Prologue

“Jay, when’s the last time you put on deodorant? You smell like sweat.” My 11-year-old niece Gigi asked me with a look of disgust. Gigi is a short, pasty-skinned brunette with insatiable energy. She always liked to play, but she could also control herself and was pretty smart.

“I haven’t gone outside so I don’t need it!” I replied, shrinking a little. I lifted my arms and took a whiff.

“That’s why no girl is ever going to come to your room.” she hummed in a warm tone. She bouncily slunk back to the living room.

My name is Jay. At the time, I am currently a NEET. For those of you not familiar with the culture, I was what you call unemployed and not in training or education. The opposite of that was the successful guys who made lots of money, got all the girls and had loads of friends.

Jeez. When did little girls become so hurtful? I thought, stung by what she said. I sat up straight and stretched my back in my chair. I was typing away at the computer, looking through some articles on cyber security. I did, after all, want to be a software engineer. It seemed like a cushy job. But these days my motivation didn’t last. I’d probably end up clicking away from the page soon.

I gotta remember to put my hygiene first. It’s been a while since I’ve gone out. I should probably order one of those beeswax deodorants on Amacron. Those are good for long-lasting scent relief.

I had a basic plan for my life, a goal, if you would. To live as comfortably as possible. I was 25 years old. I had dropped out of a computer engineering degree after a bunch of sleepless nights filled with pizza and video games. After investing my life savings into getting that piece of paper, I was flat broke. Okay, there might be about $50 left in my bank account. But I was saving that for a few light novels with my favorite waifu.

Shia-tannnn!!

I had an idea to strike it rich after I dropped out of school: my own social media site where other NEETs would hang out. Strength in numbers, right? And the best part was: no normies allowed. For a whole year, the vision of having it become hugely popular all over the internet sustained me as I put in 8-10 hour coding days, learning all kinds of things from scratch like managing servers and getting a website up and running. All the while, ignoring my dad and brother who thought I should at least apply for the local burger joint down the street.

A bunch of energy drinks and all-nighters later, the project was live! I put it all over social media. It got a few likes and comments! A few people joined to complain about the normies in their life. It was starting to feel like a little community! But on to the important part… money.

“Okay, if I get 100,000 daily visitors to the website and I have 6 ads running on each of the important pages, I’ll make enough to not need a real job!” I yelled proudly, doing some number crunching on a calculator.

Soon after, I ended up with close to 100 users, but without me creating fake accounts the website was going nowhere, really fast. And so the dreaded reality started to hit me. I wasn’t going to make it as an entrepreneur, and I might have just wasted a year of my life to even try.

Why can so many people do it, but not me? I let myself sink into my chair, feeling dejected. “I’m going to have to work my life away after all…”

It was 11:54 PM. I clicked the X in the web page and switched to doing my usual Raddit rounds. Looking at memes and popular content that people shared on the web. Scrolling through endless pages and upvoting a few that I liked. I was content doing just that. I mean I had a roof over my head, good food, a mom that would cook for me, and a fast PC. That’s all I felt like I really needed. I got bored of Raddit and opened up one of my favorite RPGs, ChromeE3x. A very popular self-starter survival game.

I looked around my room. Two cans on my desk, still half-full of cola. A bag of chips I’d stolen from my brother’s room but hadn’t bothered to eat. My PC, Posters of my favorite animes on the wall. Even cutouts of manga pages on a bulletin board. And an empty canvas with some paint tubes littered the floor. I wanted to try my hand at painting. Maybe people would buy an art piece of mine. Maybe.

And my calendar was there too.

August 14, 2021, it read.

My eyes were fatigued from looking at the monitor of my computer for hours. For a minute, I had a nostalgic daydream about my university life. I shuddered. My time at school sucked, since I was always alone. I decided to fantasize about being rich and popular instead.

I felt myself relax. My gaze became heavy and I started to sink deeper into my chair. And that’s when the first sign of it hit me.

A vision so powerful it looked like a memory took over my eyes. It was me and I was in my house. But there was a blinding white light on one of the walls in the living room, shaped like a door. And outside I heard the sound of deep thunder in the sky. Then I saw myself extend my hand towards it and finally place my hand on it. The walls of my house began to crumble. The rumbling was powerful and I could hear the glass ornaments my mom had on display clash in place, ready to fall and break at any moment. Paintings fell from the wall. I grabbed onto the couch to keep my balance and not fall as well. It all happened in a flash.

I immediately stood up in my chair. All traces of fatigue gone and my heart was beating so fast I felt as though I had somehow narrowly avoided death. But none of it was real. My vision had suddenly become much clearer too, as adrenaline coursed through my veins.

“Was that really just a daydream?” I whispered aloud. I saw my hands shaking slightly and I tried to calm myself down by breathing mechanically.

It’s late. Maybe this is my body’s way of telling me to hit the sack. I soon thought nothing of it and carried on browsing the internet.

The next day my brother Mario asked me if we wanted to go fishing. Mario was a 26-year-old muscular guy with black hair, who was slightly shorter than me. Very creative, outgoing, and fairly intelligent. He had always told me it’s best to go in the morning because that’s when fish like to eat, so we’d be more likely to get a bite on the rod.

“Let’s go, bro. I’m really feeling like fishing. I found the best spot too. We can stop by Wallshop and get a box of worms.” my brother Mario said.

I gave in. We got in his car. We stopped by Wallshop to restock on lures and sinking weights to make sure our hooks would reach deep enough in the water. And we grabbed one of the last few boxes. I opened the lid to make sure and a pink wiggly worm popped its head out of the dirt.

An hour later we were at the stream, the only ones here. We each had our own rod, and my brother had set the hooks for us, since he was the expert. Mine was a regular “J” shape and his was a fake fish. My hook kept getting stuck on the nearby tall grass and plants and moss. Meanwhile my brother was flawlessly throwing the hook back and forth, reeling it back slowly back as he did so that the lure would appear to be swimming.

I felt bored. All we talked about was the old MMORPG we both used to play, ScapeRunes. That’s pretty much all we had in common.

Our rods were as gentle as the water rocking the line. Finally, a tug on the line.

“What’s it looking like, master fisherman?”

“Could be a monkfish… hmm, a swordie!” he said, referencing the virtual fish we used to catch.

It caught him off guard and he immediately steadied himself so as not to lean too far forward. The tug bent his rod so much he could tell the approximate size of the fish he was contending with as he yelled, “it’s a big one, dude!”

“I don’t think you have the fishing level required! Better release it before it pulls you in!” I joked.

Both hunter and prey struggled hard. The fish shot up and quickly slammed itself back, taunting us. Mario released the line to let the fish think it would escape and then locking it again to pull it even more towards our side. Finally, a weird flat fish emerged out of the water, gasping for air, and my brother lowered it on the grass.

After our initial excitement died down, my brother started feeling philosophical. “How do you think the fish feels?” he asked, trying to get the hook out of its mouth. “You know, being taken out of its home and feeling like it will never go back. Not to mention, suffocating.”

“That’s what it gets for being a fish.” I said, shrugging. “But yeah, I honestly can’t imagine what that must be like.” We spent around one more hour there, unaware that this fish would be the last one we caught and then finally called it a day.

“I didn’t catch anything.” I sulked, walking back to the car.

“But at least you were there to witness my greatness.” my brother coyly reminded me, winking.

I asked him what about him could possibly be so great, and he tried to trip me as we were walking.

We were almost home again. I was in the car staring out the window as the trees flew past me.

“Hey bro, do you have work tomorrow? If not, mind stopping by a Gameshop with me and getting something?”

“Of course I have work…it’s gonna be just another Monday.” he said.

I sighed.

Yeah… just another Monday.

Monday came around.

I was at my chair typing away. I was in a heated online argument with a random person on Raddit about an anime. My brother was in the room next door in his fancy work-from-home job.

I listened in, hearing his boss yelling and wanting him to finish something by Friday of that week.

“Awful. Simply awful.” I thought, shaking my head. I would hate to have deadlines again. In university, it was one deadline after another. But this was different. This was a power from on high dictating that you had to have something done by a certain time or your paycheck would be gone forever… that’s way more important than school.

My brother took his hour lunch break. He popped out of his room and into mine for a chat.

“Yo.” He said.

“What’s up?” I replied half-heartedly, still staring at my monitor.

“Don’t forget me!” My niece Gigi popped in as well, hearing my brother was on his break. “I heard you guys were on break, so I thought I’d do my niece-ly duties.” she said, sticking out her tongue. That could only mean she meant to annoy us.

I ignored her and turned to face my brother.

“You really gotta stop working extra hours for them, bro. You’re supposed to be done by 5:30 aren’t you?” I asked Mario. “Why are you agreeing to work until 8 pm today if you’re not getting overtime?”

“You’ll understand when you get a job.” He retorted. “It’s not like I want to do this.”

“But you have to lay down your boundaries or you’ll always be taken advantage of.” I explained, munching on some Dritos chips. I felt very wise. He should listen to me.

“Why should I listen to a NEET?” he scoffed.

Just then my mother and sister knocked on the house door. My niece got up to open it for them.

My sister Flo was the oldest one out of all of us siblings, at 28 years old. She looked like an older version of my niece, taller with semi-long reddish-orange hair.

“We went shopping!” Flo exclaimed. “You wouldn’t believe all the beautiful jewelry we saw today!” By the way, my sister’s job had gone remote. So she was living here, too.

