Usually when I fell asleep at work, my punishment was discovering that the pile of paperwork on my desk had grown a lot taller and tottering.
On this fine day, I woke up and found myself being ritually sacrificed.
After the briefest of sensory inputs—a gloom-shrouded area, the stench of something burning, heat pressing in on my face, an acidic taste in my mouth—I was visually assaulted by a series of floating, somewhat holographic blue screens and blindingly bright words.
[ New Entity Detected
Path: [LOCKED]
Attributes: [LOCKED]
Aspect: [LOCKED]
Welcome to Ephemeroth, New Entity. Please wait while your Path is being evaluated… ]
[ Path Unlocked!
Access to the Weave: [Limited to Instructions]
Access to Communication: [Limited to Rudimentary Comprehension] [No Assistance]
New Path: Path of the Summoned [***] ]
The blue screens and the strange words vanished as suddenly as they had come. I had just enough time to read it all, but that wasn't helping. My mind wasn't catching up. How had I ended up… wherever I was? This felt too real to be a dream.
I coughed and discovered I couldn't move. My hands were tied. My legs were bound. My whole body was stuck to a stake.
"The fuck?" I tried to tug myself free, then coughed again. This air, geez. It was like someone had condensed all the smog in LA into one boiler tank and locked me inside for some reason. And why was it so dark too? "What the hell is going on?"
"* *** understand ***! A ******."
I looked around to find the voice. My slowly-starting-to-panic brain barely even processed the fact that I had understood a word, despite being absolutely certain I had never heard that language before.
Limited to Rudimentary Comprehension, I briefly recalled.
What I saw made my throat close up. Gone were the cubicles I was familiar with, as well as the bright office lights that made sure every nook and cranny was exposed to the security cams. Instead, I was definitely outside now, standing on what felt like gravel, the area so dimly lit that I felt like it was dusk.
No, not gravel. Small, broken pieces of kindling.
There were people present too. I recognized nobody. Worse, they were all dressed in clothes that vaguely reminded me of history books—dirty and ragged and clearly having never gone through a proper laundry cycle.
My eyes focused on two people at the front. Both were old, one dressed in robes similar but fancier than that of the rest, while the other… the other was an honest-to-goodness wizard. With that magnificent beard, that pointy, wide-brimmed hat, a tunic that would make a friar jealous, and a staff topped with a knot of wood, who else could I be looking at?
Although, the way the bushy silvery eyebrows hardened and extended into short horns curling upwards was a lot more… warlock-y? And the look in those eyes wasn't wizardly at all.
The moment he turned after finishing his chat with the other senior citizen, he faced me like a hyena spotting prey.
"** ***** ** wealth *** awoke*!" He paused, suddenly thinking for some reason. I was about to start speaking myself, but then he started talking in perfect, natural English. Even his accent was better than mine. "Yes, yes, I know you're terribly frightened and confused at the moment, and I suppose it behoves me to enlighten you to some extent as your summoner…" He flashed predatory teeth at me. "But now that I've been paid, I can happily sod off!"
I rediscovered my voice, glad I wasn't coughing again. "You brought me here? How? Why?"
One of those questions was probably more important than the other, but I had no idea which.
"Oh, it was just some Minor Dimensional Weaving." He leaned in, holding one hand up against his mouth as if to hide his lips from being read, and hissed, "Don't tell them I said that, though. I charged for the use of a Sovereign-ranked Aspect. Poor sots don't realize even a Sacrifice like this is going to fail…"
Forget not being able to tell anyone anything because I didn't speak that language, I could hardly understand what this bearded scammer was telling me.
And he was speaking my tongue.
Before I could ask anything further, he trotted off, a spring in his step like he wasn't at least over seventy years old. He exchanged some soft words with the old man, performed a strange salute—fist to chest, then fingers to lips—before jauntily leaving down the slope.
I was about to call after him, even if my voice wasn't working right in this toxic, polluted air. But I realized something.
