Level? Hit points? What is all this—some kind of video game? And what the fuck is a homunculus?

A shadow looms over me, and my vision swims as the shapes curve across my field of view in a disorienting manner. I feel nauseous, but I can’t blink, or turn away, or even shut my vision off. A tawny face, bearded and gnarled, stretches before me—but behind me I can see the contents of a wooden work bench, and above me arcs the thatched roof of a cottage, while below is a distinct grainy pattern of wood, crossed with white stripes.

It’s like I can see in every direction, all at once.

I want to be sick.

The giant face moves closer, peering at me with one gray eye which stretches around my view like a fisheye lens. He grins, and says something in a deep, wispy voice.

What did he say? I can hear—or at least I think I can hear—but it’s nothing more than a string of nonsensical sounds.

[Foreign language detected. Activate translation?]

Uh. I still don’t understand who the voice belongs to—if it belongs to anyone at all. But at the very least, it seems to be friendly. Yes?

[Activating.]

Like a switch has been flipped in my brain, the old man’s words suddenly snap into focus.

“...more than anticipated. Two for one! How fascinating. I’ve never had this happen before.”

Who is this guy?

The mind-voice takes that as an invitation.

[Name: Trenevalt]

[Species: Halfling]

[Class: Null Summoner]

[Level: 40]

[HP: 20/50]

[Mana: 28/800]

Summoner? Halfling? As if this all couldn’t get any weirder. But after my conversation with Noli and everything that happened Between, I’m starting to develop an immunity to disbelief.

Where is Noli, anyway?

“It’s lucky another vessel was nearby for the excess magic to spill over into,” Trenevalt says, reaching out a hand. It hovers just above me, dwarfing my field of view. Halfling? This guy is huge!

“That could have been trouble.” He chuckles. “Never thought my tinkering with such trinkets would end up being so useful.” Trenevalt’s hand continues to move over me and reach for an object to my right.

It’s some sort of clockwork toy. Springs and gears decorate its copper shell, intricately integrated into all six of its spindly limbs. Some kind of octopus. Hexapus?

It begins squirming when Trenevalt tries to pick it up. At the same time, the mind-voice speaks up once more.

[Name: Noli]

[Species: N/A]

[Class: Woodland Ranger]

[Level: 25]

[HP: 30/30 (reduced)]

[Mana: 20/20]

Wait. That toy is Noli?

Trenevalt chuckles as the clockwork octopus swipes at one of his fingers. “Spirited core, I see. Though your form is a bit unorthodox. It will be difficult to figure out how to fix you to a more proper shell. Well, I’m sure I’ll find some use for you yet.”

The toy—Noli—gestures in a way I choose to assume means something rude as Trenevalt turns back to me. I squirm under his gaze and am rewarded with a small rocking motion.

“Careful there,” he warns, steadying me with a finger. The finger is enormous, covering up most of my view of the ceiling. Next to me, Noli is struggling to get her many toy limbs under her. But if I’m about her size, that means this Trenevalt fellow isn’t huge at all, is he? We’ve just become very, very small.

I must be stuck in some kind of toy, too. But what shape? I can’t see any limbs, despite somehow being able to see in every direction at once, and trying to move doesn’t provide me with any mobility either.

I may as well be Between all over again.

But at least here I can see. And I can hear. And a warm beam of sunlight is trickling through a crack in the wall. It’s something, at least.

“Can you understand me, core?” Trenevalt asks me.

Can I speak? I think very hard about doing so, but nothing happens. With nothing else to do, I try wiggling once more. Only now that I’m thinking about it, it’s more like sloshing.

How extremely unsettling.

“Excellent,” Trenevalt says, apparently taking my movement as some sort of confirmation. “That should be sufficient until I’ve enough mana to move you to your more permanent form. Now, stay put.” A strange tingling sensation passes through me. “I’ll be just a moment.” The halfling turns away and hobbles out of the room.