Yay…

“Jay, Mario, Gigi. Help out with the bags.” She said, setting down the groceries on the table. My mom was a brunette who looked very good for her age. She was shorter than my sister, but slightly thicker from age.

“Mom, what’s on the menu tonight?” I asked excitedly.

“You’ll see. But it’s going to be very yummy, that’s all I can say.” She replied.

“Hell yeah, sounds good.” I added.

“Aw, no! Tell us now!” Gigi exclaimed impatiently. She was a really picky eater. She probably wanted to make sure it was going to be something she liked, so she could whine ahead of time if it wasn’t.

After unloading all the groceries from the car on the table, I helped put some of them in the fridge. My brother returned to working. My sister and mom were chatting away, and my niece was on her phone playing a game.

We had a habit of eating separately. It’s not that we weren’t close as a family, but each of us liked to watch our own show. I enjoyed anime, especially the isekai genre. Those were shows about a character, sometimes dying or by some turn of fate, being transported to another world. My brother enjoyed action shows. He loved the type of movies where things are getting blown up, and some secret agent is trying to solve a crime. My mom, sister and niece come in a set. They all got together and watch historical Chinese dramas.

That night my mother made a nice dinner. The definition of home cooking. I remember it so well because it was the last time I’d eat it again. Slow-cooked beer chicken with seasoning, baked potato with sour cream, and some veggies. I also ate a ton of nuts as part of my fitness regimen.

Everything was normal up until this point.

Unfortunately, everything I knew to be normal would soon come to an end.

It started to rain. At first a light drizzle, that we could faintly hear rolling along the windows and walls of the house. But soon, it began to pick up. Within a few minutes, the drizzle turned into crashing waves that hit the house with great force. The howling of the wind was easily heard.

“Turn off the A/C, quick.” my brother shouted from his room, not wanting our newly fixed air conditioning unit to be short circuited in a power outage.

Lightning flashed. A thunderous crackle exploded in the sky.

Gigi let out a scream.

I ran to turn off the A/C. After receiving the confirmation beep from the thermostat, my family and I huddled together in the living room. Intense storms were not unusual in Florida, especially if a tropical storm or hurricane was expected, so we were not worried. Instead, we pondered if the storm would knock off the electricity for the night. More than anything, I desperately hoped it wouldn’t knock out our internet connection.

Another thunderclap, this time gentler and deeper. The rain began to settle down, reduced to a relaxing sprinkle. We all let out a sigh of relief.

“Looks like we were worried for nothing”, I said, probably feeling the most relieved out of all of them.

“Dude you looked like you were gonna piss yourself”, my brother said, reaching for a cup to fill with water.

“Shut up. It’s just that a few days ago, I… had this bad feeling, and this storm just reminded me of it. That’s all.”

I was referring to the vision I had at the computer.

But in that vision, I had been alone and there was a brilliant white light on one of the living room walls.

For some reason, I couldn’t stop shaking.

“What’s wrong with me?” I grumbled to myself, trying to regain my composure.

Then as if wanting to get away from the scene to convince myself of its absurdity, I turned towards the hallway to my room… when I saw it.

My eyes turned to meet a white light shaped like a door on one of the walls. I felt all the color drain from my face. My body went numb and I suddenly felt weak, so much so that I nearly tumbled.

It was just like the vision. No, it couldn’t be, I thought.

It can’t be.

“What is that?! It looks like a door.” Gigi pondered aloud.

“It’s not that bright. But where is the light coming from?” Flo asked.

My body suddenly felt ill. The dizziness became nausea, and I threw up a little out of fear.

Struggling to hold myself up, I fell to my knees with a hand pressed against the floor to keep myself from falling completely. My mom rushed to me, asking what was wrong. My brother also picked up the slack, looking for a bucket in the laundry room for me to use.

I didn’t care that this was happening to me. I only felt one thing. A gripping fear. A need to keep everyone away from the weird light.

Gigi got curious and went to touch it, perhaps as if to see if it would go away. I quickly regained slight composure for a second and warned them.

“Don’t touch it!” I managed. “It’s going to destroy the house!”

“Jay, maybe you should see a doctor or something.” Flo said, with a look suggesting I was out of my mind.

I took a deep breath. My nausea was starting to subside. The white light wasn’t showing any signs of disappearing. It just stood there motionless. At first, it didn’t seem like a big deal to anyone but me, but Flo and Mario started getting curious too. They all tried to look for a source of the light. It had to be coming from through the window facing it. From our neighbor’s house… somewhere. But there was nothing to find. No source.

Finally, my brother turned to me.

“What do you mean it’s going to destroy the house?” he asked, nervously. His eyes were glued to the light, as if he was afraid to look away.

Still on the floor, I explained to them the vision I had two days ago. How in my vision, after reaching for it, the house began to crumble from its structure and there was intense shaking in the ground, like an earthquake. My brother was not amused.

“Jay I swear if this is your idea of a joke it’s not funny.” he said very menacingly. When my brother was scared, he would turn to anger toward those around him.

“You think I would joke about this? Just when we paid off the house?” I barked back.

“All we need to do is not touch it, then. Right, Jay? Let’s all try to relax.” my sister said, negotiating peace.

We all agreed and stood silent for a while. Each of us tried to piece together what this meant. They seemed to believe me at least a little. It was clear this white light was not coming from anywhere.

But it wasn’t before long before Gigi pointed something out.

“The light got brighter!” she called out.

It didn’t seem that way to me, but the more I stared at it, the more I tried to believe what she was seeing. Were her eyes just more sensitive because she was still a child? I pondered.

But within moments, the truth became apparent. It was getting brighter. The light was accruing luminosity at a rising pace. Silently, it was going from a faint shadowy light to something straight out of an industrial head light.

“What do we do? Jay, is this still like in your vision?” Mario demanded, with a fearful look.

“The vision didn’t last for very long, but I do remember it being really bright.” I replied. “But still, nothing happened until I actually touched it.”

We couldn’t ignore it. A light that had come out of nowhere, sustained by nothing, was becoming so bright, it was hard to look at. The light soon extended to parts of the living room, making the entire room much brighter.

What do I do?

“If we don’t do something we’re going to become blind soon. It’s too bright to even look in that direction.” Mario said, cupping his hand over his eyes.

Finally, we agreed to leave the house.

We started scrambling to get our valuables, our wallets, the car keys and anything light to save that we could take with us.

And just as soon as we did that, the light disappeared. The ambient light of the house returned to normal, and it only took a second for our eyes to adjust.

Then we felt it. Shaking from underneath the subfloor of our house. Powerful vibration that shook the entire house. Objects toppled over and made a mess. Paintings fell and broke their glass frames, scattering all over the floor. The blender, the microwave, all fell from the kitchen countertops. We all screamed.

“Everybody get outside!” Mario urged.

And then the walls started to crack. A crack I will never forget. The ceiling was looking to topple over. There was no escaping; we were too far from the front door. There were too many of us. And then again there was that door-shaped white light on the wall. A white light that grew rapidly. And engulfed the entire living room.

Chapter 1: A Strange Place

I had a nice dream. I felt very peaceful, as though I was on some kind of slow and gentle rollercoaster. There were ups and there were downs. But I could see nothing. It was all black. Still, I felt as though I were gliding gently along a smooth surface, pushed along by something. It felt like I was wading along. Just wading along. For hours, endlessly.

I felt like I was actually there. I had never had a lucid dream before or anything close. In fact, most of my dreams felt like they were just a series of pictures that my mind tried to convince me were real, but that I quickly distinguished from reality as soon as I woke up. But this, I could actually think through. But for some reason, my mind wanted nothing more than to enjoy the black, empty ride. When it was over, I saw again a white light and woke up.

Still feeling at peace from the dream, I looked at my hands and around all the trees that surrounded me. It seems I was the first one awake from that whole ordeal. And the rest of my family was still sleeping.

Wow, I thought to myself with a yawn, nature is pretty.

And like the bumbling idiot I was, my first thought was to turn on my computer and check my messages. Then the house of cards fell and it finally dawned on me.

I was in a forest.

No, my whole family was in a forest.

Where the hell was our house?!

I started to silently panic, hoping not to wake anyone else. I couldn't handle everyone panicking at once.

But wait, just what on Earth is going on?

It was all starting to come back to me. Just last night, we were caught in a loud thunderstorm. And then there was a white light shaped like a door. Then an earthquake, in Florida of all places, a US state that’s probably never had a real earthquake. And now we’re in a forest? None of this was making any sense.

My head was beginning to ache, from all the possibilities of what this meant.

It’s like we teleported…

We had no doubt been in our house, and now all five of us were in a forest. And we had been sleeping. So whatever that light was had knocked us out cold and transported us here.

Ridiculous. No way we teleported. That’s impossible. They must have rescued our bodies trapped under the rubble.

“Okay, stay calm. Analyze your surroundings.” I took a deep breath and began to jot down mental notes.

“There’s branches everywhere, fallen from all these trees. It’s possible we’re in the middle of a forest in the dry parts of the Everglades swamp, or another forest close to our house.” I whispered aloud, stepping on some branches underneath me. But there wasn’t any marshland at all. So the Everglades theory was starting to appear unlikely

And why would whoever saved us just dump us here? And there were no forests near our house for miles. And we would surely be in a hospital bed and we’d have bruises on us, right? Hadn’t the roof caved in on us?

