The gray stone walls of the Great Hall of House Bertel loomed majestically, like overly proud grandparents glaring at a rowdy family reunion. The banners—white, blue, and silver—battled heroically against the southern wind, which seemed to have declared an all-out war on any piece of fabric foolish enough to stand still. The wind’s relentless assault created a cacophony of flapping so intense that anyone within earshot felt like they were trapped in a symphony composed entirely of disgruntled laundry.
Two perfectly disciplined columns of Lord Bertel’s elite soldiers marched in formation, their armor clanging like a thousand kettles being banged together by an angry chef. The noise was almost drowned out by the wind, but not quite. In the center of this metallic parade, Lord Bertel himself rode a mighty war steed—a black monstrosity of a horse, clad in silver armor so shiny that it could blind lesser men with a mere sunbeam’s reflection. The horse looked particularly unimpressed by everything, and who could blame it?
Lord Bertel, the Metal General, was a mountain of a man. His armor was not just armor; it was a fortress of metal, lovingly scarred and dented from battles that he never stopped talking about at parties. His mustache, twirled into impossibly perfect curls, stood as a testament to his strict personal grooming standards. He dismounted his horse in a way that he clearly believed to be epic, and his voice, booming and infused with mana, resonated through the Hall like a well-practiced opera performance.
“Dismount and prepare for inspection!” he declared, as though his words alone could quell the chaos of the universe. “Warders, stable your steeds and activate glyph protections! Commander Beresford, report!”
Commander Beresford stepped forward, his armor rattling like a dinner service set being thrown down a flight of stairs. “My Lord, all casualties have been accounted for,” he announced gravely, as if accounting for casualties was the most exhilarating thing he had done all day. “The remaining two items are still under protection, but they are degrading faster than an ice sculpture in a sauna.”
Lord Bertel’s face darkened with such drama that a lesser man might have swooned at the sheer weight of his expression. His mustache quivered in contemplation. “We have no choice,” he whispered, as if confiding in the wind itself. “The universe has given us lemons, and we shall make… highly unstable, mana-infused lemonade.” His voice dropped to a level of seriousness normally reserved for declarations of impending doom. “Prepare the ritual.”
He strode into the Great Hall, where a small tornado of servants waited, ready to assist with the removal of his armor. But Lord Bertel waved them away, because removing one’s armor with the help of servants was for people who lacked sufficient gravitas. He marched forward, his boots echoing dramatically, as if the floor itself were in awe.
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Inside the hall, Eryk Bertel stood near a table so long and ornate that it seemed like it belonged in a contest for Most Needlessly Complicated Furniture. Eryk, the son of the Great Metal General, was clutching a small onyx bird figurine given to him by his mother. The figurine served as his emotional anchor, his source of courage, and occasionally his fidget toy. His heart raced with excitement, though he had no idea why, and his fingers twitched like caffeinated spiders.
Suddenly, the great oaken doors flung open, and the wind stormed in like an uninvited guest who had come specifically to ruin the upholstery. Lord Bertel entered, his mana-infused presence so overwhelming that the wind immediately reconsidered its life choices and retreated.
“Where is my son?” Lord Bertel demanded, as though this were not a question but an invocation of destiny. Eryk stepped forward, his daydreams of glory interrupted, and tried to look important.
“Father, welcome back,” Eryk said, his voice cracking slightly. “We’ve prepared the honored tabl—”
Lord Bertel cut him off, not with words but with an aura of magical suppression so intense that it could have made an entire library of ancient scrolls spontaneously combust out of respect. The weight settled over Eryk, who felt as if he were being squished by a cosmic waffle iron. Lord Bertel strode up to his son, grabbed him by the shoulders, and pulled him into a hug so heartfelt that it threatened to tear open the very fabric of dramatic tension.
“My son,” Lord Bertel whispered, his voice quivering with a fatherly emotion so thick you could spread it on toast. “There is no time to explain this gently. You are not from this world.”
Eryk’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. “What?” he croaked, his voice barely a squeak.
Lord Bertel’s mustache twitched with sorrow. “You are from another existence, a world without magic. In my grief over losing my firstborn son, I made a deal… with a demon. A deal to bring him back. But instead of my son, I got you, pulled from your world and placed into this one.” His eyes glittered, either with tears or an overabundance of mana. “And now, the demon will come to claim your body on your twentieth solstice.”
Eryk’s mouth dropped open, and he made a sound like a malfunctioning automaton. “I… what? A demon?”
Lord Bertel nodded gravely. “Yes. And I have prepared a ritual, a last-ditch, over-the-top, totally-not-approved-by-any-council ritual, to seal both a demon and a spirit of equal power inside you.” He gestured to the ridiculously ornate table, where knights were preparing two chests that oozed menace and too many sparkles for their own good.
Eryk tried to protest, to ask a reasonable question, but the chests burst open, releasing waves of magical energy so dramatic that one of the knights fainted purely out of narrative convenience. A dark orb of energy emerged, and all chaos broke loose. The Great Hall filled with swirling mana, the floor cracked like cheap porcelain, and Lord Bertel shoved Eryk onto the table.
“Forgive me,” his father said, his voice a Shakespearean sonnet of regret. “This is the only way.”
The ritual erupted in a dazzling, over-the-top explosion of light and sound. Lord Bertel’s body cracked like a porcelain vase, and he disintegrated into sparkly dust, whispering his final words: “I love you, my son.”
Eryk screamed as the spirit and demonic energies collided, his body becoming the battlefield for an incomprehensibly magical tug-of-war. And as he teetered on the brink of consciousness, he could only think one thing:
“This… is the weirdest day of my life.”
And thus began Eryk’s journey into a reality so unhinged that even the laws of physics would need to be revised.