I snapped awake, the smell of burning flesh and melted rockrete surrounded me, assaulting my senses with its overpowering stench. I could feel bile rising through my throat as my body reacted to the trauma that it had just been through. I didn't know how I was still alive after being blown up, but at the moment I didn't care.

Pain rocked my body as I tried desperately to move from my position against the wall, every movement brought pain unending and the longer my eyes stayed open the more water poured out of them as the smoke from the fire poured in from all sides. Seconds turned to minutes as I tried desperately to escape my oncoming death and despite my best efforts nothing came from it.

I had no burst of overwhelming willpower that pushed my broken body past its limits to save myself, and no one suddenly burst onto the scene to save me. Instead I sat there dying, slowly suffocating even as my body slowly shut down from the vast amount of internal bleeding that was wracking my insides. So after ten minutes of desperate attempts at reaching the stairs I gave up, and let myself dream.

And suddenly they came to me, the memories of what was, of what had been before I had been born into this world. I remembered the white that had surrounded me after my death, and the all encompassing peace that had wrapped around my mind, telling me everything would be okay and there was no need to panic because I was in the loving embrace of god and his angels and nothing could ever harm me again.

That feeling would last approximately five minutes before the white ripped and I was pulled into the void by the grasping tendrils of beings from beyond creation. They stole me from the afterlife, not for any grand purpose or even to act as their entertainment, but because they were bored and apparently stealing souls from the White God was far more fun than I realized. The problem was what to do with me afterwards, they could have just left me in the void to either die or change into an abomination of flesh and degenerated soul.

That was the plan in fact, but I offered them an alternative. I would act as their new plaything upon the universe, their new personnel puppet to let loose upon creation if only they would spare my life and ensure I didn't turn into some kind of brain dead abomination. I don't know how long I awaited their reply, it must have been centuries from my perspective but in the end they agreed to my deal and offered me the contract.

It was simple really, I would be reborn into a universe of their choice, into a body of their choice and I would survive until my eighteenth birthday. Then I would die, I would die once more and in that moment before deaths' cold hands took my soul once more they would intervene and change me, make me better in some way so that I might survive for longer without their intervention.

What they failed to mention was the fact that all my memories of the contract would be sealed until my first death, and it was only when I approached the brink once more would the totality of my memories be returned to me.

I would know now and forever that I was missing something in my memories, and I could regain it by bringing myself near the brink. It was a torture, a fun way for them to watch a mortal soul struggle to piece together the missing pieces of itself for their amusement. Despite my rage at that thought however, they had pulled through on their end of the bargain, because here and now as my life left me and my soul slowly began to exit my mortal form I felt it.

That pull, that captivating aroma, that deep dark call from the void. It was a roar from a thousand storms and the howling of the dogs, it was a wild tempest that shattered homes and hunted down all things living. I did not know what it was, and I didn't know the consequences for answering its call, but I knew it came from my benefactors, and despite my deep hatred for them I took a hold of that call all the same and it came forward.

HOST [FEY FORM] GENERATED

CONCEPT RANDOMIZATION: WILDE JADG, THE GRAND HUNTER

Suddenly I was no longer dying, in fact I was no longer in the slowly burning building at all. I was outside hanging off the edge, my claws so sharp and so powerful they allowed me to break through and grip the solid rockrete with no effort. The rest of my form was no less powerful, my great green cloak hung from my frame with a majesty I could only imagine the Emperor and his sons reserved for themselves.

I was taller now, nearing nine foot three, my body was lean but muscular. Indicative of a life spent in the woods hunting only the most dangerous prey. Looking into the windows I could see myself now, kaleidoscopic eyes met my gaze, startling me slightly before I moved onto my other features, such as the antlers that grew unbidden and the otherworldly beauty that seemed to radiate from me unnaturally. I knew what I was, I was the Grand Hunter, the conductor of the Wild Hunt, and he who had speared Woden upon his own throne before the death of heimdall.

I was him and he was me. The memories of this Fey Lord nearly overrode my own, but some quirk in the contract ensured that my memories were the dominant ones, and soon enough I had regained control once more. I didn't know how I had escaped the death that had awaited me, but I did know that I had to leave the area as fast as I could, I couldn't be caught by my fellow guardsmen in this form lest they mistake me for a Xeno of some kind. Not that I would blame them for wanting to kill me in this state, I would try to kill me too in their position.

I don't know how long I ran, this body didn't get tired like mine did, it simply kept moving no matter how hard I pushed it or for how long. I must have moved over a hundred miles away from the place where I was supposed to have died before I finally stopped running. Of course I didn't stop in the open, that would have been fracking stupid, no I found a house that I somehow knew was empty and settled down.

Despite what I thought would have happened, when I stopped moving my new form didn't disappear, the antlers stayed attached to my head, my eyes remained a soul stealing kaleidoscope and I remained large enough to impersonate one of the Emperor's angles easily. It was around then that I realized that I had no idea how to change back into my real body, the one that I had grown used to, the one that my mother had died to give birth to, and my father had smiled at with more love than I could ever hope to replicate.