When I took a further look, I saw small woodland creatures. A few squirrels up trees. Butterflies flapping their wings. Colorful birds, too.

“Okay, first of all, when my brother was shouting to leave the house, I was still carrying my cell phone. But now it’s gone.” I whispered to myself, puzzled.

I didn’t know if any of them had let go of anything during the flash, but I was sure I was holding on to my phone. Where had it gone? I looked down at my clothes and verified that I was still wearing the same ones I was yesterday.

But my clothes are still here at least…

Just then, it occurred to me that I was carrying something in my right hand. It was some kind of stick. How long had I been holding this? Why hadn’t I noticed it before?

I started getting excited. I had watched movies and shows where someone gets powers and they’re channeled through some little wand.

It was mostly straight and smooth, but slightly twisted especially towards the farther edge from my hand. But the bottom of it made me think it was custom-made: it was completely rounded out, like if an artisan had personally finished it. It was also very shiny and reflective. It appeared to be made of a dark wood, maybe mahogany. But I wasn’t someone who actually knew. I was just basing it off the color I had seen in ScapeRunes, which had in-game mahogany wood.

Okay, how does this stuff go? A flick of the wand and a bit of imagination?

I tried waving the stick and imagining a ball of fire launching out of the twisted edge. Nothing happened. I then proceeded to wave it furiously and shout “fire!”

Nothing.

I wished for some kind of smoke to come out to tell me that it had at least tried.

I tried similar things, shouting the four elements of the old world. I also tried to imagine teleportation since we already possibly had proof of it. Again, all efforts that made me look like some weirdo waving a stick.

I thought that it couldn’t be a coincidence that I arrived here carrying a stick. I started thinking about the conditions we had left the house. I silently tiptoed back to the little spot I had awoken on.

I must be going crazy. Teleportation… but what else could it be? Is someone going to pop out of the bushes and surprise us?

“…uuughhh.” Gigi yawned, stretching her arms.

I guess she was the next one awake. I started to panic a little again.

How am I going to explain to them what’s going on?

I took a glance at Gigi’s body and noticed that she wasn’t carrying a stick like me.

“Jay, where are we?” she asked.

“…we’re in… a forest.” I muttered. “I know what you’re going to say, how did we get here? I don’t know.” I motioned her to stay calm.

Even though teleportation was seeming more and more a fitting explanation, I didn’t want to scare her.

“We were probably rescued by someone, because I don’t know if you remember, but we were all in the house last night.” I explained.

“Yeah… I do remember.” She started looking around, trying to make sense of her surroundings.

She started crying.

“What’s going on?” she sobbed. I could tell she was scared and wanted to go home. But where was home?

I moved closer and gave her a hug.

“I don’t know but we’ll figure it out, okay? We’re all here and safe.” I put my hand on her head.

That seemed to calm her a little. She looked at my right hand.

“What is that stick?” she asked, in a slightly better mood. “It’s kind of shiny.”

For a second, I was scared and wanted to hide it but that would be foolish. She had already seen it.

“I just woke up carrying it. I didn’t even notice I had it until like 10 minutes after I woke up.” I said.

“That’s weird. Hey let’s wake everyone up.” She said a little more spirited. She moved to try to wake up my mom.

“No!” I whispered aloud. “Don’t wake them. We don’t know if their bodies still need some rest after what happened. Just let them wake up on their own.”

About 15 minutes passed. But I couldn’t be sure since neither of us had a way to tell time. In that time, I had walked with Gigi to all the places I had walked to, and told her about the animals I saw.

By the time we got back, the rest of my family was awake.

“Where were you?!” Flo gasped, out of breath, clearly worried about her daughter.

“We were the first ones awake, so I took Gigi for a walk.” I tried calming her down.

“Jay, do you know what we’re doing here?” mom asked, very concerned. “Why are we in a forest?”

“Everyone relax.” I said. “Like I said, I woke up earlier than you guys so I had time to think.”

Now that they were awake, my analyzing instincts kicked in. All of them were wearing the clothes they had on last night. No one seemed to be carrying anything else. But my brother was the exception. He was carrying a stick in his right hand too.

“Jay, did you see anyone? Who rescued us?” mom asked impatiently.

I explained everything I thought of since I woke up about our situation. Everyone took the news surprisingly well. Probably a side effect of really good sleep. But soon I realized I was wrong. The looks on their faces weren’t of calm understanding. They were making fun of me.

Mom didn’t believe my teleportation theory. She started wandering around a bit, looking for someone. Flo and Gigi also started giggling.

“So you’re saying we might have teleported? Did you see that in an anime, Mr. NEET?” Mario looked at me funny, holding back laughter at my idiocy.

Why does everyone think this is so funny?

“If someone rescued us, they wouldn’t have dumped us here. It makes no sense. We live in an urban area, with neighbors! And why don’t we have bruises on us? The roof of our house collapsed!” I reasoned.

“That’s true, I—I don’t know.” he said, examining his body for any marks. “But teleportation is impossible. Are you sure we’re not in the Everglades? Maybe crooks rescued us and stole all our stuff.”

I shook my head. “And healed our wounds somehow?”

Finally, I pointed to my brother’s stick.

“Also we woke up carrying a stick like this, Mario.” I said. “It was like 10 minutes after I woke up that I actually noticed it I had it too.”

“Huh? When did this get in my hand?” he inquired, eyeing his right hand. “I didn’t even feel myself holding it. You know, I can almost see my reflection on it.”

My brother had had the same thoughts I did. After all, we had both been gamers and the stick probably reminded him of some kind of wand.

He started waving it and shouting some nonsense.

I laughed. Of course nothing happened.

Then in a bout of frustration he threw it about 15 feet away.

“Dude, pick it up. We need to hold on to it. We were both carrying a stick. This thing could mean something. Besides they look custom-made… somehow.” I insisted. He shrugged and went to retrieve it.

I didn’t want to face the truth. That our house had probably been destroyed and that this wasn’t a dream. And that we literally had no idea how we got here. For now, I just thought about trying to stay busy and move a little closer to some kind of goal, a destination.

I looked at everyone. My mom was pinching herself, to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. There was a sense of unease. The remnants of a possible supernatural event weighing on us.

“Let’s try to get out of this forest so we can figure out where we are.” I suggested.

It would be nice if we had woken up with some kind of map. But we really seemed to be on our own in this one. Whatever put us here just dumped us with no guide or free stuff, except a stick that does nothing.

I said that we should pick the direction where the sun was coming from and just walk straight until we’re out of here.

We marched on in silence, with Mario leading the way.

Along the way we passed bushes with berries, mushrooms of all varieties, hill peaks and troughs, and furry creatures.

“It feels like we’re hiking.” I said, lightening the mood.

It felt pretty good to crush some of the leaves on the ground. Wherever we were was probably in the spring season, maybe close to summer, just like back home. But I was a NEET and barely went outside, so what did I know.

We kept going. I had this uneasy feeling that we weren’t going to be home for a long time.

We walked straight along, dodging trees but mostly staying on course. At last, we made it out of the forest. There was a small road made out of smooth, flat cobblestone. It looked like we were pretty far from any buildings. The forest we had just come out of was to the left of the road, and to the right was more forest. We decided to take the road and see where it led.

Chapter 2: The First People

We trotted along the edge of the road. We thought it was weird that the road was so long and was made out of something other than asphalt or concrete like I was used to seeing. If we were this far from any roads that cars took,

How are we going to get home? What if I don’t get to use my PC for a long time?

I shuddered at the prospect. After what seemed like an eternity of walking, mom suggested we find some shade in the forest edge and rest. By that point we had about 5 miles under our belt. I wanted to find some food and water for us, but I had no idea how to hunt or forage. I mean how could you tell what’s not poisonous unless you could look it up in a search engine or been the victim of something before?

We walked to the edge of the forest past the main road to the left and rested under the shade of a large oak tree. Still none of us felt like talking much. Our feet hurt and I was starting to get anxious about having to sleep in the forest tonight if we didn’t find civilization.

As I sat, my eyes were glued to the main road. I wanted something to come on it. Someone to tell us that we’re not alone and that we would find help soon. And very shortly after, I started hearing footsteps from a bit further back on the road. They were faint but getting louder. Someone was coming this way! No, it sounded like more than one pair of footsteps.

At last the two travelers came into view. They were wearing tattered clothing and seemed poor. A man and a woman, both quite pale and short and carrying a few sacks of something. Probably potatoes.

We were overjoyed at seeing other humans for the first time since we woke up hours ago. Mario and I got up and started jogging up to them at a moderate pace. We were careful to not look like we were running so as to not give them the spooks.

When we caught up to them, however, something was off. They gave us strange looks and immediately seemed on guard. I put my hands up like when someone is pointing a gun at you and tried to alleviate their suspicion.

“Please, we’re lost. We have women and children with us. Could you tell us where we are?” I asked. I lowered my hands and put them together as if I was praying.

They looked at us puzzled. They started whispering to each other.

“…speak our language… seem lost…” a few hushed words. “…but we can’t trust them.” He pointed to the stick I was carrying.

Finally the man stood in front of the woman, as if to protect her, and faced us.

“You get away from here now. Your kind isn’t welcome here. If you keep walking down this road, there’s going to be trouble. Stay away from us.” he barked softly.

They started picking the pace to try and get away from us.

