Dennis was currently hiding in the dungeons of the castle. He was hiding behind the cage of the peculiar man. Still unconscious, but now wearing rags instead of the blue armor he used to wear. He had a terrible night, tossing and turning as his thoughts were filled with images of things he’s never thought of before. So he buries it down, deep, deep, deep down. In a hole in his subconscious mind, somewhere far away from here.
Maybe if he ignores it, it would go away some day. He kept thinking of his friend. His laughter that would ring like a wind chime. His smile that would always keep him safe. His..lips, soft and gentle. His eyes, pools of darkness that would seem like the night sky filled with twinkling stars. His..pink..
STOP!
He was walking a dangerous path. He almost thought of inappropriate things about his best friend. He wasn’t like that, he wasn’t so...crude and shallow. He needed to act like a good friend. What in the world was he thinking.
Sigh. Why did I start having these thoughts.
Dennis buried his head in his hands. He felt so vulnerable, so strange. Like something had power over him. He was starting to regret doing the ritual.
Suddenly a groan was heard. Some clinking of metal and a yawn. The man in rags imprisoned in a cage started to stir. It woke up and stared directly at Dennis.
Both their eyes connecting, making the seconds longer than they should. Time stood still and the air charged with energy, something that bent reality to the will of the two people in front of each other.
Dennis was readied several spells in the backgroud, spells that FILLED the air with possibility.
The ragged man felt that his armor is gone, along with the several artifacts that La Hire pilfered. In less than a fraction of a second, the man threw the first punch.
“WRACK AND RUIN”
The man said and his eyes shone. He looked to the side of his vision just briefly, which was all the indication that Dennis needed to say that he was a system wielder.
The place filled with the promise of calamity and disasters that spread beyond any hope for repair. The walls of the dungeon fractured and space cracked, it’s foundations peeling off.
Dennis quickly filled the cracks with ice. He gave the ice with the property to entomb whatever was inside it. He tried to touch the man to fill his mind with useless thoughts of patterns and momentarily incapacitate him, but he was too quick and destroyed his hand into squelching flesh and shards of bone.
Dennis’s eyes hardened and filled his nerves with neurotransmitters, flooding and flushing the pain away. He filled the space with what used to be his hand with a new one, quickly returning it to function.
He needed to get a little creative.
He FILLED the air outside his lungs with stone, concrete, earth, and dirt. It flooded the airways of the man in rags. The man retaliated by bringing calamity around him, turning the surrounding matter to a tempest of sand and colliding matter.
--1st ANIMACRAFT: ASTRAL FORM--
Dennis’s body turned ghost like, making his body intangible and temporarily immune to the man’s peculiar ability. The he touched his mind and directly FILLED him with sleep. The man’s mind was getting slower, their mind foggy, their body losing it’s grip. The ragged man was then greeted with slumber.
Well that was quick. Better get Wyatt here and ‘interview’ this guy. Hmmm, maybe get Charles here too for good measure.
------------------------------------
His name was ‘Tower’, he was part of a group called the arcana. A secret organization that’s composed of otherworlders, regressors, reincarnators, aliens, and other isekai stuff. He was one of those things, particularly a transmigrator.
The original owner of this body was an extra named Carper Glass, from a Novel he read one day. So he woke up and had his soul merge with the original owner of the body. And now he was one half Carper Glass and one half Yancy Cornman, yes that is his real name.
He somehow got into the dungeon of the literally unbeatable BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy). They were literally unbeatable in the book, the protagonist simply gave up pursuing them at some point when they got to the 13th book. He got lost because of a mishap in the fairy teleportation spell, now he’s somewhere in the death empire.
Two of the five BBEG’s were guarding his cage right now playing a game that approximated to this worlds version of scrabble.
“Nice I got 13 points!” The roachkin says as he swallows another egg.
Yancy knows this character as the most grotesque character he’s ever read of. Charles was a character that brought zombie plagues, flesh floods, a lot of vile transformations, and worst of all the pregnancy spell. The pregnancy spell was almost exclusively used on men, making them give birth to centipede babies and half-humans. Honestly it freaked him out looking at the giant roach remain anywhere in his vicinity.
The bronze skinned woman however was a character that was pretty famous in the fandom, a real fan favorite. He even had all the seasonal limited figurines of her. She was Judith, the burning lotus, the one who ascended, the one who beat up the protagonist, and the character who gave herself up to one of the main characters. She was a part of a very tragic yuri plot line with the heroine in the book. She was a closeted lesbian who compensated by being very homophobic at first before forgetting everything she went through with the female MC.
He sighs, how the hell did he lose so easily? He even saw his level decreasing somehow. Well he supposes Judith could do that. Her character had the ability to bleed anything.
This just pisses him off. Even if he’s momentarily incapacitated, he likes to think he’s pretty strong. Strong enough to escape at least.
