A glass pane covered in runes the Knight did not understand separated him and the corpse of the slain Demon King—runes that Valôr first mistook for the usual glyphs of dark sorcery, yet they glowed with an odd symmetry.
The Wyrd Interlude:
In a Wyrd Realm of steel and half-remembered illusions, two foes meet time and again. Swords clash, and unseen forces flicker—yet no final blow holds true. Here, each victory slips between realities, and every defeat is only a precursor to repetition. This—is wyrd fiction.
Valôr’s eyes narrowed. “What sorcery is this?” he muttered, uneasy. An icy sense of wrongness ran along his spine. Then the text appeared:
FATAL ERROR HAS OCCURRED: CPU has experienced critical system failure. All programs halted to preserve data. Initiate total system restart? >Yes >No.
The Bounty Knight felt like he’d been here before. In evil’s lair. Facing off against a powerful villain that all others failed to slay. Something was different this time. A new trick, he thought.
“What dark magic is this?” Valôr said as he tucked low behind his shield. His vigilant suspicion of trickery had kept him alive for a long time. He wasn’t the best fighter. Or the most clever. It was his patience that led him to success where all others had failed.
His patience always kept him alive to find the big bounties. And once there, his relentlessness in combat had continuously brought victory.
“Never ride in on a battle cry,” Valôr always said, “Information and a plan, that’s how you win. That’s how you stay alive.” These were his go-to lines that he capped off every anecdote of adventure.
In the mountain’s heart, he stood. In the tarnished, ruined golden hall that once belonged to the dwarf lord who had hired him.
Statues were rubble. The great table, shattered. A magnificent duel in this room concluded with the Demon King being killed.
Valôr knew he had killed him.
The Demon King had fallen. His husk smote across the stone throne. Then there was a flash of light. And the room flickered and the Demon King was back on his feet.
Motionless. A glass shield etched with a magic language Valôr could read but not comprehend.
Every evil Valôr faced always kept one final surprise up their sleeve. He knew this. They are never dead the first time. They always needed to die twice.
Valôr held still for a long moment. Surveying the surrounding room. Looking for details that would piece together the incantation.
The torches lining the wall drew his eyes.
The flames were still. Frozen in place.
“I hate magic,” Valôr grumbled.
Slowly, he put his sword towards the barrier and it went right through. Confused and cautious, Valôr moved the blade towards the heel of the Demon King.
It passed right through.
“Illusions,” he said. “I hate magic.”
Valôr didn’t see it, but the Demon King’s eyes blinked and redirected down at Valôr.
“Without a head, there is no bounty,” Valôr said and, in a burst of frustration, swung his sword at the barrier. The room flashed. Disappeared. And reappeared. Unchanged.
Valôr was at the ready with his shield up. He surveyed the room again, trying to understand. It was always a puzzle, he told himself.
Valôr, frustrated, swung his sword at the glowing runes—and the first strike slashed across a word reading ‘no.’ The room flashed and disappeared, then reappeared, seemingly unchanged.
He cursed. “Illusions… I hate magic.”
A second swing clipped the word ‘yes’ and, in a bright burst of light, the entire chamber vanished into darkness. A thunderous grinding of stone echoed, as though immense gears were turning. Then, with another flash, the Demon King stood again—whole and ready.
“I am alive!” the Demon King roared, taking up a flaming blade.
He looked around. The throne room was intact, as it was before the duel.
“So, he was telling the truth,” the Demon King said just as the door exploded in.
Through the threshold came Valôr. A fierce man, even by Demon standards.
“Wait!” The Demon King shouted, but Valôr was in full charge.
Their swords clashed.
“You were right?” The Demon King pleaded. “I see it now!”
Valôr spun around and took a defensive stance. “Your trickery will not work on me!”
They danced around one another, Valôr swinging wildly and The Demon King trying to only defend and not kill.
“Listen—” the Demon King pleaded, “just talk to me for one minute!”
“I do not exchange words with violators!” Valôr swung again and again, determined to deliver the deathblow!
The Demon King fought weakly, trying to spare Valôr so they might talk, but instinct and muscle memory claimed him. A parry struck Valôr’s throat. Blood spattered the floor.
The Demon King howled in frustration as the chamber flickered. He glanced over to the glowing barrier’s runes, still etched with cryptic words.
In desperate confusion, he tapped the ‘yes’ inscription. A surge of power and a thunderous grinding of unseen gears rattled the walls.
As reality blinked out and back in, the Demon King caught a glimpse of something in the swirling glyphs—numbers and spells and images of the duel suspended in the swirling glyphs. There was meaning in the sequence, if he could only view it for longer—but the room was back at the start and again, the door exploded inward!
Valôr charged, though a wisp of doubt lingered in his eyes, as if he too sensed the repetition.
It was endless.
The Wyrd Curtain:
When code masquerades as runes and mortal flesh, the cycle refuses to end. Yet even in the swirl of resets and illusions, hope flickers—a chance for them to see the pattern and break free. Whether they seize it or remain trapped in perpetual conflict is unknown, but the echo of grinding gears lingers—and Wyrd Worlds yet await.