“Wait, please! We’re friendly, I swear!” I shouted.

“We only need to know where we are! Please say something.” Mario shouted.

Finally the man looked back and said:

“You’re on the road to a town. If they find out what you are there’s no telling what they’ll do to you. Turn back.” He shouted back.

Mario and I looked at each other, unsure of what had just happened.

Chapter 3: Fancy Sticks

We ran back to the rest of the family. They had heard the man’s last words.

“What happened?” mom asked.

“They said we can’t keep going down the road because we might be in danger and something about our kind not being accepted.” Mario said.

“But I just don’t get what he meant. What is ‘our kind’?” I pondered.

As they were talking, I stopped listening to focus on my internal thoughts. He pointed at my stick. That’s when he said we can’t trust them.

“Mario. He was pointing to our sticks. Something about them made them hostile to us.” I said.

“Yeah he did. But why would they be mad at us for holding sticks? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to be racist or something?” he asked.

I couldn’t argue with that logic. Our skin colors weren’t much different, we were probably slightly darker than their totally pale skin. Or maybe it was our facial features. Or our clothes? It’s true they looked kind of poor and the clothes we were wearing were at least decent.

“They looked poor and they’re clearly weirdos. We may have woken up on grass, but we don’t look dirty like they do. Hunger must have driven them insane.” I said, shaking my head with pity.

“Well those are fancy-looking sticks. Maybe people here don’t like those.” Gigi said, annoyed, putting her hand on her waist.

“That’s ridiculous. They’re just sticks. And frankly I like mine.” I replied, holding mine up.

“They have a nice design, but what’s the point in holding on to these? Here give me yours too, Jay. I’ll give ‘em a good toss.” he said, looking like he was going to grab my stick.

“No, come on… I want to keep them. They look really nice.” I pleaded.

No sooner had he reached to try and grab my stick that something miraculous happened. As soon as it was nearly there, his hand was stopped short by a large visible spark of static electricity.

“Ow! What the hell?!” Mario pulled back quickly, looking like he was holding back tears.

The women in my family gasped, my mouth was wide open.

I couldn’t stop staring at the stick. I started moving it and put my own hand on the edge that seemed to have shocked my brother.

Nothing happened when I touched it. I felt every part of it against my skin, against my clothes. I wanted to test out and recreate what had just happened. Had a lot of static charge accumulated on it and been released when my brother held out his hand? If so, then if he touched it again, it wouldn’t shock him anymore.

I decided to test my hypothesis.

“Mario put your hand on it again.” I ordered.

He shrank back.

“Are you crazy? That hurt 10x worse than those bubble gum shockers Gigi used to have.” he said. He was referring to an old prank that was a hand shocker disguised as a gum container.

“But it was static electricity. All the charge that had gotten on the tip should have gone neutral when it touched your hand.” I pressed.

“No means no, dude.” He said, pissed. He started massaging his hand.

“Please!” I said, touching the tip that had shocked him. “Look, nothing happened. Gigi you touch it then.”

“No stay away from me!” she jumped back.

I laughed maniacally and started chasing her with the stick playfully and she started screaming.

Then I stopped in my tracks. I got the sudden urge to see if the same thing would happen if I touched Mario’s stick. After all, if electricity had accumulated on mine maybe it would happen on his since we had both been sleeping for hours, walking, and basically doing the same things.

I reached out to touch his, bracing myself for the shock.

But nothing interesting happened.

Then Mario composed himself and reached out to touch the stick. He paused for a second before making it to the tip and readied himself for pain.

Nothing.

We soon lost our curiosity on the sticks and focused on the real problem.

“Okay, it looks like they were just ordinary sticks.” I said, a little dejected.

Weird though, for the spark to be visible and that huge, the voltage must have been enormous. How could normal friction have caused this?

“For now, let’s just hide them inside our shirts and keep going. I’m getting hungry.” he said.

I beamed. I was happy he had decided not to throw them away. Logically I knew these were just pieces of wood, but I wanted to believe there was more to them than that.

“Okay. Let’s keep walking so we can find some place with food.” Flo said, with a hand on her stomach.

I knew we couldn’t stay here. We’re an indoors family. If we had to start hunting to survive we might not last. My brother was pretty good at fishing, but without a rod and materials, he’s useless. We needed to take our chances and go to the town the man and woman were walking about and see if we could at least blend in somehow. And if they really were upset about a piece of wood then we’d get rid of them.

We collected ourselves mentally and got ready to start walking again.

Mario turned to me and whispered, “Jay, when it comes down to it, I’ll be going in alone to make sure it’s safe. If I don’t make it back, then take everyone and go somewhere else.”

I nodded in agreement. “Alright.”

The cobblestone felt rough on our feet as we continued down the path. I started to lose track of the time. My body felt like it was sagging. I couldn’t tell how far we had walked anymore, but some time along the way the forest to the left and right of us had disappeared from view, replaced by fields of empty farmland. We could see the trails of plowing and some crops growing, but no one was tending to them. Seeing a change of scenery lifted our spirits and I mentioned that we must be close.

“I’m really thirsty. I need waaaater.” Gigi complained, making a fuss with her hands.

“We’ll get you some inside.” Flo told her.

The sun had been beating down our necks and I could feel the sweat start to trickle by the drop.

“Not a cloud in the sky today. Just our shitty luck!” I let out a curse out of frustration and mom got angry.

A few minutes of walking later, we saw a large gate system with a few people that looked like guards taking in a small line of travelers. There were boxes of something and a table where an important looking person was writing something down. The boxes looked like cargo. But they could also be things that were confiscated from people. It appeared to me that guy sitting down was the person who decided who got into the town or not.

My brother stopped us from going any further.

He told the girls what he had whispered to me earlier about him going in alone.

I told him that I would hold on to his stick and he agreed. His was a shade of light brown whereas mine was darker, so we could easily tell them apart.

He jogged a bit to get his place in line, while we waited a safe distance away close to the fields, about 15 feet from the line.

One by one the line grew shorter as people were either turned away or welcomed inside.

“Please let us inside.” A man holding a young boy about 7 said, both looking impoverished. He was so skinny, like a skeleton being covered in a thin layer of flesh.

They looked like they were inches from death.

There was a sign posted that said ‘1 silver entry’.

“Great another one. I’m tired of his kind showing up here and thinking this is a free meal ticket.” The man writing down on table stopped for a moment and looked up at him fiercely.

“Unless you got proof of business or a pass from Lord Sylvian, you’re not getting in. It’s blistering hot and I have to deal with more beggars.” he said in a scruffy voice, loudly enough to be heard from much further than we were standing.

New information. A whole string of new questions danced in my head. Who’s Lord Sylvian?

“Please sir, I know we’re poor but I can work. I’m a hard worker, you see. The hardest worker you will find. I will take care of your fields and earn you lots. I will earn my keep. My boy… we need this.” the man with the boy said in desperation.

Poor guy is just looking for a better life for him and his son. He’s worked harder than I have for sure. What hope do we have of getting inside if he’s getting turned away?

The scruffy guard shooed him away, and the beggar placed a hand on the guard’s arm, pleading for him to reconsider.

“Take your filthy hands off me. Now shoo before I lose my patience.”

A guard whistled and someone from beyond the gate came out. It was another guard, carrying food

“Sir, I’m back from the market. I’ve got some fresh meat sticks for us.”

The scruffy guard sitting down immediately perked up. “Hope you scored some wine with that, boy!”

“Nothing that fancy to drink, I’m afraid, sir.”

The subordinate guard set the food down on the scruffy guard’s table.

The line got shorter. Some got welcomed in, while others were turned away.

Finally it was my brother’s turn to face the man. My brother straightened his shirt collar and huffed out his shoulders.

“Ahh finally, someone that looks like the least bit respectable.” The scruffy guard said. He started moving his hands up and down as if to show off my brother.

“With clothes like that, you must be at least a knight’s son. No, a baron’s.” the guard proclaimed.

I stared at my brother and wondered just how he was going to win over that pushy guard. Finally he started to speak.

“Sir, I see you have a good judge of character. You are right, I’m not just any traveler. I am a merchant with a certain trading company to the west. I was visiting the town with my family on important business…”, he said pointing to us. “…when we were attacked on our way here. They stole our stuff, but at least not the clothes on our backs.” he said.

Nice. Surprised he came up with that on the spot.

“I see. And I’m assuming they conveniently stole your identification card as well, am I mistaken?” he asked suspiciously. It looked to me that he was not buying Mario’s story at all.

I looked around the fields. The crops on the one I was standing next to looked to be in poor shape. They were growing tomatoes, but they looked a sickly brownish color. And there were some weird spots on the leaves. I had read about this before when we planted a vegetable garden in the backyard. And by sheer luck, I got a stroke of inspiration. For a story that he might buy. It was a scenario that was just like an RPG I had played.

I quickly ran up to the man and my brother.

“Forgive me for the late introduction, sir. I am a representative of the Scholars Association of Farmers. My brother is our merchant in title, more like a salesman.” I eagerly explained.

I pointed to the crops.

“With all due respect, we came because of reports of the crops being lost, to disease or otherwise. The leaves on that tomato plant have brown splotches, and many are wilting. Those are the early signs of a diseased plant, namely Septoria leaf spots. We offer solutions for these types of problems at cost, which would be best discussed with the right people inside. Though our carriage was lost, it’s only a minor setback and has no bearing on our intentions here.” I said firmly.