Stay put? And wait for the fisherman to come back so he can start cleaning his fish? I don’t think so. The second Trenevalt is gone, I give it my best wiggle.

A buzzing sensation erupts through my mind.

[Role requirement engaged,] the mind voice says. [Order received: Stay put. Sanity Level: 99%]

What the hell? Role requirement? What did any of that mean?

[Role: Homunculus. Condition: A homunculus must obey the commands of its creator.]

She keeps using that word. What even is a homunculus? It sounds ridiculous.

The mind-voice is happy to fill me in. [Homunculus: Animated by an arcanum-infused core, a homunculus is a creature of artificial origins designed to simulate life and serve its spell caster.]

Artificial my ass! I lived a whole life before ending up here! Or half of a life. A quarter. Regardless, mind-voice must have it all wrong.

I’m so distracted by this infuriating revelation, I almost don’t register the clockwork octopus crawling over to me. It’s a little hard to miss, however, since I can’t seem to turn my omni-vision off.

Noli taps me with a copper tentacle, producing a ringing clink. I try to wiggle in acknowledgement, and that same buzzing sensation creeps into my mind, but I guess since I’m not technically trying to go anywhere, the “Stay put” order remains satisfied.

Noli wiggles her arms nonsensically, but it doesn’t mean anything to me. I wish we could communicate again like we could Between.

[Foreign language detected,] the mind voice says. [Activate translation?]

Are they talking about Noli? But she isn’t saying anything. She continues to wave two of her octopi limbs around, making strange swirling and jabbing motions. They seem sharp—intentional.

[Activate translation?]

Wait, she is speaking, isn’t she? Just not with spoken words—it’s some kind of sign language.

Yes! I cry. Activate translation.

The random motions abruptly gain meaning, the concepts appearing in my mind like they had when we were Between.

“...that really you?” Noli signs. It’s crude, as if the signs she’s producing with tentacle limbs are only a rough approximation of a much more nuanced language, but the translator in my mind seems to be working overtime to fill in the gaps. “We’re in quite a pinch, huh. Can you see me from in there?”

In where? Not that I have any way of asking her to elaborate. Could I?

Hey robot person, I call. Can I, uh, I don’t know. Broadcast or something?

[Command unrecognized,] she says.

Didn’t think so. Well, thanks anyway, um… I pause. Do you have a name?

[This interface is not a living entity and as such does not have a name.]

How enlightening. So, what, you’re like a computer program?

[The existence of this interface is your primitive interpretation of the neuro-magical readjustment that was formed to bridge the divergences between extraplanar dimensions.]

Uh… sure. Clear as mud. But referring to it as the robot mind-voice isn’t doing either of us any good. I’m going to call you Echo, I decide, since you seem to have a response to whatever I say.

The voice pauses as if performing a calculation. [Designation accepted.]

The tinking rings through me again, and I flinch away from Noli’s increasingly annoying taps.

“Can you feel this? I suppose even if you could, you wouldn’t be able to say. Quite a pinch indeed!”

How can she possibly sound so upbeat after having her mind stuffed into a toy octopus? It just isn’t normal. I try to lean away from her taps, and she pauses.

“Aha! That got a reaction.” Her arms wiggle in excitement. “Alright, how about this—slosh around if you can understand me.”

There doesn’t seem to be many other options. I try rocking back and forth again.

“That’s it! You can see me! Okay, so… let’s try, sloshing means yes, no sloshing means no.”

Psh. I could have thought of that. But it doesn’t seem like ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are going to lead to many rich and meaningful conversations.

Noli clumsily skitters around me, looking for who knows what, and her image warps around my gaze. Ugh. This contorted vision is going to give me a headache.

“Okay,” Noli signs. “I think I can roll you off that stand before our wizarding friend gets back. Er. You don’t think you’d break if I dropped you on the floor, do you?”

I sure hope not. But her line of questioning is not instilling an abundance of confidence in me.

