It is the same as it has been since I have gotten here. I fall asleep, and there a table of old men stands in front of me. This time I try to reach out to them, attempting to get their attention. But I feel something pulling on me from behind.

  I turn to look and I am pulled away. I am yanked into a deep ocean, quickly being pulled to the bottom. But the pulling did not stop at the bottom of the ocean. I am pulled through the ground, phasing through the muck of the ocean.

  The pull is getting stronger as I am being pulled. At this point in time I am screaming my lungs out, as what the fuck is going on? I was just sleeping and trying to make contact with those strangers in my dreams, but now I am being pulled to the center of the earth!

  My body starts picking up speed, and now I am just straight up flying through solid material. It is intense, I hear things screaming past me like the wind on the Ever-Cold mountain. I am overwhelmed by what is going on.

  Then it all stops. Not just the pull and the phasing through solid ground. I was laying face down on the ground covered in a thick, yet warm fog. It takes me a moment to recover from what I just went through, and I turn onto my back.

  The sky was cloudless, despite the thick fog that hovers over the ground. It is a peach color, without a sun or any object in the sky really. Then it starts. My head starts to pound, as if I had the worst headache of all time.

  It kept intensifying, getting stronger and stronger as the seconds go by. My ears begin to ring, loud and intense just like the headache. I sit up and hold my head above the fog, making an attempt to sooth the searing pain.

  The headache begins to lessen. I took deep breaths to try to stabilize myself. Eventually, it goes away and all the pain is gone.

  I stood up, and looked around. It is nothing but the fog and sky. The world is silent, I couldn’t even hear my own heartbeat. I looked around to see if anything was in this empty plain, I spotted something in the distance.

  Well something(s). A group of objects coming closer. And then I hear it. Music, specifically a soft samba. Latin percussion, stringed instruments, woodwinds and brass. All of them traveling towards me.

  Watching the instruments come closer I see they are dancing without players to their own tune. They finally reach me, and they seem to do a bow before me. They change up the tune, now the music becoming grand and omnipotent feeling.

  The composure is wonderful, reminds me of scores I heard on earth. Eventually the movement ends, it was around a brisk 16 minutes long. After it ended I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  I turn around.

  There, stood before me was a man made of pure darkness. It did not reflect the peachy light that the sky cast onto the world, it absorbed. Its face was empty of all features, same with the rest of its body.

  “Uh, hello?” I asked the being while taking a step back.

  The being tilted his head at me, before seemingly remembering something important. It raised its finger and wiggled it at me, which after he did that a mouth appeared on his face.

  It cleared its throat, “Darian, right?” it asked the voice in a very rough tone. The being seemed to have heard its own voice, “Excuse me, I haven’t spoken to a mortal in a few centuries.” it says as it attempts to fix his rough voice.

  I watched as the being took its finger and shoved it straight through its neck to reach its vocal cords. It rummages around in its neck for a moment before taking out his finger and clearing his throat.

  “Let’s try this again.” the being said, his tone now being a lot clearer. “You are Darian the transported, right?” it asked once again.

  I pointed to myself, “Yeah, I’m Darian-”

  “But everybody calls you Shrugs.” It finished my sentence, “I already know who you are, Shrugs. I just wanted to make sure I got the right one.”

  “And who are you to drag me out of my sleep?” I asked the being.

  The being scoffs, “Right. I am Volley, the spirit of negative mana!” he exclaims, “and I have chosen you (yes you) to be my transported! (this cycle)” he says in a joyful tone.

  I step back from him and got into a stance I thought looked scary, “Vorllem? As in evil spirit Vorllem?” I asked, preparing for the worst.

  “Evil?” The spirit was outraged at being called evil, “Who the hell is calling me evil in the mortal realms?” he asked himself. He looked at me, “No, I am not an evil spirit. In fact, all spirits can’t be evil!”

  The spirit went onto rant, “Spirits themselves are all naturally neutral to good and evil. Whoever called me an evil spirit clearly has never met one of us.” the spirit is clearly getting more and more angered at the fact that he was called evil to his face.

