JohnWillStab lowered the make-shift claw-machine-claw into the hole.

"I'll get him..." he mumbled, as soon as he felt the hand hook onto something, he pulled it back, retrieving what looked like a doll.

"A doll?" thought John.

"Looks like a fancy one too... The red dress and crown..." Jordan said before JohnWillStab sent the claw back down and pulled out something heavier.

"I think that's him!"

He pulled out another doll, this one bigger and wearing little armour.

Meanwhile, in the depths...

The citizens of Puppetown cried out in terror as a crack formed in sky, while rays of light shot down and allowed the arm of death to grab them one by one.

"Run! It's dragging them out!" screamed a doll as it ran past Alex who just stood up off the ground.

"A cobblestone road?" he thought looking around, "And buildings..."

Alex looked up and saw the crack he fell through, he wasn't able to see Jordan or John.

"Where am I!?" Alex exclaimed as he saw a massive hand fly down and snatch up someone from a castle in the distance.

"We're trapped..." Thal mumbled,

"Thal!" Alex exclaimed feeling some amount of relief.

He reached for him only to realise he didn't have fingers, in fact, he didn't have skin, he was a doll, his skin made from a common sack.

"AHHHH!" he began screaming.

"Stop panicking, damn you! This is just a spell!" Thal called out.

Alex stopped panicking in an instant.

"Oh... ok."

"Is it Eric's doing?" asked Alex.

"No... whoever this is, they're a powerful mage... a kind of mage that should have been wiped out long ago."

"IT GRABBED THE PRINCESS!" called out one of the other dolls, it looked like a man with a moustache and blue buttons for eyes, he was running with another puppet, his puppet-wife most likely.

"NO!" cried another doll.

"This place is weird..." Alex commented without even a hint of the screaming individual he was ten seconds ago.

"Oh, I think I got him!" JohnWillStab said on the surface as the "giant" hand drew near to Alex.

"Screw that!" Alex cried as he grabbed Thal (who was now an adorable little needle-sword) and slashed at the hand causing it to fly to the side, smashing through a building.

To JohnWillStab it simply looked like Alex grabbed Thal and Sliced at the hand, breaking the rope and causing the hand to fly off.

"What the fuck!?" JohnWillStab exclaimed.

Alex ran through the tight roads and corridors of the town.

"I think I lost it!" Alex said panting.

"It was the fallen trying to drag you out!"

"John?"

"YES!"

"..."

"And you cut the hand off!"

"Sooo..."

"So I hope you enjoy being a doll for the rest of time!" Thal exclaimed.

"Can't you tell the other to help us?" Alex pleaded.

"No... I don't have nearly enough mana to break the spell..."

"Alright, I can give you some mana!" Alex offered.

"You don't have enough either, I'd suck you dry before we got one-tenth of what I need." the sword complained.

"Is there nothing you can do?"

"...I would have more than enough mana if you were to release me from the sword..." tempted the blade.

"Release you?"

"That's right... you have my word I will break this spell..."

"Nnnnnno...thanks..." Alex replied.

"Suit yourself..." replied the sword.

"What is this place anyway?" Asked Jordan.

"A mistake." Thal sighed.

"A mistake?"

"Oscar, the demon tasked with destroying anomalies was defeated over a hundred-thousand years ago..." Thal replied.

"Anomalies?"

"This world was set up in the start so that it would resemble the world from your game." Thal began.

"But the randomness required for a realistic world came at the cost of deviations, new schools of magic, new monsters, new races... each anomaly was destroyed by Oscar, until he was defeated."

"Luckily, one-hundred-thousand-years isn't enough to derail this world completely... though things such as this can occur..." Thal sighed.

Alex looked around as a purple-haired puppet wearing a black hoodie was making its way towards him.

"That's the caster..." Thal said in a weary tone.

"Wellcome to puppetown, stranger!" announced the chipper puppet.

"Hi..." Alex said anxiously.

"How did you find our lovely town?" asked the purple-haired puppet.

"I... eh... I fell through the crack above!" Alex explained.

"I see... I see... and if you don't mind me asking, do we perhaps know each other?" asked the doll.

Alex took a step back.

"N-no! I don't think so!"

"Mattius"

"RUN!" exclaimed Thal, before he even knew it Alex burst into a sprint in the opposite direction.