“You didn’t wiggle,” she notices. “So, ‘no, you don’t think you’ll break’. Or is that ‘no, don’t drop me’? Or maybe ‘no, you don’t want to go’. Or maybe…”

I mentally facepalm. At this rate, nothing is going to get accomplished. One thing I do agree with her on, though, is getting out of here before Trenevalt gets back. I try to rock a little more forcefully, and immediately my mind is filled with uncomfortable static and alarm bells.

[Role requirement active,] Echo stoically reports. [Order: Stay put. Sanity Level: 98%]

Oh, right. I’d nearly forgotten about that bullshit. Can’t talk. Can’t move. What’s next?

“Here we are.”

My heart sinks and Noli freezes as Trenevalt meanders back into the room. That must have been the shortest-lived escape attempt in history. What does he want? Why did he do this to us?

Trenevalt sinks into a chair, reclining with a content sigh. Between his hands is a steaming cup of liquid. He smiles faintly, turning his face to a sunny window, and sips idly at his drink. A solid minute passes in silence.

Um. What? Is this some kind of trick?

Noli is just as baffled. “I… think he forgot about us.”

Holy shit, she’s right. Not a trick, then, just a joke. A very bad joke.

“Come on.” Noli crawls around behind my back. “I think we can still sneak out of here.”

But her squeaky gears and the scraping of her metal limbs against wood are anything but sneaky. Trenevalt cocks his head, then turns to look. Noli stops as the wizard stares at us for a long, unblinking moment.

Then he passes a hand over his face and chuckles. “Oh my. I really am getting old, aren’t I? Can’t forget about you two.” He sets the drink down and stands, sweeping me up in his grasp.

The world spins around me—too fast—too disorienting—but at least his hand is covering half my vision, which helps with some of the vertigo. As I’m lifted from where I was stuck, I can finally get a good glimpse of my surroundings.

We appear to be in some kind of wooden shed. Strange tools and jars decorate the shelves on two of the walls. On the third wall is a window, where a line of clockwork toys similar to Noli are sitting all in a row, with one gap in their ranks. Beneath that is the table I had been sitting on, which has white circles and lines drawn all over it. At the center of the design is some sort of small metal stand—that must have been what I’d just been sitting in. Trenevalt places a cloth lining in the stand, picks it up and rolls me back into the padded frame, then gingerly grabs Noli with his other hand. He carries both of us out the door at the back of the room. So much for his tea.

Outside is almost sensory overload. There are pine trees—which I can’t smell—and sunshine—which fills me with warmth—and chirping birds—which I can hear. So I’ve still got at least sight, sound, and touch. But smell, taste, and speech seem to be off the table. Not terrible, I guess. But what I really want is mobility, and it’s all I can do to just watch and see where Trenevalt takes us next.

“That was my workshop,” he helpfully supplies as we circle around the small shed. “You won’t have to worry about that place much. It’s just where I practice any new spells, and aside from you two, I’m not practicing much arcana these days.”

Noli is wiggling her octopus limbs at him frantically, but he doesn’t pay her any mind.

“The wood pile is just behind,” he continues, pausing to show us his astonishingly mundane stack of logs. “They can be chopped in the spring and summer, so there’s time for them to dry before winter.”

Fascinating. What mysterious wonders will the wizard show us next?

“The grounds become quite overgrown in warmer months,” he says, continuing on the apparent tour. “They will certainly need tending. And these are the laundry lines.” A pair of pink flannel trousers flap in the breeze. “They can be taken down in harsh winds, if need be. Up ahead is the main house…”

Noli continues to fruitlessly attempt communication with the wizard. “It’s all lovely, it really is, but we would seriously appreciate being put down now—or, even better, returned to our actual bodies.”

He doesn’t even glance her way. It’s like being held captive to an old person’s mind-numbing narration, but in a much more literal and dire sense.

“...And this is my home.”

