The first thing Gunther noticed when he woke up was a horrible headache. It felt like someone had decided to hit him on the head with a hammer for hours on end for some stupid reason. Suddenly, he heard a deep voice. The man sounded like he was really excited about something.
“We’ve finally done it! We’ve finally created a true homunculus!”
That was when he noticed, he was definitely not laying in his own comfortable bed. He felt a cold surface underneath him. It was too flat to be the ground and definitely too hard to be meant for someone to lie on. He tried to move, but found that his limbs were bound tight to whatever he was laying on.
“Looks like it’s awake.” Sounded a second, feminine voice.
‘It? I’m definitely a he, not an it!’ Gunther thought, while trying to open his eyes.
After some struggle, he managed to do exactly that. He was blinded by the bright light for some time and his already painful headache became downright torturous because of it. When he finally got used to the light, he saw that he was in a room reminiscent of a surgery room. A lot of strange devices and tools were positioned around him. They didn’t seem like anything he had ever seen before. Some of the tools were glowing, while others consisted of several pieces floating around each other.
‘That shouldn’t even be possible! How do they not just fall to the ground, as they should, according to the laws of physics?’ The more he thought about it, the less it made sense. He decided to worry about this another time, since he wouldn’t get anywhere by just staring at a random tool, however impossible that tool might seem. Gunther was sure there was a logical explanation for it, but first he had to inspect his surroundings more thoroughly. He noticed eight or so people stood around him, looking at him excitedly. They wore dark robes and were whispering to each other excitedly.
“It truly appears self aware!”
“It seems like we really managed to create a soul!”
“Look at how confused it is, must be strange to suddenly be pulled into existence.”
‘What were they talking about, created a soul? I’m just a guy from England.’
‘Now that I think about it, how did I even get here in the first place?’
That was when he remembered the accident. Gunther had just been crossing the street, too busy thinking about all the work he needed to get done to look where he was going. Then sudden, blinding lights and then, nothing.
‘Was that a car? Have I died?!’ he thought, ‘But that’s impossible, I’m still here, right?’
‘But these people, they seem to think they created me...’ Considering some of the impossible tools and the weird robes, he couldn’t exclude the possibility that he wasn’t on Earth anymore, as impossible as it might seem.
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“Silence!” Before he could think about it some more, a powerful voice sounded through the room. That one word seemed to be enough to make everyone shut up almost immediately.
‘This guy must either be the most powerful one here, or the leader. Or both.’ Gunther thought.
“Now that it looks like we have created a true homunculus, we have to run some tests to make sure.”
‘Tests? They want to run experiments on me?’ He tried to say something, but he noticed his mouth was gagged. The men and women all walked closer to him, while the apparent leader raised his hands. Gunther looked on in horror as he noticed the man didn’t seem to have any skin or muscles. The guy was a living skeleton! By now it was abundantly clear that Gunther wasn’t on Earth anymore, or alternatively, that there was a whole part of Earth he hadn’t known of until now. Though he doubted the second possibility, modern technology making it way too hard to hide something big, like the existence of magic.
Unfortunately, he had other things to worry about than the question of where exactly he was. Namely, the translucent green sphere slowly floating towards him from the hands of the lich. Gunther struggled against his constraints in a desperate attempt to get away from the orb, but in the end it was useless. The orb hit him and an indescribable pain wrecked through his entire body, it seemed as if his very existence was under attack. He tried to scream, but his mouth was still gagged, probably for this very purpose he realised.
“As you all can see, Soul Strike seems to get quite a strong response from the it. This certainly is compelling evidence, since none of our former attempts seemed to notice anything, but it is not anything conclusive just yet.” Said the leader, after Gunther stopped thrashing against his restraints. “Let us run some more tests, any suggestions?”
That was the beginning of some of the most painful moments of Gunther's life. After hours of tests, paused only to heal him in order to make sure he wouldn’t die, something unexpected happened.
“We’ve found their lair!” A voice sounded from above, “It’s protected from scrying, so I can’t see what’s inside, but considering no one lives around here, this should be it.”
‘Are they here to rescue me? Who even are they?’ Gunther thought.
“Shit, The Order is here!” One of the necromancers exclaimed. Everyone seemed to panic at that. Before things could get out of hand however, the leader intervened. “Stay calm! It will take them some time to get through our wards. We should have enough time to escape. Take all the research you can and get to the teleportation altar, leave the subject.”
“What? After all we went through to create it you just want to leave it?!” Someone said.
“Fool!” The leader exclaimed, “Do you really think it will just come with us after what we just put it through. Our lives are worth more than just-”
Whatever else he wanted to say was cut off when the ceiling collapsed. Sunlight streamed in from above and Gunther noticed what looked like paladins jump inside. They immediately attacked the necromancers with hammers and some sort of light spells. The necromancers didn’t just give up however and the attacks were deflected by invisible shields surrounding them. What followed was a chaotic battle in which all kinds of spells and attacks were thrown around. Gunther feared for his life, as he felt like any stray attack could kill him instantly. The necromancers were at a disadvantage however and in the end only the paladins remained standing.
“You think they are dead?” Asked one of them.
“Don’t think so.” Responded another, “Those necromancers always seem to have a way of not staying dead like they should. Maybe we got one or two of them though.” After having said that, he turned to Gunther and mumbled “What do we have here then…”