[Player Log Start!]

[Log Holder: Asadullah Khan]

[Level: 2 (Sub-Level)]

[! Log Translated From Urdu !]

He woke up feeling different.

It was a stark contrast from how he had fallen asleep, though the circumstances of that were still foggy in his mind. Something must have happened, though he wasn’t sure what. He just felt… cold. Like a massive heat source he had been wrapped in was now pulled out from underneath his skin. Though the temperature difference was stark, that was not where the changes ended.

His hearing was impeded by something. And his sense of direction was all off. As if the sound was not traveling through the ears perched on top of his head, but rather somehow drilling in through the sides of his skull.

Asadullah felt weak, like all his limbs were made of jelly, and the light was too bright for his eyes, yet still he fought to bring his hand up to his head, scratching at whatever blockage was surely affecting his ears-

A hand closed over flattened hair, no ears coming in his grasp.

He felt it out more thoroughly, ruffling his hair to see if somehow he had managed to let it grow out to the point that he had simply lost them in there. But it was a lost cause. His ears were gone.

Cautiously, his hand went down to rub at the side of his head, where the little sounds he could hear were coming from, and he met curved cartilage and skin, on both sides. When he covered both of the appendages, the sounds surrounding him became even more muted, so they were definitely ears. Real, human ears.

He pulled himself up in a fit of panic, struggling to balance from the lack of movement his legs had done recently, and also because his tail was missing. His tail was missing. He had been walking with his tail for more than a decade now, how had this happened, what was he supposed to do without it-?

“Hey, Asad.” The words etched into his vision, even as his breath was cement in his lungs. Seeing them there reassured him, almost. Magic hadn’t suddenly been wiped from reality. He was still in the Game. And to prove that, he looked up to see Tench, the medical student staring at him worriedly. Though he looked slightly less worried now that Asadullah was reacting to his words, “Oh, good, you’re responding. I wasn’t sure how the detransformation would affect you.”

“D-Detransformation?” He repeated, latching onto the offer of answers that Tench could provide to him. He put his hand up slightly, trying to shield his eyes from the light as he asked, “What happened to me?”

Except when he made that motion, he noticed the distinct lack of weight and glitter coming from his bangles. It was just his bare arm, with a thin outline of the bangles etched into his skin, wrapped with bandages. He looked at it, downcast, flexing his arm a little as if reality would somehow change, “Oh.”

“Yeah, the bangles broke.”

“And everything is… not on fire.” He noted, making sure to look out of the window to check, even though he was used to his pupils shrinking automatically to not get blinded by daylight. But everything seemed to be intact. Delica was still as perfect as ever. It didn’t make any sense. The djinn had escaped his hold. Everything should be in flames right now. He asked, hopefully, “Did it… not get out?”

“Oh, it got out.” Tench shook his head, “But it was tiny. I think the explanation it gave was that it was so starved and reliant on your power that it didn’t have any of its own? I was a bit preoccupied at the time because you were still bleeding out.”

Asadullah rubbed a hand over the bandages. So it wasn’t used to the outside. That gave them some time to contain it again, if they could fix the bangle set in time…

“Where is the djinn?” He asked, under the assumption that it could at least be seen.

“Oh, Terry’s entertaining it.” Tench replied, casually. As if he wasn’t admitting to putting Terry in incredible danger. Asadullah twisted to the door in a panic, nearly tripping over his feet as he rushed out.

“TERRY?” He called, half throwing himself to the banister.

“Hey, calm down, he’s okay.” Tench followed him, easily picking him up and wrestling him away from the stairs, “And if this is what you’re like on level ground, I don’t think you’re ready to face the stairs, buddy.”

“He’s right, dude.” Terry agreed, walking out from the kitchen to the bottom of the stairs. He looked relatively unharmed. Normal, even, if it wasn’t for the string of black sprawled over his right shoulder that looked almost like one of his more harmless fungal experiments. But fungal experiments did not have eyes.

Terry put a hand on his hip calmly, unaffected by the thing he was carrying, “You worried?” He asked, grinning, “Babur said you would be.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“You gave it a name?” He asked, struggling to come to terms with this reality he had woken up in, short a tail, a pair of ears, and the role that had defined him for years. If losing Mira was bad enough… there was nothing left for him now.

“More like I picked it out myself.” The djinn told him, glowing eyes scrunching up into a smile. Its voice was sharp, fuzzy in his head, though it had no mouth to speak with.

Asadullah growled, but it didn’t have the same gravitas when he had his more animalistic traits.

“Look, maybe we got off on the wrong foot.” The djinn continued, plucking itself off Terry’s shoulders to drift up to him, “But I like you, Asad. You’re good. I mucked things up when we first met, because of all the Developers’ brainwashing and stuff, but I’m better now, I swear! And I’ve done a lot of thinking stuck inside you, seeing the world from your eyes. And I wanna make amends.”

Its eyes were so wide they barely fit on its black blob of a face.

