I was born the very moment this universe came into existence, watching it throughout its infancy and witnessing it evolve to what it is now. Me, alongside the others of my kind, are immortal beings. Well, in terms of aging that is. I’m not sure if we can be killed by some means. Not like anyone’s going to try anyway.

Mortals have called us various names. Yes, those pesky inferior forms of sentience that seem to populate every single corner of Alsvand. A plague, really. They called us Szha’ Suk, Kaielo, Profkchsatach and whatever hideous and incomprehensible sounds their twisted, barbaric tongues can produce.

Despite this, one name seems to be understood by all of the “intelligent” mortal races: Celestials. A word of man. I have no idea why all other races could understand immediately what this word meant, maybe because humans are the most numerous in numbers, spreading their colonies far beyond the comfort of their walls that protects them from the other races.

Most Celestials pay no mind to these mortals though, they prefer to just do whatever they intend to do for all eternity, like pointlessly forging stars, or creating worlds just for some mortal pest to populate it out of nowhere. I don’t blame them, since interacting with lower forms of life can be really intellectually tiring.

But it is also tiring just perpetually watching stupidity made by these mortal buffoons. “If I’m going to watch them anyway, I might as well experience it first hand.” is what I said to myself. So I decided to assume a human body and descend down to Alsvand. I wonder what less than 70 years of lifetime would allow me to do. Too short for anything, I’d imagine.

As I prepared for my descent, I slowly get the ability to feel as my physical body start to materialize. The continuous flow of mana from the plane of Archeus slowly dwindles by the second and I can feel my astral form adapting within this physical body. Suddenly, my whole body was overwhelmed with terrestrial sensations I never even knew existed. Complete darkness follows as my astral body tries to fill up this hollow shell in place of its “soul”, then shortly after, a dim light starts to emerge.

I awoke to a lush, green scenery with towering trees all around me and terrestrial life going about everywhere.

“So this is what a forest looks from down here.” I thought to myself. Suddenly, I felt a sensation I have never felt before. My mortal body shivered and I could feel impulses traveling through my back and to my skin. It took me a while to realize that this is what they call “cold”. Must’ve sucked for that goblin I saw who froze to death 200 years ago.

I looked all around me in the attempt to find the source of my coldness, but nothing around could’ve made me feel this. The temperature is normal, I’m not submerged in any form of water and the wind blows normally. And then it struck me--I was naked. I looked down on my body and noticed a peculiar appendage between my legs. Two circular objects beneath a long, dangling protuberance.

Wait, I know this! This is the male reproductive organ. If I remember correctly, human females react distressingly to the sight of it, which is odd since this is one of the two organs required for their reproduction. Illogical mortals…

“Kyaaaaaa!!” Shouted by a high-pitched voice from behind me. “Who are you and what the hell are you doing in our forest? And why are you naked?” I quickly turned around to see a human female dressed in a blue clothing while carrying a basket of mushrooms. Her face looks sore as it’s bright red color is noticeable, even from my distance. Maybe she’s sick?

“I require basic necessities.” I told her while slowly approaching her. Confusingly, she threw her basket at me seemingly in panic, while shouting “Don’t come any closer!” How rude, considering I only intend ask for the bare minimum of what I need.

She then started sprinting away from me towards the way that she came from with her arms covering her eyesight. I knew mortals are stupid creatures, but I didn’t think they’d be stupid enough to run despite not being able to see where they’re going. Seriously, how did these creatures even survive their primitive lives?

I picked up the basket and most of the mushrooms that lied around when she threw it, and proceeded to follow her. “Are these… fungi?” I asked myself while walking.

After minutes of tailing her, I was led to a small village of sorts with adult to elderly men pointing their swords, rakes and other farming equipments at me.

“Who the hell are you?” One of them asked in a deep voice while looking at me menacingly. Come to think of it, I don’t really have a name. Not even as a Celestial since mortals only give names to Celestials who show themselves to them.

“I am…” I proceeded to utter these words without a plan. I don’t know what name I should say since I have no idea how humans name themselves. Orcs and goblins name themselves after the trait that the parents would like them to have and elves name their young after the things they see in nature. Humans have always been eccentric, I don’t see the pattern in their names. I know some human names but most of them don’t correlate to anything. Maybe I should just produce some random succession of sounds and say that it was my name. It’s worth a try, at least.

“I am… Ghaflkarpis” I told them. The looks on their faces were a mixture of confusion and laughter while trying to maintain their menacing look. I immediately knew that it wasn’t a human name, so I thought I’d just use one of the names I’ve already known in the past.

“That was wrong, my name is--”

“What kind of name is that!? HAHAHAHAHAHA” interrupted by one of the men. After saying that, the rest of them followed and laughed with him.

