Chapter 1: Not An Everyday Fare I

The ship shook hard as it translated into the Prime Material Plane. The sudden gravitational force nearly pulled the ship straight down to the landmass below, had Diz not pulled the mental brake in time. The air anchor suspended the Astral Wind in the middle of the sky, its bow pointed at the ground beneath. Had it failed, the entire spelljammer would be shattered from the impact, and even if it didn't, the damage would make their entire escape null.

Yet, the imminent crash wasn't their only concern at the time. The ship's rear was still burning.

Diz made his way toward the rear, finding Javik hurriedly moving barrels and bags out of the storage room. When he arrived at the scene, Kalamar was chopping away parts of the ship where the fire had yet to reach. Chunks of still burning wood fell from the ship down to the ground. But the Greek fire oil couldn't simply be quenched or stopped. The areas that had yet to be isolated were still spreading.

"Careful around that part! There's an elemental vein near that section."

"Got it, capitan! Boy, get to chopping!" The lizardman yelled at Javik. The aetherborn frantically took one of the axes on the floor and swung it down, but to no avail, his axe barely left a scratch on the wood. Diz, noticing something, threw a different axe to him.

"This one's enchanted, can't break the hull down without some dazzle in it!"

While his crewmate was isolating the fire from spreading, Diz stood back. His hands moved in the air as if it was flowing in water. He turned to the fire, motioned his left middle and index finger down, and chanted.

"Glawiad [Create Water]!"

First, it was just little droplets. Then, a small rain. Then, water poured down as if they were standing under a waterfall. The waterfall extinguished the fire, flooding the deck. Kalamar lost his footstep, the water washed him down toward the front of the deck. The lizardman used his axe as an anchor, and struck it at the hull to hold onto.

"Couldn't you tone it down a notch?!" He grumbled, rightfully so, as he stood up and looked at his wet clothes.

"What? Are you afraid of a little shower?" Had Javik had a mouth, they would be smirking, now that the danger had passed.

The fire luckily didn't hit another elemental vein. The fire didn't spread any further than the storage room. The bad news was that they lost a good chunk of the wall.

"Damned bastards used Greek fire…" Kalamar slapped the empty area that was part of the ship's hull. "Repairing this is going to be a pain."

"Assuming that we can even repair it here." Javik sat down on one of the barrels. He looked out from the hole on the wall, observing the world outside. "Where even are we, sir?"

"Somewhere in the Prime." He swept the nonexistent sweat from his face, leaning onto the hole. "Not sure where, but we are somewhere…"

It was a normal morning for the people of Re-Estize. Being the capital of the kingdom had its privileges. And the citizens surely enjoyed it. A cup of tea before going to work, the buzzling streets with rivers of footsteps flowing back and forth, the chimes of the church under the serene sunlight. The smell of freshly baked bread washed over the streets, mixed in with the sweet scent of honey flavored pastries and flowers of many kinds. Chatters, voices filled up every corner of the city.

They came across a pair of children playing on the pavement. The older one, a boy roughly seven years old, kicked the ball toward his younger brother. They were passing it from one to the other, smiling, cheering on this beautiful morning. Then, with a strong kick, the ball flew over the younger boy's head, and toward a bystander. It hit his shoulder, and while he felt nothing, he decided to still let out an 'ouch'. The boys quickly got to his side. The younger boy picked the ball up, while his brother bowed at the man.

"I am sorry, mister."

The man dusted his cloak and waved his hand. "No problem, no problem, be careful next time, alright?"

The older boy turned back to the pavement, but his brother hadn't moved. He looked at the man in wonder and curiosity. His big and innocent eyes held the man's reflection under its crystal clear surface.

"Anything you need?" The man lowered himself to the boy's eye level.

He looked at the man, mumbling some words.

"Hmm? Do you want to say something?"

"Demon King." He pointed at him. "You look like the Demon King in my mom's story."

The man's posture became rigid. As if his secret was found, he uncomfortably took a step back. "That's not a very nice thing to say."

"But you are. You sound evil." The boy was adamant.

Inking that his brother was doing something stupid, the brother turned back to grab him. "Aran, what are you doing? Don't want to play ball anymore?"

His younger brother then pointed at the man. "Look, he is the Demon King mom told us."

The older brother looked at him, then at the man. He then slapped the young boy on the back of his head.

"What are you talking about? Sorry mister, my brother is a little… quirky sometimes. He didn't mean to insult you."

"Oh, no matter, no harm done. He was just making an observation after all."

"Thank you, mister. Aran, mom is going to scold you for this. We are sorry, mister." He pulled his brother away, who was still pointing at the man.

