PRINCE
Oh great hero. Is there nothing I can do to convince you to stay and lead the world to peace and prosperity.
This is the last thing I heard before activating the large magic array to send my soul back to earth.
To be honest I wasn't really paying attention to the annoying prince, but my hearing is so stupidly acute I could hear his grading voice even from the stratosphere.
IC
Ummm. No, I like suuuper want to go home. I really miss my phone and stuff. Plus there's like my parents who probably think I'm dead. So like I've got lots to do.
Who I was talking to, I had no idea. I was already gone before I even said the first word.
Also almost all of what I said was a lie.
Maybe I just said it to pass the time. This transport spell was going to take a while.
I cant even do anything while being just a soul, but at least I'm finaly away from that manipulative prince.
Trying to control me to do his bidding.
God I'm mad just thinking about it.
IC
(In a mocking voice) Oh hero, save us. Fight my battles for me so I can be king. Here's a few sticks, go beat the greatest evil on this planet.
Ugh.
Real early I started treating other people like NPCs in a game. Give me the info I need and move on.
When I did reach the demon king, he was such a pushover, I think I one shot him with a basic spell.
You could say I'm like a boss at magic.
Oh, looks like I'm finaly finishing the transport. Now, opening my eyes.
Wait...
IC
Who are you?
I was in some kind of black void and a little girl with light brown skin and long black hair was laying in front of me.
It looked like she was sleeping, but she sometimes grabbed her left hand in pain.
Looking at it, it was very damaged. It was hard to see clearly but what was poking out behind the crude bandage was open bone with very little flesh left. With the medical technology on displayed in treating it, she probably will never have use of it again.
IC
Ok so like, where am I? And who's this little girl. Did the transport fail?
As I was talking to myself, the little girl stirs and opens her black beady eyes.
The world explodes into existence around her.
From the dirty floor, to the cracks in the walls, to the holes in the ceiling that was letting moonlight seep into the space between us.
The little girl looks at me in alarm.
EVIN
Who?
I actually kind of liked the little girl. Asking who I am with the smallest amount of effort possible.
I guess this NPC at least understands their place.
IC
I am a hero summoned from a other world... sounds cool right? Like I sound so important and stuff. Anyway. Where am I? I was trying to go home but ended up here. Could this perhaps be earth?
I knew it wasn't earth, I never was trying to go to earth. But that's the story I made up when I left so I guess I'll stick with it.
The little girl just looks at me with dead eyes.
I'm not sure she could even understood half what I said but it's still rude she's not even trying to listen to me.
EVIN
Mina.
IC
Is that the name of the city?
EVIN
Port.
Oh so she did listen to me, so I guess I'm at a port, not that I didn't already know since I could hear the sea faintly... wait. Why is it so quiet? Like my hearing alone should pick up not just the sea waves but all the people in town. The only things I can hear are her breathing and the sea waves.
Wait why cant I hear my breathing, wait why am I not breathing.
Ok so now I'm officially convinced my transport failed.
Did I get summoned again by this little girl?
IC
Hay little girl, did you call me here?
EVIN
No.
Ok, so, what am I and how did I get here. From what I know souls can't exist outside a body like I am unless tethered by magic, like in necromancy.
Tether a soul to the body or bones and boom, zombie or skeleton. Add a little slavery seal and it's your minion forever.
I'll try some analysis magic... and now I've remembered I can't use magic.
This has got to be the worst day of my entire life. At least when the stupid prince summoned me he explained what happened.
EVIN
Sleep.
The little girl is trying to go back to sleep while I'm standing here freaking out about the fact I'm a free floating soul, I cant use magic, and I'm in some unknown world.
To say the least she could try to pretend to care.
IC
Hold on, isn't that a little cold to ignore a hero from another world who just appeared in your room?
EVIN
Sleep.
She says, while snuggling under the covers.
This chick has got some steal balls to ignore me even if I don't have my magic.
Maybe I sould try to take over this kids body. Yeah let's try that.
I dive forward, with a kind of instinctual drive to possess her.
I manage to initiate the takeover, but oh boy. This turned out to by my biggest mistake yet.
The moment it started, something very powerful and very dark chained me up and dragged me back out.
It was at this point I realised, I am tethered to a body... kinda. It's hers and I have no control. Or at least it seems I can control her body but her soul/magic is stopping me.
My guess is this little tike is a natural born necromancer, scary stuff.
So why did I show up here? Did she subconsciously summon me?
Ahhh... I want to cry.
The little girl, I soon learned, was named Evin. Weird name.
She lived in an orphanage. She struggled with some morning chores and left to go to the docks to seek work.
Turns out she damaged her hand yesterday to save a little boy from falling to death. Kinda a local hero but no one wanted someone with a broken hand and it seemed to be a case, you don't work so no pay.
She desperately tried with her limited communication skills to get work, it was quite cute to she her begging while saying one word, "work".
