Matt was an adventurer. The keyword here is ‘was’. Now, he ‘is’ a warrior for the fea empire, specifically he was a warrior for The Wyld Hunt. Originally he had taken a trip to a secret realm. It was just going to be a fun trip, just on the edge, nothing to worry about, Yolanda could rescue you!

He had lost focus one moment looking at the fuzzy mountains and the next he was looking at giant hairs the size of trees with skin cells under his feet. Soon he grouped up with other adventurers. But that was a mistake. Giant flees attacked. And when he says giant, Matt means GIANT. If the hair follicles were at least 3 feet around then the flees were forty feet tall and would smash you into paste. But the worst were the young flees that would suck you inside out, literally. All too soon the came across an inside out body. They should have run, they did not and paid for it.

A swarm of young flees looking for fresh blood was soon upon them. They escaped in random directions after the first two were rapidly sucked inside out. Matt didn’t know what became of his companions. What he did know is he should have run sooner. No they should have run sooner. They did not, and Matt was soon lost. When he finally did find civilization it was hardly civilized. He was quickly captured by some giants to be sold off as a slave. Lucky, because the giants traded him as a fresh slave for some other, not so fresh slaves. Giants didn’t really care if the meat came from an old slave or a young warrior, afterall.

So Matt was quickly transported via caravan to a city in a bottle, well lamp. It was a djinn, or genie city, depending on your preference. That didn’t mean there weren’t differences between the two races, or that they wouldn’t cut you for disrespecting them by calling them by the wrong name. No, it was the opposite, though they were actually of the same ‘race’ and it was only a difference in skin tone or whether their natural born form was with legs or floating with a tail. Not that they couldn’t swap between the two, but racially there was a preference…

Matt knew this, because he was taught such a lesson from early. When on of the guards from the caravan, what looked like a pregnant, winged elephant yelled out, “Hey you, genie!” Fairly innocent if not slightly aggressive. But no, half the street ended up turning on them, soon ending up in a brawl. Funnily enough, the caravan guard had referenced it right, he was indeed addressing a genie at the time. But it was enough to start a brawl, and then the ‘genies’ got offended, they too entered the brawl.

Soon the carts were overturned, with the powers of the djinn, or genie, whichever you wished to call them, they were easily and quickly kicking up a storm. It was a literal storm too. Only then Matt was able to escape in the chaos. He and several other non-collared slaves escaped. The best slaves, the fresh ones, didn’t get collars until the new owners put them on, no chance of duplicitous orders. Always look a gift slave in the mouth, as they say. They usually stored various despicable items in a slave’s teeth… Matt didn’t want to know the story behind the proverb.

Matt was quickly able to escape from the slavers and soon became a street rat. Not that he wanted too, but when he stole back his bag filled with coins it was literally ‘worthless’. Apparently silver and gold weren’t worth anything when a wizard could literally just think it up. No, what was traded was essence. Thought essence mostly. Wizards were able to create anything, and warriors were much more solid and stable. In the end they were both equal in this place, perhaps more than others.

Either way, areas of stability where people settled were ruled by a being of great power. Perhaps it should have been obvious that there was a djinn in charge since the city was literally in a lamp. The insides of which were larger than the outsides. This was another thing he learned, concepts were the most important. Size was also a concept in this purely magic realm, as is time. So while the city has a city sized concept, the lamp has a lamp sized one. So even though the city was city sized, it was a city in a lamp, so it fit inside the lamp, even though the lamp, was lamp sized. It hurts Matt’s head too…

Matt also learned about the currency, essence. It was pretty simple and straightforward, in fact it was the most simple it could be. Essence was the fabric of reality. Literally the reality that made up this entire plane of existence was essence. This caused a problem for Matt as he was from a complete universe. Things from universes contained a lot of essence. This did not necessarily mean they were powerful. It did mean that they were valuable. It also explained were all the lost things that were never found went, they would be summoned here to have their essence drained before they were replaced to ‘recharge’.

This also meant that Matt was much more valuable than he appeared. Ironically it also meant that his gold and items were also more valuable than they appeared. But until Matt could process that essence into its naturally occurring form, which was a white powdery stone called spirit stone, Matt was in grave danger. Also, he would find it near impossible to get back. Now he might, as there were ways, but Matt didn’t think he would become a god any time soon and the rest were even more outlandish.

No, Matt had to keep his essence, and preferably drain out the essence he had to gain more of it. The stronger his connection to his home plane and universe the more likely he was to escape this hellish place. Unfortunately he was soon caught by the city guard, this time he made it to auction. He was considered a debt slave, luckily better than the other type, which was just slave, and had no contractual limit. No, debt slaves had to pay off their debt, technically possible, but the employer wrote up whatever costs and salaries they wanted, so practically impossible, unless he could impress whatever employer enough to set him free.

They also confiscated everything he stole back from his former captors and then some. Apparently it was the pretty female slaves that were the only ones that had to worry in the slave pens. Luckily he was brought up for action before it became his ‘turn’.

Soon he was brought before the crowd. They were not impressed. He was standing with a lot of several other strong warrior slaves. There were many different races, and a few female slaves thrown in. This place wasn’t as structured as the system world, and so the male female disparity of most species was on full display. Though some female slaves made the cut for warrior slaves, it probably wasn’t a good thing though. At least as a prized slave they would be treated well and likely to live. These slaves were all likely to die in some mines, or on a battlefield, or the unlucky ones experimented on as test dummies or subjects.

