Mythos Of Narcissus: Reborn As An NPC In A Horror VRMMO

Returning to my physical vessel was like sinking into the depths of an ocean, my consciousness stretching thin as it melded back into flesh and bone. The sensation was neither painful nor comforting, but it was grounding. The Landship hummed around me, its great body shifting as it continued its slow, deliberate march across the land.

The Ordeal loomed ahead.

Time ebbed forward, its flow unbroken by hesitation or fear. The Ordeal of the Dusk arrived like the toll of a distant bell, echoing across the land with its quiet yet undeniable presence. And then, when the time came, the Ordeal of the Midnight followed, swallowing the horizon in its eerie dominion.

But the Divine Grave held firm.

Its influence curbed the catastrophe before it could unfurl, stifling the spawn rate of Calamity Objects to an absolute minimum. Where there should have been an unfathomable tide of horror, there were instead only scattered remnants of the corruption, their presence manageable against the might of the Landship.

The special Calamity Objects that did manifest—one in the Dusk, another in the Midnight—were simple, their forms easily subdued with the firepower and discipline of our forces.

A mercy.

A rare, precious mercy.

And above all, the worst possibility did not come to pass.

A Qliphoth Object did not appear in the depths of the Midnight Ordeal. There was no rift birthing a concept given form, no tear in reality spewing forth a truth that should not be known.

The night ended with only the echoes of distant canon fire and the smoldering remnants of what could have been far, far worse.

Another day passed in Carcosa.

As the first light of dawn kissed the blackened sky, the Divine Grave—its duty fulfilled—began to fade. Like an ancient monument sinking into the earth, it withdrew from this world, its presence unweaving from the land and leaving only the echoes of its power behind. With its departure, the landscape shifted once more, revealing the unbroken path ahead.

Quruize Citadel.

One of the many great strongholds before the unknown.

As the Landship pressed forward, I reached into the recesses of my memory, searching for the knowledge that had been thrust upon me upon my arrival in this world. It was not the knowledge of a scholar, nor the wisdom of an elder—it was something crammed into the very marrow of my being, an intrusive presence that had made itself at home in the depths of my mind.

And among the fragments of history, among the details of the great Citadels that still stood against the ruin of this world, there was one phrase, a passing warning:

"Never gaze deep into the water."

I did not know if it still held true.

But something in me whispered that it did.

As Carcosa's ever-dim sun climbed its sluggish arc across the sky, the Landship hummed with the stirrings of its people, both inside and outside.

The great vessel had long since ceased to be a simple machine of war or a sanctuary of lost souls—it was quite a city in its own right, a behemoth of steel and will, and within its vast corridors, life carried on as it always had.

Duolos Engineers inspected the integrity of the hull, their hands gloved in soot and the scent of oil clinging to their clothes. The wardens and Theogrunts patrolled with methodical precision, their Prismforges resting on their grip, boots striking against the reinforced walkways in synchronized rhythm.

Yet beneath the surface of these routine movements, something else pulsed through the veins of the Landship. A new current, thick with expectation. Anticipation. Change.

The Doulos vessels had already made their main progress.

They cut through the haze of the horizon, their sleek forms moving like hunting birds descending upon their roost. Messengers of the Landship, envoys of the past and the present.

Their arrival towards their destination and other living beings was met with silent urgency.

They spoke with the world ahead.

Beyond the ever-shifting landscape of Carcosa, the Quruize Citadel stood steadfast, a titan against time.

And with it came its people—foreigners, travelers, wanderers and traders alike, each threading their way through the colossal city. They were drawn to its walls as insects to flame, swarming in and out of its gates with restless purpose. Commerce thrived, information spread, and the arteries of civilization pulsed with renewed vigor.

But that was not all.

The Doulos carried graver news to them. Something that shifted the very weight of the air.

A Landship.

Ancient. Vast. Forgotten.

A relic of a time long past, lost to the shackles of an unnatural slumber, its fate intertwined with the fabric of Carcosa itself. It had not moved for countless years, locked within a prison of stillness—until now.

