The Summoned Fairy King

Prologue I

My attention was focused to a razor-sharp point as I carefully moved my fingers, gentle strokes swept across the surface in front of me. My eyes squinted as my face seemed to be frozen stiff from my concentration.

I'd been at this for an hour. Every portion of my work was near perfect. Every angle was calculated, and every stroke repeated a dozen times before the perfect one was chosen.

"Almost done," I murmured to myself.

A digital painting was laid out before me.

I would not call myself an artist, but I still felt the image I'd composed was quite decent, even if drawing it had caused me much stress. Still, I felt there were a number of strokes missing, and every time I looked at it, I couldn't help but want to undo large swathes of it.

I lacked an aesthetic sense, and had to review things a hundred times over, and check my sketches with two or three people because of my lack of confidence in drawing. This is because what I should be doing right now is programming. Not drawing.

Thinking of that fact made me want to drop everything and strangle my friend.
 

Earlier in the year, I was approached with an idea for a game project. A friend of mind was aware that I was looking for a game project to put on my resume, but I wasn't too keen on just accepting a "Game Idea".

For some reason, when you tell people you can program, all your family and friends suddenly come up to you with these genius get-rich-quick ideas for games and apps, that'll totally sell, but they never have the faintest clue for how such a program should look or operate. They end up with this idea that having this super vague idea that amounts to a name and a sales pitch is worthy of riches and glory.

This time at least, my friend had a pretty good idea for where he wanted to take things. They had a lot of written material ready, lore, setting, gameplay and so on, all there, and very detailed. It was basically a linear RPG with some trading card aspects, and a fairy motif. It was slightly odd, but the spec seemed fairly straightforward.

So, I spent the next half year implementing the given spec, using placeholder art here and there, until I was told those fateful words.

"Oh right, I don't have the money for any art assets. I remember you used to draw really well, so could you do it?"

I should have quit right there, but I had already sunk too much time into this project—I'd gotten attached to the idea, and even made my own additions to it. I couldn't back down now.
Luckily, my indecisive self had always been debating whether or not to take up drawing again, and I already had a digital drawing tablet lying around for whenever I decided to seriously start practicing.

That was how I found myself implementing the entire game from the ground up, all by myself. Somewhere along the way, I lost track of what exactly my friend was supposed to be doing, and realized I was suckered into making the game for him. Even so, I went on with it, because it had at some point become mine.

I could use open source assets for much of the art, but some significant bits like the cards and character portraits, had to be drawn. Character portraits only appeared during dialogue scenes, and could be reused, so using a few tricks I saved quite a bit of time there.

As for cards, it didn't feel right to half-ass them. Although for many of the cards I could draw something simple and let it be, there was a particular class that I felt would be a disservice to halfass like that.

The Summoning Cards.
In short, the few rare cards that summon a mob during battle. They're all extremely useful one way or another, and provide various benefits to your party, and some are additional combatants that can fight on your behalf.

The drawing I was currently working on was one such card.

—"Finished," I muttered. "I think?"

To me, this card was especially important, given it was a card I decided on, and it was agreed that it would become the cover character for the game. As a result, I took extra care in drawing it up, and in fact, I had "finished" it three times before, each time sending it to a few friends to get their input on it, so I could make adjustments.

"It should be fine now, right?" I said, picking up the tablet to get a better look, zooming in and out, and rotating the image to make sure my eyes hadn't gone bad. "Yeah, it's fine," I repeated, as I stood up from my seat and began stretching.

After a moment of relaxing, I was about to go take a seat, but realized my throat was dry as fuck, and wondered if I had any drinks in the fridge. I headed out my room and towards the stairs, when I noticed my smartphone vibrating in my pocket.

A text message, probably.

I unlocked my phone and checked the new message, as my careful footsteps carried me down the stairs. Neverminding the strange area code, I read ahead.

—You are being summoned. Would you like you accept? Text "no" to reject. You have 60 seconds to respond!

What?

That was the last meaningful thought I had, before realizing my foot had slipped, and made my way headfirst down the stairs.

Prologue II

—"We did it!"

My cheeks twitched.

—"Woohoo!"

Cheers seemed to resonate from all directions.

—"We're saved!"

My eyes gently open as I realize I'm not in my home anymore. As I tried to get up to see what was going on, I flinched in irritation. My head throbbed, and I felt as though my skull had been smashed and wobbled about.

