Liev sat in the basement of his friend Jake’s house, rapping his knuckles on the wooden table in front of him with impatience. Today marked the second night of summer break after his first year of college, and he had chosen to spend it playing Dungeons and Dragons for some reason. Not that he didn’t enjoy Dungeons and Dragons, it had its moments, but sometimes he just wanted to start pulling out his jet black hair at the monotony it was prone to. He glanced at his friends, and seeing them all thoroughly engrossed in creating their characters, his gaze shifted down to his own sheet and he chuckled. 

It was perhaps one of his best works to date, a necromancer by the name of Balthazar with a backstory as dark as obsidian. Liev had tried to make the character as evil as humanly possible, chronicling Balthazar’s rise to power through sacrificing puppies and children in order to grow his hordes of undead. In the limited amount of room available on the character sheet, he had also included how Balthazar had killed his family only to raise them again to add them to his swarm. He ignored the fact that in no way would a level 1 character be able to summon more than a couple skeletons, let alone a veritable swarm of undead. The backstory was just for fun after all, and it had been created with the help of more than just a couple beers.

After sharing Balthazar’s past with his buddies he had been met with not a small number of groans and snide remarks about the character. Liev had a penchant for making annoying characters that almost everyone loved to hate, and Balthazar was just as promising in that aspect. Max in particular seemed to have an aversion to having fun in the role playing game, demanding that Liev change his character to something reasonable. Liev had simply ignored him.

“Alright Jake, are we ready to start? Cause I’m all done rolling for my character and everything.” Ashton questioned to Liev’s left, drawing him out of the drunken admiration of his character. 

“Just a sec, gotta make a couple adjustments to the first boss.” Jake, the acting dungeon master replied. “It  was a little too easy, and you guys look like you need a challenge, after all you have ‘Balthazar: Lord of Death’ on your side.” He mocked, adding air quotes to the chagrin of Liev.

“You’re just jealous you haven’t been able to come up with a character quite as cool as mine,” Liev countered “This makes for a fourth slam dunk character creation in a row, and now you’re concerned I’ll take over your spot as dungeon master due to popular demand.”

“HA, you wish,” Max snorted to his right “your characters are about as interesting as my left pinky toe nail, and about as imaginative as it too.” Obviously Max did not comprehend the genius behind Liev’s newest masterpiece. Balthazar: Lord of Death might have to teach Max’s dull, bland character, Stritus the Warrior a lesson in minding his words and his deeds, Liev thought.

“Oh whatever.” Liev waved him off. “Let’s just start already, you can make the adjustments to the boss once we get there, Jake. I’m starting to get bored, and when I get bored I grab another beer and I don’t think you want me more drunk than I already am.” 

“Fine, Fine.” Jake submitted, and after a pause he began “Let the Journey into The Endless North Begin! We start with an injured Balthazar slowly making his way into the town of Cless in search of a healer. After encountering the mightiest warrior in the kingdom, Balthazar has fallen from a feared foe to a meandering mess incapable of casting even the most basic of skills.”

In one moment Liev was listening to Jake with interest as he began the campaign, and in the next he felt the most excruciating pain he had ever been subjected to. Not even when he had snapped his forearm in two pieces when he was younger, or when he had cracked a few ribs in a car accident a couple years ago had he ever felt a pain quite so intense. It was akin to being burned alive while also experiencing the worst migraine in human history, or atleast Liev assumed as much. He didn’t notice the panicked voices of his friends as he screamed, nor that he had fallen out of his chair and curled up into a fetal position. He only caught sight of the world spinning around him before he blacked out.

***

Nabit looked down at the most recent summon in disappointment, the edges of his lips curled downwards in a frown as he took in the pitiful sight. It was a man in pitch black robes lying next to a short staff with a miniature skull affixed to the top of it, what purpose it might serve, Nabit had no idea. The man convulsed in the center of the stone-walled room, pillars rising all the way to the expansive ceiling formed a circle around the heart of the chamber. 

The three other magi who had assisted Nabit in the conjuring also sported looks of disappointment as they peered down at the robed man. This marked the 28th failure in their quest to bring a Champion from another world to fight for them. His lord had tasked him with this purpose nearly two cycles ago, and he had yet to have any successes. He wondered for the umpteenth time how in the name of Groeter had that blasted Deebius, Head Mage for the Coramian Empire, managed the feat. After her summoning nearly two and a half cycles ago, the Empire’s Champion had brought the Aldareen Kingdom to which Nabit belonged, to its most reduced state in 500 cycles. Katarina: Empress of Fire was perhaps the most powerful being in the entirety of the continent of Guinart, maybe even in the entirety of the world. 

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And the Empire had full access to those awe inspiring talents for destruction.

