It was Friday, but not just any Friday. It was the Friday after semester finals. The day all college students get let out for a week of fun and relaxation after a stressful semester of study and tests. I remember coming out of my physics exam and heading straight to the bar. Me and my friends had all agreed to meet up there after finals to catch up and discuss possible vacation plans.

The bar was called O'Malleys, and it was just across the street from the dorm we all bunked in. Obviously someone was thinking wisely when they decided to open up a bar across the street from a college. Now, don't go raging at me just because I praised the guy who installed a bar close to a college. I know how harmful alcohol is, and I know the effects that follow. And frankly, I don't care. At the moment, all I could care about was booze.

O'Malleys was a typical bar. The lights were dimmed slightly to give it some sort of atmosphere. But really, what kind of atmosphere could you get in a bar besides, well, bar. All the seats and booths were furnished with fine leather, which goes to show you how well the place was doing. There were a couple patrons scattered throughout the bar, but not that many that it could be considered busy. Thankfully I got here before a large crowd of college students, because once you get enough frat boys and sorority girls in there, you could literally smell the liquor. Trust me on this. You don't, and I repeat, do not want to be there once the usual crowds take it over.

So I walked into the bar and got a seat at a corner booth, and waited for my friends to show up. I waited all of five minutes before they arrived, and we exchanged greetings.

There was James, the technophile. He was the most advanced of our group, and some might argue on the whole campus, in anything electronic. You could give him any handheld device, and he could tell you all the features it came with, what features were available for download, and could take it apart and put it back together in working order in a minute flat.

Next was Adam, the gamer. None of us saw what good playing video games would do for him when we were younger, but that changed when he was given a job offer to beta test the latest games for companies like Square-Enix, Nintendo, and even Microsoft. The only reason he was in college with us was because he was required to have some sort of college credits before he was given the job. In my opinion, he got lucky.

After Adam was Kyle, the patriot. Technically, he wasn't even in college. He was accepted into the US Marines as an avionic engineer two years back, and he was on a week long vacation, same as us. Don't ask me how he got it to work out exactly to our break schedule, but he did. He must have some friends in high places. Still, he's the best at what he does and we're damn proud of him for it.

After him was Michelle. Jeez, where do I start with Michelle? Let's start off with saying that when I first met her, she was obsessed with burning, stabbing, or shooting things. Now, don't get the wrong impression. She's a sweet girl, and the only stabbing, shooting, or burning she did was in video games or in her head. Since then, she's calmed down quite a bit and focused on more practical things. Like the study of psychology for example.

Lastly, there's me. My name is Jack and I'm, for lack of a better word, a nobody. Unlike my other friends, I don't know what I want to do in life. I have no job, and I'm currently just taking random classes and hoping one clicks. I'm also pretty violent. I had been bullied back in elementary school constantly, and the only way for me to make it stop was to fight back. I also had a pretty thin skin for insults, so that didn't help either.

It started out small, just me pushing a kid to the ground when he tried to harass me. It eventually grew to the point where I was suspended from school for nearly hospitalizing a kid because he made fun of the fact that I lived alone with my mom. Oh, did I not mention that? Yeah, my dad left me when I was 2. Would I ever want to see him? No. Bastard never wanted anything to do with me, so I don't want anything to do with him.

Because of what happened in elementary school, I tended to stay away from other kids. Michelle changed that. She was the first one to approach me who wasn't taunting me or trying to prove how tough they were. She talked to me for a bit, and we eventually became friends. Mind you, it didn't happen just like that, but I'm simplifying. In reality, it took about a month before I trusted her enough to call her a friend. But after that, she introduced me to her friends, and they eventually became our friends. The only times I was ever happy was when I was spending time with my friends. Then Michelle started studying psychology.

I don't know how her mind tricks work, and I don't intend to find out. But after a while, she managed to break me out of my shell. I never got angry when I was around her or the others, and I stopped the violent tendencies. Now, thanks to her, I almost never get angry. At least when she's around. If someone antagonizes me when I'm alone, things don't end well for them.

Anyways, enough about us. Back to the story.

My friends joined me at the booth, and we all started chatting about what we've been doing lately and what we could all do for the upcoming week long vacation. All that talk ended once we started ordering drinks. I don't exactly remember what happened after that. I can faintly remember the order of events that dropped me here in this place though, so I'll try to retell it as best I can.

We got our drinks, and after about five rounds we were noticeably buzzed. Someone, I don't know who, shouted something about drunk poker, and we all cheered and headed for my dorm room, as it was the closest. We paid for our drinks and left the bar, albeit at a slow and slightly staggering pace. We managed to cross the street without incident, although Kyle nearly fell over in the middle of the street. We swayed into the front lobby of the dorms and slurred a drunken hello to Larry the doorman. He grunted back at us, his usual greeting.

Larry was a nice guy, even if he wasn't too vocal. None of us really knew why he would always grunt instead of actually talking, but that's how he communicated. In other words, one grunt meant yes and two meant no. Sometimes I had to wonder whether or not he was mute. But then again if he was mute, I don't think he would be able to grunt.