"Wow, they're so pretty," I heard, while trying to wobble onto my feet. I gazed around with blurry vision, and could see the figures of various people.

Whose so pretty?—I asked myself, looking around for what everyone was talking about. However, as I did, I realized something odd.

"Some kind of convention?" I muttered to myself, realizing that everyone seemed to be dressed up in cosplay, taking on various fairy-like forms. There was a rainbow of colorful wings adorning the various girls surrounding me.

"Hmm?" Now that I was upright, and had a better look around, I seemed to only be posed with more questions. What's going on? Why are these girls all looking at me? Am I dreaming? Is there something on my face?

I reached up to scratch my cheek, hoping to maybe get whatever they were staring at, but instead I noticed that my hands were different. Much more smooth and dainty, adorned with rings and bracelets.

What's more, instead of the normal t-shirt sleeves that should have hugged close to my arms, I found that I now wore a strange robe with sleeves loose enough to hide various things under my arms. In fact, I could feel pockets inside my sleeves.

My clothes was all foreign and strange, that it took me a second to reboot my consciousness again, as I made sense of what was going on.

"A-ahem," I heard a light cough in front of me, pulling my attention forward again. There, a girl stood, dressed in leaf-like clothes with giant-sized petals along her dress, and bearing giant insect wings, fitting the fairy aesthetic that surrounded me. She made a simple gesture to me, as if greeting a guest into her home, before speaking up.

"O Summoned One. We have conjured thee into our realm in hopes of borrowing thine power. What is thy name?"

The way in which she spoke seemed old-fashioned and stiff, while her tone was strained as if forcing herself to use pronouns and phrases she was unused to, but I got the idea.

For a moment, I thought of berating this girl for LARPing out of nowhere, but after taking another second to look around, I wondered if it was me that was out of place. Although I wore strange clothes, made of material I wasn't familiar with, it wasn't anything like the plant-aesthetic of the other fairies. My clothes was kind of extravagant, but what the hell was I doing here?

As I wondered, trying to hide my fidgeting, I felt a muscle on my back twitch, brushing against something I'd never felt. By reflex, I took a look over my shoulder, and saw them.
Two pairs of great butterfly wings, with beautiful patterns etched into them from a few strong colors. Black, silver and gold. For a moment I wondered who put these on me, but… their pattern was immediately recognizable.
They were unique even among the various patterns present in this room, as they appeared to be both a work of art, and something resembling a purposeful pattern.

A crest was present on the two top wings—a crest I had designed, and just got done drawing before passing out.

A million things came to mind as I considered what was going on.

I looked back to the girl in front of me, who before was wearing a confident smile, but was now growing somewhat awkward. I hadn't yet answered her question. She was worried.

Was she in charge here?

 

Well, that's fine.

Taking a moment to compose myself, I decided to play along with the bizarre scenario in front of me. It appeared that I was dressed up as that, and so I may as well play the part. Was I dreaming? Or had I truly been summoned to another world?

Whichever it was, I'd find out.

"I'll forgive your rudeness as ignorance," I spoke out in the most condescending voice I could muster, finding that my (somewhat different) voice appeared to echo through the entire room.

The girl before me grew stiff for a moment, as she tried to mutter out a question.
"W-wha…?" She let out as her mouth attempted to respond to me.

"Nonetheless, I shall grace you with a name you are to know me by—I am the Fairy King Sithri! Kneel and rejoice!"

No sooner did those words leave my mouth did I feel a tinge of embarrassment.

Kingly Duty

The situation had turned slightly awkward when the room full of girls seriously did as I said, and kneeled on the ground with their heads lowered.

This moment of silence gave me another chance to take a look around at where I was. The room was large, like some kind of gymnasium or other large building, only the walls and ceiling appeared to be made out of wood. From the look of it, I appeared to be within a carved out tree, with various embers and strange lanterns keeping the inside of this "tree" lit.

I wasn't seriously inside a tree, was I?

Did I seriously become a fairy?

Ever since that uncomfortable thought entered my head, I'd been thinking about how I could escape reality. Somehow, I was in the body of the character I had just gotten done drawing, surrounded by several dozen "fairies" that claimed to have summoned me.

