James was nearly done with his shift, His former job didn't pan out very well and lost a good friend while

James heard the sound of the automatic doors opening followed by the sound of the motion detector, it buzzed twice he looked over toward the door only to see a pair of guns in his face, so James raided his hands slowly, like hell he was going to die in a goddamn shell gas station.

"Register is right there man, just take the money and go." He said, backing up a step.

one of the guys who wearing a beanie and was clearly going through some kind of withdrawal considering he kept twitching and shaking snapped "Don't tell me what to do!"

"Alright, you're the boss..." James said, Straightening slightly, this guy was nuts. James spied the shotgun the owner of the store had kept under the counter, he

"Don't fucking patronize me!" The junkie robber yelled, his gun hand wildly shaking.

"Hey man, calm down." The other robber said, looking at the junkie with worry in his eyes.

"Shut the fuck up Tom!" The junkie said, turning his gun on his friend. "You heard what bobby said, kill him and get the cash!"

Taking this chance James moved for the gun beneath the counter just as Tom aimed smacked the junkies aim away from him causing it to fire, into the wall, the man swiveled his aim when they saw him come up from the counter with the twelve gauge and fired their pistol. The bullet ripped through James' shoulder, right as he fired his own gun, the full force of the blast hitting the junkie in the chest and throwing him backwards into a stand that held small potato chip bags. Tom looked at his dead friend then at James and proceeded to shoot James seven times in the stomach and chest before James collapsed onto the floor, he wasn't dead yet though he was in agony and they must have hit a lung because he was unable to breath and he watched as Tom ran away taking the cash register leaving him to bleed out and the junkie to rot.

James felt his vision darkening though he saw red and blue and heard distant popping noises as he closed his eyes, and saw no more.

---------------

James floated in a dark place, he looked down at himself, he seemed fine save for looking like a ghost straight out of Skyrim he moved his bluish glowing arm and a translucent mist seemed to trail off of him, he looked around not seeing much aside from a few small flickering glows of... Fireflies? No... No that wasn't right, more like stars the size of baseballs. each one was a different color, from a deep crimson to a deep blue to blazing white.

He moved over to one that had a light golden hue, he felt drawn to it almost magnetically, he reached out and touched it, it felt strange, smooth and as if it was sucking on his finger, then he realized it was drawing him into it, he tried to pull away but it was relentless and eventually he got completely drawn into it.

He woke again, this time on a shore, the waves beating against his legs as he stood up looking around. To his left in the distance he saw a huge golden tree that must have been bigger than the Eifel tower, and he recognized that color of translucent gold, to his right he saw a large fortress with smoke rising from it. He definitely recognized this place, it was an area from one of his favorite games, he was in the weeping peninsula.

"What the fuck..." He said, then felt a chill as water brushed against his legs, he looked down seeing he had no clothing aside from some underwear he also saw a stick lying next to him, and next to it a strange amber disk with a golden glow, he sighed realizing what exactly was happening here. "What? no... no no no, not another Isekai please! It's too inflated! the world can't handle another!" He said.

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He looks to the nearby fortress, Castle Morne might be too much for his skills at the moment, he knew the large number of enemies there would overwhelm him and his poor little stick, he walked over across the fields, and looked over again at Castle Morne, his eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he saw a giant stone golem with a huge stone bow, he just barely managed to jump out of the way of the huge arrow that struck the ground. "Forgot about you... Fuck!" he yelled as he rolled out of the way of a second arrow, then booked it toward the closest viable cover, a crop of trees, grinned in satisfaction as he got into cover, only for that grin to be wiped off his face when the tree failed to stop the fucking telephone pole of an arrow that just sheered right through it, He managed to not get hit by the arrow but got sprayed with splinters of the tree, he looked at his arm and pulled out a chunk the size of a knife and yelled from the pain, He threw the chunk aside and he heard a creaking sound and looked up at the tree as it swayed and fell right toward him, he ran to the side just narrowly dodging the tree as it fell, he continued running, he saw a stone arch of some old ruin ahead and managed to duck behind it, feeling the stone vibrate from the impact and heard a tooth rattling BOOM as it hit and felt the vibration of the impact in the stone.

