The day was like any other for Jack. His morning started dark and early with him beginning his two hour walk to work, he hadn’t saved enough to even think about getting a car yet and if he was being honest the walk wasn’t that much of an inconvenience. The day passed like any other monday and he found himself ending it like any other, sitting on his worn down recliner and watching whatever he could find on his television.

It was only then that something truly strange happened. He was watching a fake shrink talk to an obviously overacting girl when over half the television screen was blocked out by a scrolling bold text.

Jack Trint you have been selected to participate in your planet's pre-integration tutorial. You have five minutes to prepare yourself for transportation to the tutorial grounds.

Jack didn’t read too much into the text at first, figuring it to be some weird PSA shoehorned into the show. Not wanting to really bother with it at this hour he got up to turn the television off, figuring that if it was important he could look it up later. That was at least until the text floated off of the screen, following his field of vision.

The message reminded Jack of those scam calls about winning trips to Hawaii, claiming that he had won a prize for something he didn’t remember signing up for. The difference between those scams and this message was of course the fact that he believed this one. It was hard to fake a message that literally followed his field of view, impossible as far as he knew.

So Jack did the only thing he could in this situation, he started packing. Preparing like he was going on a week long vacation Jake packed all of the necessities. Underwear, toothpaste and brush, socks, a few pairs of clothes, and of course he downloaded some of his favorite podcast episodes for the trip. He didn’t know how long the trip there would be after all, and his phone service was quite honestly shit. 

And so Jack found himself standing by his door, suitcase in one hand and phone in the other, waiting for whoever would transport him to this so-called tutorial. He had been waiting there for a little bit, wondering if they were going to be late or not, when he was suddenly no longer standing in his apartment. No he was now in a town square of sorts, surrounded by hundreds of others.

The square itself was made up of cobbled stone and decorated with marble fountains depicting various men and women. Buildings made of arching stone and wood surrounded the square, reminding Jack of a film set in medieval times. For some reason the shift in scenery wasn’t the thing he found most odd about his surroundings. That honor was instead given to the hundreds of people that surrounded him.

It wasn’t that they were abnormally shaped or had ugly faces that threw Jack off, though a few guys close to him weren’t going to be winning any pageants. Instead what confused Jack was the fact that each and every one of them was armed with some sort of weapon. Ranging from tree branches to bats, to full on longswords, each and every one of them looked ready to beat some shit up. 

As Jack contemplated why someone would need a colonial period cannon for a tutorial, but before he could ask said cannoneer, a voice boomed over the square. “ Humans of Earth, welcome to the tutorial! Before we begin explaining everything to you please follow your individual light trails to your rooms. This is to help us handle any and all questions you have during the explanation, and also so we can remove the bindings placed on to you by the system.”

Following the announcement Jack could suddenly see a thread of light leading out of his chest and making a path to one of the buildings at the edge of the square. Judging by everyone's reaction around himself Jake concluded that they each had a similar light. Figuring that there would be no point in not listening to someone who was clearly staff Jack began to follow the voices instructions.

Something the voice had said did feel a bit off to Jack though, it’s mentioning of bindings triggering a weird reaction. Jack had felt something twist in his mind, something had tried to slip through and do something, but it had been grabbed and forced down at the last moment. Shaking his head Jack dispelled the odd feeling and followed his light as instructed. He was sure it would be explained later, this was a tutorial after all.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The light led to a two story building decorated with serpent like designs with the door itself having the carving of an ouroboros in its center. Something about the door felt strange to Jack, like there was something more to it than met the eye. Like someone had done a poor job of grafting something onto it after its placement. The oddity pulled Jack in, and he quickly became engrossed in his examination of the strange addition.

Jack only exited this trance like state when he felt someone gently shaking his shoulder. “ You alright buddy?” Turning around Jack saw that three people stood behind him and only then did he realize that he was blocking the door. With a slight blush and a mumbled apology Jack shuffled out of the way and let the three go, all the while trying to avoid eye contact. 

Jack could almost feel the weird looks the three gave him, but thankfully they headed into the house soon after he got out of the way. Turning back to the door Jack could still feel that strange add on, but he forced himself to ignore it and head inside. He figured he would have time to check it out more thoroughly after whatever introduction they were all about to receive.

Following the light deeper into the house Jack walked by a modern kitchen that stood out compared to the medieval aesthetic of the building before heading up a flight of stairs to the second floor. There he saw that there were a total of four rooms, with what looked like a bathroom at the very end of the hall. 

Entering into the room his light led to Jack found himself in a spacious bedroom adorned with a rather comfy looking bed, a work desk with a lamp on it, and a dresser that sat parallel to the bed. Closing the door behind him Jack sat on the bed and patiently waited for whatever introduction was supposed to happen.

Jack only had to wait a few minutes before he heard a soft and polite knock at his door. “C’mon in.”. Stepping through the door a tall and broad shoulder man entered the room. He wore his hair in a long ponytail that disappeared behind his back, and had an angular face and a crooked nose with a scar crossing his forehead. What most caught Jack's attention was the man's eyes.

For a moment they looked pale blue, but the surface of the eye flickered a second later and revealed a large serpentine eye beneath. It was a green that invoked the wilds of an alien jungle no mortal man dared trespass, a place of serene beauty that was contrasted by a deadly danger that threatened not only threatened to consume Jack’s body but his mind as well. Jack found himself falling deeper into those eyes, beginning to see a large figure of scales taking shape behind the man. The thing was a menace of ancient times and had seen the rise and falls of civilizations older than the earth itself. It was there at the beginning of all things, and it was there in the time before. 

The name began to form on Jack’s tongue as his mind was overwhelmed with a low and deafening sound that awoke instincts buried away in his mind from countless generations past. Not to run or fight, not to hide away in caves and trees, but to simply lay down and accept his death. For this was a thing so ancient it had hunted his ancestors. This was the great and powerful father of serpents, the whispering madness that crumbled civilizations through a single world. This was the great and terrible Yi-

*SNAP*

The sound echoed through the room, shattering the illusionary world Jack had quickly found himself trapped in. He could feel something tighten around himself, and suddenly Jack could no longer see past the illusionary eyes of the man. “How interesting. You're going to give your teacher quite the headache young man. I haven’t seen anyone so sensitive to the minds of the Old Ones for centuries.”

Jack wasn’t focusing on the man's words. No he was focusing on the avalanche of emotions that now flooded his mind. The overbearing fear instilled in Jack by the father of serpents had overwhelmed and snapped the binding he had felt earlier. The binding that restrained his emotions.

Everything that he should have been feeling over the course of the past half hour all hit him at once. Absolute panic and fear were the first things to hit him. Panic that built with every impossible thing he had been witness to. But that emotion was quickly overwhelmed by another. One that rose up and crashed down onto Jack with the power of an ocean, one that crushed all others and simply filled him completely. Pure joy instilled by a single realization.

Magic was real. Magic was real and Jack was here to learn about it.