When I get out of here, I’ll show them the wrath of Yancy Cornman!
While he was in the middle of his inner monologue, two figures suddenly appeared beside him. A rat kin put his hand around his neck, then a batkin put his hand on his head.
How...how the hell did they get there? He was still pretending to be unconscious. Something doesn’t add up. Didn’t he fight Den’nishash Gahlor a while ago? Why was he resting in the cage guarded by two of the most powerful beings ever. What the hell did they do? What the hell do they know?
“Hehe, so your a transmigrator. So a being from another narrative scale came here, well doesn’t that sound dangerous. What do you think dear Emperor?” Wyattezvahan was had bubbles appear outside his vision.
The friggin Emperor was standing in his cell, a last boss among last bosses. He really really needs to get out of this place right now.
“Ho-how...”
“I think at this point you already understand what we are capable of dear Carper, or should I say Yancy Cornman.” Den’nishash Gahlor said exuding an icy cold aura. “You know Tower, you would’ve been a real hassle to deal with, given your rather calamitous proclivities. Honestly I could just dominate your soul and enslave you for all eternity, turning you as a weapon against that group you’re in. But that would leave a bad taste in my mouth, instead why don’t we reach a mutually beneficial agreement.” The ratkin said with a mirth and calmness that showed he was accustomed to things like this.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
They all laughed at him. He couldn’t help but blush. He could release a calamity here and probably distract them long enough to message the others. No, that’s not enough, not with these people.
Fuck
He looked at each of them, hoping to find out what they did to him. He was wracking his brain out, he didn’t want to be here, he didn’t want to be in such a terrible, vulnerable position.
“Hmm, it looks like you’re curious about what we did. Well why don’t we just tell you?” The batkin spoke, snapping their neck till it popped. The five simply glanced at each other and sighed in unison.
“I guess you’re right.” Judith said.
“Well might as well get comfortable while doing it then.” The slime gurgled.
Tower stared at that, surprised at the sudden release of tension.
The five beings calmed down and sat around him, like how a child would get surrounded to blow out candles on their birthday. Only this time, it was filled
Judith just bled from a moment to the next and simply sat down to a spot in the cell near where he was. She took out a pipe from somewhere and smoked, bleeding out the stress and strain of everybody inside the smoke cloud.
La Hire reached into the air and transmuted it to make a stack of metal playing cards, complete with marks and numbers. They also made a table out of literally thin air.
Charles made the very ground into life creating grotesque pulsing chairs and a bowl of fruit that just wouldn’t stop throbbing. They were slick and moist, while glowing with a warm ominous light.
Tower wanted to hurl after witnessing a hand-brick-abomination thing sprout from the ground and touch him.
Oh my God!
“Well up you go!” Three fleshy tentacles, wet with moisture, lifted him up and sat him on the wet pulsing chair. He wanted to cry.
The batkin simply made a buble in the middle of his pinky and index finger and launched it. Sound, and light, and many other senses disappeared outside the area it engulfed effectively cutting them out from the world.
The Emperor simply sat on the chair next to him, his pecs slightly knocking the table. The big dark-furred ratkin was taller than him and could easily bisect him with a thought. The ratkin took out a piece of paper and a pen and smiled at him.
At this point his mind was bouncing from panic attack to stoner chill, on account of the smoke that forced him to relax.
The woman sighed and spoke first.
“I bled the shifted through your memories out and selected what to share with the others. You and I are gonna have a long talk after this, hmm” She said while leaning to the table. She started cutting the metal cards and folded them to neat stacks. She repeated this one more time with a grace and precision unbefitting of the situation he was in right now. Then she began dealing cards to everyone in the table.
Then the emperor spoke, a regal, deep timbre that allured others to submission.
“I filled the gaps in your memories so that you wouldn’t suspect anything even if you forgot large chunks of your memory. I filled your doubt so that you would be confident enough to reveal your thoughts. Don’t worry though, we’ll return everything back to normal later.” He picked up a metal card and smiled in tower’s direction.
Then the batkin spoke next.
“I wrapped you in a bubble so that you wouldn’t suspect our prodding and poking around. Honestly you probably know a lot of my abilities since you spent a lot of time in those powerscaling websites. Haha, that’s interesting really, you people and your inventions of an internet and computers really intrigue me. I wonder if we could trick rocks into thinking here too.” His eyes directly met his and he felt a chill on his back.
The roachkin spoke next.
“Well that’s ridiculous, wouldn’t it be better to make a flesh golem instead? I already made a spatial neural linked set of golems, maybe we can make biological computers instead. Pffft rocks thinking” Then he began eating the throbbing fruit.
His mandibles pierced the flesh and he saw blood trickle out. He looked closer and the fruit’s skin started to a bit fleshy and hairy. The part bitten off had little speckles of white and lots of red. Then he saw it, something so small that wouldn’t normally be seen if you weren’t looking for it. A skull, a miniature skull, no larger than a tooth lodged inside the fruit arranged in the way a seed would have been in.
