Azotreh awoke in a dark room, as they did every morning. The sixth hour of the day, just before the sun rose this time of year. The dim light of the setting moon barely let them see.
A cold sweat coated their body, and their breathing was heavy. They looked around frantically, their left eye immediately lighting up with a dim black light. After only a moment of observation, they felt their vibrancy drain. As the ability attempted to draw upon their vigor, they shut it off. The room was just as they left it, with the lack of light not impeding their Eye of the Black Dragon.
They remembered the nightmare as if it had happened to them in life. A casual walk with two others, a sister, and a bodyguard. A rainy night, a dark sky. Then bright light. Two beams of extreme white, and a deafening noise. Blood, pain, and death.
Nightmares were commonplace for Azotreh, expected even. But never so cold, so wet. It was always the night of the fire, the scar that still burned five years after. But the cold and the wet felt so real. Nothing like a dream should be.
It was distant, like something happening in the fabled Farlands, but as real as any injury Azotreh had ever suffered.
The screen beside their bed lit up, sending notice to the doctor of Azotreh awaking. The facility's master didn't seem to sleep, to eat, or to even breathe. It was a commonality among high rankers, but still deeply unnerving to Azotreh. They knew that even the daemon lords slept, even if it was infrequently. The stories of assassins slaying a local daemon lord were common, though not something Azotreh enjoyed.
Azotreh attempted to return to sleep, to find some solace in the last hour before their world lit up once more, but found it impossible. Even with the slight headache of vibrancy deprivation, it felt as if there was more to keep them from slumber.
So Azotreh tried to rest, to stop thinking for a mere moment. Before they knew it, the emerald light in their cell flickered to life. So they stood and prepared for yet another day in this awful place.
The shower was warm, but not scalding. While the lab was a nightmare for all those held within, for the favored AZ-087, there were some amenities. Among them, a warm shower and a mirror were the ones Azotreh liked the most. That, and their meals more closely resembled food. Not the disgusting flavored water the majority of others got.
Azotreh emerged from the shower, and runes lit a pale gray around them, releasing soft winds. Their dark hair was tousled as all water was removed. The air magic left the faint scent of the nightshade fungus behind, the same scent as their shampoo.
What surprised Azotreh as their hair settled were the small strands of white mixed into their dark hair. The strands didn't look gray when compared to their dark locks; instead, they stood brightly against them. They remembered that the one time they encountered a KO experiment, that one had white hair too.
Azotreh began to panic as they remembered the explanation by a guard when they saw the KO. KO-32, they think. The KO experiments were all about ripping the soul out of the body, testing to see if it could be regenerated in any way. The trauma of the process turned their hair white, and Azotreh worried that their soul was being ripped apart.
As they panicked, they felt something deep inside themselves. Something they never felt before. Something seeking to soothe, to calm. Like a voice in their subconscious telling them there's nothing to worry about. But despite the voice's best efforts, Azotreh was not calmed. The voice didn't even speak in words, just in feelings.
Azotreh shakily stood and stared into the mirror over their sink. Their deep black hair was streaked with white, not just in their bangs. Across their entire head and down their back. Azotreh liked to keep their hair long, so seeing the white streaks even down their back freaked them out even more.
Just as they felt themselves hyperventilating, something else caught their eye. A slight spot of emerald green just outside their iris. A small spot, only about a quarter the size of their pupil, but present. It slowly spun around their iris as they watched, feeling their body begin to fully panic. Every inch of their body shivered and collapsed onto the cold metallic floor.
As they passed out, they knew that a spot like that wasn't a trick of the facility's lighting. They had no idea what it was, but reflected light doesn't spin around something unless the entity it's reflecting off of moves its head.
The last thing they heard was the sound of their cell's barrier opening, the sound of footsteps, of worried voices. They smelled their shampoo, smelled the nightshade fungus, and home. They felt the trickle of blood from their nose as it broke, and as their eyes shut, they heard a distant voice. Incomprehensible, unknowable, but present.
Azotreh awoke in their bed, not the bed of their cell, but their real bed. They knew it well; it's how they started every nightmare. But instead of the normal panicked yell of their mother, the screaming of their sisters, they only heard quiet. They didn't feel their body move in the same way it always did, to run, to flee. They moved their fingers and felt control.
The nightmares never gave control, instead always replaying that night in perfect memory. But this was different. They waited for what felt like hours, waiting for the smell of smoke and the crackling of flames. But they never tasted the burning wood on their tongue, the heat on their skin. Nothing.
It took them minutes to stand. To see the room, just as they remembered it. Their father's sword crossed over their mother's axe. Both gifts to them when they were little. Their desk, with their sketches still scattered across it. Their wardrobe with the knife slices by their sister. Just as they remembered, yet different. The papers had faint marks, but not the fine art they did. The slices were a little closer or further apart. The weapons were sharp, but impossible to pull down. Not blunted. Then there was the door.
It looked like a normal wooden door, the kind of door snooping children could stare through and locate a cookie jar. Boards close, but not quite close enough to block vision. Yet beneath that, an odd golden sheen reflected back to them. Like the wood was a facade hiding a solid sheet of metal beneath.
When they approached, the door opened on its own. Just outside was a small clearing surrounding a grand black and white obelisk. Their room looked like a small house, surrounded by a lush collection of verdant trees that rustled in a non-existent wind.
No animals made homes in the trees; they knew that instinctively.
While the obelisk had six sides, the garden was perfectly circular. Surrounded by a low fence, with one gate out into… something. It was hazy, distant. But they did make out one thing: on a golden platform sat an obsidian sculpture. One of a grand and ancient dragon. The eyes of the sculpture glowed with a deep gray and cerulean light.