  He got up close and personal with me, “Who the hell do you think you are? I pulled you into my domain to help YOU out and insult me?! How dare you!”

  “I was just saying what I heard from other people, I didn’t know that spirits were neutral.” he explained myself, trying to get out of this situation.

  He stopped ranting and asked a question, “Who told you I was evil?”

  “A Demi-human named Leah.” I said sheepishly.

  The spirit places his thumb and pointer finger on his chin and thought for a moment, “I think I know that name… Oh! That's right. The Demi-Human.” he removed his thumb and finger from his chin and seemed to have calmed down.

  “Let’s get back on topic.” his voice changed to a more relaxed and inquisitive tone. “Where was I?” he asked.

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  “Introducing yourself I think.” I replied.

  “Right, right.” he cleared his throat, “I am Vorllem, the spirit of negative mana. I am the partner of Allem, the spirit of positive mana. Partner, as in she is my wife.” he introduced himself, “And you?” he asked.

  I attempted to match his energy, “I am Darian Washburn, those who know may call me Shrugs! I am the partner to Enrique, and we are NOT married.” I introduced myself.

  Vorllem clapped his hands, “Wonderful. Now that the introduction is done, I can explain where you are and how you got here.”

  He took a deep breath, “You are in the spirit realm… Well not really, it’s just your consciousness. Your body is currently in your bed at ReKeller. Think of it as a dream, but reality. Anyway, you are my chosen transport, so I took it upon myself to do thing right this time. As last time I got to choose someone to be transported, he ended up starting a cult that created a portal to the mana realm.”

  “What?” I asked, as I had no idea what this great spirit is speaking to me about.

  “I’m guessing you don’t know much about the realms, do you?” asked Vorllem.

  “Not really, I kinda just got here like a week or two ago.” I scratched my chin.

  He raised his finger and opened his mouth, before stopping and wiggled it at me, “Right. You are very new. So do let me explain.”

  Vorllem waved his finger and two office chairs and a desk appeared before us, he sat down behind the desk while I sat on the other side. He snapped his fingers and glasses were summoned onto his face, where his eyes would be.

  “Well, lets start with the whole realm things. Firstly, there are 6 realms. The advanced realm, which is controlled by limitless technology that endlessly fill their universe with massive megastructures that are bigger than most galaxies. Then there is your realm, which is a lesser form of the advanced realm. Your realm is a mix of the paradise template and the advanced realm.”

  I relaxed into the chair.

  “Then there is the spirit realm, the realm you see yourself in right now. Mortals are never allowed here in a physical form. Mortals can’t see the true form that this world takes, so all you see is a thick fog that covers the ground, and the peachy sky.”

  “Then there is the realm you live in now, a mixture of the paradise template and the mana realm. It’s just like your original realm, but less advanced and with magic instead of tech. Then there is the mana realm, or the mana plain. It is a chaotic plain full of strange things. There are being that live there and they are made up of pure mana. Their entire thing is getting stronger and expanding the universal pool of mana.”

  “How did you get me into the spirit realm? Did you not just say it’s against the rules?” I asked Vorllem.

  “Well no. I and Allem got permission from the Multi-Realm Council to transport beings from one realm into another once every century or whatever. Our reason for this is to bring balance to the mortal realm without directly changing things there ourselves.” he explained.

  “Another question, what is the paradise template?” I asked another question to Vorllem.

  “Ah, right. Well a very, very long time ago, the realms were all combined into a single realm called Paradise. Every immortal being were there and it was a flawless realm. Everything was perfect until the realm ran out of room for growth. So the strongest beings in Paradise came together and decided to split the realm into three. The tech realm for the technomancers, the mana realm for the mana beings and the spirit realm for the spirits.”

  “Everything went to plan, and the three major groups of immortals were mostly happy. Many, many eons later, a spirit and a mana being come together and experimented with creating life. This is how the first mortals; Bahamut Torm, The Platinum Dragon. Asgorath, The World Shaper. Task of greed. And few others. But the most important ones were Bahamut, Asgorath and another one that got split into two different beings. I forgot their name.”