The fruit was alive.
The roachkin saw him staring and smiled.
“Me, well I kept you alive, preventing you from dying. I must say you gave me a lot of really fun ideas. I really did those things did i? Hehehe”
Judith rolled her eyes.
“Stop scaring the poor boy Charles. Look he’s shivering already, he looks like he’s about ready to piss himself.”
“Ooop sorry” The roachkin waved his hands and the fruit became grapes instead.
Tower closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Calm down. Calm down. He opened his eyes and faced the slimekin.
Everyone followed his eyes and stared at the slime too.
“Me? Well I just stole your stuff. I don’t really care about that levels of reality or story thing.” The slime said, voice gurgling.
“Gods damned it La Hire give the poor boy his stuff back.” The emperor said.
The slime moved in an approximation of a shrug.
“No..”
“What do you mean no? We should give the transmigrator his stuff, it’s probably important or something.”
“No..”
“Look it’s not yours, you just picked it off of the guy when he was unconscious. Frankly I should’ve asked permission to when I sapped him.”
Tower raised his eyebrow and looked at the ratkin.
The ratkin proceeded to look away, scratching his head.
“Finders keepers” The slime gurgled.
The ratkin massaged his temples and sighed.
“Sorry man, we probably cant take back your stuff anymore. If La Hire took it, he’s never gonna give it back.”
“Heh” The slimekin wiggled and shifted, sitting down on the living chair.
He could’ve sworn the featureless green slime thing just smirked.
The ratkin waved a finger and filled all his locks and restraints, jamming it and letting him free. Tower rubbed his wrists and looked wearily at the four people around him.
“Look, we don’t mean you any harm. We just need some help is all.” The ratkin presented a piece of parchment with markings and etchings that felt painful to look at and forced anyone to read and understand it’s contents.
A soul contract.
It explained that they would not hurt him intentionally, in exchange for information freely given by him.
“Boy, we could easily make you our slave for all eternity. If we wanted to do so, we wouldn’t even give you the option of a soul contract. We really mean it when we say that all we want to do is talk.” Judith said, exhaling another puff of smoke.
Do I really have an option?
With that he wrote his name and felt chains reach in to his very being and bind him and everyone around him.
I hope I don’t regret this.
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After the long Q & A session, Judith asked to talk with the boy privately. They went to a small room filled with books, maps, and old dreams. Judith wasn’t smoking a pipe this time and sat on a wooden chair directly across the table from Tower.
“So...”
Judith stared at the boy with glowing fiery irises that seemed to penetrate and butcher the very soul it laid itself upon.
“You know about my secret.” She said in a cold voice.
Tower visibly shrank at the syllables of the words uttered. It was like a pressure that could shatter the very firmament of the earth fell down upon him, restricting his movement, restricting his senses. A drop of sweat traveled down his forehead and into the table in front of him.
He wanted to cry.
He did not know what she was talking about. He did not know a damned thing about secrets.
“You know...”
What do I know?! I don’t have any Idea what you’re talking about lady!
“....that I like girls.” Judith buried her head in her hands.
Huh?
“It’s true! *sniff* I’m a.... I’m a lesbian!” The intimidating woman started to cry. She was bawling her eyes out, snot traveling out of her nose and covered her mouth.
“I wish I was never born. I wish I was never like this. I’m so abnormal.” She started pushing the maps and books out of the table, making a huge mess on the floor. She wailed and banged her head on the table, guilt and shame filling her heart.
Tower wrinkled his forehead.
What the hell is he supposed to do in this situation.
“Hey, hey, hey It’s alright.” He reached in and patted at the shoulder of the crying woman.
It was one of the most awkward things in his life. Probably one of his top three, along with public speaking and him confessing to a girl in high school.
“It-it’s pretty normal. That’s a normal thing. Tons of people in our world are lesbians, some even get married.” He attempted to comfort the woman who could easily delete him from existence.
“Really?”
“Yeah..” Tower was sweating buckets.
“*Sniff* Sorry for bleeding your memories by the way. I made sure to only bleed a tiny bit.” Judith calmed down a bit.
“About the lesbians in your world...” Judith said in a tiny voice, still sniffling.
“Hmm?”
“...they don’t get ostracized or hated do they?” Judith asked, ink and pieces of paper mixed into her snot ridden face.
“No, lesbians are actually celebrated and coupled in popular media” He half-lied right through his teeth. He’s desperate for anything that would help him survive at this point.
Judith rubbed her snot filled nose with her sleeves and smiled. Puffy eyes and unkempt hair still withstanding.
“Then will you let me meet her? The heroine I mean.” The grown woman blushed, fidgeting her fingers.
“She was really pretty...” Judith looked down, embarrassed.
Gods help me