02

Eric was barely conscious when the wave of energy, electricity and light finally reached him. Even in such a state he was still conscious enough to feel the pain.

Getting burned alive by hot plasma and electricity wasn’t how he thought he would die, but there it was.

Luckily, he didn’t have enough strength to scream when arcs of energy swept over him.

It was agony, brief, but painful. But as far as death went, there were worse way to die.

For those few moments before he faded away Eric felt as if someone pierced him with a thousand little hooks. Pulling him forward and spinning him in a mad roller-coaster of pain.

Something burned his chest, pierced him and whipped him around. Blind and dying, Eric was lost in the sudden vertigo, still feeling the strands of force pulling him, spinning him, forward, upwards and down.

With a final flash of pain, Eric felt himself break out from something, he couldn’t see what, but it felt like glass, or was it surface of water, or was it…. He didn’t know.

Suddenly there was nothing but silence around him, and a barely noticeable feeling of falling.

Huh… Eric thought, being dead wasn’t as horrible as he thought it would be. Or maybe he was in a coma, lying somewhere in the rubble, half burned and whatnot, or maybe years have passed and he was rotting in a hospital like a potato…

Well, he thought to himself as time passed and he lazily spun in the darkness, this wasn’t so baaaaaAAAAADDDDD…!!!!”

Eric screamed, or tried to, when he suddenly plummeted down, doooown into the portal of light far below him.

He broke the shimmering surface of light and spun madly, like swimming in a colorful, glowing liquid. Erics senses were overwhelmed. He couldn’t feel his body but he felt everything around him, heard everything, experienced flashes of things he couldn’t even conceive off as the liquid around him carried him forward. Pulses of emotions and something deeper saturating his very being.

In time he slowed, and almost stopped completely, quietly mowing in the flow of enormous power that carried him.

Trying to sense anything around him he suddenly became aware of three wisps of energy around him, all of them being carried by the flow of power around them.

Hey.

He tried to say but nothing came forward. Huh, being dead was weird, Eric was beyond the basic feelings like fear or panic, there was nothing but consciousness.

As he tried to expand his senses again, there was a sudden feeling of being observed. Or being held, like a tiny ant in the hands of a giant. Enormous sense of pressure settled on his mind, flashes of meaning and intent flashing over him, filling him, dissolving inside his being.

The current of energy suddenly quickened and he was carried further away.

Struggling against the current and the images flashing in his mind he desperately tried to float closer to the three wisps near him.

As he stretched his senses forward, he barely felt a connection to the nearest wisp, there was a weird feeling of something… almost alien but also strangely familiar.

With a final push he stretched his will further and connected with one of the wisps.

A set of words burned in the forefront of his mind, drowning out other images for a few precious moments.

…..iii.. initii…initiating….

A bunch of symbols and meanings slammed into his mind, his connection to the wisp straining as information was transferred from one to another, thoughts and understandings were shared across the connection, not imprinted but felt by both.

….lan…language…mat…matrix…detec…detected…

As soon as Eric tried to communicate further with the wisp he was suddenly whipped around in a swirl. Still connected to one of the balls of energy he felt himself melt and drain down into another, fast approaching portal bellow him.

The other two wisps, that Eric suspected where souls, followed him down but spun around like leaves on the river and floated away from Eric.

Eric struggled against the current, trying to hold on to one of the wisps. However, despite his efforts he slowly but surely started to lose strength and what passed for darkness in this strange reality took him away into unconsciousness.

Eric blinked.

Some time had passed, he was sure of it.

Wait…. He blinked?

Opening his eyes for what felt like the first time he turned to look around and took a breath of fresh air, and promptly started to drown as water filled his lungs and he realized he was underwater.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

In panic he held on to what little air he had and started to swing his arms around, desperately trying to swim up. His hands grazed hard rocky bottom as he flailed around, so he gathered what little sanity he had left, gripped the stones around him and hauled himself up towards the surface.

“Guahhhh!”

After what felt like eternity his head broke the smooth surface of water. Eric immediately vomited a lungful of water and still half drowning, crawled forward onto the rocky beach where he laid down, gasping for air.

Some time passed before he regained consciousness and was able to think again.

Gahh… damn….That was fucking horrible…..

Eric turned himself over, butt naked and with his eyes closed he just lay there, struggling to breathe.

“Ohhh god, oh my god.” He gasped. “Am I dead?”

Suddenly, something poked him in the ribs and he heard a voice saying.

“Interesting, it’s not dead hmmmm, not truly at least, hmm...¨

Twitching in panic, Eric jumped up like a flopping fish and half crawled half rolled away from the voice, he then stopped and turned towards the man before him.

“Stop twitching, you thing, you are ruining everything.”

A man, if it could be called that, approached him with a predatory grace and poked him couple of more times with a long metal rod.

“Auuch!”

“Yes, yes, iiinteeeeresting….”

Poke, poke.

“Stop poking me you maniac!” Finally being able to think Eric pushed the rod away and studied his tormentor.

From the very first glance, it was obvious to Eric that the person was not a human.

Slightly metallic, almost golden skin, and glowing runes embedded in his forearms were a dead giveaway.

Aside from some abnormal features, the man appeared to be a tall human with short blonde hair. He was also clean shaven and exceptionally handsome, not that Eric could appreciate his good looks, what with him being terrified out of his mind and all that.