The cabin is half-built into the hill it’s on, which in turn looks down over a valley dotted with lakes and wildflowers. Snow-capped mountains frame the picturesque vista, and there’s no sign of any other homes or villages in sight. I suppose I can’t blame the guy; if I were a hermit, this would certainly be a stunning location to choose to spend the rest of my days without the risk of any wayward salesmen or nosey neighbors.

Which of course means there’s no one else around to save Noli and I.

Inside, his house is cozy, if not a bit messy, every surface covered with teacups and every wall packed with books. He shows us to the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom, and finally stops in some sort of study.

“Here we are,” he says, setting me down on a desk. “It will be nice to have help again. Though I suppose that’ll have to wait a few more days, until my mana stores have recovered. I’m afraid I used a bit too much summoning you both here—won’t have nearly enough to complete the binding. Not to mention twice over!” He places Noli next to me. “Sorry, little one, but I don’t have a body prepared for you, yet.”

A body? Like, our real bodies? Thank god, then this is just temporary. Maybe this is all just some misunderstanding. Maybe he’s here to help after all. I mean, he doesn’t seem all that bad. A bit messy and more than a little forgetful, but I’m starting to have my doubts about his supposed wizardly talents.

Trenevalt turns his back to us as he busies himself with something behind the desk.

“Oh, gods,” Noli signs.

I turn my attention back to her. She must see something I can’t.

Noli isn’t trying to escape this time, however. She just watches Trenevalt, quietly, unmoving. Echo’s translations may be able to figure out her signs, but it provides me no insight on her body language. Is she frozen in fear? Awe? Something else?

Curse this lipless form.

Then Trenevalt steps aside, and I notice several things.

First, he’s standing in front of something glassy and reflective. The structure isn’t a mirror, but it’s enough to provide me with a first very warped reflection of myself.

I’m a flask. Seated on the cushioned stand Trenevalt had placed me on before, I can make out a tear-drop shaped vial, about three inches across. Like one of those round chemistry flasks, but instead of an opening, the top part is hooked and sealed as if designed to be strung up like a pendant on a necklace. And inside that glass vessel is something dark—a thimbleful of black ink. That… that isn’t really me, is it?

[Check,] Echo chimes in, my thoughts clearly having triggered one of her commands. [Kanin, a Level 1 homunculus, summoned by the null-arcanum wizard Trenevalt.]

Okay, so that’s definitely me, then. I’m a tiny glass vial with a teaspoon of ink. Man, why couldn’t I have gotten Noli’s body instead?

But I’m not given much time to dwell in self-pity as my attention is drawn to the thing that’s providing me with my reflection.

“You won’t be much use now,” Trenevalt says, setting something down on the table next to me. “But once I’ve got you properly bonded, you should be a big help around the house.”

What he’s stepped away from is a body—sort of. There are two legs, two arms, something that resembles a torso, and even the impression of a head—but it’s all made out of glass. And there’s a hole in its chest that’s suspiciously tear-drop shaped.

I look at the thing Trenevalt put on the table, and it’s like looking into a mirror. Another tear-drop vial, but this one is cracked and empty.

Um. Check?

[Check: Expired homunculus core,] Echo says. [This is the inactive core that once was used to power the homunculus shell owned by the null-arcanum wizard Trenevalt.]

Oh, crap.

“It will be nice to have someone to talk to again,” Trenevalt happily hums to himself. “Even if you won’t be able to talk back. Gets lonely out here sometimes… But nothing a bit of magic can’t fix!”

“Gods,” Noli signs, her limbs limp and defeated. She seems to be piecing it together as well. “He wanted to create a new core to power his homunculus—but instead, he got us. He doesn’t even know two souls got stuck in his spell.”

If I had a heart, it would be sinking into my stomach. I might not understand magic, but our circumstances are clear enough. Our minds have been stuffed into tumblers and toys, and the only chance of freedom rests in the hands of a senile wizard who summoned us to do his yard work.