He was heading down the slope…
We were on top of some kind of mountain. Pieces clicked in my brain. The smoky, scorchy sensation in the air, the acidic taste, the mention of a sacrifice.
I was on top of a volcano.
Oh, yes. A quick turn of my head confirmed it. To my left, where the other edge dropped off in a sheer fall, I caught the edge of burning light coming from deep beneath.
The rest of the congregation gathered around me. Even in the midst of realizing I was perilously close to dying, I noted a strange separation between the people via their getups. Most wore nondescript tunics easily outshone by their white-gold shawls and sashes. Only two young men had full, white-gold robes emblazoned with the symbol of a golden circle with silver rays.
It was only the old man who stood closest to me, who had a full set of those robes and a pure gold sash as well as a belt with metal version of the symbol as its buckle. Was that a sun?
A dozen questions were trying to take over my head at the same time, a hundred concerns and worries turning my thoughts into a confusing mush. I was breathing too quickly, my hands and feet automatically trying to pry free from my binds.
Focus. I had to focus. Closing my eyes, trying to still my shaking as the chanting started around me, I did my best to narrow my concentration to what I needed. What did I need here?
To not die.
I opened my eyes, staring straight at the old man. The undoubted leader of this little ritual. "You're being scammed," I said. Shakiness wasn't going to help, so my words were sure. Because it was true. "It's not going to work. The wizard said so!"
"******?" one of the robed youths asked.
"*** ****** ** trick ***," said the other, slightly older one. There was something oddly different about him, but I couldn't place it just then. "Don't ****** ** ***."
I really wanted to curse the fact that I couldn't understand most of what they were saying. Why was my understanding limited? That was what those blue screens had said, from what I remembered. It had also said that was because of my Path, whatever that was supposed to be. Annoying.
The old leader looked at me not unkindly. Unlike the brow-horned wizard guy, I could tell this fellow wasn't a wannabe mafioso. "* ** sorry, *** **** **** ** done." He took a deep breath, then sighed it out. "** **** **** Sacrifice. ** ***** ** *** **** *** ** bring **** *** Old ****."
There was the mention of a sacrifice again. But there was a certain emphasis to it that was tugging at my brain, though I wasn't sure why.
I protested some more, but the gathering had started tuning me out. They were impatient to get on with it. Well, most of the people in raggedy tunics were, and seeing their agitation, the old leader and his two underlings hurried things on.
They started chanting. Their voices melded together in an eerie combination and even I could feel the strange power flooding the area as their words magically grew stronger and louder.
"O Power ******* ** *** Beyond."
"Flame **** ******* *** and ***** **** ******* Life."
"** *** ** Come ** *** Hallowed ****."
"*** **** Unto *** **** Sacrifice."
Sweat had turned my body sticky, almost making me shiver despite the heat. My old work clothes felt like a burden, chains locking me in place alongside the unnegotiable ropes. Even the very air itself was starting to cage me in, which could really be true, considering there was magic that could rip me through dimensions.
Moments later, the chanting ended. The next stage of the ritual sacrifice began. This mostly involved setting fire to kindling around me. It was the regular people, the ones in just tunics, not robes, who did that.
"He said it's going to fail." I coughed. Couldn't help it with the smoke so close now. "The sacrifice isn't going to work. That's what he said. The—the wizard."
I wasn't sure what else to call him. Did these people even have a frame of reference for wizards? But then again, I got the sense they understood me, at least in part, just like I could comprehend them. So maybe whatever magic was at work would translate what "wizard" meant?
Like my previous entreaties, my latest one didn't work either. The old man at least had the grace to look sad and somewhat regretful.
Fat load of good that was going to do me, considering I was about to die.
"At least you could try to not burn me alive, maybe?" I suggested. I coughed. "Because I'm going to choke to death on this smoke before your fire even reaches me."
They didn't seem to be listening, since the chanting had started up again. I wasn't even sure of the verses this time. The heat was making my brain turn woozy. I had tried to stave off the panic and focus on what little I could do to affect the situation. To try and influence it in what limited capacity I could. And it hadn't worked.