Also no one else can see me, as I guessed.
The only people who could see pure souls would be necromancers or high level priests, and I don't see a arch bishop coming to a small city like this. So it was just her.
She took it in stride, probably internalizing it as her going insane from hunger. She apparently has been going years off one meal a day.
If I was her I'd have already gone crazy from the hunger, living without food is blasphemous to me.
While I was a hero I demanded the best food the world over, anything less I'd blast it to smithereens and demand them to make it again.
After a fruitless day of going around town trying to find work, she returns to her room to try to sleep.
IC
Hay, why don't you just use your magic to fix your hand?
She looks at me in confusion.
EVIN
Magic?
IC
Is their no magic in this world?
She shakes her head and snaps her fingers, a small black flame ignites on her finger.
IC
So their is magic. So why don't you use it to heal your hand?
Again, confusion.
EVIN
How?
IC
Here let me show you.
I try to control just her right arm and hand. This time she let's me and I start to cast a regeneration spell on her hand. The light magic spell starts to activate but quickly backlashes and I'm pushed out.
Hmm... was it the kind of spell that failed, is healing magic rejected by this world's laws or is it the type of spell...
IC
Can you let me try again? I want to see why I failed.
She nods her head.
I take control of her right hand again, try a different light spell, high heal. Again backlash and explosion from the body.
IC
I'll need to try a few more things.
I take control a few more times and my results are.
It's both.
While actualy it's all magic I can use. Seems it's not the world's laws that making me fail. It's her. Nothing but dark magic will cast.
Learned that from the spells she could cast.
Kinda impressive she managed to convert other magic spells to dark magic.
She can create a small amount of water, light a small fire on her finger, and create a small gust of wind.
The water is poisonous, the fire is like super cold so cant even light a candle with it, and the wind sounds like the howls of the damned rising from hell.
All together it's nothing more than slightly dangerous lifestyle magic.
How she learned to do this stuff apparently came from a book a traveling mage left behind in a tavern that she found. It was well worn, pages ripped, spine unglued, tattered thing that I'm surprised wasn't thrown away sooner.
She read the thing front to back and tried copying the book, since she cant use anything but dark magic, she had to adapt the spell casting.
I read through the book and all the spells were spellcasting staples, like fireball, ocean wave, and whirlwind.
So the spells are a massive downgrade from the originals in terms of power but it's still impressive she casted them in the first place.
I took a peak at the spell formula for her spells and it was cobbled together with figurative tape and glue. Any normal person and it will probably kill 'em.
She just changed the type to dark and poured massive amounts of magic into the formula to strong arm it into working, albeit limited.
IC
I think I've figured out a way to heal your hand.
She looks at me with a super surprised face and bobs her head up and down like crazy. It was super cute.
IC
But, it will have some... adverse effects. How attached are you to your flesh?
At that she looks at me in confusion.
IC
I can heal it but since you can't use anything but dark magic, its basically going to animate your bones in your hand but not the flesh. You'll have a skeleton hand but it will function exactly like your normal one, just boney.
Oh and if you do I totally want to decorate it with some super cute jewels like some diamonds or something.
When I mentioned that her hand would only be a skeleton, the blood on her face drained away.
EVIN
Normal?
Hmm.. what was she asking was normal?
Oh she was asking if I could heal it to look normal.
IC
I could.
She nods her head.
IC
Get me a hand.
And confusion.
IC
I can chop yours off and replace it with the new one. You would have to replace it as you grow since it will be a dead hand. It will also be a bit gray, but a little makeup or a glove and no one could tell.
Now I cant tell what she's thinking.
But I'm not really paying attention anyway. I'm trying to formulate a few spells to use dark and not have to blow half my mana reserves.
I've already figured out the ones she casted before to be more efficient, less mana and higher power.
I theorize I can produce maybe 1/100 my normal power with the spells now.
I guess it would produce a normal looking fireball just very cold, and it would probably ignite the opponent's soul and burn it to nothing.
Scary stuff dark magic is.
I could see why the prince kept me away from it as hard as he did. I mean he put what was basically a slavery seal into the contract for summoning, so when I found a book on necromancy in the kings castle, he activated the seal to shock me into a convulsing mess and locked the book away. Never looked at it again.
I'd probably not even need to cast a spell to kill the demon king if he let me study it.
Just send some high power skeleton's with a few magic weapons I made and battle it out while I'm on a beach sipping from a coconut.
But I guess for him that wouldn't fit his image of a hero he tried to push onto me.
I guess this wasn't a total failure of a summon after all.
Just need to figure out a way to take complete control over her body and this world would be mine to control and toy with to my hearts content. No stupid prince to keep me in check and the level of gods in this world is kinda stupid low.
I secretly checked when I was trying to figure out the magic thing.
I could wipe the floor with them and probably even bring them back as my minions to do my bidding.
Necromancy is fun stuff.