  “You see, the first mortals were very smart beings, Bahamut leading them in wit. He was said to be able to outwit some of the smarter spirits and mana beings. This made some people uneasy, as they feared that this mortal being would betray them and cause problems. Leading to a huge debate between the Multi-Realm Council, which was split into two sides; people for having mortals around and people against having mortals around.”

  “Eventually, no agreement between the two parties came around. Meaning civil war was on its way. I’m gonna skip ahead now as the war was super-duper long and I don’t want to think about the bad memories I have of it.”

  “Blah Blah Blah, the side against mortals won the war. But at the cost of Bahamut and the other mortals stealing the paradise template and using it to create the last two realms, two realms just for the mortals. I hear from Allem that Bahamut and the others are still alive in one of the mortal realms, but Bahamut uses mana to block us from knowing exactly where they are.” Vorllem finished explaining.

  “So how does all of this relate back to me and Enrique?” I questioned the spirit.

  “Well, I’ll cut to the reason I brought you here. Simply put, the emperor of Araki is trying to form a portal between their realm and the mana realm. This is causing a lot of problems for the mana beings, which led to some of them coming over to the Multi-Realm Council for help. It just so happened that this lined up with the transport schedule.”

  “Your task is to get good at mana and stop the Araki state from ripping into the realm’s reality.” he explained to me.

  “Woah woah. You want me to wage some war that I have no business taking part in? Are you mental? All it’s been since I have gotten here is ‘do this and do that so you can become a hero’ and It's never about what I want to do!” I was a bit pissed off with the audacity that this spirit.

  “From what I know, this is all your fault. You brought the transported here, who founded the cult that became the foundation of Araki. Which is now trying to rip a hole in reality to go and fuck with some mana being for some damn reason!”

  I stood up and leaned over the desk and pointed in the face of Vorllem, “YOU WANT ME TO FIGHT A PROBLEM YOU CREATED? THAT IS UNFAIR TO ENRIQUE AND I. WE HAVE NO PART IN THIS!”

  “Calm down. I would go in there and fix it myself if I could. But law states that spirits are not able to directly interfere with the mortal realms, so my hands are kinda tied.” Vorllem put his hands up, attempting to reason with me.

  “Why us? Why did you pick us of all people to be transported? Is there no better option than us?” I put my finger closer to his face.

  “Not really, you and your friends were the most compatible this cycle.” Vorllem explained.

  I plopped back down into the chair, trying to calm myself down. I took a moment to think things through about what Vorllem has said. “I don’t want to be a puppet for war…” I tell Vorllem, “I want to treat this new life as a chance to become something better than what I was back home. But fighting a war I have nothing to do with isn’t something I am interested in.”

  “Then become better, Darian. Become a hero to the world you find yourself in now. Don’t waste this new-found chance.” Vorllem tries to get me back on his side.

  I look up at Vorllem, “You aren’t getting it. I don’t want to be in the war you are trying to force me into.”

  “I don’t think you have a choice. As eventually the emperor will find out about you and will hunt you down. What do you plan on doing then?” Vorllem asked me.

  I thought about this for a moment, thinking about ReKeller and all the people I have met so far in this journey, “Rely on those who’ve helped me so far, and escape the state.” I told Vorllem.

  Vorllem scoffed, “And after that? Do you just plan on running until you die of old age? That sounds like a foolish plan to me.”

  “I’ll work on the details later. For now, I just want to graduate college with Enrique by my side.” I replied.

  Behind me, I feel someone gaze at me. “Vorllem, I am sorry to cut this short, but we have that meeting to attend to.” a female voice stated.

  “Yes, my dear. I will wrap things up now.” Vorllem said as looked behind me to see a female figure made up of pure light, the female version of whatever Vorllem is.

  Vorllem talks at me, “I am going to send you back now, I hope you agree with me by the next time we meet. See you, Darian.”

  I spin my head back around just in time to see Vorllem snap his fingers. Then, just like me coming here, I was pulled into the ground.