Bersko smacked his lips, jerking the bridles. The horses didn’t react, but at least he did everything he could to get home sooner. The mission had been a disaster. - Screw the northeastern Citadels; Azure Tigers weren't supposed to get this far past the border. Bersko's force of ten had been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Brian, his future uncertain, lied unmoving in the wagon. The two next to him weren’t much better off, albeit able to whine about it. Bersko cursed, once more jerking the bridles.
Azure Tigers were dreadful to hunt. No amount of lifember dropped was worth the damage they could cause. Why did one have to show up at the outskirt of the Becknettles area, preying on the tazpayers? Dealing with rune touched monsters was not part of Bersko's job description!
“Halt! Elfling, where's your owner!” a man at his side shouted.
Sitting in the grass was a naked elfling. It's body wsa distrurbingly human-like, yet its hair betrayed it.
“Damn, my head is exploding! Elfling, what? Does anyone have an aspirin?” the elfen man whined, in no way recognizing that he was surrounded by humans.
“Half-elf, your papers, now!”
For a spawn of the enemy, walking without master nor chain was an insult to humanity itself. In too few cases punishable by hanging. Bersko had a friend whose aunt had been abducted, not found until too late. The necromancers of the deep woods had defiled her with their seed, sealing her smile forever.
“Perfect, just what we need. Another thing slowing us down, ” one of the men complained. "Bersko, is there any more place in the wagon o’ yours? Dragging that thing by the horse would be a pain in the arse.” Elbard said, the bearded princess had just polished his saddle, refusing to tie a rope to it.
Folly. Having an elfling next to the injured? Idiocy! The thing would be set waking, properly chained.
“Why am I naked dammit! Could you chill out on the cosplaying? I’ve got the worst hangover ever! The fuck happened yesterday?
“It doesn’t spill the beans, huh?. You guys honestly think it's worth bringing? Its owner is probably too poor to set a bounty on it anyways. We could as well cut his throat. This thing being an escapee? Pfft, I say it got abandoned. Just look how weak it is!”
“What, wait, what are you doing!?” The elfling cried as his hands got tied to his back.
.
.
.
The elfling turned out to be exceptionally bothersome. Dragged behind Elbards horse, it whined like a girl, going as far as claiming to be human. Pfft, the weak thing couldn’t even keep up at wagon’s pace. Its lies were pathetic. What parent would raise such a weakling? It could barely survive its transportation; as it was dragged behind Elbard's horse, its chest had alreadty least one layer of skin.
“Guys, I can’t travel like this. I’d say we kill him, here and now. Gosh, it's is annoying!”
“No, please, I promise, no police will hear of this, just let me go and you'll never see me again.” the half-elf begged.
“Shut up!”
“You know what I hate the most about this thing? It even has human ears. Disgusting. Another generation and we’ll have fucking brown haired elves running around. I’d say we kill him right here!”
“Stay your hand, if there’s a bounty on it...”
“I don’t care about you nor your whore expenses.”
“Well. I, don’t care about your shiny saddle, princess.”
“We’re taking him with us! That’s what the law requires from us, and that’s what we’ll do.” Bersko silenced them. The leader had spoken.
***
Sebastian cringned his teeth, feeling the new tooth gaps witht his tongue. He'd normally be careful with this teeth, three years of frequent dentist visits left him obsessive careful of his teeth, but all the pain spent adjusting his braces was now for naught; his perfect smile was ruined forever. Sebastian was treated worse than a cattle on its death row. Protesting led to nothing but a one sided assault. Seb missed his two upper front teeth, but not as much as he hated his captors. "Fucking cosplayers," he muttered quietly, careful not to be heard.
The last days had been unbearable. After collapsing from fatique, he had been dragged behind a horse until his naked skin began melting away. Seb had tried to switch positions, not letting the ground grind at the same spot. The result - a body completely peeled of skin. The captors emptying the wagon of whomever was in it had been a blessing; sitting in it was incomparable to being dragged,but far from pain free. No matter how he adjusted his position, he would still have patches of healing skin rubbing against the wagon frame. "Fucking cosplayers," he whispered again. Actually, "cosplayer" wasn't a descriptive word for the maniacs surrounding him, nor was LARPers or anything else remotely geeky sounding. They were brutal grunts with a ridiculous sense of fashion.