Sithri—the sole "Fairy King" of the nameless game I was designing. He was on par with a whole class of Summons referred to as "Fairy Monarchs", being the highest class of summoning card. Calling on such cards took a considerable amount of MP, but they more than made up for it.

While the Fairy Queen Diana may have been the strongest in raw combat potential, Sithri was the most powerful support mob in the game, with a very high Charisma and Intelligence base, and various abilities that could be used to boost the chances of victory.

"Guide me to my chambers," I eventually said, and was quickly guided to a lavish room. I wasn't sure if my "Charisma" was actually being affected by the character stats I set, or if I was just so irritated by the situation that something like stage-fright hardly bothered me, but I was able to cleanly talk like a pompous asshole.

 

Before me was a large bedroom (for a fairy?), albeit with simple decorations and a bed made from material I didn't quite recognize. Actually, calling it a room might be generous. There wasn't even a door, as everything seemed to be carved out of a tree by some means. Instead it appeared I was given a hole in a carved out home within a giant tree.

The aesthetic was strangely fitting.
But the strangest part about the room was how it wasn't just wide, but also tall. Of course, fairies could fly, so much of the furniture wasn't even at ground level—even the bed seemed to lay on a shelf that was about a body-length high above the floor.

Although my "attendants" tried to talk to me about the reason they summoned me in the first place, I ended up dismissing them for the moment, and began to explore the room. Sure, that's an important topic to discuss, but I needed to verify a few things first.

"Any kind of mirror?" I muttered to myself, looking for a reflective surface.

Although I could guess from the silver hair in the corner of my vision, I wanted to verify whether my appearance had completely taken on that of Sithri, but I also wanted to test other things.

—"Status," I muttered.

… Nothing.

I thought about casting some magic that only Sithri could use, but in hindsight, nearly all of his abilities were those applied to allies, and didn't have much of a physical manifestation anyways. I didn't know how to cast my skills anyways, and there didn't seem to be any kind of game-like interface. Still, physical tasks like flapping my wings and even flying came almost naturally to me.

Speaking of the game, Sithri was supposed to be very charismatic and smart, but I don't really feel any different. It may tie into the level system of the game, and how stats of Summons scale with the level of the player, in which case my stats are being limited by whoever summoned me.

Alternatively, I'm already making false conclusions, and the fact my body resembles that of Sithri may be unrelated to the game—or at the very least, everything from the game didn't translate over how I might expect.

While I was mulling over these details, a knock came at the door—or at least from the door-less entrance-way. A curtain of leaves blocked visibility into the room, but there wasn't much privacy otherwise.

"Enter," I said. A moment later, the girl I'd seen earlier appeared from behind the curtain. Come to think of it, all the fairies I'd seen so far all looked fairly young. A product of eternal youth, I guess?
She wore a dress-like article that seemed to be patterned, made of leaves, petals and other interwoven fibers. Her wings were like those of a dragon-fly, although I wasn't sure if they provided the same mobility as one.

"So? What do you want?" I didn't hold back in being blunt—these people basically kidnapped me as far as I was concerned, magic or no magic. I don't know what the situation is, but I have some ideas.

"P-pardon my earlier rudeness, but would you please lend an ear to our plight?"
The woman pleaded with desperate eyes as she approached me. "We have lost… too much, just to conjure you," she said, trembling.

"Explain your circumstances, and I shall consider lending my assistance." I might as well listen for now. I was worried about some of her word choice, but…

"Yes! Umm, the main issue is… it has been a long time since a new sister has bloomed. We thought nothing of it at first—this sort of thing comes and goes with seasons, and some years are just dry like that… but the last decade has been especially sparse and the last year has seen only a single sister sprout, so many of us are quite worried about the future."
Bloomed? Sprouted? Those terms appeared related somehow, but what was she talking about? Did it relate to a growth phase in the fairies? Hrmm… Did we have some kind of lore like that in our game…?
Still, she continued:
"Worst still, the outsiders wander through our forests, and often take my sisters to do whatever it is those monsters do!" More terms I'm unfamiliar with…

"So, you want me to fix this blooming issue, and rescue your sisters, then?" I concluded.
"W-well, you wouldn't need to go out of your way…" She muttered. "They… might be d-d-gone…"
"I see… Tell me though, what do you mean by 'bloom'? Is that some important process you fairies undergo?"
"Eh…? You don't know? Surely every fairy must know?"
"… I'm from a different world. Let's just say things might work differently there."
"Eh…? You're from a different world?"
"… Isn't that what the purpose of your summoning was? To call forth someone from another world?"
"Eh…? You weren't just—"
"Cut that out."