"WHAT'S GOING ON!?" Alex demanded.

"I knew this all felt familiar, the houses, the castle!" cried the sword.

"This is one of the five people who managed to defeat the demon kings!" Thal replied.

For once Alex could feel him shaking.

"You won't get away this time Thal..." the puppet said appearing around the corner of where Alex ran.

"Shouldn't he be dead!?" Alex demanded.

"He is! This is just his magic!" Thal explained.

"World and soul magic! Both of them were completely eradicated by Oscar, but one user survived, this is him!"

"World and soul? What can he do?" Alex ran looking for a safe place to hide.

"He can create worlds... their size, the way time passes in them, even the very laws or reality are under his control..." Thal exclaimed.

"Even your immortal soul... it can just pop like a balloon if he wants! I'm going to die!" Thal panicked.

"Woah, relax, we'll be fine!" Alex assured him.

"Looks like the demon found himself a puppet... no pun intended." Mattius' voice came from everywhere.

"I can't remember anything else about him... but I feel I know Mattius... even just the name..." Thal shuddered.

They looked around and saw a doll rushing into one of the homes, Alex lept inside before they could close the door.

"Why does this place seem so familiar...?" Thal tried to remember desperately.

"Alex moved away from the door seeing the owner of the house, a blond-haired doll in a red dress."

"Who are you?!" she demanded grabbing a mini lamp and wielding it like a weapon.

"The purple-haired weirdo didn't follow us in here..." Alex thought.

"Huh? - Oh! I'm Alex, this is Thal." he gestured to his sword.

The doll-woman gave him a weird look.

"You named your sword after the demon of despair?"

"The demon of despair?" asked Alex.

"Right, he was tasked with keeping the world in constant misery for some reason..." she explained.

"Why would Thal do that?"

"That's right... I'm the demon-king of misery." Thal remembered.

"Tasked with keeping the world in constant despair so as to make sure there wouldn't be a utopia before the players arrived..." he continued.

"So, what do you know about this so-called demon of misery?" Alex asked the girl.

"Look, let's focus on the fact you broke into my house!"

"Hudderdown has some rough prisons, you know!"

"Hudderdown?" Thal thought.

"You know this place?" Alex asked internally.

"I'm not sure... I think so... but I know that's not a place that's meant to exist..."

"Alright, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to break into your house - I mean... I did but that's because I was chased by some purple-haired weirdo." Alex explained breathlessly.

"Purple hair? I guess you mean Mat, why would he be after you?" asked the doll.

"Because we're not meant to be in your little doll town!" Alex explained.

"Dolls? What are you talking about? Are you feeling alright?" she asked.

"You mean... you don't know you're a doll?"

"Are you hitting on me? After breaking into my house?" she asked flustered.

"N-no! I mean like... literal dolls... like toys."

"Are you calling me a toy? Really not a great start!" she crossed her doll arms.

"They don't know they're dolls... their souls are given the shape of a doll in this world..."Thal continued.

"Tell me about this Mat," said Alex.

"Alright... well... actually, he doesn't like it when people talk about him behind his back! Why don't you go see him, I'm sure you'll get along!"

"He tried to kill me!" Alex exclaimed.

"Who?"

"Mat!"

"What about Mat?"

"HE TRIED TO KILL ME!"

"Who?"

Alex breathed a sigh of defeat.

"Hey, do you know my name?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, you said you're Alex, and the sword is Thal," she replied.

"She can't remember anything about Mat being the bad guy..." Alex thought.

"We really need to get out of here!" Thal exclaimed.

"Hey, do you think you could take me to Mat?" Alex asked causing Thal to have a mini-heart attack... if he had a heart that is.

"Mat? Sure... If it gets you out of my house." she shrugged.

"It's like she forgot... or was forced to forget about the sky-hand related panic." Alex thought.

Alex followed her out of the building.

They walked outside, the town was back to a state of tranquillity as dolls walked around and mini-dolls played in the streets.

They walked up the various districts of the town, they consisted of several concentric rings, each on higher up than the last, with the last on being a palace.

The doll led Alex to the second-last layer, where a massive building stood, "He's usually in the library." she explained.

"Ehh, do you think you could lead me there? I've never been to this town before." Alex explained.

"A newcomer? Gosh, we haven't had someone like that in- ..." she froze up for a while, staring blankly into the distance before starting a new sentence.