I wanted to convince him that for us losing a carriage wouldn’t be a big deal to us. Maybe it would make us seem rich.

“Eron. Go check out that plant and see if what he says is true.” the scruffy guard said.

At once, one of the guards standing next to him went to inspect the plant I had been pointing to. He got near my mom and bent over next to her. Even from this far, I could see that he was trying to flex in front of her as he bent. I got angry.

He hurried back and confirmed what I said.

“Very well. Normally we would do a more thorough inspection, but you’re lucky it’s hot and I have my favorite meat kabobs.” the scruffy guard said. “Besides, those clothes don’t lie.”

Chapter 4: A misunderstanding

We were in. The guards drew the big gate open for us and we were guided inside.

“Welcome to Meade. Hope ya do figure something about the crops here.” the scruffy guard said as we were going in.

“Alright, let’s hurry along.” mom said, trying to sound important.

The town at first glance seemed to be lively. Beyond was a massive city that seemed part medieval with a hint of modern architecture. Lines of stalls littered the streets. It seemed like a bustling medieval marketplace. Vendors were shouting the latest deals on their wares.

“New shipment on squid and octopus. 10 copper a pound!” one burly fisherman was calling out to a passing family.

“Fine silverware, 1 silver per set, haha! Get an extra half off!” shouted a female vendor.

“Hey did you hear that?” I asked. “He said 10 copper a pound! Isn’t the US the only country that uses the pound? Or maybe the UK?”

“Hey yeah.” joined Mario. “Good catch. Okay so it looks like we might still be in the US. But copper? Sounds like some kind of game money. We need to ask somebody.”

We dodged a ton of people in the crowded market, nearly got separated, and then had to hold hands just to make it to the quieter market area.

I stopped to catch my breath. My sister though, running on a kind of energy I didn’t have, went straight up to a jewelry vendor and said, “oooh, can I see this piece?”

“You have a lovely taste, young lady.” a smooth-talking man with a full face of makeup like a clown dressed in a colorful woolen tunic said to Flo, pointing to the silver moon-shaped necklace she was holding. “They would look divine on you.”

“We’re new to this town.” she said. “Would you mind telling us where we are? A nice man at the Gate this was the town of Meade, but I’m afraid we lost our map on the way.”

“Oh my!” the colorful man exclaimed. “How irresponsible of your suitors to mislead such a fine lady.”, he said pointing to Mario and I. Flo blushed and moved her hand femininely. She sure could play the part.

Sigh, just get on with it. What an annoying manner of speaking this guy has.

“Damsel, we are none other than in the illustrious town of Meade, one of the most important trade cities in the Kingdom of Renshire.”

My heart sank. I felt a freezing chill down my back despite how hot it was.

What did he say? Kingdom of Renshire? What the hell is he talking about? There’s no place on Earth by that name, as far as I know.

I stepped up to intervene. My nerves got the best of me.

“Please sir tell us you’re joking. You use the Imperial system of Units here. Only two countries on Earth do that: the United States or the United Kingdom. But I’ve never heard of the kingdom of Renshire.” I felt my tone get too rough, but I couldn’t hide a hint of desperation.

“Dear sir, you’re near the very center of the Kingdom and yet you do not know where you are? One might inquire if you’re castaways from an unknown land.” he said with a sly grin and a wink.

Then he got a bit more serious. I suppose it seemed to him we were not going to buy anything.

“But yes,” he continued, “we are neighbors with the United States to the south. We share many cultural similarities. Now my wonderful patrons, I do have a business to run.” he motioned his hands, as if to shoo us.

“Forgive us sir, we will repay the kindness once we are more established.” Mario bowed and took Flo by the hand so she wouldn’t be distracted by any more jewelry.

We hurried out of there. I looked back to see the colorful man eyeing us suspiciously, the high spirits he had displayed gone from his face, and an eyebrow arced.

A rich-looking, fat man in a robe walked up to his stand as we were leaving.

His gleeful look returned.

“Are we looking for something specific, good sir?” he chatted up.

“Just browsing.” the fat man grumbled.

Chapter 5: A Mistaken Geopolitical Location

I told my brother to slow down. Hurrying out of there would only make us seem suspicious. We left the marketplace that seemed to stretch for almost a mile and arrived at a very desolate area of town.

We need to find a map. I can’t believe what that fruit fly said until I can confirm it myself.

Gigi stopped us and said, “South of the US is Mexico. So we have to be in Mexico, right?”

I wasn’t sure what to tell her. Not only that, but this wasn’t anything like how I thought Mexico would be, though I’d never gone there.

For one the people looked to be a melting pot of different races. The darker skinned people were a minority here! It was far more common to see pale skinned people, followed by what I thought might be people of African descent. I was incredibly confused. Mexico as far as I remembered had a pretty homogeneous Spanish speaking culture. But people here speak English. And what’s more, they’re referring to the land as the Kingdom of Renshire. Is there a hidden kingdom in Mexico that I had neglected to learn about in school? Maybe a remnant of British colonialization? In Mexico?

Gah, this is all so confusing. Where is a damn map?

“Yeah, this has to be Mexico,” Mario said.

“Well south of the United States could be anywhere in Central America.” mom interjected.

“Guys start looking for a map. Let’s go back to the market and look for any stalls that might have one.” I ordered.

Just then a person interrupted us.

“Forgive me for prying, but if you’re looking for maps, there’s a nice shop in the Royal Shopping District I hear has some nice ones.” a blonde man with kind eyes looking to be in his 50’s said. He was dressed in white scholarly robes.

Royal Shopping District. Another term we’re unfamiliar with.

“I hope you’re prepared to spend a few silver at least however.” he continued. “The items in the district are imported directly from the capital and are usually priced for only institutions or noblemen to afford. But I can’t imagine they would turn you away for browsing… especially with fine clothes like those. You should hurry before sunset.” The man studied us with a careful eye.

Before any of us could say anything, he continued his chatter.

“By the way, I am professor Truestar at the Count Sylvian University of Meade.” the professor said in a friendly demeanor.

Not wasting a moment, Mario engaged the professor.

“Professor, we’re new to this entire area. We’ve been in search of information that would tell us more about where we are. We are from the United States.” Mario said.

Upon hearing United States, the professor’s eyes lit up.

“Why you’re in the Kingdom of Renshire, city of Meade, the biggest metropolitan area for commerce in the land! You know, if you’re curious to learn more about our world, we offer free courses on geography and world politics. Well I do, and it would make my day if you bought my book which goes along with the course.” he said with a shiny look in his eyes.

“We might take you up on that Professor. But is this kingdom a part of Mexico?” I pressed, wanting answers.

The professor looked puzzled.

“Mexico? What is that?” he asked sincerely.

I started to feel uneasy again.

“Mexico. The country directly south of the United States… the one that shares a border with Texas and a few other states.” I said, adding unnecessary details.

Is this a senile old man?

“There is no Mexico, lad. I’ve been teaching geography for over 20 years and never have I heard a country by that name.”

“That can’t be.”, Mario chimed in.

“That is a joke, right professor?” mom asked with a grave look on her face.

“I’m afraid it’s no joke, madam. I’ve heard our great kingdom called by many names; let’s see: there’s the Rising Land of the West. Oh and Alseecra. But never a Mexico.” the professor explained.

At this point, I was ready to throw up. Just where on Earth are we?

“Then what about the United States? Why hasn’t its name been changed too?” Gigi demanded.

The professor turned to face Gigi, crouching so as to try to match her height.

“I do not understand what you mean, little girl. But the country you’re from is the United States of Ulseex.” he said.

No. No no no no no. That can’t be. He’s lying. They’re all lying.

I felt a compelling urge to run away. My legs started moving on their own and soon I was running.

“I’m going to go look for a map! Wait for me!” I yelled, looking back at everyone.

“Jay! Stop--!” I heard trailing voices call out to me.

Run. Find a map. Now.

I was sprinting, completely fueled by adrenaline, making turns in random corners and running towards whatever caught my eye at the moment. A nervous sweat ran down my back. I fought the feeling to throw up.

Before I had realized that I had run away from my family in an unfamiliar land, I had already gone too far to see them anymore.

No, what have I done? I can’t get separated from them now. Should I turn back?

I glanced around frantically for anything helpful to figure out where I was and then something caught my eye. I saw a large wooden sign hanging off a street lamp with big scarlet letters that said, “ROYAL SHOPPING DISTRICT”.

I’ll just get a map first and then go back.

Chapter 6: The Royal Shopping District

There was a gentle breeze in the air now. The temperature was still hot even though the sun was going down. But the breeze felt like an icy wind against my skin.

I gathered my strength for a moment and ran past the entry sign.

Even though it was almost sun down I was surprised by the number of people. There were people robed in fine tunic, materials that looked very expensive. Some people even had large garments, bracelets, necklaces, encrusted in bright colorful jewels. But upon closer inspection, the jewels looked fake.

Is that gold on that guy’s head piece? Whatever.

I was running sloppily, nearly bumping into many people.

“Sorry!” I shouted dodging an elderly woman. Where is it? The professor said it would be here.

I passed by many shops. The architecture was clearly on a different scale here than places I had passed previously. The buildings seemed very sturdy and were much bigger. The displays on the glass windows also boasted higher prices.

Clothes shops with life sized mannequins wore the latest trends. Jewelry shops with giant necklaces on display. It felt like wandering a big shopping mall.

