The morning was still, dew steaming from leaves in the early rays of the sun. Woodland oaks and birches rose tall around our camp, their branches interwoven to form a natural canopy that kept the harshest light from piercing through. But even with the shadows, I could feel the warmth creeping in, a slow and steady promise of the day to come.
I shielded my eyes with one massive infernal arm, still shocked at the trunk-like thickness they contained. The sight of my own form was a jarring reminder that this wasn’t some fevered dream. The scales, the claws, the sheer bulk of this body—it was real. I yawned, a pillar of icy vapor escaping from my broad chest, the chill contrasting sharply with the warmth of the dawn.
The thought that my wife wouldn’t mind a night with me like this, between the sheets, sent a snicker to my lips, and I shook my head as I rose. But the humor was short-lived, quickly replaced by a hollow ache. The image of Casey, laughing and teasing me, was as clear as if she were standing right in front of me. Yet she wasn’t. She was a world away, and the uncertainty of whether I’d ever see her again gnawed at the edges of my soul.
“All of hell’s horses,” I muttered, a curse I’d made up on my own to avoid pissing off the wife and kids. Back home, that sort of thing earned me mockery, playful jabs at my “family-friendly swearing.” But here, it only earned me an amused grunt from Kevinar, who stood next to my legs, looking up at me with a curious expression.
His eyes seemed dull in the light of the day, smaller than I remembered. It took me a moment to realize he was squinting, his usual sharp gaze muted by the sunlight.
“You alright, Kevinar?” I asked, scrabbling up to my feet, the movement making the ground tremble slightly beneath my weight.
The elf smiled, his teeth gray in the shade of the forest. “The sun and the elves of the deep haven’t been friends for many millennia. But, maybe one day, we’ll be back in harmony. However,” he noted, winking, “today is not destined to be that day. Sometimes I enjoy it, though. I won’t be donning my shaded spectacles ‘til noon, I think.”
I nodded, unsure of what to say. Kevinar was a good man—well, elf—he’d shown me that much the night before. But his words were just high fantasy enough to leave me scratching my head. Coming from a world of BRBs and LOLs hadn’t prepped me well for long and detail-oriented conversations. Part of me missed the simplicity of a text message and the straightforwardness of a thumbs-up emoji.
“Yeah, I hear that,” I answered, the words feeling inadequate as soon as they left my mouth.
Yeah, I hear that, Jeldorain mimicked, his voice echoing through my head in the tone of a whiny toddler. I shut him out. We’d have a talk about last night and what he had done later, when I didn’t need to pay attention. But the thought of facing the infernal entity inside me, really confronting what he was and what he meant for my future, sent a shiver down my spine.
It wasn’t something I expected many had experience with, confronting a demon sharing the same body as oneself.
Kevinar looked at me strangely. “I hear nothing but the birds of the aboveground, and the playful romp of fauns just out of sight. Oh,” he added, putting a finger into the air. “The sound of a bird in flight, a mouse screeching in protest as it dodges through the undergrowth.”
“Yeah, just a figure of speech where I’m from,” I said, trying desperately to think about something better to talk about. The last thing I wanted was to delve into the metaphors and musings of my world. I needed something solid, something real to focus on. Something to keep my mind off the fact that I had no idea how I was going to get home, and that I was involved in a fight against an Empire with no real agency, at least until I could find my footing.
Luckily, Ike came stomping in, looking all grumbly and ready for a tussle. His presence was a welcome distraction, and I felt a surge of relief at the sight of the kobold’s familiar scowl.
“Sunrise, Kevinar. I told you we’d be rising at sunrise. Why in the Nine Hells are we waking up just now?” he demanded, his head tilted all the way back to look Kevinar in the face. The elf just shrugged, raising his palms upward in comic supplication.
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“In the deep dark realms of my birth, clocks ticked and wound and grinded. We allowed time to rule us. And now, in the light of the sun, we are to live under the same tyranny? Even after a great exhausting victory over a tyrannous beast? While my mother matriarch might have agreed with you, I don’t. Wanna live by the clock? Wake up by your own damn self.”
The kobold blanched, his sharp-toothed maw and lizard-like eyes wide open. His mouth opened and closed several times before his gaze suddenly slitted, and the first squeak of a chuckle left his lips. It was a strange sound, almost alien in its softness.