Seb himself though wasn't given any fancy medieval clothes. He was dressed in an itchy linen sack, barely hiding hi sprivates. His wounds kept sticking to the fabric. Next to him lied a smelly tiger pelt, dyed blue in color. Small chunks of browned flesh were sloppily left on it, surrounding it were flies, buzzing like a bucket of tinnitus.
*Bump* The wagon hit a rock.
Sebastian hissed. Discomfort engulfed him, his healing skin hurt whenever he was forced to move. Anything but lying still taxed his sanity. How had he ended up here? Sebs last memories were in his professor's lab, casually meddling with the equipping. He had almost finished installing an 8-bit poke game to the main frame, but that was as much as he remembered. Had he been drinking? Just what had happened? It felt like he had missed out on a lot of things - the landscape seemed foreign; what country was this?
Had he been drugged at the club? Maybe even at school? He didn’t even remember going out, but there were drugs that caused amnesia even on memories prior to its injection. A documentary on the Devil’s Breath drug in Colombia came to mind. The smell of conspiracy was all over the place. Seb had problems making any sense out of the crazy theories as pain constantly smashed him back into something indescribably pitiful. He hated it. He hadn't been given a single moment for calm reflection and if thtings continued like this, the last traces of memory would soon be all gone.
Roleplay Gangsters would’ve sounded like a bad joke if Sebastian was asked about it yesterday, but not anymore.
The itching, it was unbearable, it made thinking hard, and Seb's thoughts grim. He had never contemplated suicide before, but the past three or so days had been nothing but sleepless agony.
He tried to zone out from the itching of his skin, focusing on just breathing. Meditation, wasn't that supposed to help people escape pain? Shaolin monks getting kicked in the nuts without flitching, what was your secret? He retreated into his mind, and then even further. He forcefully pushed his consciousness away. Away from the world, away from everything!
[Prof.Oak: Are you a boy or a girl?]
[Boy]
[Prof. Oak: Of course... What’s your name?]
[Sebastian… wait what!?]
Sebastian lost focus, crashing back to reality and all the itching that came with it. Just for a second, he had been free from the crippling pain. He took a deep breath, decided to zone out again.
[Prof. Oak: Welcome to the world of [???]]
[???]
[Error!]
The itching returned, as did reality. Sebastian flinched, determined to complete his flight from reality. The promises of a painless dream still felt real, at least as real as 160x144 perfect pixels could be. Seb continued to space out, evading his discomforts, but each time, he never got passed Professor Oak.
[Error]
[Error]
[Error]
Three days of sleeplessness was the limit at which hallucinations would occur. The ones appearing to Sebastian were incredibly frustrating. They were like finishing a puzzle, having several pieces in wrong places, or repeatedly failing to plug in an USB stick.
Sebastian spent the entire day focusing on breathing. In the end, he got some results, an escape from the loop of [Errors], leaving something entirely unexpected.
Congratulations! New Skill: Biplanar Awareness
Biplanar Awareness 1/7 Shifts one's consciousness between the two aspects of reality.
A new world, 164x144 pixels in size laid bare below him. He saw himself from above, first person perspective and all, but yet, he felt present beyond the pixels. It was as if this place was ever more real than reality. He took a deep breath, the pixels didn't show his chest expand, yet he felt air seep into his lungs. He exhaled, finally beginning to relax.
The meditative world was beautiful to the senses; Seb's pain was all replaced with calmness. He went for another breath. The air was fresh, smelling of moist forest, and... something. Seb couldn't tell what was in the air, but each time he drew a breath, he felt a tingling sensation throughout his body. It was pleasant; each breath relieved him like a brief stretching after a long car ride.
The vague pleasure was so tingling that it almost made him restless. Seb lost himself to the newfound tranquility. His mind slowly recovered, and as it did, an escape plan began taking form.
If the Brutal Leather faggots truly were LARPing, he needed a loophole in the storyline, a reason for them to release him. Either that, a cell phone or an insanely good opportunity to put his legs to use.
The loophole had to wait for now. The captors treated him worse than a dog. They ignored whatever he said, especially things related to "police," "cellphones," or anything that had to do with the real world. They even taunted him for being retarded whenever he went outside of their cosplay lingo. "Elfling" was spat at him like a curse word.
