AURORA BOREALIS:

The nausea subsided for a bit and I opened my eyes. The most beautiful sight I had ever seen was before me. A vast starry sky. Hundreds of thousands of stars lay before me, dancing in a dark void. Wait, they were stationary. I was falling. Fast. In the corner of my vision, I saw fiery dancing. My wings. I had wings? What was happening? Was I actually put into my avatar from Yggdrasil?

Before I could try to spread my wings, another wave of nausea struck. My stomach hurled, and if I could throw up, I would have. The nausea left me, and I twisted in my fall. There was land beneath me. Grassy plains, forests, mountains, and what looked like a city in the distance. Nausea overcame me again, and all went dark.

A loud bang awoke me, and my entire world was overcome with pain. It felt like I was struck by a heavy train, or caught in a car crash. I weakly looked around my surroundings. I lay in a smoking crater in a forest. Weak fires smoldered around me. A fallen tree lay inert not too far from me. What in the world had happened? I fought through the pounding headache to recall the past few moments.

I was playing YGGDRASIL, awaiting the server shutdown. I was in the guild base, on one of the balconies. I was looking up at the starts while watching the count down. It had reached zero before everything went dim. Before I could disconnect from my headset, nausea overtook me. Then I saw that beautiful sight in the sky.

Before my eyes, blue lights dimly shone in the corner of my vision and a voice whispered into my ear.

Greetings, Architect

The voice was metallic, with a slight reverb effect. Like a stereotypical robot.

It took me a second to place what it was. It was my armor, Enochian Bulwark. Powered suits were extremely unpopular among serious YGGDRASIL players. They were incredibly weak compared to divine class gear and seriously hamstrung most classes' abilities to fight. Were it not for a unique job class I had unlocked, I would have never considered equipping one. But thanks to that job class, I had turned my attention to the potential of power armor. And when I heard of a rival guild making one with a caloric stone, I decided to try that out myself.

I couldn't get the guild to fund my entire project, but I was able to get a few funds from the treasury. I still paid for the lion's share of the construction out of my pocket. But it was worth it. The result was the Enochian Bulwark, a powered suit that held as much data as a guild item. It provided crucial stat buffs, alongside its own mana pool and spell list. It could cast its own buff spells, had niche offensive abilities that complemented my own, decent detection magic, and could even be unequipped and fight autonomously. The average level one-hundred player could beat it in combat eight times out of ten, but it served as a decent distraction given that I could switch to my previous divine class gear instantly. If it was defeated, it would collapse into a small floating orb that would return to my side as soon as possible, where it would turn into a necklace. If someone continued attacking it in its orb state, it would eventually break. But no one ever managed that.

"Uh, Hey Enochian Bulwark. I hear you." Shit that was awkward. Better to smooth it over.

"What's going on?"

Moments ago, you were teleported into an unknown location in the sky. As you were unconscious, you fell. This unit was also deactivated while in the sky. When you crashed into the ground, you died, which activated your resurrection ring. It will be twenty-three hours, fifty-seven minutes, and thirty-four seconds before the resurrection effect is available again

Shit. Hopefully, I won't get attacked soon. That's functionally half my HP gone for the next day. One more thing to ask.

"Can I call you Enoch? It's a bit easier than your full name."

Affirmative, Architect. As this unit's creator, you possess the rights to refer to this unit however you see fit

I gazed around a bit more before looking at the beautiful sight straight above. Back on Earth, I looked at many pictures of the night sky before the eternal smog clouds. I recognized none of the stars above. There were no familiar constellations, no northern star, no big dipper. Was I really in YGGDRASIL? Why wasn't I at my guild base? Was I somewhere else, one of the other worlds? Before I could ponder further, nausea struck again.

ENRI EMMOT:

I rolled up my sleeves before picking up the buckets, one in each hand. The buckets were filled to the brim, with a few drops going over the side from the sudden motion. I began walking back towards my house. It would take six buckets to fill up the water tank, so only three trips. While walking, my mind wandered to the events of last night. The shooting star that struck the forest, Dad's response to the star, his informing of the village chief, and the scouting party that left early this morning. Dad woke me up and asked me to stand exactly where Nemu and I were and point them in the direction where we saw the shooting star land. They've been gone for several hours now.

I arrived at my house, poured the water in, and began to trek back to the well. I filled the buckets and began walking back. If there was a big fire that started because of the shooting star, then the entire village would need to form a big chain of people and pass buckets back and forth, all the way from the village to the fire. That had only happened once in my life when I was very young. Mom wasn't able to join the chain, as she was still nursing Nemu. I finished the second pour when I heard commotion not too far away. I picked the buckets up and began to go to the well for the final time.

Right as I arrived at the well, I saw the scout party. Held limp between the arms of my Dad and another was a person unlike any other I have ever seen. He was dressed in fine white and purple robes with gold embroidery. His skin was gray, caked with what looked like black dust. White tattoos covered parts of his visible skin. They looked like several white dots connected by small lines. His hair was golden. Not blonde like mine, it looked like literal gold weaved into hair. It shimmered and glowed in the sunlight, slightly past shoulder length. With his arms slung over the shoulders of the two men, his body was limp and his face was angled towards the ground. His fingernails were bright white. I could make out elaborate rings, bracelets, two fancy necklaces, and earrings. A single one of those articles probably cost more than the village.