“Yeah, I can see that. Whatever. We’re all awake now.” Ike turned, glancing over the camp and seeing the bustle of his men packing for the day’s travails. “No harm done. Ryan!” he bellowed, staring up the long length of my body to the ridges of my well-monstrous face. “Did you fuse a weapon like I’d asked you to? What did you come up with?”
I cast my mind into my body, letting the inventory screen rise up and spending a moment to marvel at how game-like this world really was. I knew that logic dictated that I wouldn’t have been drawn from my world to this one if it hadn’t been this way, but the impossibility that such a system could exist naturally made my head hurt.
But beyond the logic, there was a deeper, more unsettling realization. This world was starting to make sense to me. The inventory screens, the weapon fusions, the quests—part of me was adapting to it too easily. I’d spent years escaping into games, losing myself in fantasy worlds where I could control every aspect of my character’s life. But this wasn’t a game. It was real, and the consequences of every action, every decision, were life and death.
Catching the cocked and curious eyes of Ike squashed the thoughts and sent me back to my task. Using my mind as a cursor, I selected the gleaming Freezing Kusarigama, marveling at its 2-dimensional image inside me. Even here the air frosted and sparkled around it, the icy sheen glimmering from some unseen light source. Bringing it out of my inventory, the weapon shimmered like a mirage, coming to solid existence in the grip of my meaty hand, and widening Ike’s eyes to the point that I thought they might just pop.
“What is that? A legendary?” he gasped. Kevinar’s eyes also widened, causing him to curse as the sun’s rays blinded him. His hands scrabbled through the pockets of his cloak, drawing his shades hours earlier than he’d prophesied.
“Very rare,” I answered. “Attunement unknown. The stats look amazing, which makes me wonder what a legendary would look like.”
“No man is powerful enough to hold a true legendary until they have attained a significant level of experience,” Kevinar stated, his eyes finally shaded against the light of the day. Beyond him, the rest of the party was heading in our direction, no doubt captivated by the sudden ice-blue sparkle that had appeared in their midst.
You aren’t a man, Ryan, Jeldorain’s voice bubbled up from within. You can hold any item, regardless of the level minimums. So long as I reside within you.
I ignored him, giving the infernal the silent treatment that he deserved. It was worrying how he’d taken me over and forced me to charge the forest shark despite my clear intentions to obey Ike’s commands. The magical summoning that had brought me here and stuffed me into the infernal’s body hadn’t completely sealed him away. I needed time to understand it all. Someone to talk to about it without possibly forcing me away from the only allies I had.
Instead, I kept my face joyous, and I showed off my new kusarigama, answering the excited questions of my colleagues. Given Ike’s previous ire over our late wake-up, I half-expected him to break us up and send us all back onto our path to the rebel rendezvous, but his scaly cheeks were rosy and his eyes intense.
The rest were quite enthusiastic as well. Brandosyeus eyed it professionally, declaring that the odds of fusing a weapon such as this, even from the plate of a forest shark, were astronomically low, in the realm of 400 to 1. The comparison made me envision all the times I’d rolled critical successes at the gaming table. Luck was not a stranger to me in the old world, and maybe it had followed me to this one as well.
Jon admired the blade while stomping his hooves, speaking of the great damage it could find in the hand of a mounted warrior’s charge, while Schustak simply noted that, often, “the fuse reflects the soul of the user.”
That last observation made me feel sour inside. It was something wielded by ice infernals on their home plain, and I didn’t at all appreciate being compared to that. I was still Ryan, still human despite everything, and if that fuse reflected who I was, it’d somehow be made out of roses and sunshine. Or at least hints of beef jerky.
Ike asked about the stats and how it felt in my hand. His questions grounded me, pulling me away from the uneasy thoughts swirling in my mind. As I explained the weapon’s abilities, I could see the wheels turning in his mind, calculating how best to utilize this new asset in our upcoming battles.
After the weapons chatter was over, we headed out, Kevinar scouting in front, myself standing as the tank in second while Jon kept up the rear. The air smelled sweeter and more fruitful as we progressed, a condition that I appreciated even more when I realized that it was making Jeldorain moan and struggle inside of me. The infernal’s discomfort was a small comfort to me, a reminder that I still had some control over him, even if it was just a little.