I didn't sign up for this.
I say that a lot. I've said it while being chased by slimes, while being given sacred soup made from glowing roots, and once while being forced to bless a goat. But this time?
This time, I was strapped to a summoning circle and surrounded by cloaked idiots chanting in three different languages.
So yeah. I didn't sign up for this.
The temple's main hall didn't look like a place of worship anymore. It looked like a theater production of "What If Evil Had a Pinterest Board?"
Candles lined the walls in flickering, uneven rows. Some were black, others red, and a few were just misshapen wax blobs that someone had clearly tried to carve into skulls, but ended up looking like melted potatoes. Their flames cast twisting shadows that danced across the walls like drunken ghosts, and I swear one of them winked at me.
The floor was a fever dream of chalk symbols and magic runes, drawn in a dozen different styles. Some were scrawled upside-down. One was clearly copied from a children's coloring book—I recognized the crayon scribble aesthetic. Another was shaped like a duck. I hope it wasn't on purpose.
In the very center of it all stood... me.
Arms awkwardly stretched out, tied to a post made of black wood that smelled like regret. The ropes itched. The ceremonial cloak they made me wear was even worse—too long, still damp, and faintly sticky. I didn't ask why.
In front of me, placed reverently in a silver bowl on a stone pedestal, was the artifact. The whispery, slightly-sentient orb I'd picked up in the dungeon. It was glowing faintly, like it knew what was happening and wanted no part of it. For a cursed relic, it seemed to have strong self-preservation instincts.
The High Priest stepped forward with the grandeur of someone who was definitely winging it.
He was dressed in what I can only describe as ceremonial cosplay—gold-trimmed robes, four necklaces, three rings per hand, and a headdress shaped like a crescent moon giving birth to a spider. It jangled when he moved, like a haunted wind chime.
He raised his arms to the ceiling.
"Tonight," he proclaimed, voice echoing off the high stone walls, "Umbravox returns to the waking world!"
A chorus of robed cultists erupted in cheer. It was less "divine fanfare" and more "enthusiastic amateur improv group."
Someone immediately dropped their candle. A second cultist tripped on the first one's robe and fell face-first into a decorative incense pot. Neither of them were acknowledged.
Meanwhile, the artifact let out a faint whine, like a dying kettle.
I cleared my throat.
"Before you summon your Franken-god," I said, raising my eyebrows, "quick question: is this... medically safe? Like, do you have insurance? Waivers? Paramedics?"
No answer.
I scanned the crowd. The cultists had returned to their chant—something low and repetitive, which sounded less like a sacred invocation and more like the sound my stomach made before I had bad stew.
The priest, undeterred, began circling the pedestal, muttering words in what I'm fairly sure was three different languages at once—none of them real. At one point, he pronounced a word like he bit his own tongue. That got a cheer from the guy in the back who kept clapping off-rhythm.
I looked down at my feet. There were symbols drawn beneath me. Some were squiggly. One was literally a smiley face with horns. Another had been crossed out and rewritten with the note "Use this one instead – more doom."
I shifted slightly against the post. The ropes squeaked.
"Just saying," I added, louder this time, "if this thing turns me into a meat puppet for your homebrew deity, I'm going to be very upset."
Still no answer. Just louder chanting. Louder wrong chanting.
And then... the orb began to pulse. Slowly. Unevenly.
It almost looked nervous.
I couldn't blame it.
Because so was I.
Just as the High Priest began chanting something that sounded suspiciously like "Shaddai shaddai... spaghetti-eye," a distant CRASH echoed through the temple. A moment later—
BOOM.
The doors burst open, splinters flying.
And in walked Iria Halbrecht, sword drawn, cape billowing, eyes blazing.
"UNHAND THE CHOSEN ONE!" she roared, her voice bouncing off the stone like thunder.
The cult froze.
The High Priest gaped. "You—! Knight of the Light—!"
Iria pointed Edelbrecht, her massive greatsword gleaming with torchlight.
"Your blasphemous rites end tonight. Face the blade of House Edelbrecht!"
A cultist moved. She sprinted. One swing. One THWACK. Cultist down.
Another charged with a dagger. She parried, disarmed, and slammed the pommel of her sword into his temple with elegant brutality.
I blinked. "Okay," I muttered, "she's way too competent for this story."
As Iria cut her way through cultists with the precision of a divine executioner, the ritual—shockingly—did not hold up under pressure.
The chanting faltered.
One cultist tripped over his own incantation and started mumbling random syllables that sounded suspiciously like the lunch menu. Another cultist stopped mid-verse to correct him. Loudly. They argued in hushed whispers over whether "shaddai el'nath" came before or after "vex'nar tor'hal."