"But he is, look-!"

The man looked at them, letting out a breath he didn't know he held back. Even though he couldn't even breathe in the first place. He patted his chest, to see if his heart was still beating… Wait, he didn't have that either.

Giggling by his side, his companion teased him.

"Demon King this time? You sure are collecting a lot of titles, Satoru." A gentle, if not a little childish voice spoke to him.

Satoru did his equivalent of a huff. Underneath his mask, he turned to the owner of the voice. Standing there was a petite girl, her blonde hair barely touched her shoulder. Her red cloak covered her head and her back.

"Hmph… they are children after all… though his words did give me quite the fright. It's as if he could see through my guise."

"Did he?" She smiled softly. "Are you planning to conquer this kingdom, oh great Demon King?"

They both laughed.

It had been three years since Keno and Satoru traveled together. Satoru was just a simple Japanese salary man before that fateful day when his favorite game, YGGDRASIL, closed its server, transporting him to this new, strange world. Keno was less fortunate. She was a princess of a long lost kingdom, fell to its death by an unnatural disaster turning all of its people into undead, and her a vampire. They met one night, when Satoru found himself in this world through unexplainable circumstances, and she mistook him for the cause of her misery. Ever since, the lich and the vampire girl had become travel companions.

"Still, this city is quite lively… I feel a little anxious." Keno said, her crimson eyes observed the people of Re-Estize moving on with their daily life with a tinge of melancholy. Satoru tried to guess what was going on in her mind? Memories of her homeland perhaps? Could it be that the sight reminded her of the old days, before the disaster came? Regardless, he decided to snap her out of it.

"I have heard that there is a wise sage in this city who specializes in healing magic. Maybe we can set up a meeting with her?"

"You think so? Aren't they often, you know, cranky and haughty?" That wasn't too far from the truth. Needless to say, the two's experience with sages so far had been… less than preferable.

"Well, I think we should still pay her a visit. If can't meet her, I am sure that we can stil-"

His idea could wait, as they both noticed something. Something big just came, and not just the size of it. In the air, they could feel a ripple, waves after waves of arcane energy surged into the city. As if space itself was being torn to let something out.

Satoru had never sensed something even remotely close to that before. Immediately, he pulled Keno closed, mind on full alert. If something massive just distorted the magic around them, it couldn't be something normal. But what could it be? His first thought was directed toward YGGDRASIL. Could it be that another one like him had just come to this world? If that was the case, could they be a friend or an enemy? A presence like this… it couldn't be a low level player either. He theorized that they must be at least of level 100, and even if the chance was small, a holder of one of the special job classes, like World Disaster.

But then something else sparked in his mind. This presence, it felt like a boss had just spawned. It reminded him of the world event, when a massive hydra spawned with little warning and began to attack any players and bases it came across. The way it entered felt eerily similar to that. The worst case scenario would be a World Enemy, which he had always suspected of their existence in this world.

"Keno, be careful!" Satoru said as he tried to locate where the source of the energy was.

"I-I can feel it too."

Keno, while having no knowledge of YGGDRASIL like him, came to her own conclusion. Whatever that presence was, it wasn't good. And it seemed that her intuition was right. After a few minutes of nothing, Satoru decided that they needed to do something. He casted [Perfect Unknownable] on him and told Keno to wait. Then, he used [Fly] to have a better view of the city.

As he reached the sky, he finally found it. And it wasn't what he expected.

The Royal Academy was in shambles, as was the Temple of the Four Great Gods. Why you asked? The answer was quite simple, really. It's hard to get things done when there is a giant ship hanging in the sky, covered by fire.

"What is the meaning of this?" Yelled a scholar as he saw the ship through his telescope. "Which one of you fools organized this prank?"

"Prank?! You think this is a prank?" Shouted an old sage. "I ask you this, which one of us can even pull a prank like this? Not even our greatest mage can make a boat fly that high, let alone a ship! Teleporting a thing of that size would take a dozen, no, two dozen and even weeks to do so!"

"What's that ring around it? Why is there a ring of fire around it? It doesn't even have a sail, how can it move?" The Alchemy Grandmaster spoke in disbelief.

"You buffoon really thinks a ship in the sky needs a sail?" The sage retorted. "This isn't something we can do. Someone send a letter to the Theocracy! They need to know about it!"

On the side of the Temple, chaos took control of everything.

"Could it… Could it be that the God of Fire has returned to this world?" A monk stared at the ship in the distance. He arrived at the watch tower as soon as the soldier came to inform them of the phenomenon.