After that, we went upstairs and into my dorm. There was nothing above average about my dorm room. There was a desk to your left as soon as you walked in the door that had a computer sitting on top of it. It contained a couple drawers with odds and ends assorted in a chaotic fashion inside. If you continued in, you would see my bed, which was just a hammock with a pillow and blanket on it, in the furthest corner from the door. In the middle of the room there was a small table that looked like something out of a 90's mafia film. You know, the kind where they're all sitting around the table, playing poker while they smoke their cuban cigars. That kind of table. Only I wasn't in the mafia, it wasn't 1990, and none of us smoked.

We all grabbed a seat and slumped down around the small table just big enough to fit the five of us with enough arm room to spare. I grabbed a deck of cards out of one of the drawers in my desk and we commenced with the game.

Seeing as how this was just a friendly game of cards between friends, we decided to abandon the traditional money bets of poker. Again, someone slurred 'strip poker' and the rest of us cheered. After that, things get a bit hazy. Though either Michelle wasn't as drunk as she seemed, or she was just plain lucky. All she lost was a shoe, while I was shirtless and the others were down a few articles of clothing. Before any of us could lose our pants, there was a loud knocking on the door and I went to answer it.

On the other side of the door, there was a woman in a red shawl. Again, I don't remember what she said, but she somehow ended up coming into my dorm to meet my friends. What happened next, I remember clear as day. She had offered us a chance to win a trip to a faraway exotic land, and all we had to do was be willing to bet anything to win it. If we won, we got the trip. If we lost... well, we were drunk and weren't thinking straight. But, as the drunken teenagers we were, we accepted anyway. She explained to us that the game we would play was a bit like blackjack, only slightly modified. She said she would deal out two cards to each of us from her special deck, and we would flip them over as soon as we got them.

She dealt us out our cards, and we all looked at our respective hands intently. I was confused with my specific cards, as all they had were the words 'Vesta' on one, and 'fire elemental' on the other. I flipped my cards face up for everyone to see and looked back at the woman in the shawl. She then proceeded to congratulate all of us and told us we had all won. Then, she snapped her fingers and everything went black.

After about a second, the darkness receded and left nothing but a pure white void behind it. For a second, I thought I was in purgatory, and that the woman in the shawl had killed us or something. It wasn't helping that I couldn't feel my body. I tried looking down, but all I saw was more white. It didn't look like I had a body, but I could still see everything around me, or at least the whiteness around me.

Another minute of floating through white went by, and I heard a small cough coming from my right. Or what I assume was my right, seeing as how no body meant no definite direction.Still, I looked in the direction I heard the cough from and saw one of the weirdest sights of my life, or unlife. It was still hard to tell whether I was alive or not.

What I saw before me was a woman wearing a cloak that looked to be made of fire. Not even made of it, it looked like her back was actually on fire. In addition the living flame cloak, she herself looked like she was made of fire. She had light red skin that glowed slightly, and her hair was long and flowing, almost flickering and crackling like a real fire. Once she knew that I was looking at her (don't know how that was, but she did) she started speaking to me.

"Hello Jack, how nice it is to meet you. I hope you're enjoying yourself?"

I stared at her for a bit, not quite sure if she was actually concerned about my well being, or if she was making fun of me. After a few seconds of awkward staring, I finally found my voice and answered her back.

"I don't think floating in an endless void of nothingness with no body would constitute as me enjoying myself. Now would you please tell me who you are and why you're here? For that matter, how do you know my name? And where exactly is here?"

"I could answer both of those questions for you," she began. "But I'm afraid I will only answer one. This place has many names. Purgatory, limbo, the lower world, the place of torment. But where this is isn't important. What is important is the promise you must live up to."

"What promise? I've never met you before, so how could I promise you anything?"

"Ah, but you see, you have promised me something. You remember that woman in the red shawl from earlier? Of course you do. When you agreed to play the game, you officially entered into a spoken contract with me. You see, my cohorts and I are playing a certain game, like chess. Each of us gets to choose our own piece for the game and send them into play whenever we want. By agreeing to the game, you agreed to become my piece."

"Bullshit!" I spat. "If everything you say is true, then why didn't that woman give us some sort of warning?"

"Ah, that's the beauty of it. She did give you a warning. She asked you if you were willing to bet anything to win the trip, and you all accepted. Sorry boy, but you should have read the fine print."

I gawked at her. Now that I thought about it, it did make sense. What kind of person would be willing to send five random strangers on an exotic vacation for nothing? I should've known this was coming, though maybe not the way it did. Hindsight's a bitch, that much was clear. I decided to ask a few questions on the off chance she might answer some.

"So this game. Why exactly do you need me? And what am I supposed to do anyway?"

"I need you because we can't just randomly take people without their consent. You were the first to accept my offer. As for what you're supposed to do... well I won't spoil it right away, but for now just try to survive. Also, before I send you into the game know this. Most of my cohorts have given their pieces some advantage or another, and I intend to level the playing field. I leave you with these final words. Enjoy the new body."