"—Yes! Umm" She snapped to attention, her eyes swimming about as she tried to make sense of the revelation just now. I see. That's what she meant by 'conjured' earlier.
"Explain. What did you think you were doing?"
While she was panicking, grabbing her head while she lightly floated off the ground as she did, the neurotic fairy suddenly straightened up.
"Umm, we… infiltrated the castles of the Outsiders, see… We heard legend that they sometimes use a ritual magic to have their gods bloom a being they call Hero, whenever they come under threat," She explained, once again using that term bloom. Seeing my expression, she gasped, and explained. "Umm, you see, unlike beasts who mate together and give rise to one another, me and my sisters are born of special flowers, and when those flowers bloom, we emerge!"

 

Hah… such a fantastical life-cycle.
But I see… It seems this "blooming" process is rather rare, and so their population is in the hands of chance. And from her earlier words, she's probably quite old, but no matter how long lived a fairy may be, if there are no new additions, their population will only go down.
They heard something about a Hero Summoning, and had a misunderstanding that the ritual involved was some kind of shortcut to "bloom" a human through magic, in the way Fairies are born.

"Is that not how it works… in your world?" She asked.
"I have no recollection of being born from a flower, if that's what you're asking." In truth, I wasn't sure. I don't remember that kind of setting in the worldbuilding notes for the game. "Is there anything special about these flowers you are born from?" I asked.

The small fae shook her head.
"The flowers bloom when the essence of life gathers in the fields, and is consumed by a flower."

Essence of Life? Sounds familiar… I think that was in the flavor text, explaining the nature of MP. Some magical force that permeates the world and the representation of life itself. It was similar to mana in some games.
So it's real here, huh?

"So the flowers themselves aren't special—it's the essence which births a new fairy?" I asked to make sure.
"Yes—!" She answered sharply.

I ignored her anxious mood, and began to ponder for a moment.
In summary, they have no mode of voluntary reproduction, and some outside enemy occasionally picks them off for unknown reason.
So, they stole some secret technique to summon a hero—a being they didn't fully understand—and ended up with me.

It was a troublesome situation.
I wanted to say "Not my problem, send me back," but…
I doubt they can send me back.
It'd also be uncool, given I named myself a "Fairy King" earlier.
And I found that I didn't really care about going back.

I mean, there's magic in this world, you know?
Plus, if I was summoned using this hero ritual, do I have some sort of heroic powers?
If I have this avatar—Fairy King Sithri—how much of the game's logic applies to me?
And if I'm a King, does that put my in charge of these fairies?

"I've decided. I, Fairy King Sithri shall lend my aid to you and your sisters. It is my kingly duty, after all."

I'd been considering rejecting her.
But before I knew it, I'd convinced myself to stick around.
At least until I can figure out a way home—or better yet, a way back and forth.
Well, in either case, I plan to lug my weight around.

"Y-yes!" She nodded vigorously to my declaration.
But, there was a look of slight confusion.
"What is it?" I asked.
"You keep calling yourself King, but… what's that?"

My expression froze stiff for a good moment.
Wait… because they don't give birth, they don't have a concept of hereditary rulership?
Then what the fuck am I?

Crap. Looks like I'm going to have to learn more about the faeries before I try to get anything done.
I let out a sigh, and looked straight at the young girl.
Like all the fairies, she appeared young, possibly early twenties, reasonably passable as a late teen, but I'm sure she could be much older. Her hair was a dark red that bordered on black, and skin a light olive. She was pretty, I think.

"What's your name?" I asked.
"My name's Chestnut," she answered. After her hair color?
"Mind if I call you Chessy? We need to have a nice long talk… Do keep these to yourself."

And so, my first day as King of the Fairies was postponed.
I first had to wrap my head around what kind of social structure these people had in the first place. Also, needed to learn how to fly. I still wasn't sure how my wings even worked…

… Well, at least I'm no longer working on a game for free.

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Pub: 08 Apr 2019 04:43 UTC
Edit: 13 Apr 2019 04:05 UTC
Views: 228