I didn't want to live my life as some kind of Fey hunter, some mutant xeno that would be hunted down at every opportunity by those I saw as friends and comrades. Sure this body was powerful, powerful in ways I could probably never imagine if some of its memories were true, but after eighteen years of this life I didn't want it. I wanted to retire from the guard as a watch sergeant, I wanted to marry a small rural woman who would love me and give me children who I could love like my father had loved me. I wanted to forget about the horrors of this universe and simply live my life as a normal person.

I never wanted to be the plaything of gods, I never wanted to be born to a still mother, and learn of my fathers death from the gossip of children. I could feel the tears then, so alien to the Lord of the Hunt as they came unbidden from my eyes. Golden droplets of dew and oaken brilliance that seemed to only enhance my otherworldly appearance.

My head was hung low and for the first time in a long time I prayed. I sat their, in the form of a legend made manifest, in the skin of a god of the fair folk and I prayed to the God-Emperor on his golden throne, the only thing that could truly be called a god still worth worshiping in this miserable universe and I begged for something, anything that would tell me what to do. I was lost and I needed his guidance now more than ever.

Silence was my answer, silence and the distant rumbling of factories older than some civilizations. I don't know what broke in me at that moment, maybe it was the simple consequences of living in this hellscape for too long, having seen and done too much, combined with my newly restored memories for the time being. But I collapsed, exhaustion took me and I closed my eyes hoping for oblivion to take me into the loving arms of the Emperor.

Alas when I awoke again I wasn't dead, but I was tied up in a chair with a small family glaring daggers at me. That was the least of my concerns however, my main focus was how I was suddenly much smaller again, and I was no longer encircled by a radiant green cape that could cause people to fall down to their knees in reverence for its majesty.

"You know for a half dead man bound by people he doesn't know you seem awfully cheerful right now. You mind telling me why I shouldn't spill your guts right here and dump you with the rest of your buddies in the guard?" It was the man that spoke, likely the father of the family. Honestly I didn't care if he wanted to kill me, I was beyond the fear of death at this point, I knew what came after. Though it was still probably not my best idea to stay quiet and simply smile at the man.

He looked at me for a while, and his face steadily grew more stormy until something broke and I knew I had made a mistake as he went to raise his axe. Instinct kicked in then and I broke my own rule of silence, obviously I hadn't truly wanted to die if I folded so easily. "Wait, wait! I just didn't know how to respond to your question! I mean who even asks something like that."

Thankfully he lowered the axe slightly at my words, unfortunately not fully. "Someone who has had a long day and didn't want to come home to a guardsmen sleeping on his floor. Now tell me what your doing here before I split your head open, you're lucky my family vouched that they had simply found you passed out." I Gulped slightly at his words, the severity of the situation I was in slowly setting in as the jubilation from now longer being in my fey form left me.

"I was ambushed with my unit not far from here, as far as I'm aware only I and a handful others survived. I ran for my life after killing the ambusher due to the collapse of the building he had been hiding in. Your house was simply the closest by that was also uninhabited at the time. If I had known a family like yours lived here I would have simply found another spot to collapse in." It was technically the truth of the matter, I simply left out the part that close by meant a hundred miles away and I had traveled that distance in the form of a fey lord.

The man for his part searched my face for any hint that I might be lying, staring deep into my eyes before inevitably coming to his own conclusion on the matter. "I believe you, but I can't let you stay here. I 'll cut the rope that's keeping you held down and let you leave, never come back if you know what's good for you."

I almost broke out into tears again as the relief that I wouldn't die washed over me."Thank you sir, you can rest assured that you will never hear from me again." He looked at me for a second before he sighed. "I'm sure I won't." Before I could ask what he meant he cut the ropes that kept me held down and waved for me to leave, being the conscientious guest that I am I was quick to hop up and almost sprint for the door.

The axe sticking out of my back in the next second was quiet the shock I won't lie. As my body hit the floor and blood began to pool around me I turned my head slightly to look at the man and his shaking family. "Why…?" My voice was hoarse as the cold hands of death slowly began to close in once more. "I'm sorry son, but I can't have you going off talking about how I tied up a servant of the Emperor." He spit in disdain when he said the word Emperor. The fracking lowlife. "Don't take it too personnel kid, it was you or my family, and I care far more about my family than I do about you."

I cursed the man as the darkness closed in around me and the message from before came to me once more, offering what I had already been given, ready for the taking, and informing me that somethingnew and yet not had been gained.

CONTRACT CONDITIONS FULFILLED!
THOSE BEYOND ARE ENTERTAINED
ABILITY [FEY FORM] UPGRADED!

CONGRATULATIONS HOST AND HAVE FUN!

As the darkness came down around me, so did the Kaleidoscope push it back. Green, radiant and unending filled my vision, and with it a rage that I had never known. Instinct Guided me, and despite the voice in the back of my head telling me that it was a bad idea I didn't fight against it. I had suffered too much and for too long, I had decided, I would have my revenge against this nightmare, even if it cost me everything. The screams of the family were like a sweet serenade to the ears of the Grand Hunter, his humanity buried deep under the pain that had come to define his life.