And before I could do anything, my vision went black again.

I woke up some time later, although I'm not sure how much time passed. As I slowly regained consciousness, I became aware of the fact that I was lying on what felt like dirt. The scent of fresh cut grass wafted through my nose as I slowly regained functionality over my basic senses. I couldn't feel anything at first, so I slowly started to move my fingers in an attempt to re-establish feelings to the muscles in my body. As I slowly gained control of my body, I started to go through the recent events in my head.

'I was drinking with my friends.' I rotated my wrists.

'Someone shouted drunk poker and we headed back to my dorm.' I managed to push my arms beneath me.

'We got back to my dorm and started playing strip poker.' I pushed my up on my arms until I was in a sitting position.

'That woman came in and offered us a deal for a trip somewhere.' I rotated my neck and got all the cricks out.

'Then she snapped her fingers and I met that fiery woman. Wait, fiery woman?' My eyes shot open, but I had to quickly shut them again out of a need to adjust to the light. Slowly but surely, I opened my eyes. I looked around and saw that I was in a small field in the middle of a large mountain range. But what seemed odd was that all the colors seemed too cartoonish. Everything was vividly colored, and had an outline to it. Everything just seemed... happy.

I slowly took in my surroundings before I did anything else. I was sitting in an open field, complete with little daisies, tulips, and any other kind of flower you can think of. Off to my left was a forest, I presumed, as I saw a line of trees and no end in sight past that. All I saw were more trees and some weird blue flower that I had never seen before just past the tree line. Off to my right and far ahead of me were large mountains that towered above the clouds, though some of them were short enough that I could faintly see the white color of snow dipping beneath the cloud cover. Not so far up ahead I saw a small pond.

I reached a hand up to my head to scratch the back of my neck, but I stopped when I felt something wavy behind my head. I reached for it and grasped it with my right hand, and slowly brought it around to look at it. When I tugged on it however, I felt a sharp pain on my skull. Thinking that a large parasite had attached itself to my head, I started swatting at it. When I felt my hand go through it, I looked towards the pond I had spotted earlier and slowly rose to my feet.

I walked over to it on unsteady legs, and when I knelt down in front of the pond, I got quite a shock. Turns out that the so called parasite was hair. Not just any hair, but long, flowing, fiery orange hair. All attached to my head. Now, I wasn't bald before, but I sure as hell didn't have long flowing hair. And, my hair was originally brown. So to see myself with long fiery orange hair left me speechless. The hair wasn't the only thing different about me however. When I looked back at the pond's surface, I saw that my skin had turned from a pale white to an orange a shade lighter than my hair. Running all over my skin were glowing yellow lines, making up some sort of pattern all over my body.

In addition to the new skin and hair, I was wearing some new clothes as well. I had on a light red vest with black trim. I also had on a pair of pants that were a semi-dark gray on the insides of my legs, and the same colors pattern as my vest on the outside. On my feet I had a pair of blue gray boots with gold trim. Around my waist was an orange sash that dropped off a bit to my side. Around my wrists and ankles were more sashes like the one on my waist, only shorter. The last two things I noticed were two pairs of slender golden rings wrapped around both my biceps, and my crimson red irises.

While I was looking at my reflection in the water, I noticed the reflection of something big behind me. I whirled around in time to see something very large and very furry throw a net at me. By the time I realised what was happening, I was already caught in the net and struggling to get free. While I was struggling, I looked up to see what had thrown the net on top of me. What greeted me was a very large, muscular bulldog that walked on its hind legs. It then bent over and picked up the net I was trapped in and carried me, like I weighed nothing, back to a group of dogs like it.

They were all wearing some sort of armor on, and a few had spears and crossbows while some had multiple vials of multicolored liquids in bandoliers across their chests. What got to me though, was when the one carrying me spoke.

"What we do with this? Never seen before."

Another dog looked at me quizzically before it shrugged and said, "Look strong. Put it to work in mine. Help us dig up delicious gems."

The dog carrying me grunted in approval and slung me over his (I'm going to assume it was a guy, seeing how deep his voice was) shoulder. I looked around and saw a couple more dogs with nets. One of them had what looked like a griffin in it, and another had some sort of blue lizard. A third one had a horse in it's net. But what was weird about the horse was that it was butter yellow. It also had a horn, and some sort of mark on its butt. Before I could think about it any further, one of the dogs carrying the vials of liquid pulled some green powder out of a bag and blew it in my face. I detected a faint hint of cinammon in the dust, but before I could think about it any further, my eyelids started to drop. I tried to fight the drowsiness off as long as I could, but it was a losing battle. Soon after the cinammon smelling dust had been blown into my face, I fell asleep.

I don't know what happened while I was unconscious, obviously, but I do remember what happened after I woke up. And to say the least, I was not happy.

Author's Note

Well, here it is. Flames of Oblivion, my first try at a chessverse fic. Please, be as harsh as necessary in the comments. Without criticism, I will not be able to improve. So don't hold back.