“My name is Arthur. I was merely jesting earlier, glad to see that it worked well.” I told them while imitating the expressions on their faces. After a short while, all the laughter subsided and they resumed their questioning, only this time it was less menacing and serious. They also stopped pointing their weapons at me… if you could even call those weapons.

“So, Arthur. What are you doing in our forest and why are you naked?” Asked by one of the men with a green farmer’s clothes.

“Your forest? As far as I can remember, Alsvand was made by Cthonigg so he’s the one who owns the entirety of this planet, along with whatever is in it.” I thought to myself. The arrogance of mortals never ceases to amaze me.

“To be honest, I don’t know myself. I woke up in that forest, naked and not remembering anything but my name.” I replied to them. They looked unto each other silently, as if having the ability to communicate with their minds. They don’t, obviously. I never really understood why they do that. Perhaps I should ask sometime.

“Well this is concerning. If what you’re saying is true, then we don’t know who you are. You being here could invite unwanted attention to our peaceful village you know.” Said by a muscular man with a mustache. “Well, we can sort that out later, you need to get dressed first.”

Immediately after, a young boy approached us with clothes in his hand. He gave it to the muscular man, who then handed it over to me while taking the basket that I was carrying.

I carefully examined these pieces of clothing that I was given with, trying to understand just how you don them. There are several holes big enough for my limbs to go through, so maybe that’s where they’re supposed to go? After rigorously trying to put them on, I managed to acquire a basic understanding on their mechanics. I quickly used my newfound knowledge of putting on clothes and applied it to my present situation. After that, the men surrounding me slowly dispersed leaving only the boy and the muscular man.

“Follow me.” the muscular man said. “The village chief would want to see you. By the way, my name is Kael.”

I followed him to a structure at the center of the village. The outside seemed like any other rural looking house you would see in the village but once going in, you could see a table and several chairs right in front of the door, like it was designed for the sole purpose of holding a meeting.

“That’s him?” asked by the elderly male sitting across the table wearing a pair of reading glasses. “Yes, chief. He claims to have forgotten everything about him except his name.” Kael replied.

“HE TRIED TO SEXUALLY HARASS ME!” Screamed by a familiar, high pitched voice. I turned to see the source of that eerily uncomfortable noise and found out that it was the female that I encountered in the forest earlier.

“Now, now. Let’s not jump into conclusions, Ella.” replied to her by the elderly man who I assume is the village chief. “So… his name is?” he asked.

“My name is Arthur.”

“I wasn’t asking you, outsider.” he said with seemingly angry eyes.

“Arthur? Your name couldn’t be more unfitting to your behaviour than that!” exclaimed by the human version of a brownscaled screeching drake named Ella.

The village chief gestured his open hand and pointed it towards a chair near me. At first I couldn’t understand what he’s doing but I quickly realized that he wants me to shake his hand. I went up to him, grabbed his right hand and proceeded to shake it firmly. “Yes, this is how humans do it.” I thought to myself.

He looked at me confusingly, but didn’t said anything else. He simply told me to sit on a chair, adjusted his glasses and looked at me with a serious, discomforting look.

“Now, here’s the problem, Arthur. The forest that you’ve just been found in is completely enclosed by walls, this village included. So its either you bypassed the walls, fell down from the sky, dug underground or you got teleported inside.” he told me in a serious tone, as if interrogating a criminal.

“Since we did not detect any magical activity inside, we can rule out the possibility of being teleported. Now, this entire area is completely enclosed with a spherical magic barrier that’s designed to stop anything that is not human from entering in. If an unknown human did enter, it should alert us the moment that it happened. So, Mr. Arthur. How did you find yourself within our forests? Surely you didn’t just materialized out of thin air?” the village chief said.

“Your village seems pretty well protected.” I told him while smiling. “As I said earlier which you probably already knew, I don’t know how I got here. Maybe your barriers just malfunctioned or are not as effective as you thought it is?”

“That is a possibility.” He replied.

After a long, boring talk about things I didn’t even bother to listen to, he finally placed the paper he’s been holding all this time down, stood up from his seat and removed his reading glasses.

“I’m afraid our only choice now is to take him to the Imperial Capital and let them sort out his identity problem. Is that okay with you, Arthur?” the chief asked while cleaning his desk.

“Sure thing.” I replied. “So what do we do next?”

“Next, we’ll have you spend the night in one of our magical prisons to make sure you don’t do anything." he said as he pile up a stack of papers towards the right side of the table. "Then you’ll be escorted to the Imperial Capital as early as possible next morning. Of course you’re free to go right now, but it’s already close to nightfall and it’d be incredibly unhealthy for you to go out in the dark.”

I honestly doubt that anything in this world would pose a threat against me, but since I only came here to observe, I should avoid interfering with the affairs of mortals as much as possible.

“Very well, magic prison it is.” I replied.