Peter Cross’s Fine Clothes. No.

Eleanor’s Imported Faux Jewels & Crystals. Useless.

I was speeding past name shops left and right, trying to find something that maybe had the word ‘map’ in it.

Then I was yelled at by what seemed to be a patrol guard walking in the opposite direction. He had a gun in a holster around his belt, and was carrying an iron halberd as well.

What’s the point of a halberd if you got a gun?

I wondered if that was just the fashion for guards to seem imposing.

“Boy, don’t you know you’re not supposed to be running?” he shouted.

I got caught like a deer in a car’s headlights for a second and then started walking at a normal pace.

Boy? I’m 25 years old buddy.

“Sorry, I’m looking for a shop and it’s urgent!” I said loudly.

He sighed and continued his patrol. Once his gaze was distracted, I tried to camouflage with a few trees next to the shops and then resumed running.

Several hundred feet later, I had entered what was like a cul-de-sac of stores. There was a sign that read, “ACADEMIA & HOBBIES”. This seems promising. I must be close.

Finally I caught wind of a store that had a few model boats on the window display. There seemed to be a pirate hat and a pair of skull & bones too.

Pirates use maps! This must be it.

I should have taken a moment to read the sign that was outside that read, “Bobby’s Costume Goods”, but I just waltzed right in.

There were a few people browsing inside and a ton of different costumes available for purchase. And a small line to the try-on closet. I was surprised by the variety: anything from clown makeup and attire, to animal costumes, to pirate gear and props, to theater clothes. Growing exasperated from my search, I made my way to the counter way in the back and was looked at with curious eyes by a woman who seemed to be in her 20’s and quite attractive.

“Are you looking for something specific, sir?” she said in an inquisitive voice. “I’m this shop’s owner. Well the owner’s daughter. I can find whatever you need.”

“Yes, I noticed you had pirate gear on display in the window. Well I’m really looking for a map to complete my set. But I’d prefer a real one.” I said.

“Hmm, we have fake maps with the big red X’s on them. You might want to try the store next door,” she giggled, pointing to the big sign that said ‘ACADEMIA EMPORIUM’. “You can’t miss it.”

I squinted my eyes into the window display of the store she was pointing to from where we were standing. And wouldn’t you know it, alongside a suit of armor, a few textbooks and tools, I saw a scroll that was expanded and looked like a map.

I felt relieved. I might have shed a tear if this lady wasn’t looking at me so intently.

“Thank you.” I grabbed her hand. She was caught by surprise. I quickly bolted out of there.

The Academia Emporium was vast. It looked to have entire sections dedicated to books in a mini library, materials, research materials like rock samples carefully labeled, tools like magnifying glass.

I walked past a bunch of stuff, some of which I don’t even know what was for.

I’m a map. I’m a map. I’m a map. I’m a map. I’m a MAP.

I started humming along to the Doris the Explorer’s little map friend, trying to stay calm.

Finally, I arrived at a section with a sign that said “Geography”.

And then finally, a plastic globe with all the countries of the world.

What I saw horrified me. I saw the outlines of all the countries in the world. You could clearly see North America, Central America, South America on one side and then Europe separated by the Atlantic Ocean and then Asia. All of the world’s countries were there.

But everything was mislabeled. What’s more, the countries’ boundaries were all wrong. The United States seemed to have lost a third of its size.

And the country underneath it is..

I gasped.

Kingdom of Brittle.

The United States of Ulseex.

Kingdom of Renshire.

The Central Federation of Nations.

All names completely foreign to me. And they all formed the continent called “Calas”.

I quickly reached for a geography textbook that was on another shelf. I flipped through a lot of pages with pictures of people, towns, and other things. The photos looked to be in either black and white and some were in color. The photos appeared to have been taken by camera.

…Brittle, Ulseex, here it is! Renshire!

The page containing the information I was looking for was very detailed. It began with a summary of the nation.

It read:

“The Kingdom of Renshire was established in 1503, the result of a 50 year war between a tribe of native inhabitants and a settlement of explorers and people appointed by the king of the former nation Crystalis. This war was one of the first turning points in history when military technology and weaponry proved effective against unorganized magic.”

Unorganized magic? They must mean the weird voodoo stuff African cultures would do right? Were the troops afraid of that stuff because they thought they would be cursed or something?

The books were very nice quality. I was being careful not to rip any pages, but I couldn’t stop myself from turning the pages crudely. Nothing made any sense.

Then in a moment of lucidity, everything became clear, like pieces falling into the slots on a child’s puzzle. I thought of everything I had read and heard that didn’t make sense. The country names, the people, the strange things I had seen. My head felt like it was just hit by a nasty curveball.

We’re not on Earth anymore. It really did happen. The teleportation took us. Somewhere far away. Another dimension. A different plane of existence that looks like our Earth, but is home to completely different people who made completely different choices and on a totally separate timeline than our Earth.

My hands started feeling heavy. The rest of my body followed. I sat down on the floor and put my face in the palm of my right hand.

But…why does everyone speak English?

I sat for what seemed like an eternity, unable to move from the weight of the realization that had hit me. Still and motionless. I felt like if I tried to speak the words might not have come out.

I heard a soft spoken voice call out to me.

“Are you alright, mister?” a little girl who looked to be around 10 years old called out to me. She was short with long dark blonde hair and dressed well.

Still on the floor, I shook my head.

I couldn’t find the energy to give her a real response.

“What’s wrong then, mister?” she pressed.

I took my face out of my palm to look her in the eyes. I managed a small grin.

This girl is worried about me, a total stranger. This place might not be so bad… I thought, getting a little bit of energy back.

Then an adult lady dressed in fine clothes showed up and grabbed her forcefully by the hand. She gave me a cold look.

“Don’t go near strangers, Clarice. Especially men.” she cautioned the girl.

I turned my head and looked out the window. The sun was setting. I had no idea how to get back to my family to tell them what I had learned. I was alone and afraid. I had no clue what to do for food or where I was going to sleep.

But I sat on the ground motionless, without the energy to get up. It was getting harder to care at all.

Chapter 7: All Alone

The sun went down. I had lost track of how much time I spent on the floor. Apparently enough for the store manager to come up to me and give me a piece of his mind.

“Sir, what are you doing? You’re disturbing our clientele.” he said pompously.

I noticed that other people were giving me dirty looks. I didn’t know how long that had been going on.

I gave him a nasty look and said, “I’m just sitting here.” my voice was hoarse.

“That won’t do! Out with you! This is a proper establishment.”  he scowled and shooed me with his hands.

Just leave me alone, man. I’m not bothering anybody.

“Sir, please I… just want to sit. I have nowhere else to go.” I pleaded.

When I said the last part, it sent him fuming. I guess he knows I’m broke now.

“You have 10 seconds to vacate the premises or you will be removed. By force.” he said loudly.

I don’t have a choice then. I got up slowly, with the help of a nearby table. I nearly knocked over a few books on it.

“You clumsy oaf! Hurry it up.” he said.

I shrank away from the looks I was getting and held my head down. I tried to find the exit and when I did I proceeded towards it.

It was then that my stick fell out from under my shirt. It made a clear thud on the floor.

The store manager looked at what had dropped and gasped.

“Wizard!” he gasped flamboyantly, pointing at me.

Soon others began to join in the frenzy.

“What, a wizard? Here?” shouted a man in a business suit.

“Darla, where are you sweetie?” yelled a lady.

“Where are the guards?” shouted another man who looked like a university scholar.

In a nervous bout, I reached for my stick. My energy had forcefully come back to me and I bolted.

On the way, I bumped into someone.

“Eeeeeehh, stay away from me!” I heard a young woman exclaim.

I heard the words Stop him! but they were getting further away. I pushed open the exit doors and just ran in whatever direction first caught my eye. I had no time to think.

Wizard? I thought as I ran, gasping for air. Wizard implies magic, right?

Me? Because of this stick? But it doesn’t do anything!

I ran until I found a small group of trees planted for scenery. They were large enough to hide under, especially in the darkening evening. I stayed under the lowest hanging branches, on the side facing away from the stores. The long shadow they cast was sure to conceal me.

I held my mahogany colored stick firmly in my hand. Though I never did have a surgeon’s hand. It was shaking so much, I’d be removed from any operating room.

There must be something it can do.

“Maximize magic!” I said under my breath.

Nothing.

To be fair, that was from a popular anime I had watched. I guess I was trying to cheer myself up.

“Alright, let’s try… conceal!” I said, a little quieter.

I was hoping I might turn invisible so I could get away from the guards that were sure to be looking for me.

Nothing.

People undergo extensive training in magic in the shows I watched… so without someone to tell me what to do, I’m useless right? If I even am a “wizard”. I thought.

I gave up on expecting anything out of this stick.

I’m running on pure adrenaline right now. I’m starving, but who cares about that right now. I’m going to find everyone even if it takes me all night.

I got back to what I was doing earlier: getting the hell away from the Academia Emporium.

Shops started blending together as I stopped caring what the fancy letters said. My legs thankfully weren’t giving out on me. After several minutes, I was back at the original place with the big sign that said “ROYAL SHOPPING DISTRICT.”

My adrenaline had worn off. I was back to feeling like a slumpy moose. I was sure I wasn’t being followed by guards. Then again I wasn’t sure what the guards would look like since I ran off before I could. Maybe they’d look like the guy from the gate who let us in, or the guy carrying the halberd. Who knows.

