Six months earlier

"Club Warlock would be the absolute pinnacle of the town's social life. Everyone who is anyone would be there, and everyone else would want to be there." At least, that's what the owner, a Mr. Georg der Morgenstern, made sure to remind me very time I entered his soon to be opened establishment.

Of course, the only reason I was in the place was to install the lighting system. Majoring in electronics and working as an electrician to pay the bills didn't really leave me much time for partying. Nevertheless, the guy was paying me enough to at least pretend to be attentive to his spiel.

The club was setup as a " historically accurate warlock's tower!" with the first floor being a bar and restaurant, the second floor sectioned into private party "labs" and the top floor featuring a second bar and a huge dancing floor, patterned to look like a "genuine demon summoning circle". It was this dance floor I've been working on for the third weekend in a row. Herr Morgenstern, as he liked to be called, has procured a large amount of some new electrical cable that glowed when current was run through it. We had red, purple and dark blue versions of these cables, and the "summoning circle" was to be patterned in them according to a sketch my employer dug out in some musty library.

I finished soldering the last of the cables into the circuit board that would control the whole ensemble, replaced the clear plastic tiles covering the cables, and called downstairs to Herr Morgenstern "All done boss! You want to test the lighting?"

"I am a bit busy coordinating with the unfähig supplier of spirits, Mr. Duquesne," came the answer from the manager's office on the second floor, "Can you start the tests on your own please? I will come up as soon as I am done here and we can fine tune the sequences after we see that everything is working."

"Sure think, Herr Morgenstern. I'll start the system up."

"Danke Schoen, Mr. Duquesne." And with that, he went back to talking on the phone with, presumably, the alcohol supplier. Not that I could understand whatever it was he was saying, from the occasional words, in a combination of English and German, that floated up to me.

Shrugging, I dimmed down the lights in the room so I could better see that dance floor, and turned on the lighting system.

Genuine or not, I had to admit that the geometrical patterns on the floor, interspersed with weird symbols that looked almost but not quite like letters (the True Names of gods and demons written in Futhark, according to Herr Morgenstern) looked fairly impressive.

I started by testing the cables one by one. Turning one on, setting it to flash on and off, and then turning it off and moving on to the next. After checking that everything was working properly, I set them to work in sequence. The software controlling the lights was fairly sophisticated, and was supposed to synch up with the sound system so that the lights would turn on, flash and turn off in time with the music. Without the sound system active, the software would use a randomized pattern instead.

The dance floor started lighting up from the outside in. First, a purple circle surrounding the entire floor lighted up, followed by a ring of the strange writing, in red, just within the circle. The words started flashing on and off, and the second purple circle, just inside the red ring, lighted up. Inside the second circle, a blue pentagram lighted up, the light starting from a single point, and then running along each of the five edges. When the whole thing was lit, more red words lighted up inside each of the pentagram's rays, leaving just the inner pentacle clear.

As soon as the entire floor was on, I heard a small explosion, and sparks erupted from the fuse box near the stairway. I could hear a high pitched whine, and the readout on my control software showed the floor was pulling a lot more wattage than it was supposed to. The power drain rose higher and higher, far beyond the point in which the fuse was supposed to burn out and cut it off, and suddenly what appeared to be a purple-blue ball of lightning appeared in the middle of the dance floor. The ball started to twist around itself, spinning faster and faster, and I could feel a wind starting up as air was sucked into it. The wind grew stronger with each passing minute, and I had to hold on to the console to avoid bring carried with it. I held on with all my strength, but I could feel my grip loosening, until eventually I couldn't hold on any more, and was pulled into the ball of lightning.

***

It turns out that being thrown into a purple-blue ball of lightning doesn't actually hurt. What did hurt was getting to the other side and being thrown against what appeared to be a pine tree.

Between the pain from being thrown against the tree and the wind that was now blowing directly at me and pushing me against it, I couldn't do much more then lie there and look around. I was lying on a patch of grass, and the sun was shining above me from the unobstructed sky. I was in what appeared to be a forest clearing, and right in front of me was the ball of lightning, wind blowing away from it.

After a couple of minutes, the wind started to weaken, and I could finally push myself onto my feet. The ball of lightning was starting to slow down too, and I had the bad feeling that if I didn't get back to the other side of what I now guessed to be some kind of portal, I would be stranded in wherever it was that it brought me to. I wasn't very stead on my feet, however, and while I could stand up while leaning against the tree, I wasn't up to walking against the still considerable wind. I tried to stagger forward, but was repeatedly pushed back against the tree, until the portal stopped spinning, and vanished.