Cell phones weren't likely to solve anything either, he couldn't confirm that his captors had any. The role-playing maniacs could talk for hours, but never once did anyone grab a cellphone to return a snap. The LARP strictness was real!
Using nothing but legs for escape wasn't likely to work either. The´ Leather faggots were all buff as fuck, since when did LARPers do CrossFit? Seb would need a huge head start with these people on the chase, and that wasn't even considering their horses. The quadrupedals could easily phase out any regular Joe; Seb had learned that the hard way.
*Bump* The wagon hit something, knocking Seb both back to reality and into the carriage frame. The pain was there again. He bit his lips, silently swearing at the coachman.
Seb spent days and nights in the carriage. God knew where it was going. The captors didn't do many LARPy things besides marching and speaking about medievalified rumors. No orc dressed bandits attacked, no rogue mage came throwing "fire balls" at them, nothing that would fit their outfit happenend. It was remarkable, especially considering all the time they must've spent getting all those realistic clothes and equipment. Weren't they supposed to battle each other, throw blue balls at each other yelling "lightning bolt"?Why would anyone choose to spend their time off work kidnapping people in weird clothes, and how come no one had heard of this? Was Sebastian their first victim? Where were they anyways?
Why would anyone choose to spend their time off work kidnapping people in weird clothes, and how come no one had heard of this? Was Sebastian their first victim? Where were they anyways?
They had been traveling for days without sight of civilization. Was this some kind of national park? He hadn't heard a single airplane or highway since the strange awakening; it was all horseshoes hitting the ground, varying in sound depending on the dampness of the soil. The wagon wheels cracked, and the flies inside it multiplied, sadly for more than once reason by now.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Day passed in the wagon, Seb lost track of them as he spent all his awake time meditating, save for the scarce feeding sessions. The captors didn't leave any opportunities of escape. With his hands tied behind his back, there wasn't much that Seb could do.
He began exploring his pixelated world. Trying to escape the engulfing hopelessness. If he'd ever get free from this he would return his hardships thousandfold. He'd scrape the Internet to it's very last corner until he found these people. He'd find them and he'd made Dexter seem like a friendly toddler. How could his life ever return to normal with this intense hate burning inside him?
The pixelated meditative world was essentially limited to a small island, five times five feet wide. Totally not the expected starting region if the landscape would be reminiscent of the game it looked like. The islet was located in the middle of a pond, surrounded by a rough pixelated forest. Seb tried to glance further, but the further away he looked, the more the trees turned into unrecognizable mosaic.
The islet seemed empty, or at least if you took the pixelated representation for its word. Seb didn't though; he had too much spare time, He touched the ground with his hands, leisurely exploring the world with his hands. There was so much more to it than could be seen.
"Huh," he felt a soft surface on the otherwise rough ground, likely a stone. He would've ignored it, wasn't it for the unusual sensation it gave off. He began digging it out from the ground; it wasn't like he had anything better to do. The smooth surface ended a few hands down the forest soil. Seb gripped the thing and pulled it out.
Congratulations! You've found a Mysterious Egg!
"Well, things just got a bit less boring," Seb smiled.
An egg, bigger than any he had ever seen was in his lap. The fragile thing, even if just imaginary, radiated a sense of frail dependency on Seb. Seb was a simple man, if he saw a vulnerable thing, he'd protect it, at least if it in a game, and this imaginary world was just that.
Seb tried to meddle a bit with his most recent addition to the hallucination world, imagined feeling the insides of the egg. Unexpectedly, something responded. A faint gasp for air whispered in his mind...
***
“Halt! Who goes there?”
It might've been dark, but the voice was unmistakable.
“Are you blind Benjin? The Ivory wolves are back! Tell the tavern to fetch some beer, I’ll be done with the horses in a minute,” Bersko grinned to his friend.
Aspengale, a trading town on the uprise. It was a community where information was plentiful. If there were a bounty on the elfling, someone here would know it. Otherwise, there ought to be at least one trader willing to buy it.
THe first night of many, Bersko finally had a good night of sleep. The bedding hay was fresh, dry and lice-free, its rustling when he turned in it told of its recent exchanging.
***
“What do you mean, won’t buy him!? He has a magical aptitude, you said so yourself!”