It had awoken.

Freed by the great recalibration of Carcosa's surface mere days ago, it had risen once more, shaking the dust of ages from its hull, the echoes of its engines rumbling back to life. The earth had surrendered its hold upon the vessel, releasing it like a beast loosed from its chains. And now, it roamed once more.

It was a vessel unlike any other.

It was ours.

This would be our truth now.

No longer were we just wanderers adrift, another nameless Landship cutting through the ruins of Carcosa. We should been given a myth, a history woven from the fabric of lost time, one that stretched beyond the lifetimes of those who now walked our halls.

We were an artifact, unearthed from the graveyard of ages.

The Doulos carried this tale forward, their words slipping into the streets of Quruize long before our arrival.

And like wildfire, the rumor caught and spread, twisting through the city's veins with unnatural ease. The reemergence of an ancient vessel—one that had once commanded dominion over the land—was a whisper upon the lips of merchants, a hushed secret passed between wary travelers. But even more than the tale of our return, it was the legend of our nature that gripped the minds of those who heard.

A people who knew kindness and cruelty in equal measure.

A people who believed that sin was not measured in crime, nor in transgression, but in disrespect.

In discourtesy.

And those deemed irredeemably rude?

They were not given the chance to repent.

There was no plea. No trial.

Only judgment.

Not in the form of spoken condemnation. Not through the chains of law.

But in the unrelenting roar of Theotech cannons.

It was a myth shaped from fear and fascination, carved from truth and exaggeration alike, yet it was a myth that took root in Quruize.

By the time we neared the Citadel, our name had already reached its walls.

Not only that, the Duolos had also been introducing themselves as a vagrant race from faraway lands that was caught in the chaos of the world wide recalibration.

And then, at last, we did.

The vast city loomed ahead, the embodiment of power and permanence.

From the observation dome of the Landship, I stood with my confidantes, my eyes tracing the skyline of Quruize.

And there, in its towering might, the Citadel awaited.

A bastion of civilization, a kingdom carved from stone and steel, an impregnable behemoth that had stood against the horrors of Carcosa and remained whole.

The walls stretched high into the sky, their surfaces adorned with carvings of forgotten legends, their edges lined with defenses that gleamed under the waning black sun.

Towering battlements crowned the fortress, lined with trebuchets that shimmered with ohrtending inscriptions, their stones not mere projectiles but spells forged into physical form.

Guards stood at the ready, their weapons not the crude arms of lesser settlements, but tools crafted with purpose.

Each soldier bore a crossbow so massive it encompassed their entire arm, a weapon that blurred the line between magic and machinery. The limbs of the bows pulsed with aetheric veins, their runes shifting like living things, whispering with every breath the wielder took.

It didn't seem to be on the level of a Theotech yet, nor did it have any essence of it. However, it should be strong enough to pierce the hide of most Calamity Objects.

"This place is massive!" Charis shouted in excitement, holding an energetic plant-textured doll that was connected to Carlotta.

The gates were as formidable as the walls themselves, reinforced with layers of arcane steel, their surfaces etched with sigils meant to repel all who bore ill intent.

And beyond them, past the impenetrable defenses, lay the heart of the Citadel itself.

Sprawling structures rose like mountains, their designs steeped in a fusion of medieval grandeur and ohrtending artifice. Towers with spires stretched toward the heavens, their surfaces laced with circuitry that pulsed like veins of an ancient beast.

Bridges of stone and floating sigils connected the buildings, weaving a city suspended in both time and space.

It was a world of contrasts.

The archaic and the advanced.

The old and the new.

And within it, the echoes of countless stories, each one carved into the very bones of the Citadel.

I stood locked, my gaze locked onto the grand city, my mind drifting to the words that still whispered in the depths of my thoughts, a knowledge I reminisced, something that I acquired in my time of arrival into this world about every passing of citadels in this world.

For now, it was but a passing thought.

For now, the Landship had arrived.

And the city awaited to be penetrated.