Matt shivered at the memory as he remembered disposing of the test subjects. Being tortured before becoming a test dummy would’ve been much better.

Each slave was either purchased individually, or via a ‘lot price’. A bidder could then bid over the lot price for individual slaves if they so choose, removing them from the lot, but they had to overbid 1.5 times more at the minimum. There were a few of course, prize specimens that could probably survive a few experiments, or other reasons. Matt was not among them. He was bought for the lot price with the rest of them. This was likely to his advantage though he wouldn’t know it yet, or admit to it later.

He was then presented to the winner, a seelie fae man. Honestly, the man was beauty. It didn’t matter if you were strait, man, woman, or child. He was the living concept of beauty. If Matt wasn’t just purchased by the man, and consequently enslaved, Matt may have jumped him. It wasn’t a physical decision on Matt’s part. He was beauty and thus waiting to be claimed. Though Matt’s current position prevented Matt from performing such actions. Later, he would become inured to such things. At the time though he really wanted to jump the man’s bones. Though Matt considered himself a straight man at the time, the seelie were not a race that such trivial concepts could be attributed.

Matt was hauled up before the seelie man with all the others outside the djinn city. It’s life and glamour long behind him, ironic since the fea were all about glamour. Regardless of the seelie or unseelie, the fea all lived under glamour. Though in his old world Matt supposed that it would be [Glamour].

“Congratulations! You all have been granted the magnanimous opportunity to serve the fae courts of summer, fall, spring… and winter.” Said the man. The last seemed to be almost spat out like a curse word.

Matt would later learn that the seelie or Seelie ruled the summer courts. Under their glamour they were reached things only keeping the vanity of justice and fairness. In actuality they stabbed each other in the back, in the dark.

The spring court was the farming faction, regardless of seelie or unseelie, and usually where all the mixed blood were relegated too. Though some would find themselves in the fall court.

The fall court was where all the craftsmen were. They were respected almost as equals with the summer and winter courts, and in some cases above them. Yes, the grandmasters of the fall court held more sway with the fae than even the kings and queens of the summer and winter courts. It was also the only truly fair court, as they didn’t care about seelie, unseelie, or outsider. The only thing that spoke in the fall court was skill. Unfortunately Matt had none.

Last was the winter court, but certainly not least. The summer and winter courts ruled ‘equally’. The unseelie were all ugly and cruel looking individuals, but in actuality they were stunningly beautiful under their glamour, a true bestial beauty. They simply wore their cruel nature on the outside, while inside they were beautiful in a dangerous way no seelie could ever match. That would be if they weren’t all decrepit and ugly underneath their glamours. Well, maybe a pure and innocent seelie, but they would either die, or adapt to the seelie ways quickly.

Fortunately or unfortunately Matt was not assigned to any of the courts as a guard. No, he was assigned to the wyld hunt, where the criminals of the fae were relegated. Their job was to battle for the fae and take new land and opportunity for the fae empire, one of the strongest multi universal and cross universal powers. Also, it was a non-universal power, located in the pocket plane between the universes, this allowed them to travel literally anywhere, and literally everywhere. This included backward and forward in time. Though it was mostly forward, and the chaotic flow of time was… weird, to say the least.

So Matt traveled through the four courts regularly and continuously, each tour was at least a year, between summer, fall, winter, and spring. He lost track of time and distance as he traveled. He fought many a beast in the fae lands of in between. Cthulhu, beings that were taller than mountains. Mountain golems, beings that were mountains. Titans, beings that were taller than could be described. Way too many tentacles, way to many limbs, way to many body parts flying, mostly into the distance. It was eternal, even though he only passed through the courts five times, he counted the days and it was almost a hundred years of his time.

But he never spent a bit of his essence. And ins spite of everything, the fae courts never lied or told an untruth, not one fae. Probably a good thing in these realms as untruths would likely become true in time, or unravel the little pocket of reality itself. Simply popping the Fae Empire out of existence.

So he cleared his debt, though the wyld hunt was supposedly something that no one ever got out of. In an ironic twist of fate, as a slave he did. The courts paid a salary to all in the wyld hunt and all soldiers of the fae legions. He cleared his debts with his owed salary and still had some extra. Enough to receive a guide and a map back to the fuzzy mountains and beyond. With some of his items, and items called from his home universe he found himself back to where he started this whole fiasco. He looked like an old man now, and in truth he was, over a hundred years old and he felt it!

“There you are!” Yelled Yolanda. Matt had almost forgotten her it had been so long. He thought she had forgotten him, but apparently she never gave up the search. It was so heartwarming he cried.

“Oh don’t give me that, you’ll be right as rain when you exit this dimension… I hope.” She said. And he did indeed, with his old troop of adventurers no less! He was right back where he started, right back when he started it! He literally couldn’t wait to get out of this place.

When he did, he looked exactly five years older than he started. An ‘unavoidable side effect’ as Yolanda had put it, to the dismay of his instructors. Apparently going from and over one hundred years old man to a young man didn’t come without side effects. Though he knew that the truth was the five tours he spent through the fae courts, it was the only thing that made sense. It didn’t matter now though. Maybe he would take up sculpting, he definitely had enough adventure for 2 lifetimes!