Emil

Back when they lived in the Elseworld, Emil was a regular human with light brown skin, unkempt chestnut hair and dark brown eyes.

After crossing a Portal and arriving in the Overworld, their body was gravely altered. Their right eye split vertically into two dysfunctional, perpetually closed eyes, and they acquired 3 extra arms; 1 on the left side, and 2 on the right one. Parts of their skin also lost their original color and turned matte black; this extends to the entire lower half of their legs, where their feet have turned into strange, lagomorph-like 3-toed paws.

Emil was born in the Elseworld; a "mirror" of the Overworld in which the very fabric of magic collapsed, divinities disappeared, and the floating islands people lived on plummeted to the ground, their pieces now crumbling away amidst apocalyptic lands. A place where survival comes first and stars have long been snuffed out.

In the Elseworld, one doesn't have a regular childhood. Emil, like the few kids they ever were around, lived in small tight-knit communities that never exceeded 100 people in size; only groups in low numbers can stay mobile enough to escape natural disasters and predators. Emil was only taught what one needed to survive, and nothing more. How to maintain your clothes. How to scavenge ruins. How to search for small animals and hunt. How not to think too much about the ones lost on the way.

As far as they remember, Emil never knew their parents. Growing up, they were told they narrowly survived their original community's collapse, and were rescued by scavengers. This was neither a source of personal pain nor bullying from other kids; not only rescuing lost kids is a common thing in the Elseworld, but people that survive despite the odds are often seen as signs of good luck.

Emil had 3 friends they made in childhood, and always stayed close to.

• Sonya (she), an assertive Fetchling and formidable hunter apprentice.

• Gerfo (he/they), a hot-headed Unhuman who started mutating at a very young age.

• Ojzin (he), a jovial Fetchling with a great memory and insatiable curiosity.

Reaching adulthood, Sonya and Gerfo naturally became hunters, and Ojzin took on the mantle of the community's long gone botanist. Emil, average in many a domain but quick on their feet and at detecting danger, became a scavenger.

Scavenging in the Elseworld is a dangerous job; one has to be perceptive enough to distinguish treasures from dangers, strong and smart enough to fight the former and secure the latter, all while staying ever aware their loved ones might run away from creatures without warning if they take too long.

Ruins of greater cities have always intrigued Emil. Though they had long been stripped off anything useful, Emil still collected trinkets and discharged lynchpins from them. They had heard about the people that lived there, and the gods that disappeared alongside them; they knew some names, some stories, but only fragments.

Someday, as Emil was visiting the remains of a manor (or an office building? or a church? at this point, how would one tell) on a hill by themself, they stumbled something weird in a decrepit basement.

A fluctuating hole of pink and golden hues emanating bent, almost elastic light was floating a good 20cm above the floor, in an awkward oblique position. Approaching carefully, Emil distinguished a scene inside. Well-ordered planks, some would say too well-ordered. A glass window. Much less dust than they were used to. But the most intriguing part was the scene beyond the window, bathed in an unnaturally strong light. A town in daytime.

Careful as ever, Emil threw a small stone into the hole. It hit the planks and stayed put, unaltered. The hole remained, unflinching. After a solid minute of thinking, Emil threw all caution to the wind and entered the hole.

Approaching the window, Emil couldn't believe their eyes. People and buildings everywhere. An unbearable, sickening blue sky with a blinding sun in the distance. This settlement was reckless! How come it hadn't already been undone by monsters?

Turning away from the window, Emil felt a strange, radiating "warmth" from some trinkets in their pockets. Pulling out one that was adorned with a gem, Emil noticed said gem was glowing. Panicking, they dropped it and hit a piece of furniture as they took a couple steps back. Following the resulting loud thud, they heard voices downstairs, speaking an incomprehensible language, melodic yet harsh. A young child.

"Mamaaannnn! Y a des bruits bizarres dans le grenier!"

An older female voice replied.

"C'est rien chérie, c'est sûrement des petites bêtes; elles partiront quand on aura fini de tout déballer. Abelyo, tu veux bien aller voir?"

The sentence ended inquisitively; not a good sign. A third voice responded. A male one.

"Okay, j'y vais tout de suite. Tu sais quoi- tant qu'à faire, je descendrai mes affaires de laboratoire."

Approaching footsteps. Not good, not good at all. Emil, now certain they were moments away from being captured (if not worse), put the item they dropped back into their pocket, looked around and snatched the only easily carriable item: a wooden box whose insides made clinking noises, apparently full of… well, something. They jumped back into the hole, finding themself in the decrepit basement once again. Unwilling to find out how long the hole would remain open and what might happen if it closed, they ran back to their community without taking a single pause.

Needless to say, the hole was gone when Emil returned to the ruins with their friends. But they still believed them. And if they hadn't, the wooden box's contents would have solved that problem.