"That is blasphemy, Gajeff." The other monk scowled. "This must be the world of those mages again. The king should just string them all up and pull them to the gallows-"

"But look! That ring of fire around it, and the ancient markings…"

"All nonsenses! If it is truly the ship of the Gods, they would have given us the sign all-"

A flash of light came from the sip. Then suddenly, a bolt of energy glanced off the stone wall, mere inches away from hitting the monks. They turned toward the trail it left behind. The bolt pierced the cloud above them, torn the sky into halves. The monks looked at each other, then back to the ship.

"THE GODS HAVE RETURNED!"

Had Satoru had a lung, he would be hyperventilating to no end. It was close, way too close. He had only seconds before the bolt hit him, and had he been any slower, it would hit him. Who could know how much damage can that thing deal?

But what dreaded him was the fact that it could see through [Perfect Unknowable]. Nothing could see through [Perfect Unknowable], hence the name, save for the most specialized Illusionist or Diviner builds. And those kinds of players were rare, too rare. Even he couldn't detect [Perfect Unknowable], not without the help of a special cash item.

That thing could see through it. Not just that, it was extremely precise. It aimed for his head. A critical hit from a normal player couldn't kill another player, mostly due to balancing reasons. But a boss could. And without a doubt in his mind, he knew exactly what that ship was.

A boss, and a very strong one.

He needed to run.

"Woah woah!" Javik jumped as the simulacrum accidentally fired a bolt from the force ballista. Diz commanded it to cease, but the damned old geezer chewed his tongue and said 'fire' instead. And the simulacrum complied.

"Cease, cease!" Diz held out a hand and commanded it. The snow illusion moved from the gunner position and returned to the standby mode. "Alright, Kamalar, how long will it take to repair the hull?"

The shipwright did some calculation from the assessment he made. "About two days. One to put the things together, another to enchant the hull. Though, there is a problem." He gave the note to Diz. "We will need to fix the vein, or else the air and energy circulation will be toasted. Titus has been groaning ever since we came to this world. The thing is, we ran out of platinum for the central circuit."

"Silver works just fine too." Diz opened one of the pouches on his girdle and was about to pull something out. "I still have-"

"We ran out of that too, and no, I am not going to substitute silver with your coin. No disrespect to your city, capitan, but I don't want to lace this beauty with that thing after what happened in Ravenloft."

Diz stared at the lizardman. Most of the wizard's face was shrouded in the shadow of his hat, only the two shining white pupils were visible. Kalamar couldn't read what was going on in his captain's mind, but he could sense some gears beginning to move behind those eyes.

"Fair point." Diz said, closing his pouch. "So we will need to find some platinum then?"

"That seems to be the case, yes." He pointed back toward the damaged room. "I will be repairing the hull with what we have for now. The faster we find those platinum the sooner we can leave this world."

While the conversation was going on, Javik took a look outside through the window. There, he saw a city under the horizon, quite a big one. Then, a thought came to them.

"Wait, can that Prime city see us?"

Diz strode toward him and took a look. "Properly, yeah."

"Will it be a problem?"

They exchanged glances. Diz simply shook his head.

"May be? It's not like they are going to form an army under the name of some holy order to come and confirm if we are their powers or not."

"That's oddly specific… Has it happened before?"

Diz didn't answer his question. Instead, he checked his belongings and grabbed his staff, making his way to the door. Kalamar just snickered at Javik's bewilderment.

"Sir, please answer me, has it happened before? Do we need some kind of disguise, sir? SIR?!"

Crew Sheet #1:

Name: Diz of Sigil

Also Known As: The Old-school, the Old Cipher (in Sigil), Lieutenant (by Baator devils)

Gender: Male

Race: Human (Planar)

Age: more than 200 years old

Class/Role: Fighter/Conjurer Dual Class

Position: Captain, navigator

Personal Information:

Diz was a conjurer hailed from Sigil, the City of Door. A rather eccentric and somewhat unpredictable wizard, much like his peers from all across the multiverse. Diz was a man of renown, a known name in Sigil and mentor to many. His connections, set of skills and uncharacteristic wisdom in both the art and the planes allowed him to create feats rarely seen, even by those who had walked the planes. Though most of the time he either goofed around or did what he felt like he should be doing at the time, but he never acted upon impulse or planned ahead for anything.

Diz had a firm belief that everything he did was just according to the flow of the planes, and while the idea of fate distaste him, he knew that the current of the multiverse tends to have its flow and destination.

Hobby: Documenting, Observing, Reading

Like: Hats (especially the exotic kinds), random shiny things that caught his eye.

Dislike: Being too polar toward one alignment, the Abyss, people being forced around or do whatever they had in mind.