I'm not ashamed to say that I panicked. I got pulled from the club I was working in to who knows where, thrown against a tree, and my way back just vanished. I ran to the spot where the portal was just a few seconds ago, and started to frantically dig at the ground, in a vain hope that I'd somehow find the way back. I kept digging at the ground, I don't know for how long, but eventually I fell back, exhausted, my fingertips bleeding from digging at the hard ground. I stayed there, sobbing from a combination of pain exhaustion and fear, until I finally slipped into unconsciousness.

***

I was woken up from my fitful sleep by the sounds of something crashing through the undergrowth. I got up to my feet, wary of whoever it was that was approaching me. It sounded too loud to be an animal, and since I had no idea where I was, I had to way to know if whoever it was would be friendly. I looked around me for something to defend myself with, in case whoever was approaching was hostile, but the few fallen branches that I could see didn't look like they'd be of any use. Lacking and other choice, I took my multi tool out of my pocket and opened up its folding blade.

Whoever it was that I was hearing was clearly moving in my direction, and I waited for them in the middle of the clearing, where I could have a clear view at anyone approaching. When I saw what came out of the forest, however, I started wondering if maybe I hit my head a lot harder than I thought when I got thrown through the portal.

I am not what anyone would call a hardcore gamer. Between college and freelancing as an electrician, I didn't have the time to sink into it. I did, however, play some quick online games every now and then, so when the skeleton walked out from between two trees, I started to think that I was dreaming about being in one of my games. A twinge of pain from my head convinced me otherwise, however, and I started to think that maybe I was in even bigger trouble than I imagined.

The skeleton looked entirely real. The bones were more yellow than white, which I believe meant that the skeleton was fairly old, and tattered pieces of cloth and leather were hanging from it, probably the remains of its cloths. It was carrying a large scary mace in its right hand and a battered shield in its left.

As soon as the skeleton saw me, it started running in my direction, raising its mace and getting ready to attack. It wasn't very fast, but I was still in pain, and there was no guarantee that I would be able to outrun it. Fighting it, of course, was really not an option. Even if it didn't have better reach from me and a shield, the blade of my little multi tool would be completely useless against it. My best chance, it seemed, was to get into the woods and try to lose it.

I managed to get into the forest before the skeleton caught me, and I started moving deeper into the forest, hoping that the skeleton would lose sight of me. Fortunately, the forest seemed to be impeding the skeleton a lot more than it did me, and I was able to open up some distance between us. And that, naturally, was when I tripped over a tree root and fell down.

I managed to cover my eyes as I fell, to protect them against stray rocks and branches on the ground, and when I opened them again, the world was gone. I was standing on nothingness, with large, vertical ropes of light all around me. The ropes started out as individual strands below me, each group of strands pulling closer together the higher it got, until a little below my feet the wove together into huge ropes. The ropes rose several meters above my head, and frayed back into individual strands at the end. Small balls of light moved around in the frayed parts of the ropes, seemingly at random. I didn't have a lot of time to look around me though, since the sounds of the skeleton pursuing me were coming closer. I raised my hands above me to feel my way forward, and started moving forward, but I was moving a lot slower than before, since I couldn't see the trees that I knew were still there. It only took me a few seconds after I started walking to realize that the ropes of light around me were, in fact, trees. The bark of the trees seemed to be a centimeter or two beneath the other layer of strands, and as soon as I realized this I could start moving a little faster.

I still couldn't move faster than the skeleton, however, and it kept gaining on me. Eventually, I had to turn around and face it, since getting away from it was impossible without seeing properly. What I saw behind me, however, didn't look at all like a skeleton. A vaguely human shape made of multicolored light was closing in on me, as the more I looked at it the more details I could see. I can't really describe how it looked. The closest I can get is that it looked like a tapestry made of light, with a pattern that looked like a printed electric circuit. The tapestry was mostly static, but light kept flowing through the circuit-like pattern. Somehow, I knew that the pattern was the only think animating the skeleton. I also knew, instinctively, that disrupting the pattern would stop the skeleton, but that doing it improperly would be really really bad. I reached out to the closest tree light, and unraveled a strand from its rope. My hand moved almost without my conscious direction, making a complicated net from the strand, and stringing it between two trees in front of me.

I moved slowly back, watching the skeleton approach, and it was clear that the skeleton couldn't see the net. In fact, it walked straight into it. Light started to flow from the skeleton, into the net, and from the net straight into the ground. The light flowed brighter and brighter, and I had to close my eyes. When the light dimmed enough for me to look, I opened my eyes and saw that the world has turned back to normal. The ropes of light were trees, the ground was visible beneath me, and a pile of lifeless bones marked where the skeleton met my trap.