"-IIIT!" was what broke the silence that had fallen over the abandoned castle Richter had taken over as said individual fell out of a rift some five or ten feet off the ground, and landed rather hard on his back. It would have been enough to knock the wind right out of him, were it not for the thin layer of some kind of shield that burst into existence on his dorsal side just before impact. It mitigated some of the momentum from his fall, but it still hurt like hell and left him stunned on impact, a slight wheeze vacating his helm as his lungs reflexively sucked in fresh air to avoid asphyxiation.

"Fu...cking...hate...heights. Falling...even more so, now," Richter grumbled, weakly pushing himself onto his knees to catch his breath and his bearings.

He was back where he'd been, of course, but he was more concerned about whether or not the giant mutant asshole wa- aaaAAND IT WAS RIGHT THERE, LOOKING AT HIM AGAIN AND LOOKING QUITE PISSED OFF, OH JOOOY!

This time, however, Richter had an advantage that the mix-and-match monstrosity didn't - something Richter realized when he instinctively turned around to run away from it.

Namely, he'd been dropped right next to the entrance of the castle, and that thing was still by the bridge - and looking rather shocked that he was alive and not at the bottom of the chasm.

The man didn't waste any more time with thinking and just let his legs and rather average cardio bring him inside the castle while the giant cat-scorpion thing was busy gawking. The sound of a frustrated roar was music to his ears, but he didn't even consider stopping for a second; he had no idea if that thing could Kool-aid Man through an old stone wall or fifteen, and he had no intention of finding out.

He didn't stop until he was back inside his Bonfire room and sitting down at it, a flurry of wispy orange pseudo-flames filling the room for a few moments then fading away as he felt his vitality return to him with an almost welcoming surge of warmth. And now that he was safely behind several thousand or so tons of crumbling stone castle and masonry, he could take stock of things.

For one, he'd somehow gotten hitched to a furry's wet dream and gotten a minor connection to the Force - a Star Wars nerd's wet dream - as a result.

Two, he'd gotten a basic 'kinetic barrier' upgrade to his armor that might actually take a swipe from that animalistic abomination without dying instantly.

And three, he was still squatting in a ruined stone castle with no perceivable way to civilization now that the bridge had been cut by his fuzzy homicidal nemesis.

So, basically, not much different from how it was before: No clue what to do, not much of any inclination to do anything but chill as an immortal Undead who doesn't need to eat or drink or even sleep, and just as alone as before unless one of the Equestrians or someone else came along.

...Except the asshole outside had wings, like the pegasi and the pegasi with horns, and again, the bridge had been cut by the chimera thing so the ground-bound ones had no way in unless they did some magical or MacGyvering shenanigans.

Yeah, that might cause some issues with having guests around, and as much as he liked his solitude, he was still mentally a human and thus needed social interaction to maintain a healthy psychological state...aka not go completely insane from isolation.

"U-um-" was all that he managed to hear from the doorway juuust outside his peripheral vision before flailing like the startled man he was and flinging himself behind his makeshift bed as if it would protect him. It was only when he recognized the voice two seconds later that he felt like a complete idiot and slowly rose back into the view of...Fluttershy, if he recalled her name right.

The butter-yellow pegasus was staring at him in concern, and perhaps a little nervously given his rather intense reaction.

"S-s-sorry for st-startling you! I-I can come a-at a later time, i-if you'd like," Fluttershy stammered, already hiding her face behind her pink mane as he stared wordlessly at her, completely at a loss for words at the fact that she'd gotten in here without that fuzzy monster outside devouring and/or maiming her.

"...No, it's fine, uh, Fluttershy," Richter reassured her the best he could given the awkward circumstances and gestured for her to sit down by the ethereal flames of the Bonfire. "Take a seat, if you'd like. So...how'd you get past the vicious lion-faced, scorpion-tailed monstrosity out there?"

She blinked in utter confusion, "Monstrosity...you mean Manny?"

"...It has a name?" the Undead asked incredulously, voice but a whisper as if fearful that saying it any louder would invite disaster upon him...which he had no doubt was an actual possibility.

"He, and he's not a monster! He's just...very excitable, and doesn't really know how to make friends with others," Fluttershy corrected him with a bit of a stern tone that melted back down into her usual timid voice seconds later as she shyly took a seat on her hindquarters on his left. "H-He told me you ran away from him when he tried to introduce himself, a-and then charged at him, slid between his legs and tried to cross the bridge. He didn't know why you were running like you were s-scared of him, so he tried to grab you and reassure you that h-he wasn't going to hurt you...b-b-but then the b-bridge collapse because he hit one of the moors and...and you fell into the ravine."

Richter just stared silently, internally screaming at the fact that the panic and running and ensuing misadventure in another world was literally because he'd judged a creature by its appearance and just assumed it wanted to kill him. He just knew his friends back home would be laughing at or scolding him for that, if they knew about it.

It seemed that she took his silence as a sign to go on, since she kept talking, "Manny was so worried when you fell below the fog! A-and he tried to see if he could f-find where you fell, b-but then he said you fell from thin air back where he first saw you standing a few moments later, yelling something-"

Wait, moments?

It had been about a day or two with Emica and Forossa, he could feel his internal clock - or what remained of it in his current Displaced state (and what a thought that was, to know he'd actually been isekai'd by some interdimensional entity as an Undead like in the anime industry) telling him that at LEAST a day had gone by.

Did time pass as nonsensically relative to 'his timeline' like in the Dark Souls games, or was this some more fuckery by the Merchant guy or some other entity/entities?

"-then I talked to him, he explained everything, and I-I-I came in here to see you just staring at the B-Bonfire like when my friends and I first met you," Fluttershy's voice snapped him out of his internal musings, reminding him that she'd been talking and he'd all but ignored what she'd been saying.