“Well the thing might have decent potential, but the quality of its mana is shit. At its age, it ain't gonna get any better either. I’m telling you, mages wouldn’t even let him recharge glyphs, would anyone be stupid enough to buy it. This piece of elven crap will never make up for its costs. It even faked to know counting when it's clear that it lacks even the most basic of educations. I'd cull it if I were you.”
“Come on, five lifembers? I’m practically giving him away!”
“Pfft, I’m not bargaining, the thing is worthless. Go bother someone else.”
Sebastian froze. The vendor's response unsettled him. As did the enormous town he was in. Surrounding the trading plaza he was at, there were alleys upon alleys of medieval wooden houses and people in funky clothes. All of this was surrounded by an enormous stone wall, even that one made without a trace of steel bars, glas or concrete. Worst of all was that no one but the kids seemed to bat an eye when they saw him in shackles. Not even when he screamed for someone to call the police.
Whatever his captors were part of, Seb had fundamentally underestimated its scale. Where on earth was this large scale LARPing event? He had never heard of it, and his instinct told him that YouTube should have kept him up to date on such a thing. The landscape seemed foreign, were they in another country? But if so, why were everyone speakingnear perfect english?
The financial strength of whomever pulled the strings were inconceivable. If this truly was a place hidden from the rest of the world, then Seb was in deep deep trouble. The cosplay illuminati would have to have enough resources to outfit thousands od people as well as raising an freaking fortified Town. Just the cost of making the stone without concrete was staggering. Lastly, why were there no normal people? From his limited tied up position, it appeared as if the medieval looking town was just what it was built to be and nothing else. People went on with the most boring routines, despite the elaborate environment.
The trader glanced angrily at Sebastian, as Seb's captor dragged him away.
In this town where people took their acting seriously, Seb had tried to fit in, to become an "elfling" of value; he knew how an "useless elfling" was treated, and that was an experience he'd rather die than relive. Acting submissive in front of these people made him sick, but he saw no reason to enlarge his tooth gap.
Stupidly, three years of engineering studies weren't worth shit amongst these people. Apparently, anything besides the roleplayer number system was considered uneducated rubbish. Sebastian didn’t know how to please these people. They were all jacked like olympic athletes, and considered Seb too "useless" even to do manual labor.
Claiming to be human never ended up any well either The night before, Seb had lost his third tooth, a lower jaw one. A fourth was chipped as well, that one hurt the most. How insane wasn't that?
For the sake of a very unoriginal world setting, having naturally blonde hair made you an "elfling, " and somehow that was a bad thing. Fucking reverse racists cosplay maffia illuminati! Somehow a group of equally brown hair had gotten together to make this ridiculously large society of outsiders a thing.
He had tried pretending to be the apprentice...slave of some eminent mage, but Seb's prospect "buyer" didn't yield an inch. They had brought forth some "magic" stone, imbued with LED lamps and heat sensors. Seb would've been impressed by the craftsmanship, wasn't it for him being little focused on admiring details and much focused on disappearing into thin air.
Anyhow, the stone hadn't "glowed the right way" when Sebastian touched it, and because of that, his cosplay captors pretended as if he was more trash than ever. Plan after plan had failed, and with his limbs shackled all the time, he felt more dejected by the day.
They had brought him here to fail, and he'd rather not know how failing was punished. They couldn’t be serious with killing him, cold they? That wouldn't make sense, then why would they even bother to kidnap him to begin with? Sebastian tried to calm himself, but his reasoning didn't do much to quench the oncoming panic in his heart.
“Healing potions and general antidotes! Come try! Only five each! Buy ten, and get a sinew restoration salve for free!” a woman shouted from across the plaza.
“Hah, I’d rather go all the way to Springbreeze buying one than falling prey to those prices!” a distant voice answered.
Two insanely strong hands grabbed his shoulders.
“Well, we’d better get this one dealt with then.”
Sebastian’s face whitened.
“I ain’t doing it, Renald should go, he never cleans his blade anyways!”
“Elbard, screw your oh so fancy saber, too shiny to be put to use!...”
The group of buff cosplayers argued for some time. Dealing with Sebastian was an all inclusive a trip "to the pits," a trip without volunteers. After some perverted version of ini-mini-miny, the man with the shiny saber got the task. Dragging Sebastian by his rope, he hurried towards the gate. If there was anyone Sebastian hated in particular, then it was this man. Elbard - the man who had dragged him behind a horse.