On the floor where the summon continued writhing, the intricate design of the summoning circle slowly faded, losing the blue light it had emanated throughout the process. Nabit could sense just faint traces of mana within the body of the robed figure, and he scoffed at the weakness, this was Balthazar: Lord of Death? In no land that Nabit could imagine would this man be anything more than a peasant, a piece of shit that he would scrap off of his shoe. 

What a ridiculous name, Nabit thought. The spell that he and the other magi working for the Aldareen Kingdom had just performed announced the name of the Champion right before they would appear in the center of the intricate summoning circle. 27, no now 28 times he had been given false hope by the epic nature of the titles, and the foreign sounding names that had preceded them. Nabit reflected on some of the past ones, Poppy: The Paladin Who Reaches The Heavens, more like barely reaches my knees. Karin: Bringer of Fear, if by fear you mean laughter. Ep’oook Nasarri’i: The Sea God, turned out to be a god of puddles. 

Even after the endless amounts of time that Nabit and his fellows had spent meticulously crafting and re-crafting and honing the spell, this was the result, and it angered him to no end. A baby had more power coursing through its channels than this Balthazar, how he had even survived to what looked to be around 30 cycles old was a mystery. Nabit examined the man more closely, who was still rolling around on the floor, and now producing slight whimpers as he moved back and forth. The hood, falling from its place on his head revealed long blond hair, a slightly crooked nose, and very pronounced cheekbones that highlighted his gaunt features. And then slowly, as Nabit scrutinized him, Balthazar began to open his eyes.

***

Liev regained consciousness a little bit at a time, the pain that had been all consuming before, now just barely becoming manageable. Oh god, am I on the floor? He thought as he felt his surroundings. What the fuck was that? Why is it so cold? Why is the floor so hard, didn’t Jake have carpeting? Am I somewhere else? It was only then that Liev finally thought to open his eyes, and when he did he was greeted by unfamiliar purple ones staring straight into his own. He gasped and started scrambling backwards in a sort of crab walk, his heart thundering in his chest. 

“Who the hell are you!?” Liev screamed at the man, now in a full-blown state of panic. “Where am I? What happened to me?” His words coming quickly and without much care for the sharpening gaze of the purple-eyed man right in front of him, he continued. “What kind of sick joke is this? I promise I can pay money if that’s what you want, my parents are rich, like super rich, yeah they can give you money if you just let me-”

“Welcome to the Kingdom of Aldareen, Balthazar: Lord of Death,” the purple-eyed man cut him off with a sneer. “You have been summoned here with the purpose of being our Champion, but you are one of many in a long line of my failures.”

Liev’s thoughts raced as he tried to figure out the implications of what his supposed summoner was telling him. Am I dreaming? Yeah I’m definitely dreaming, but what kind of fucked-up dream is this, my brain sometimes I swear, man I come up with some weird shit when I go to sleep drunk. Being summoned into a world as my DnD character? 

“My name is Nabit, Mage Supreme in this Kingdom,” the man continued, “and you my sad, sad friend are not in fact dreaming, and no I am not reading your mind, I have simply been through this mind-numbing process enough to know where your primitive minds will immediately jump.”

“Wha-” Liev tried to cut in but Nabit either did not notice or simply did not care as he proceeded with what seemed like a well rehearsed speech

“You are currently inside the Royal Mage Association building within the capital city of the Kingdom, Hodloren. These fellows surrounding you,” Nabit motioned at the three other people encircling Liev “are all respected members of the Royal Mage Association who have assisted in your summoning. I mentioned before that you are a failure, and this is true, you are our failure. Our spell has failed yet again to bring a Champion of any mentionable strength, and out of 28 attempts, you are the weakest yet. You call yourself Lord of Death and yet your power could not topple a toddler. There is no refinement of your channels, and the moul running through them is unimaginably thin.”

Liev sat there dumbstruck. He had no clue what this Nabit was talking about, nor what in the world moul was and what it meant when he had talked about channels. He pinched himself on the cheek, and when that did nothing but get a blank look from Nabit, he picked up strange the skull staff lying next to him and started whacking his head with it, clinging desperately to the hope that this was all a dream.

“What is he doing?” The woman standing next to Nabit whispered in a concerned tone.

“Still thinks he’s dreaming I suppose.” Nabit replied with a hint of exasperation. “Listen,” he said, now addressing Liev again “I do not have the time nor the desire to hold your hand as you explore your new world. Although I harbor no ill-will towards you, I do not see any benefit in speaking to you any longer. My position comes with many responsibilities and I would be remiss if I insisted on neglecting them, so I will be taking my leave. Hiriea, please dump him in the city.” 

And with that the man simply vanished. The woman who had questioned Liev hitting himself with his staff started towards him, and Liev resumed the panicked crab walk back away from her. She raised her hand and somehow he felt the power concentrate within the tips of her fingers before, once again, he passed out.