It was surprisingly cold at night. I was angry because I wish the temperature had been like this when we were walking under the sun towards the city. And I was starting to shiver. I rubbed my hands together.

Maybe if I rub my stick and my brother’s together it’ll make a fire. That sounds like about all the magic I can do.

I needed to get my head straight. Complaining about everything wasn’t going to solve my problems. I didn’t want to start running and have to inhale cold air and out all the time, so I just walked with my hands in my pocket.

Let’s figure this out. I started laying out all the cards before me and trying to come up with a solution.

I’m in another world. No one knows me here. The people that find out I’m carrying one of these wizard sticks start seeing me as an enemy. My family is here, somewhere. I left them with the professor, but that was hours ago and I have no idea where they went. I want to find them.

It’s possible that mom or maybe Flo shared that they had nowhere to go and that he gave them a place to stay. He seemed like a nice guy. But then again he tried selling one of his books to us, so if we broke the façade that we had money, he must just have found an excuse to leave.

It’s also possible they might have started looking for me, probably starting in the direction I went. Maybe I can start asking anyone left if they’ve seen four people in nice but strange clothes. Clothes that might have looked like a noble person’s. That’s what they were compared to anyway. Okay, let’s go with that.

So I began my search for my missing family members. I stopped anyone I met and asked the same question, while also keeping an eye out for any patrol guards that might have heard about a ‘wizard’ on the loose.

I don’t know what they expect from me anyway. It’s not like I’ve seen any real magic since I got here.

I must have asked about 4 older men, 7 women, 2 younger women maybe in their teens, hell I even asked a few kids that were playing on the street. That was my estimate. I had lost count.

Exhausted, and frankly tired of talking to people, I gave up my search and focused on finding a comfortable place where I could sleep. To think that just a few days ago, I would have been sleeping soundly on a bed. Now I’m in a world where computers probably don’t exist.

I genuinely started questioning how I was going to survive without the internet. It had been my close companion for so long. I had grown up with it and it had brought me some of my fondest memories. The thought of having to become a normie in this world when I’d started to accept my nice quiet life at home was enough to get me breathing heavily.

I started getting angry. I reached into my pockets and pulled out my stick.

This piece of trash has gotten me into so much trouble. I should just get rid of it.

I made up my mind. I would throw both mine and my brother’s stick as hard as I could.

Just as I thought that and prepared to throw them, a faint voice called out to me in my head.

“Don’t.”

It sounded far away, almost ethereal.

What… was that? Did something…speak just now?

For some reason, all desire to get rid of them vanished.

And now I’m cold and alone. Who knows when I’m gonna eat anything. At least the streets are clean. I guess they didn’t call it royal for nothing.

I left the Royal Shopping District. With a lot of panting and a growling stomach, I had made it to a smaller plaza with two story buildings, the kind that had dormitories and living quarters on the top floor and shops on the bottom.

I stopped and gazed up at a building. I wished I could get inside.

Must be warm in there.

Then I saw the side of the buildings and there was an alley that connected a few of them together.

I am really doing the dark alley thing? That’s where bad people show up. But where else do I go?

For the first time since I got to this new world, I started to cry.

Why? I sobbed. Why did this happen to me?

The dark alley had a few trash cans open. Flies were gathered around the ones that were almost full. There were a few doors, which were probably used for quick access to dump garbage.

I wanted to disappear. The thought of having to sleep next to this stench was making me sick, but my body had reached its limit. I lined up two trash cans and sandwiched myself in the middle of them. I didn’t have a blanket, so I put my arms inside my shirt. I started stuffing the side of my shirt where I was hiding the sticks with some trash I dug up beside me to pad them and make sure they didn’t fall again. I was probably going to be smelling horrible for the next couple of days, but I didn’t care.

Then I drifted to sleep.

Just… just be left alone… for one night. Tomorrow I’ll… find them.

Chapter 8: Visitors

“Quiet, idiot!” a man said. “Are you trying to wake him up?”

A metal can had dropped from one of the trash cans, making a metallic crash on the ground.

“I stepped on some shit, it’s not my fault!” another man whispered.

I instantly woke up. For a second my eyes were wide open. I quickly shut them and pretended to sleep.

If I pretend to sleep, maybe they’ll just rob me. As soon as one gets close, I’ll kick him in the balls since he’ll be bending over to pickpocket me. I’ll have to run as fast as possible after.

I couldn’t tell if they were carrying knives or a weapon, but if they were going to be mugging someone I assumed they were armed. I’d have to be fast with my escape.

The man that had made a sound got close to me. It was taking all of my concentration to figure out the right moment to strike him, since I couldn’t open my eyes.

He has to try to touch my clothes right? To make sure I have something to rob.

I decided to wait.

A few seconds passed and nothing was happening.

Oh no, what’s going on? What do I do?

“We know you’re awake. We’re just deciding how we’re going to slice up your leg.” the other man said, laughing.

Not wasting a moment, I opened my eyes and in the same tick count I tried to sweep the leg of the one in front me while also entangling him with the other leg so he’d trip.

It worked slightly and he lost his balance, giving me enough time to get up and get in position to run.

Just then, I felt a strong rush of wind knock me off balance. I struggled to hold myself in place, but another rush of wind struck my head and it crashed against the solid wall.

The last thing I remember was hearing… “… he thought he had a chance.” And a wicked snicker that I’ll never forget.

Just like that I was out cold.

Chapter 9: A Stranger Place

Someone splashed a bucket of ice cold water on me.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhghhh!” I woke up, yelling out.

The room I found myself in looked like a jail cell but with a few extra things. Large crates littered the area. The room was barely lit, except with a few small candles. My whole body was tied up to a pole with rope binding my hands together, as well as my legs.

“It seems someone slept well.” barked a  short, burly man dressed in expensive looking clothes and a top hat.

He had a voice that sounded like what I imagined a mouse and a human hybrid sounded like. In fact his facial features reminded me of a rat.

“Not too shabby a catch from my boys. Who would have thought? A wizard just sleeping next to the trash. A fitting end for society’s throwaways, eh? Well, it’s your lucky day, boy.” he squeaked.

He made a quick twirl with his round body.

“You know they said you didn’t use magic to try and escape. That you had a clever little plan of playing dead.” he continued, pacing back and forth.

“Good for you! If you had just let them take you, I would have slaughtered you myself.” he walked up to my face and winked.

“A young budding wizard, just waiting to find himself in this big world. All alone. Well, unlike society who doesn’t see your true value, we humble merchants are going to use your gifts as God intended. Oh youth!” he continued.

He danced around, skipping like a child. For a second, he looked like some short round frog. I was just waiting for him to stretch out a long tongue.

Again with the wizard thing. My frustration was taking over.

If I could use magic, I’d make those bastards pay!

I had unknowingly given the man an angry scowl, to which he said, “Oh no. That won’t do.”

He gave me a swift jab to the stomach and I cried out in pain.

“Much better.” he said, looking smug. “We have a pecking order around here, boy. And you’re looking at the tip of the totem.”

He stopped dancing like a monkey and straightened the collar on his shirt.

“Anyway. What’s your name?” he asked.

“Uh, Troy Frose.” I lied as best as I could.

They have no way to know, right?

He eyed me carefully, walking around me in a circle.

“Boy. Do you know what I do to liars?”

I got a swift elbow to my groin . If it hadn’t been for the ropes holding me to the pole, I would have dropped to the floor.

“One more, so I’m sure you understood what I said.”

“Alright, I’m sorry! I did lie. My name, real name. It’s Jay Alding. I swear that’s the truth.” I blurted out.

I tried holding back tears. I wasn’t used to being treated like a rag doll.

Just then the two men who had mugged me entered the room.

The rat man started whispering to the two of them and they chatted among themselves. I didn’t overhear what they said except the last part. “…make him talk.”

The two men were average height and slender. The one who had accidentally made noise when we met wore a bandana and had an ear piercing. I decided to call him trash 1. The other one wore his black hair slicked with some kind of gel and a leather jacket. He would be trash 2.

Trash 1 was also holding a bat.

“Hey buddy, did you miss us?” Trash 2 asked me, waving.

I held my tongue. I knew Trash 1 would hit me if I said anything to offend him.

“Well we’re just here for a little information.” he continued.

“You know you have not one but two wands on you, buddy!” he said. “How’d ya manage that?”

“One is mine. And the other one belongs to a friend.” I said. “He was trying to hide from someone and gave it to me to hold on to.” I continued.

“Is that right?” he said, giving an upwards hand signal to Trash 1. Trash 1 swung his bat at my left hip and I yelped helplessly.

My hip was on fire from when it had been struck. The pain was making me double over, but I was held up by the ropes.

I can’t take this anymore. Please somebody.. help me.

“Just want you to know, that’s what will happen if you lie to us.” Trash 1 whispered with a sly grin.

Then Trash 2 moved close to me. “But don’t worry, we also give our dogs treats for behaving.” His rancid breath could have killed someone.

“So let’s get on with the real questions, shall we? Tell us all the powers you have.” he demanded with a soft voice.

But I don’t have any? Are they going to believe me?

“You’re awfully quiet for such a simple question.” Trash 2 said, giving Trash 1 another signal.

Before Trash 1 could swing, I yelled, “No please! I don’t have any powers, I swear! I would have used them on you to escape if I did.”