He looked at his arm, no healing factor but then again this was Elden Ring wounds didn't heal on their own, but something was still bothering him, normally trees blocked stuff like that, and sure as shit didn't explode into daggers, it was how he usually dealt with enemies who had strong ranged attacks but it had sheered through he peeked to the side and saw the golem readying another shot he braced as it fired a second arrow toward the stone arch, and watched as it skimmed the side and was sent spinning into the distance. "Shit, video game physics don't apply here?" He muttered.

He started running again, getting as far away from that damn golem as he could. Keeping the wall behind him for cover. At least that was until another light post sized arrow landed almost right in front of him sending him spiraling backwards. He eventually rolled to a stop and groaned, he looked up at the sky seeing a dark shape moving through the air. "It's adjusted it's fucking aim?" He wheezed in surprise. "Oh my god I am so fucked..." He rolled to the side, as another impact shot through the ground sending him rolling again.

He got back up and started to book it toward another stone structure, a wall, the center was destroyed, he found about three quarters the way there the golem stopped shooting at him, he rounded the corner seeing man in strange clothes playing a musical instrument in his hands, he knew this man as one of Elden Rings merchants. And if he wasn't mistaken he sold an armor set as well as a few weapons. He sat down next to the merchants fire and blinked his eyes, realizing what he had just gone through and what he nearly went through again. And he started to cry from the stress and absurdity of it all.

"You alright? You don't look so good." A raspy voice said, it sounded like they haven't spoken very often. James looked over to the merchant,

James nodded. "Yeah, I... I'm just a long way from home."

The merchant nodded back "Well, can't say I particularly understand, I never really had a home. I was part of the great caravan once, But, we were hunted down because of a sickness that afflicted all of us."

"The frenzied flame." James muttered, remembering playing through the catacombs in his last life.

"How did you know that?" The merchant asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Hm? Oh, let's just say that I tend to put my nose where the golden order would rather it not be." James said, meanwhile cursing himself for speaking aloud, atleast he always knew how to think on his toes.

The merchant blinks then laughs. "Oh, I see, well you'd best be careful, they tend to punish people severely for that."

James nodded "yeah, I've always hated those bigots... So, do you have a name?"

The merchant nods, "Korne, and yours?"

James had to think on that, he had an opportunity to start over, a new name a new life and all of that. His in-game name was usually Galus, so... "Galus, my name is Galus."

The Korne reached out his hand and Galus took it firmly.

"So, do you have any business?" Korne asked, and Galus nodded.

He nods, he was wondering what this was, he shows the merchant the amber disk. "Any ideas on what I can get for this?"

The merchant smiled, "that's a pretty big rune you have, let me go get a few things that might brighten your day up a bit." walking over to a pack mule, taking out a bastard sword, some leather trousers and armor it had a scalemail armor curasse with a rock scaled hide as a cape.

Galus, nodded handing the disk over and taking the gear, before realizing he had no idea how the armor worked, it had buckles straps and other stuff that he couldn't explain.

Galus held up "Can you tell me how to put this on?"

The merchant nodded, reaching out. "Yeah, hand it over."

He showed him how to buckle and strap the armor around himself, then had him do it again just to make sure he had it right, all things considered Korne was a good teacher.

The merchant noticed the bleeding wound on his arm, and opened a satchel "Hey, listen, it's been nice to have company, we don't get a lot of customers, so I'm going to give you this, but you'll have to promise to come back and chat with me some more alright?" He said, holding out am ornately decorated glass bottle with golden engravings of branches and leaves all along it. It had a glowing crimson liquid within it.

"Definitely!" James said, taking the flask of crimson tears and downing it, it oddly tasted reminiscent of maple syrup, and he could feel the pain leaving his arm, in fact as he piked the spot where the wound was closing he didn't feel anything there.

"It numbs your wounds, because it would be agonizing to feel your flesh knitting back together." The merchant explained, tuning his instrument before playing a rather sad and hauntingly beautiful song, and he fell asleep.