Realmshift: code of the fallen

Kai fell through the sky again.

To be fair, this was now the second time in under an hour that he'd involuntarily skydived through reality, and it was starting to feel personal. After climbing the root-staircase into a sky made of glitch-smoke and weirdly judgmental clouds, a translucent window had popped into view:

ZONE TRANSFER: STABILIZED REGION DETECTED
World Instance: Havenreach
Genre: Traditional Fantasy
Rendering... Complete!
Please enjoy your stay. :)

That last smiley face felt wildly out of place, given that the next thing Kai knew, he was spinning through the air like a badly animated ragdoll.

He braced for another painful crash-landing, maybe into a corrupted dungeon or more digital sludge, but no. This time, he landed face-first in a warm pile of hay.

"...Oh," he muttered, muffled. "That's... almost comforting."

The smell of the hay, the distant sound of hooves clopping along cobblestone, and the faint jingle of a lute being played badly nearby told him one thing:

He was in a fantasy game.

He sat up and looked around.

To his left, a weathered stone wall ran along a sleepy village road. To his right, a rustic tavern was spilling over with light, laughter, and poorly textured chickens. The sky was a calm twilight orange, and the surrounding countryside was all rolling hills, windmills, and NPCs with names floating politely above their heads. One waved cheerfully at nothing in particular. Another was walking in tight circles with a bucket that clipped through his thigh.

"Now this," Kai said, standing up and brushing straw off his face, "this is what I signed up for."

His system menu chirped to life with something approaching confidence.

ZONE: Havenreach Village
MAIN QUEST AVAILABLE
Speak to: Orlen the Stablemaster
Quest: "A Horse with No Shame"

Kai arched an eyebrow. "That sounds... aggressively normal." He sighed in relief. "Finally."

With tentative steps, he approached the stable nearby where an old man was awkwardly brushing a horse that kept turning to bite him. The horse was animated just well enough to be unsettling, its eyes were too expressive, like it knew taxes were a thing.

"Uh... are you Orlen?"

The stable master turned, startled, as if he hadn't expected someone to actually interact with him.

"Yes! Yes, I am Orlen! Are you the new adventurer? The... chosen one?"

"I mean, I've been told that, but with the confidence of a system error," Kai said. "So... yes? Maybe?"

The man nodded, then leaned in as if checking Kai for symptoms.

"You look stable. Mostly. That's good. Listen, I have a task for you, but..."

Orlen glanced nervously at the horse.

"...It's cursed."

Kai blinked. "The horse?"

"Yes."

The horse neighed ominously, then winked. It actually winked. Its nameplate now read:

Beelzebuck (Level 6 - Passive-Aggressive)

"Right. Of course it is," Kai muttered. "So what, you want me to de-curse it?"

"No, no," Orlen said quickly. "No. I want you to ignore the quest entirely."

Kai frowned. "Wait, aren't you a quest-giver?"

"Yes," the man said, looking away. "And a broken one."

There was a long pause.

"...What?"

Orlen wrung his hands. "Every time someone takes the quest, it ends in fire. And screaming. And sometimes a choir of goats. I don't even have goats."

Kai slowly opened his quest log. The quest was already listed, blinking brightly in bold red letters.

Quest Accepted: A Horse with No Shame
Deliver Beelzebuck to the Knight Commander of Emberwatch.
Optional: Don't listen to Orlen.

"Wait, I didn't even say yes yet," Kai muttered.

"You don't get to choose," Orlen said sadly. "Realmshift 3.4.7 auto-accepts all narrative-critical quests. It's... a design flaw."

Kai groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. "So what happens if I take the horse anyway?"

Orlen shuddered. "Last time... Emberwatch was consumed by fire. An entire city. Vanished. All because some noob thought he could tame Beelzebuck. And he only used two carrots. TWO!"

The horse neighed with smug satisfaction.

Kai turned back to Orlen. "Look, I don't want to burn down a city. But I also don't want to just stand around here while Glitch Stallion here plans his eventual demonic uprising."

"You could... run?" Orlen offered hopefully. "Run far away? Hide in a mine for several weeks until the system forgets about you?"

Kai gave him a long look. "You need therapy."

"I've begged for it," Orlen whispered. "But the therapist NPC was reassigned to Goat Wrangling."

Despite his better judgment, and the warning from the obviously traumatised quest-giver, Kai found himself climbing onto Beelzebuck's back a few minutes later. The horse didn't buck or neigh. It just made a low, vibrating humming noise like it was waiting to start something unholy.

The system spoke again.

Mount Activated: Beelzebuck
Perk Unlocked: "Uncomfortable Trotting"
Warning: Do not stare directly into Beelzebuck's eyes for more than 4 seconds.

Kai sat on the saddle.

Nothing exploded.

"Okay," he said, cautiously optimistic. "Not bad. Maybe Orlen just overreacted."

Then the horse did a full 360 spin and launched itself into a gallop without warning, heading straight through the stable doors and over an NPC who had been casually sweeping hay. The NPC screamed, ragdolled into a barrel, and exploded into confetti.

"I take it back!" Kai yelled, clinging to the reins. "Orlen didn't overreact enough!"

The countryside blurred past in streaks of green and tan. Kai tried pulling on the reins, shouting commands, even attempting to jump off, but nothing worked. It was like the horse was riding him, and it had a vendetta against gravity.

After a solid five minutes of reckless sprinting through fields, rivers, a very angry bakery, and a wedding (which he may or may not have legally disrupted), Beelzebuck finally skidded to a halt on a hilltop overlooking a majestic castle town bathed in golden light.

ARRIVAL: Emberwatch

Kai groaned and slid off the saddle, limbs aching.

The horse gave him one final smug glance, farted fire, and disappeared in a puff of smoke and jazz music.

"...I hate this game," Kai muttered.

From the castle below, bells rang.

And somewhere, somehow, a choir of goats began to sing.