does that mean there are versions of everyone on this separate earth? Could anyone who has a living parallel version be swapped?”

Castien shrugged to Filantriams surprise. At that moment some genuine worry was expressed in the elf’s tone as he responded. “We think so, but it’s not at all confirmed. We hope that in monitoring Arthur, we can at least get ahead of the issue if it starts happening regularly.” Arthur refocused when he heard those words. “Monitor me?” he questioned. Arthur went still as a text box appeared in his vision. This text box seemed different in a few key ways, including the larger lettering at the top and the way it stretched uncomfortably across Arthur’s vision in a way that took up all of his attention.

Quest

“Save my brain!”

You will soon experience soul-body recoil, you must find help

before perishing from the backlash.

Your only hope is to find people that have mastery over

both soul magic and mental magic.

Current objective: Visit the church of madness

Overall goal: Survive

Arthur almost scoffed out loud at the juvenile name of the quest prompt. The paranoid side of Arthur refrained from telling Castien that he had just gotten a quest, even though he didn’t have a good reason to keep it to himself. As he willed the text box to go away, Arthur squinted his eyes at Castien. “I hope that doesn’t involve keeping me here against my will.”

Castien sighed and shook his head. “As much as I would enjoy it, we are not allowed to do anything against your wishes. We have to follow an ethical doctrine.” Arthur felt relieved at that, then Castien continued. “I can make you a variety of offers however. If you won’t stay here, would you consider wearing a ring that allows us to monitor the magic in your body?” Arthur shrugged “Do I get anything for it? Does the ring do anything else?” he was a bit suspicious of being given a magic item that was simply to watch him. “It doesn’t spy on you, young man. It only tracks how the magic flows in your body. If you desire we can put a low level enchantment on it, but nothing more would fit alongside the monitoring spell.” Castien explained. “I wouldn’t mind that, I guess.” Arthur replied tiredly. “Can you get it ready for me while I do other things?”Castien agreed and then gave Arthur a stack of blank paper and well made charcoal pencils. “Use these to learn common speak. Casper should be able to teach you.” Arthur blinked at Castien. “My dog?” Arthur asked. Castien then looked at him like he had asked the weird question. “Casper is about four times more intelligent than you are.” Arthur scowled but in confusion rather than anger. He glanced over to Casper, who nodded in agreement with Castien. The berserker remembered that Casper actually had displayed a lot of smarts in the small time they had spent together and quickly got a hold of himself. Before he realized something

“Wait did I rename a person!?” He flinched hard and looked back. He was ready to dodge a book but relaxed when he saw Petal sleeping and drooling onto her expensive robes.Castien shook his head when Arthur turned around. “I don’t think Casper had a name before you met them, and it wouldn't be their name if they didn't accept it.” Arthur relaxed when he heard that. Then a stray thought jumped to the forefront of his mind. He willed a certain status screen to appear.

Afflictions:

Soul-Body Recoil

Brain damage: -6% focus

New Eyes: -5% accuracy

New Hands: -5% accuracy

New Legs: -10% tenacity

35 hours 47 minutes 38 seconds

until full backlash occurs

“I need to get moving, I don’t have much time to figure something out.” Castien shrugged and stood to bow slightly. “It won’t take very long to get you the ring. We’ll have a courier take it to you. Besides the added enchantment, we will owe you a debt for allowing this.” Castien put on a serious expression that seemed practiced to Arthur. He shrugged and stood out of his chair. “I’ll hold you to that if I think of a favor.” Arthur waved to Casper who floated away from the sleeping mage back to him.

As soon as Casper was back in Arthur’s hands Castien spoke up and started weaving his hands through the air in a way Arthur recognized as some kind of spell. He himself knew how to cast a single spell, but absorbing the spell book had allowed him to do it intuitively. Somehow he knew at that moment that if he were to truly learn the spell it would be a completely different experience. Instead of studying step by step all the details had been suffused into his muscle memory. He Felt it was an uncanny thing being able to make his hands glow red hot without truly understanding how he could do it.

Castien spoke again, taking Arthur away from his thoughts. “Remember to trust Casper! It’s their job to protect you!” Then all of the sudden Arthur and Filantraim teleported to an empty space in front of the church. The horrible disorientation that happened when he was teleported overtook him and Arthur stumbled. The warlock whipped his head back towards the church and huffed. “Why’d he teleport me out too? I knew he didn’t like me!” Filantriam complained.

Casper floated down to street level as Arthur choked down his nausea and complained about it. “How can I feel so sick and so hungry at the same time?”The warlock suddenly poked Arthur’s shoulder then spoke, making two people so far that seemed to think poking someone was a socially acceptable way to show annoyance. “Before anything we need to take you to the bank. There is no safe way to carry that much money on yourself.” Arthur shrugged and considered the situation. He might die, but he also wanted to enjoy being rich in the time he did have. So the Berserker, White-Warlock, and Phantasmal canine named Casper walked back towards the bank together.