It hadn't worked and I was going to die.
Trying to conserve my breath wasn't working because the smoke acted like serpents worming forcefully into my lungs. My body was slumping in the binds, my clothes dragging me towards the ground. Towards the encroaching flames.
Towards death.
Death…
No. Memories tried to flash through my head, but I clamped down on it and rejected them all. Life flashing before one's eyes happened to people who were resigned to their death, and I was not giving my fate the satisfaction of beating me. Not even now.
Not when I had done nothing to deserve any of this. Kidnapped to another world just to get ritually sacrificed, hogtied so I could be burned alive…
The unfairness of it all brought with it a surge of anger, and with that came a burst of strength. Not enough to break free—nowhere close, in all honesty—but I struggled against the binds anyway. The heat and smoke scratched tears out of my eyes and dragged out coughs that felt like I'd vomit up my lungs any second now.
And still I kept struggling. I couldn't yell at them, but I made my displeasure known. I was not going down without a fight. Not without giving it my all. Resigned? Ha, maybe when I reached whatever version of hell existed here.
I couldn't tell through the smoke if they saw me and if they took pity on me, or if it was just another part of the ritual. But one of them came forward.
The taller of the two robed youths, a man I'd say was closer to my age, stepped through the smoke to approach the fire. Although, now that he was lit up brighter, I could see he wasn't a human. Not fully at least.
Everyone's skin was really pale here, but his was bone white. The slick dark hair, those scarlet eyes, and the glint of overlong fangs when he spoke started making me think he was a vampire. Did this world have vampires? Did he have a taste for charbroiled blood?
I grinned at him, probably my last act of defiance. "Can't resist a succulent free meal?"
He scowled mightily. Then he pulled out a gun.
I blinked. Threads of coppery light materialized around his hand and wove themselves into the shape of something like an old-fashioned flintlock pistol. Except, instead of forming a regular grip in his hand, this magical gun clinched itself around the vampire's wrist, with the barrel jutting out over his fist.
Surely that was a violation of some sort of firearm safety, right?
"*** **** ******** enough," he said. "**** ** Icon, I **** *** ** *** Beyond."
"I don't understand—"
My words were cut off when the gun fired. A blob of energy zinged to life in the barrel before shooting at my head, and a blinding flash of light was the last thing I saw.
I was lost in darkness, aware of nothing save my own thoughts somehow, when the blue screens and their bright words returned. Good thing I didn't really have eyes to be blinded anymore, though that raised the question of how I was even perceiving anything.
[ Sacrifice
Attempting connection to the Beyond…
Attempting contact with an Old One…
Re-evaluating…
Sacrifice Reward Obtained ]
[ Path Unlocked!
Contact via Sacrifice has been rejected. [Unique] Sacrificial Power cannot overcome ******** *****. Sacrificial Power instead converted to Divine Blessing.
Converting Path of the Summoned…
New Path: Path of the Newborn Star [Iron I]
Starting Aspect: Gravity [Iron I]
Path-bound Core: Mana Implosion ]
I stared at the blue screens as they sequentially appeared and disappeared after some time. Some of that—alright, most of that—was definitely confusing, but I got the gist. Whatever they had attempted via Sacrifice hadn't worked. Just like that wizard had said.
Instead, it had changed my Path into a new one for some reason. But why was it called Newborn Star? I thought back to the sun symbols I had seen, but a new screen distracted me.
[ Path-bound Core
Core Primary Property: Overwhelming mana vacuum draws in natural mana at rapid pace. Subsequent compression to supermassive density will lead to a mana implosion. Current physical limit suggests that implosion will destroy the owner and everything else within 17 leagues.
Time until Mana Implosion: 1 day ]
All that information would have been rather alarming, except for one small issue. I was dead.
[ Divine Blessing
Blessing returns subject back to life. Rebinding soul to its original, healed body… ]
I stared at that last blue screen. Ah crap.