"...And then I got startled - and no worries there, so don't even think about making that apology on your tongue," he told her with a preemptive 'order' (request, really) when he...well, felt remorse and apologetic sentiment welling up in her through whatever Force malarkey was letting him sense that...which just begged the question of whether or not these ponies and/or this world actually HAD any Force presence or if the Force even existed here.

Wait, no, mental bunny chasing can wait, focus on mediocre socialization skills.

"O...o-okay, um..." the pegasus reluctantly did as he asked, looking away with an expression that suggested she didn't know what to say, now.

Which meant he had to pick up the slack, there. Joy.

"So, Fluttershy, I spaced out a little while you were talking, and I didn't catch everything you said. But that's alright, don't worry! I can get the gist of it...but that still leaves one question I have to ask...why are you here? Not trying to sound rude, but I don't suppose you came here because you have a telepathic connection to animals that lets you know when they're in distress and knew Manny was worried about me," he asked after quickly mulling his options in his head.

The mare's muzzle opened in a soft (and admittedly adorable) 'ah' and her yellow cheeks turned slightly pink as she...prooobably did the pony equivalent of poking her pointer fingers together sheepishly, but with hooves, "Ah...w-well, Princess Luna d-detected some kind of...magical a-a-anomaly around here, like when we first met you, and then she f-felt another one only a few seconds l-later. I-I was closest to the Everfree, s-so she asked me to see what was going on. I-I'm friends with most of the animals in the Forest, so I-I wasn't scared about being hurt by whatever the P-Princess sensed."

"...I wish I had your ability to communicate with animals; it sounds rather useful," the man in knight's armor dryly remarked.

"W-well, I, u-u-um, I-I-I've had practice over m-many years tending to a-and raising animals, so...umm...yes, a-anyways, I h-hope I answered your q-question," the pegasus stammered, finally looking away from me with her eyes hid behind her mane yet again.

She made him want to headpat her, but he wasn't sure that if that constituted some kind of felonious assault in this world or harassment or if it'd mean his soul would be tied to hers like it did with Emica.

"It did, thank you. As for the anomalies...well, I can safely say that both times were partially to do with me. While I was falling some kind of...space-time thing happened that sent me somewhere else, then another one that sent me back to where...Manny, first laid eyes on me. Don't know why or how, but they happened. Which...actually leads to me to why I wasn't actually listening to most of what you said the first time. From my perspective, it's been at least a day or two since I fell into the ravine, and as you can tell...some stuff happened, and my armor got fancier," Richter explained with a finger pointing at the new flame-like additions to the neck area of his armor, which she apparently didn't notice if the widening of her eyes at the sight was any indication. "Then I ended up back here, and learn from you that it'd only been a few seconds between me falling into a ravine and landing back on the path to these ruins. So...yeah. I think there might be some weird stuff going on regarding my connection to time in this world."

She nodded, but it didn't seem like she really understood one hundred percent. Then again, neither did he, so who was he to judge?

"O-oh my...w-well, I think T-Twilight could, um, help you with learning about...w-why that is. M-Manny helped me fix the bridge, so we can safely c-cross and go to Ponyville to see her...i-if that's okay with you," she whispered at the end, clearly very nervous or embarrassed or...maybe she was just that damn timid of a creature.

He pitied her, in that regard.

"I wouldn't mind. Besides, I have nothing else to do here besides fix the place up slowly, staring at the Bonfire, and...whatever else I'd end up doing. Might as well see the locals, the sights, find something else to do," he shrugged, earning a tiny smile from Fluttershy that almost made his heart skip a beat from just how sweet and innocent it was.

"...I-I'm glad. So...s-shall we, um, g-get going?" she asked, looking back at the entrance to the room and then turning her eyes back onto him. "O-oh! Um, y-y-you might want to leave your, uh...sword and shield behind, t-the ponies get very skittish w-when there's someone they d-don't know, and e-e-even more so when there's, uh, weapons involved."

He very much didn't want to leave his only means of protection save Pyromancy Flame and his new kinetic shields behind, but given her explanation he did not want to make these 'Ponyville' folks run away screaming from him or something.

That likely would only end in tragedy or aggravation.

Luckily for him, he remembered something pretty important about Dark Souls.

Namely, the frankly ridiculous amount of items that could be stored in one's inventory. Even if this wasn't the game and was instead a world of technicolor mythical creatures, he figured that he might as well try to see how far his 'Undead' state went...in a very limited, mechanical capacity. He wasn't about to go and kill anything any time soon, if he could help it.

"I...think I might have a solution to that. One second," he held up a finger and picked up his sword and shield, then focused his thoughts on making them...well, vanish, turn to mist, undergo molecular disassembly - whatever happened to one's equipment when not equipped in the Souls games.

He wasn't expecting it to actually work, nor was Fluttershy, given the sudden disintegration of his sword and shield into short-lived clouds of black-and-white ash that made her squeak in surprise and flinch backwards. Despite the disappearance of his only offensive and defensive equipment, he could still feel their 'weight' somewhere both inside of him and...where they'd normally go when he wasn't actively holding them in the games.

So, magical Undead hammerspace inventory: Confirmed.

"I put them away in...let's call it a pocket dimension, because I have no idea what else to call it," Richter explained to the pegasus, who looked at him in a mix of cautious awe and her usual skittishness.

Then an idea popped into his head.

"I'll meet you at the entrance when I'm ready to go with you, I'll be a minute; got to finish some preparations before I go," he told her, earning a nod as Fluttershy left the room with the flapping of wings.

Time to do some inventory management.

Author's Note

Been a while. Sorry for the delay. Work and real life tends to keep you away from this sort of thing. But I came out with this update at long last, and another one is on the way.

ETA: I don't know.

Until next time.