"I'll lead you to him!"

When the doll leads Alex to the library he could see a purple-haired doll, hard at work beside a pile of books.

"Is that him?" asked Alex.

"Right."

"Hey, Mat!" she called out getting the attention of the purple-haired doll.

He looked over to the female doll and to Alex.

"Hello! What brings you two here?" he asked.

"Oh nothing, Alex here wanted to speak to you." she gestured to Alex.

"This isn't the guy from before... He's like a fragment of him..." Thal exclaimed internally.

"The guy made his own world, of course, he'll put his OC in it," Alex explained his reasoning.

"What can I help you with?" asked Mat.

"I'm not sure how to put this..." Alex began.

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about world ma-" he was cut off by Mat.

"World magnets? Yeah, I think I have a book on those over there, Emizabeth, you think you could grab it for our guest?"

"What kind of name is Emizabeth!?" Alex thought.

"It's like an author that's terrible with names couldn't decide between Emily and Elizabeth!"

"Huh? Sure!" she walked over, Mat watching her walk out of their view and into the jungle of book.

"Which one sent you?" Mat demanded.

"What do you mean?"

"Which faction sent you! And you're never supposed to call the magic by its name!" Mat scolded Alex.

"Mat, how can one break out of a world-magic... area... illusion... thing?" Alex asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Like if you hypothetically trapped me in a world where we're all little figurines, and I wanted to escape, how would I do that?" Alex asked.

"...So you were experimenting with world magic in the end!" Mat said throwing a few books on the table onto the ground.

"If Oscar the demon king of anomalies finds out...-"

"This is a fucking illusion!" Alex exclaimed.

"..." Mat didn't reply.

"Oscar was defeated a hundred thousand years ago! You're a puppet for God's sake!" Alex exclaimed.

Mat finally spoke up.

"A puppet?" he laughed.

"Count to five on your fingers," Alex instructed.

"Fine." the man sighed, he raised his hand a began counting "One...-" he looked at his hand for ten seconds without saying anything.

"His memory is going to be reset anyway..." Alex complained in defeat.

"Orange ogre in a dress," Mat announced before his expression went blank and he looked at Alex puzzled.

"I'm sorry, what were we talking about?" he asked.

"What the hell was that about?" though Alex.

"We were talking about ogres..." Alex began.

"Ogres? What kind, there are forest ogres, desert ogres..." he looked at Alex.

"O-orange ogres..." Alex replied uncertainly.

"..." Mat didn't reply, he just looked at him as if Alex was going to continue.

"An orange ogre wearing a dress?" Alex said in an almost questioning tone.

"..." Mat looked at him and stood up.

He began walking over to a nearby shelf and grabbed a book.

"Here, this book should cover everything." Mat replied,

"Feel free to sit in the safety of the library while your r-" he was cut off once more.

Alex walked over to a nearby bench and sat down.

"If you are reading this book, then you must have said the phrase 'Orange Ogre Wearing a Dress' or at least something similar."

"If this is what you had to resort to... you probably noticed my memory being wiped of anything that doesn't match the world script..."

"I bet you have a fair few questions... like where we are, what's going on... but I'm afraid I can't answer those..."

"When I developed the school of world-magic, I realised I or someone else could get stuck in a world without knowing it, so I made this book as a sort of... survival guide, I guess."

"I have no idea if the world has ended and I put us all into a pocket world... or if you are a demon king who I trapped here for good... in which case, haha kiss my ass."

"Nice..." Alex laughed.

"Asshole..." Thal thought.

"But, I know that you found this book in the library of Hudderdown, the capital of the world at -98,233 BI (Before-Isekai)."

"Hell, for all I know you're a 'player'... HA, just kidding."

"Hah..."

"In any case... know that the people you see around you, whether they're made of paper or metal, have real souls within them."

"On the off chance, another world-magic user is controlling this realm..."

"You will have to resort to using the kill switch."

"Ask the me that gave you this book to 'Go for a stroll to a cool place or something - I dunno, I feel like destroying a couple hundred souls lmao XD,'"

"I'll do my best to escort you to the location, though if I realise for even a second that this world is fake, I'll forget everything that happened, so you'll have to tell me the phrase a few times."

"When you reach the kill switch... do what you must."