Wounds tore open as Sebastian's bare feet were forced into action.
“Okay, between you and me, could you just let me go now? You're done with me anyways, aren't you? I'll run off and you won't need to dirty your weapon”
“Hey, just let go of the rope, I won’t tell anyone. Just release me, and you won’t need to bother with me anymore. I'll be as good as gone to the others.”
“Orders are orders. Just shut up and try to die on the first hit. Don’t wanna have any blood splashing all over me clothes.”
“They fuck! This isn’t fun! I’ll pay you! How much do you want? My parents have a veterinary clinic! They own a big villa too! I’m sure we could cut you a great deal somehow. We'll pay you in bitcoins, just tell me how much you want!”
“Stop puking horsedung, elfling. Half-demons are half-demons, stop ranting, or I'll cut your tongue out."
These people were insane. If there were a rich retard with a GoPro around, this would be the perfect time to jump forth saying something like: ‘Surprise prank! It’s just a prank bro, just a prank.’.
Not such thing happened though.
No camera guy came. No one came. They left the gate, heading for some oozing pits. They smelled like shit, unsurprisingly, they were filled with it too.
“On your knees.” the man muttered, resting his hand on his saber hilt. Sebastian was turned facing the latrine hole. He hyperventilated. Everything but his "common sense" told him that the decapitation ritual wasn't a prank. He'd frog jump straight into the pile of human excrement, wasn't it for his leash.
He screamed, loudly enough to make his throat hurt. His breaths were irregular, ignored in the panic. He screamed his lungs out, all until nothing but coarse breaths left his lips. Even more tired than his throat was his ears, still deafened by piercing screams. Seb turned his head around, giving his executioner a last glance.
"What," Seb tried to breathe out. Behind him stood a man, never seen before, sword in hand. Seb's leash in the other, preventing him from jumping into the latrine. Bellow his feet was the designated executioner, crying in pain. He lied flat on his chest harness, bleeding from both knees.
"Hmm, this one, that one... hmm, let's do this one too!" The stranger mumbled, cutting away at the executioner's limbs and joints.
“Well, that should cut it I guess, haha, CUT IT!” he said, wiping his sword tip at the maimed man's clothes, finishing off with spitting at the victim, mumbling something.
This was insane. Sebastian had just watched one lunatic cripple another one. Cutting people with swords? For people having nightmares of getting snuck up on and stabbed by knives, this was the next level of it. How comes swords weren't used in horror movies? Somehow though, cutting down Elbard was hands down the best thing anyone could've done if they wanted to befriend Sebastian.
"Well, hi there, my name's... err, let's do the introductions elsewhere...You an elfling?"
"No!" Sebastian almost shouted in response. He was not going for another round of "elfling treatment."
"Good. Hide your hair, and even I might believe you. Your ears aren't even pointy; holy shit that's good...How's your magic?"
"They say I've got great potential," Seb tweaked the shopkeeper's words from earlier.
"That's feaking awesome! Stay with me and and I'll cut you a deal better than anything your master ever did. Loot the fucker of whatever items you want, we're getting away from here," the man said grinning, cutting Seb free.
"Shame, it's a good rope. Fuck it; we don't have the time, pick your stuff, and we're off," the stranger waved hurriedly at Sebastian.
Seb looked at the man on the ground. He didn't feel any empathy for him, yet the sight disgusted him. Feeling surreal about his actions, he stripped the man of his weapons belt, and placed the man's well-polished saber in its scabbard. He then grabbed the man's helmet, letting it mask his blonde hair. He gave the now crying man the last look, the clothes and everything else on him was pretty useless, Seb didn't want to touch it; It was all covered in blood. He was done, preparing to finally leave, he sent the nastiest gob of spit ever to the maimed mans face. He considered finishing him off, but it felt too inhuman. The man has already passed from bloodloss and cries of pain.
"Come on man; we gotta get out of here, NOW!"
Seb left with the stranger. His feet bled, hurting like never before, but Seb didn't care. Pain was now a common thing. Biting down his teeth, he smiled with each step. This new lunatic was way better that the previous ones.