Then someone in the back sneezed.
Directly onto a glowing glyph.
The moment the snot hit the magic circle, the runes all flared like angry neon signs—one flared red, another blue, a third just blinked "???" in the air like it was trying to reboot.
The air got heavy. The candle flames turned green. The artifact let out a sharp, metallic shriek, like a haunted teapot screaming for help.
And then...
Something began clawing its way out of the summoning circle.
Not Umbravox. Not a god. Not even a proper demon.
No, what emerged was a Malformed Wretch—a grotesque, twitching creature assembled from pure magical failure. Limbs fused at odd angles, bones jutting where no bones should be, muscles that flexed in loops, and skin that shimmered like broken glass. Its face had too many eyes—and not enough symmetry. One eye blinked horizontally. Another blinked... inward.
Its head turned. And kept turning. Until it rotated too far and cracked like someone twisting a Rubik's Cube with malice.
It opened its mouth—wide, wider than seemed geometrically allowed—and screamed in eight overlapping voices. High-pitched. Deep. Metallic. One voice sounded like it was asking for customer support.
One of the cultists wet themselves.
Another just fainted mid-chant and collapsed into a ceremonial bowl.
The High Priest, to his credit, maintained composure—for exactly two seconds. Then he waved his arms and shouted, "THIS IS FINE! THIS IS STILL THE PLAN!"
I stared in disbelief.
"YOU PEOPLE DON'T EVEN HAVE A PLAN!" I screamed back, yanking against the ropes like they were made of rubber and panic.
Across the room, Iria beheaded another cultist's staff—then the cultist—then charged toward me with her greatsword held high and righteous fury levels peaking. She vaulted over a collapsed altar and landed beside me like a cinematic trailer just started playing.
Without a word, she slashed through the bindings in one clean stroke.
"Are you injured?" she asked, scanning me.
"Only spiritually," I said, brushing ash off my sleeve.
"Stay behind me," she ordered, stepping forward with Edelbrecht raised. The sword gleamed like divine judgment and dramatic overkill.
"Believe me," I muttered, backing up, "I wasn't planning to tank anything."
That's when the Wretch lunged.
It moved like bad animation—jittery, too fast, then too slow, stuttering forward in a flash of limbs and screeching discord. Iria braced, ready to take the hit.
I tripped.
Of course I tripped.
One foot snagged in my cloak, and I tumbled backwards—right onto the edge of the summoning circle.
My elbow hit one of the still-glowing glyphs. My shoulder knocked over the silver bowl. The artifact fell out and rolled directly into the center of the corrupted ritual. The runes, already unstable, snapped in color—flashing from crimson to void black to a horrifying mix of static noise and arcane emojis.
System Notification Appeared:
[
> Artifact Overload Detected > Ritual Magic: CORRUPTED > Warning: Summoning Pattern Contains 147 Contradictions > Applying Default Failsafe... > Engaging Emergency Plan: "OH NO"
]
I didn't know what "OH NO" entailed, but I assumed it wasn't great.
The artifact screamed again—except this time it sounded like an orchestra being thrown down a staircase.
There was a blinding flash. Not light—just information, raw and chaotic. It felt like the world blinked.
Then came the sound. A deep suction, like the world just unplugged itself.
The Malformed Wretch jerked, twisted mid-lunge, and let out a final, glitched shriek that ended in a digital hiccup.
Then it was violently vacuumed back into the summoning circle, shrunk into a point of light—like reality hitting CTRL+Z—and disappeared with a pop that smelled faintly of burnt hair and celery.
Silence.
Silence.
The remaining cultists dropped their staves. Some ran. Others sat down and began quietly sobbing. The High Priest screamed something about "misaligned sigils" and bolted out a side door.
The orb let out a sad whine and went dormant.
I looked at Iria. She looked at me.
"You banished the creature," she said, in awe.
"No. I tripped."
"You tripped with purpose. The divine guided your fall."
"I was literally trying to not die."
"And in doing so," she said, kneeling again, "you lived. A true hero's resolve."
I groaned.
The temple was later reclaimed by actual clerics.
The cult was disbanded. The goat was promoted to town mascot.
The villagers insisted on giving me a ceremonial title, so now I'm officially "The Blade-Bound Saint of Lutetia." I get free soup in most taverns now. That's... something.
Iria continues to follow me. Still convinced I'm chosen by fate. Still polishing her sword after every battle like it's a religious rite.
As we left the village, the sun setting behind us, I sighed and muttered:
"I just wanted to do a simple fetch quest."
She smiled beside me.
"Then clearly, fate had greater plans."