The box had many small items inside. A pristine notebook filled with tiny handwriting. Pens. A weird little rod with two prongs. A chain attached to an empty locket. And more. But most importantly a gunmetal ring with 3 engraved silver dots, that emitted the same "energy" as the gem-adorned lynchpin, which now had lost its glow and returned to normal.

Ojzin, familiar with all kinds of legends and obscure knowledge, quickly understood Emil had crossed a Portal; an incredibly rare and dangerous event. Had it been any less stable, Emil could've ended up stranded on the other side, horribly disfigured, or perhaps worse. But Ojzin was especially puzzled by the lynchpins. Why was the ring still active, and why did Emil's trinkets activate briefly? From what Elsefolk knew, magic was maintained by divinities. Could this other world shelter some? Could they be brought here in the Elseworld, where their presence was needed the most?

Deciphering the notebook's contents took several months. Pushed by Emil and their friends, the community had to trade many an item to get their hands on documents that could help them understanding the text. But deep down, too many believed the four friends were clinging to useless paper; Emil and their friends were soon rejected from the community by its elders. From now on, they would bear the responsibility of their research alone.

In the meantime, Emil and their friends also discovered the exact purpose and way to use the ring; it turned out be a tool that lets one store items to and retrieve them from a foldable plane. A weightless, hidden inventory of arbitrary size. Quite the useful tool for a newfound group of castaways.

Briefly stopping by other communities for trading and rest, the small group kept moving, pursuing the notebook's translation. Eventually, Ozjin would find a barely legible copy of a dictionary and finally find out what the notebook's contents said.

Emil and their friends had heard many things about the Overworld, but weren't expecting to learn that not only gods were alive and well there, but these were the very same gods that supposedly disappeared from the Elseworld long ago.

To this day, Emil still remembers the rage, the despair, everything they and their friends felt at this discovery. Not only the Elseworld existed in contrast to one where magic was alive and well and people were prosperous, but there were actual culprits behind its decay. The Elsefolk had been discarded. Abandoned.

After all the tears, the shouts and the silence, Emil also remembers the determination. The burgeoning feeling to demand, to see justice. They had entered the Overworld once; they could do it again. This time, they'd be prepared and know what to do: find the gods- any god, even- and ask the question that burned behind their eyes. Why. And how those they love might finally be given the chance at life they deserve, free from the horrors and the fears.

The following two years, Emil and their friends went from community to community, from ruins to ruins, gathering discharged lynchpins and storing them in Emil's ring. Better not explore a brand new world without solid tools, after all; regardless of their purpose, magical items would surely come in handy. And depending on how powerful they'd turn out, Emil might even have a chance at confronting those who wronged their world. Or so they hoped, at least.

After a long and arduous journey, and several more weeks of tedious studies, the group was finally ready to go find a Portal. With a grand total of 118 confirmed lynchpins and 21 suspected ones, they reached a semi-stable Portal Ojzin had the luck to locate nearly a day in advance.

Emil knew what they had to do. Such a semi-stable Portal would likely not appear for a decade. And a stable one like the one they had crossed back then would likely never appear again in their lifetime. They were already loaded with supplies, and wearing a functional lynchpin that housed a worrying number of other ones. For the success of the whole operation, only one person was to cross the threshold.

Emil hugged their friends. Emil cried. Emil promised to return as soon they possibly could. Emil was forgiven. Emil was the subject of a last few jokes. Emil was asked to bring back souvenirs. Emil cried again. Emil took a deep breath. Emil walked to the Portal.

Emil stepped through.

Emil, now in the Overworld, learns day by day what life is like in this place where flowers bloom and people thrive. They cannot nor want to let go of the survival instincts they cultivated; hiding them is sufficient. But as time passes, blending in takes less effort. They learn more amazing things about the Overworld every day. Surviving is slowly becoming… just living.

And yet, under the coat of a pleasant life, Emil's hidden arms fidget with the fabric of the memories they hold dear above a sunny Overworld can offer. Sonya, Gerfo, Ojzin. Everyone else, that believed in them or not. They don't know how much time they have, but they won't reach the gods all by themself. They need to learn, to experience, to make friends.

But they won't depart from their objective.

Emil always wears a poncho, originally made from pieces of fabric their friends gave them before they left the Elseworld. Arriving in the Overworld, Emil promptly had the outside covered with proper, sturdy leather, but made sure to keep the inside intact.

Emil hasn't realised it yet, but they don't age naturally anymore. Though their lifespan is unaffected, they will keep the appearance they had when they arrived in the Overworld.

Emil has a leather mage hat because they first assumed that in a world full of magic, most people would wield magic and dress accordingly. Though they're annoyed many people mistake them for a mage now, they're still attached to the hat and keep wearing it.

Emil is deathly afraid of fog. In the Elseworld, it indicated more often than not the presence of a Brumenoire; an ultraviolent creature that emits mist in a very large radius (often in kilometres) and imitates the voices and sounds of its previous victims to catch new ones.