But the most eye-catching feature was the bright glow trailing from behind him and the golden crown hovering above his head. Did he truly have wings? They looked like two tendrils of liquid fire. They danced and writhed with fire while remaining inert. Occasionally they would brush against one of the men holding him. Given that the men weren't reacting like they were getting burned, it probably wasn't actual fire. The golden crown wasn't truly on his head. It was hovering upright above it. It was gold all the way through, with a single blue gemstone embedded in the front of it. It almost looked like an eye. The crown itself looked slightly too large for his head like it would slip down to his ears. As I considered this, I noticed his ears were slightly sharp, like a half-elf's.

Whoever he was, he wasn't human. I released the breath I hadn't even realized I was holding. I dropped my buckets and dashed forward, shouting to my dad.

"Dad! What's going on? Who is that?" Instead of answering me, he began barking orders.

"Enri, quick! Fill up a couple of buckets and come with us. I'll explain on the way. Dave, go find the healer! Tell them we'll be at the chief's house."

Dave began running to where the healer ought to be this time of day. I grabbed the two buckets, filled them up, and began trailing behind the scout group. A few other men began running off in different directions, presumably following my dad's orders. By the time they arrived at the chief's house, the chief and his wife were already outside awaiting them. One of the men must have told the chief what was going on ahead of time. They brought the unconscious stranger inside.

By the time I had arrived inside, they had already laid him down on a bed in one of the side rooms. The chief's house was easily the biggest of Carne Village, but it was nothing compared to some of the buildings I've seen inside E-Rantel. Even so, it had nine rooms across two floors compared to my two-room, one-floor house. I set both the buckets down. The room was a little crowded with my dad, me, the chief Amon, his wife Mabel, and three others from the scouting party.

Right before I could open my mouth and ask what was happening, Amon began speaking.

"So, Richard, you went out to the crashed shooting star, and found this…person in the crater?" He asked in a gruff tone.

My dad took a moment before responding.

"Yea. We set out in the direction Enri and Nemu saw the crash. There was a few thin smoke trails and we began to fear the worst. When we got there, we saw this figure in the crater. But he was adorned in this elaborate golden armor. He looked up at us for a moment before his head fell back and his armor disappeared in a blue flash. We debated what to do for a bit before we decided to bring him back."

"And I still think that's a terrible decision. That thing is clearly a monster! Bringing it back will only bring ruin to the village" One of the men ranted.

"Enough!" Dad shouted. "We already made our vote."

"Tsk. When we all die to this thing I'll curse your souls." He said before storming out.

The silence that followed was heavy. I considered the person lying there. His face was handsome, with high cheekbones. His crown was floating above his head, still upright. It was bobbing up and down ever so slightly. If I wasn't concentrating on it, I wouldn't have noticed. Light streamed in from the open windows and a candle was lit on a nearby table. Even so, most of the light in the room came from his glowing wings, which spilled out from beneath his body. He was some kind of magic caster, wasn't he? That crown couldn't be floating any other way. He was rich. His jewelry was elaborate, gold and gems of all kinds.

My thoughts were interrupted by the healer, Roger, entering the room. He was a kind, older man. He paused upon seeing the person lying on the bed.

"Well, I'll be damned. It really is some kinda monster."

Chief Amon grunted before responding.

"Aye, can you do anything about it?"

"I can try my damn best," Roger said, pulling up a chair. "But I dunno if my herbs and medicines are going to do much to whatever he is. What's medicine to humans can be poison to non-humans. Now, all of you shoo, except Enri."

Roger began giving me instructions to help him out. Pull up a stool, wet the rags, and wring them out, stuff like that. While I did my part, he began laying out the herbs, bottles, and other items on the table. On Roger's instructions, I laid the rag on his forehead. After a bit, Roger began trying to get the person to drink some medicine, but he couldn't get the thing's mouth open. He tried using something called "smelling salts" to wake it up, but it didn't work. Eventually, Roger sent me out to go get some more buckets of water. Amon and Mabel asked for an update when I passed by them, and I told them that nothing was working.

I arrived at the water well, filled the buckets, and began walking back to the chief's house. I arrived back and set down the buckets.

"Good job there, girly. Give him a new set of wet rags. I'm gonna go back to my place and get some different herbs. At this point, I'm kinda running out of ideas."

"Understood, Sir. Thank you for trying."

"Don't bother thanking me just yet."

And then he was off. Not too long after that, the person inhaled sharply. I took the current wet rag off his forehead and set it on the table, then grabbed a new rag and dunked it in the water. I was wringing it out when I saw movement in the corner of my eye. I shrieked and jumped back. The…person was sitting up. He rubbed his temples with his fingers for a moment before propping himself up with one hand behind him, turned his head toward me, and opened his eyes. He looked around for a moment before settling on me. His eyes were a deep dark blue, with many stars inside of them, like looking into the night sky. Different colors flashed and danced within his eyes, green, purple, yellow, bright blue, and red. We stared at each other for a heartbeat, two, three. He blinked. I screamed.