One of the first things that Eric tried to rationalize to himself was that he somehow ended up on another planet, and that he was currently looking at an alien. He dismissed that theory as soon as he thought of it.

He wasn’t stupid. He might be crazy, but he wasn’t stupid. None of this made sense on any rational level. Absurdly, the only rational explanation was that he was currently in an entirely different reality. Or that was what he told himself, he could be hallucinating. Or dreaming for that matter. But his intuition, fueled by the afterimages and abstract concepts that he remembered from his recent dreamlike state were all telling him to treat his new situation as something completely real, at least until he was safe enough to go through a complete mental breakdown.

Uncaring for his terrified prey, the man continued to wave the inscribed rod around Eric, sometimes poking him in the leg or belly, followed by a fascinated: “hmmm, yes, I see” or “yes, yes, very curious…hmmm.”

Confused beyond measure, Eric dragged himself up and pressed his back into a nearby rock. Looking around him he saw the place where he crawled out of water, it was a fairly small but incredibly deep natural well, filled with azure blue water that shone unnaturally in the setting sun.

All around him he noticed many other surrounding ponds and wells, filled with bright water and rising steam, as well as distant erupting geyser. The earth was a mineral rock, almost orange in color and it shimmered in rainbow hues when hit by rays of sunlight. He was currently standing in a depression of sorts, so he couldn’t see far but he still managed to notice a mountain chain in the distance, seemingly stretching forever across the horizon. No vegetation covered the land, at least in his near vicinity.

Still dazed he managed to stammer.

“Who are you? What the hell is going on, what is this place?”

“Hmmm?”

The man paused, after a moment he took a step back and swished the runed baton in his hand, making it retract and disappear somewhere. Probably in one of the pouches in the many layered robes that the man wore. It was an interesting attire, clearly well made, dark blue with sleaves up to the man’s elbows, the torso looked almost like a vest, filled with various pockets and the rest of the robes stretched down to the man’s knees, not unlike a duster coat. He also wore a nice pair of worn but comfortable looking leather boots.

The man gave him a measured look, inspecting him from head to toe, and Eric just noticed; he had the most astounding eyes. Almost yellow, with glimmering lights occasionally shining in the depths of his irises.

“I…” the man said with great importance. “…am Vitary, the god of curiosity in this realm. And you stranger, are really and truly interesting. Do tell me, how did you arrive here, through the mana vent, and how are you still moving about?”

Edward couldn’t help himself. Did he just say he was a god, and a mana went…

Oh no… no, no, no.

Eric froze in horror, staring into air past the stranger’s face.

Vitary pulled back and frowned, then he bent towards Eric and stared at him again, noticing Erics gaze he turned around and with confusion evident on his face looked towards the point of air where Eric was staring into nothing. Clearly frustrated Vitary looked at Eric again just to turn back and bent closer to the air, staring intently into nothingness.

“What is he….hmmmm.”

Eric meanwhile, was struggling with himself. Did… did he just got Isekaied. No, No way. He just lost his god damn mind, that’s it. There is nooo way…

Just then, a ray of setting sun hit him in the face and he turned his gaze up, where in sky he saw two suns. One big, normal looking one, and the other much smaller, blood red sun, half hiding behind the first one.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me….”

“Huh…” Vitary responded and turned to Eric, just to follow his stare up to the sky. He then raised his hand to his brow to protect himself from the glare and stared at the suns too, occasionally turning towards Eric to make sure he was still looking at the sky. “What is he looking at…” he mumbled to himself.

Eric was processing everything as fast as he could, chanting in his mind the mantra that stuck with him through his army days.

Just roll with it, just fucking roll with it man. Take it in stride and keep fucking moving.

Eric was no stranger to fantasy literature, his mother, bless her soul, was a huge fantasy fan, and he still had her Tolkien books as a memento back home.

She even used to read him books when he was younger, so it was no wonder that he too developed a love towards the genre. Unfortunately, the pleasure of reading withered and died with the loss of his mother, just to be replaced with harsh realities of life and some other, more carnal desires, during his college years. He did eventually get back to reading some books, but it was never the same as before, when he was a child and an innocent wide-eyed dreamer.

He was knowledgeable of the concept of alternate realities however. At least to some degree, both as a fantasy and as a scientific term. He just had to roll with it. Provided he hadn’t gone insane.

“All right, ok. So, I’m not on earth anymore, I guess.”

Vitary crossed his arms and stared him with mild contempt, his eyes passing over Eric from his head to where his feet were planted in dirty, slightly muddy, orange earth.

“I would beg to differ.” He said in a dry tone. “But you didn’t really answer my question, so, how are you here, where are you from, how did you end up crawling out of the mana vent?”

Eric composed himself as much as he could, and made a calming motion.

“Ok, ok, just bear with me for a minute mister… Vitary, right. I jut went through a lot of crazy things and I really need a minute to compose myself, a few answers too if you can give them. You said you are a curious kind of guy didn’t you, so you know what’s it like, not knowing what’s going on, so please give me a little help over here… please.”

Vitary visibly brightened at that. “Ahhh, a traditionalist, very well then a question for a question, that is fair enough, you can go first stranger.”

Eric sighed in relief, he still had no idea where he was but, hopefully, he was finally going to get some answers.