Azotreh knew there were other structures beyond the fence, and a thicker wall beyond the fence. But they couldn't see them, couldn't smell or hear them.
As they stood contemplating, they didn't hear brisk footsteps across the grass. They didn't see the tall man with the emerald eyes until he leaned down before Azotreh and snapped his fingers twice.
"Hey, kid, you alive?" He asked in an accent Azotreh didn't know. And in a language Azotreh didn't know, yet they understood it perfectly.
Azotreh jumped and looked into the emerald eyes of the tall man, a man who stood more than one and a half times their own height. Messy white bangs hung around his face, which was rather sharp. He was clean-shaven and wearing an odd black shirt and pants.
The man snapped his fingers again, and Azotreh jumped again. Azotreh spoke quietly, "I think so…"
"Good," The man said and smiled a little at the nervous child, "I'm Nicholas Chambers, a man of many talents who suddenly found himself in a body less than half his own age."
Azotreh already knew the man's name the moment they laid eyes on him, but only got a slight grasp through their short interaction. Even so, Azotreh could tell he was boasting, lying to both of them.
"You're Azotreh, right? I assume you are since it's your soul, and I seem to already know you." The man held out a hand for Azotreh to shake, which they did without too much hesitation. The man meant them no harm; they knew that. Even so, most adults weren't as openly emotional as Nicholas.
Nicholas straightened up and popped his back. Then he looked at Azotreh for a moment.
"I know it's your soul or whatever, but put on some pants, kid. It's uncomfortable just seeing you phase out of existence around your stomach, like all there is to you is that skull of yours."
Azotreh looked down at themselves, and sure enough, instead of a body, there was just a golden mass of energy stretching below where their neck should be. It seemed to transition into nothingness around their hips and wrists, yet their hands remained solid. Azotreh blushed lightly, and quickly imagined themself in a formal coat that reached where their ankles would be. Alongside them were a pair of long navy blue pants and a pair of feet without shoes.
Nicholas looked rather confused at the outfit, then noticed the pants and scowled.
"How did you even know what blue jeans are?"
Azotreh looked down at themselves and shrugged at Nicholas. They'd seen a local noble wearing something like this once and decided to copy it. Nicholas sighed.
"I die and end up somewhere with magic, but denim still exists?" He groaned. Azotreh simply looked confused.
"Never mind, follow me, Azotreh," Nicholas said before walking towards the obelisk.
Azotreh followed at a small distance, which quickly shortened as Azotreh grabbed the man's hand. Nicholas looked a little worried for some reason, but led Azotreh into the solid stone of the obelisk all the same.
Within was a hexagonal room with a small table, which only had two chairs. Both chairs were plush and split down the middle, half black and half white. There was an intricate pattern Azotreh ignored as they sat.
The seat was extraordinarily comfortable. While Azotreh certainly had low standards, considering the bed they slept on was made from a single blanket placed on a metal sheet, Nicholas also looked rather satisfied with the comfort of the seat.
Nicholas sat across from Azotreh before reaching for a button on the table. Soon, he was looking through screens, floating in the air.
Azotreh looked in wonder. The facility shut down access to The System for all entities within it, but Nicholas still managed to interact with it. He eventually touched a spot in the empty air, and a larger panel appeared in the center of the table. On it was a collection of numbers and words in the Aostean Common Tongue.
Both of them simply looked at the screen for a while before Nicholas looked up at Azotreh.
"I don't know the language, but I can read it. I assume you do know the language?"
"Yeah…" Azotreh responded quietly.
Nicholas nodded before trying to tap the screen. Azotreh looked in horror as Nicholas rearranged the boxes on the screen with ease. When Nicholas noticed, he smiled.
"This looks like a computer, and no good OS doesn't have the capacity to change the look of its system."
Azotreh just looked even more confused at that, and Nicholas sighed.
"You have denim but not computers? I ended up on the wrong planet." Nicholas muttered. Then he flipped up the screen for Azotreh to see.
Status: Azotreh/Nicholas Chambers
VIT: 10/10 (1/h), VIG: 1/10 (1/m), VIB: 2/10 (1/s), VAT: 10/10 (1/s), VEH: 10/10 (1/s), VIV: 10/10 (1/s).
Body: 1
Mind: 1
Soul: 1
Core (LOCKED): 1
Origin (LOCKED): 1
Base (LOCKED): 1
From there, it began to describe other aspects. They're a human and of the Creature Archetype. They're Tin Rank, at Z-Grade. Without a Path, any levels, classes, conceptions, or anything else, really. They had the generic Human Bloodline, the Heroic Human Bloodline, and the Black Dragon Bloodline.
There was a lot of text that seemed jumbled, and neither Azotreh nor Nicholas could decipher them. Azotreh apparently had a Title, though they couldn't see that either.
Nicholas began to poke the screen, finding tons of dropdowns and descriptions. Each of the six listed things above opened into menus containing fifteen other statistics a piece. Azotreh felt lightheaded from the sheer quantity of information held in their little personal window. Even Nicholas seemed rather confused by the sheer quantity of numbers and missing text.
"Well, there's a lot here," Nicholas began, "far too much for me to understand and decipher in even a day. There's far too much information packed into this little window. But the good thing is that I'm trapped in here while you're awake, and so I can work through the entire thing. Hopefully, I can also figure out what the hell all this missing text means."
Azotreh nodded in confirmation, then felt something. The next thing he knew, he was outside again. No magic screens, no Nicholas. Just a bright light in his eyes, and metallic fingers tracing his skin for something.