“Developers?” Asadullah finally mustered up the strength to ask, arching an eyebrow, “The developers were behind this, too?” Or was it just a ploy, since it had heard of the name through him?

“You think I’m lying about this!” Babur gasped, “How dare! Have you seen how teeny tiny I am? I would not be this size if I had any other options! Like it or not, I am physically anchored here, at your mercy.” It paused, flicking what could only be called a tail in its shadowy silhouette, “Not that you’re doing remarkably well either, huh?”

Asadullah bit down the urge to growl at it and prove the assumption correct.

“It’s right, Asad.” Tench told him mildly, “I don’t think you can walk correctly anymore, without the tail to balance out your motions.”

By this point, Terry had made his way up the stairs, and was looking at Asadullah carefully. And perhaps a smidge too closely. Until he reached a hand out and run his fingers through Asadullah’s hair.

“-Hey!” He started to say, lungs constricting once more.

“Just checking your skull where the ears used to be.” Terry told him, as his fingers deftly found two spots in his scalp which did hurt a little more when pressed, “Oh, so they did leave behind slight cracks. That’s not very good.”

“But I can fix it!” Babur assured him, slinking over Asadullah’s shoulders. It didn’t feel like anything solid, more like a slight damp and sparking energy thrumming around him, “If we can get the bangles back, then I won’t slowly be suffocating to a permanent darkness!” It said with such cheer that Asadullah was near convinced he had misheard.

He tilted his head, “You… want to go back into the bangles?” He asked incredulously.

“Yeah! I… kinda need it.” Babur explained, as if he was stupid, “It keeps me alive. Helps me process the world in a way that I can’t really do anymore. Since I’ve been locked in there for so long.”

Which was his fault. He had been responsible for that. He had crippled this djinn.

Asadullah forced himself to remember the feeling of fire and panic and collapsing rubble of that day. Of the giant creature which had ripped its way through the countryside, leaving thousands of casualties in its wake.

Maybe Babur had suffered. But they were right to contain it. Because the djinn was dangerous. Had proved how dangerous it was when it became a force of destruction topped only by the metal men of the apocalypse.

“You just had a whole character arc in your head there, didn’t you?” Babur teased, eyes coming much too close to Asadullah’s face. He reared his head back, baring his teeth at the offending intrusion.

“Back off, we’re not friends.”

“We’re not?” And its tone actually came out surprised. And a little sad, “Oh, okay, then.” It pulled itself off Asadullah’s shoulders, drifting off onto a shelf.

Terry looked at him sternly, crossing his arms. Asadullah scoffed in his head, but obligingly turned to the djinn, “Not yet, anyways. But I’m not letting you die, either.”

Babur twisted excitedly in the air, eyes squeezed shut in glee, “I knew it!!!”

“We’re going to need the bangles back, first.” Asadullah decided, turning back to them, “Where are they? Don’t tell me you threw them out after they broke.”

“Of course not.” Tench denied quickly, offended at the idea, “Lucky took them to get them fixed.”

Good. Even if the break had to be excruciatingly bad, there was no one he trusted to fix it more than Lucky. But if she was gone, and Terry was here, and… he did a quick headcount of everyone.

“…Is Jared at the pub again?” He asked cautiously.

“Ah, shit, you didn’t know.” Terry swore, reverting to English for a moment before switching to Urdu once more, “Um. Jared managed to clear the Sub-Level escape requirements. He’s back in CephaloRaven now. Has been for a day at least.”

The surprises kept piling up. Asadullah grinned, “So we know it’s possible?!”

Tench and Terry didn’t look as thrilled by the idea as Asadullah was. If anything, they looked almost distraught. Which was the first clue that there was some kind of catch.

“Alright, hit me with it.” He sighed, “What do we have to do?”

“According to Jared, fall so in love with the place, you won’t be able to bear leaving.” Tench explained. There it was. The impossible requirement. It was quite possibly worse than the theory he had for a very specific and precise actions that all needed to be carried out in the correct order for the right amount of time. Because that at least wouldn’t play on people’s emotions.

“I can’t do that.” Asadullah said flatly, “I’ll- I’ll never want to stay here more than Mira.”

And if he didn’t manage to love this place like that, he would never be able to leave and go back to Mira. It was a devastating stand-off.

The door slammed open, and a very familiar wheelchair trundled in, seating Lucky Paine, grinning wider than he had ever seen her smile before.

In her lap was a device that he almost didn’t recognize, now that it was free of blood and not connected to him. His bangles. Intact, as far as he could tell.

But that wasn’t what she was happy about.

In her hand, held aloft to let them all marvel, was her tablet Console. Currently booting up with a loading screen that displayed a single large capital ‘H’, turning around and around.

They weren’t supposed to be turning the Consoles off. There was no need to reboot one. He had a terrible feeling that he knew what this was about. And judging by the manic smile, there was no turning back.

“How about we get out of here, guys?” She asked.

[Player Log End]