“Of course. That’s a good dog. We just wanted to make sure you didn’t have any silly ideas of threatening us for your freedom. Oh boy, that might have hurt a little.” Trash 2 said, licking one of his fingers.

“Now,” he continued, “where is the other one?”

What? I was confused.

“Your friend.”

I felt my heart sink.

“I don’t know. We got separated and we were both new in town. That’s why I was sleeping next to the garbage. I couldn’t find him.” I said truthfully.

“I see.” Trash 2 said with a scary look of frustration.

Then he paused for a moment and his expression changed.

“Well, you can just tell us what he looks like and we’ll find him for you.” he said with a devilish smile.

He burst into laughter.

“Isn’t it wonderful [Trash 1]?” he asked gleefully. “Two friends torn apart will be reunited.”

“How touching.” Trash 1 spit on my head.

There it is. I have no dignity left.

“Well? Don’t keep us in suspense, boy!” his bashful laughter continued.

“He is slightly shorter than me,” I started. “He’s wearing clothes like mine. Clothes that are … fancy. He has black hair and a light mustache.” I said, in a string of broken words.

He whistled. At once, a person that looked like the guards who had let us into the city appeared.

“Sir!” he said, standing at attention.

Trash 2 grabbed a small notebook and pencil from a stool that was there. He started writing something down.

Then he ripped out the piece he was writing on and handed it to the guard.

“Have our men look into finding someone. Here’s the description. I want him found before sunset.” he ordered.

“Right away!” the guard folded the paper and hastened out of the room.

“I really hope they find him by sunset…” he walked close to me and whispered.

I gulped.

Just then, the man who looked like a rat from earlier walked in with a serious look on his face.

Trash 1, Trash 2 and rat man huddled together and started talking amongst themselves.

This time, they were trying to whisper, but not quite talking at the same volume as before. I focused and could make out what they were saying.

“…they don’t want him. They’re saying they have no use for a wizard without powers.” rat man said, frustrated.

“What about his friend? We sent a search party to try and find him.” Trash 2 said.

“Well cancel it. I don’t want to waste time searching for another failure.” rat man said.

Trash 2 motioned Trash 1 out of the room, probably to tell the men to cancel the search party.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“So what do we do about him?”, he said, pointing to me. “He’s useless to us without powers too. Do we try to snag a deal with the diggers?” he asked.

“…I’m arranging a meeting with them as we speak.” rat man spoke hurriedly. “So help me, if they don’t want him either I’m going to need to borrow [Trash 1]’s bat.”

I was terrified. I had never been so afraid. I wished there were some painless way to die right now, so I wouldn’t be beaten to death.

These people are evil. They’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill me.

I couldn’t stop repeating that in my head.

About 5 minutes passed. Trash 2 and rat man wouldn’t look at me anymore. They were too busy looking over some piece of paper. From what I heard it might have been an inventory check. Of what, I wasn’t sure.

Finally, someone walked in the room.

“Sir, there is someone waiting for you on the line.” he said without delay.

“Is it the diggers?” rat man asked.

“I believe so, sir. Please hurry.” he said.

“Right, of course.” rat man bounced out of the room with his stubby legs.

Trash 2, looking curious, followed along. I was left alone.

Now might be the only chance I’ll get. But I can’t do anything… and they know it.

I didn’t know how to undo a knot on rope, especially one this tight. There was no blade I could reach from any part of my body to try and cut it. Nothing.

I felt despair. I writhed in place, cursing the fact that I had ever been brought to this world.

Who brought me to this shit world? Did they do it to get a good laugh at seeing me like this?

I let go. I gave up. I resigned myself to this fate. I didn’t want to struggle anymore. I tried to rest while they were away. Then when they came back, it would be over.

Rat man would be furious the diggers didn’t want me, I’ll be beaten to death.

It’s over.

My body was exhausted from the beating. I hadn’t eaten in almost 2 days. And I had lost my will to live. To my surprise, they weren’t back for a while. I drifted to sleep.

Chapter 10: The Diggers

I had a dream. In this dream I was this amazing super hero. I was fighting corruption and putting evildoers to justice. I was flying around, helping those wherever they needed me. I loved the attention people were giving me. The last thing I remember from that dream is a voice that pierced the veil. A soft but commanding voice that said, “don’t give up.”

I started drifting in and out of sleep. The next time I woke up, I felt like I was getting moved around. For the bit that I was awake I could feel my hands tied again. But I wasn’t tied to the pole anymore. I lost consciousness again. I’m not sure how long I was out this time.

I felt something smooth rub against my skin. It felt good. I slowly woke up only to find myself yet again in an unfamiliar place. It was a small, cramped room with a few beds and blankets. There were a few medical supplies laid out on the bed I was on, next to me. And a girl was doing something to me.

She was applying some kind of cream and spreading it across my arms.

“Oh you’re awake.” she said kindly. “How do you feel?”

I turned to see her. She had black long flowing hair, couldn’t be older than 20. She was quite pale. Probably a girl I could have seen walking around my university campus. Her face was spotless, but her arms had a few scars.

I didn’t know what to say. It took me a whole 10 seconds to respond.

“…it hurts.” I eventually managed. “…Who are you?”

“Hold still okay?” she said. “I have to apply this so the swelling stops.”

I didn’t have a shirt on. I looked down at my body and in the places I had been hit, the bruises were very elevated and a deep purple.

I nodded.

“Listen.” she whispered softly. “I won’t have much time here.”

“I heard about what happened to you.” she continued. “You probably have a lot of questions, but we have a policy of no questions. I’ll tell you as much as I can. Don’t mention this to anyone, or they could hurt you again.”

“But where am I?” I asked.

“You’re in the medical unit of a mining company. The only people brought here are first timers for a medical inspection, and people too severely injured to work.”

I nodded.

“Okay, I should rephrase that.” she added. “It’s less of a mining company and more of a plantation or something. In other words, you’re a slave. Please don’t tell anyone I said that.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I simply stayed quiet.

“The company paid money to the people who kidnapped you to essentially own you. I don’t know all the logistics, but I’ve heard they have people wandering the streets at night looking for the poor and people that won’t be missed.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” I asked naively.

“It sure is.” she whispered. “But the king has never found out about this place, and the top dogs like to keep it that way.”

She made a gesture with her index finger over her mouth, indicating I should keep quiet about this.

“I see. How much more time do I have with you?” I asked.

“A bit longer.” she said. “I won’t release you until I’ve finished applying all this ointment, so don’t worry.”

She started rubbing stuff on my chest and stomach. I wished I had worked out a bit more before I came. I still had some belly chub.

Just then I noticed the two wands still in my possession were out in the open, hanging out of my pants.

I immediately reacted, trying to put my other arm on top to hide them.

She giggled.

“Don’t worry. I think magic is cool.” She smiled.

“So do I.” I said. “Too bad I don’t have any.”

“Oh, really? I heard most wizards get their first power at a young age… to be honest I was confused how they managed to catch one. But that explains it.” she said.

“How old are you by the way?” I asked curiously.

“I’m 20. I’ve been here for almost half my life.” she said, getting up and doing a slight spin. “And you?”

“A bit older.” I said calmly.

My stomach rumbled. I had forgotten that I was completely starving.

She chuckled under her breath.

“Oh my. Here, I was instructed to give you this once you were feeling better. The first one’s free.” She pulled up a tray of food that was next to her.

Food. Food!!

There were 2 slices of baked bread. A banana and one drum stick of unseasoned chicken. The chicken was a bit cold to the touch. But I didn’t care.

I ravenously stuffed my mouth, ripping apart everything swiftly. My cheeks remained puffed full of food until nothing was left.

The whole tray of food was gone in about a minute.

She pulled out a jug of water.

“Don’t forget this.” she said.

I snatched the jug away from her almost as fast as she showed it to me.

I drank it in large gulps. Gone in 5 seconds.

“AHHHHH!” For the first time in a while, I smiled as I pushed the jug away from me.

“I’ve never seen anyone clear the tray so fast!” she exclaimed. “You have a real talent for eating.”

As she said that, I started feeling self conscious about my stomach chub again.

My head was starting to feel clearer. It was if I had been stuck under rubble and a bulldozer had cleared it away.

I cleared my throat.

“Is it alright if I ask you a few more questions?” I said, looking straight into her eyes.

She sat up and changed to a serious expression.

“Sure, but try to limit your curiosity.” she cautioned.

I wasn’t sure how much time I had left with her, so I had to ask the most important things right away.

“Is this the only thing you do here?” I asked.

“Umm, I also do cleanup and kitchen duties.” She said, with a look of suspicion in her eyes.

“I didn’t mean anything by it. I just wanted to know if I could see you again.” I explained.

“Oh…” her mouth dropped slightly.

“Well,” she said in a hurry, “it’s possible.”

“Also what did you mean that the first meal is free?” I asked. “What do I have to do to eat again?”

“Your field master will let you know all of that.” she explained. “You’ll have an orientation along with all the new ‘recruits’.” She said, bending two fingers up and down.

Just as I was about to ask another question, footsteps closed in on our room.

“How are you, recruit?” a large man in some kind of uniform asked me.

“I think he’s just about ready, sir.” she said respectfully. He seemed very annoyed.

She continued. “In fact, I think he’s better than expected. He cleared the tray in only…”

“Was I talking to you?” he barked, slapping her across the face.

She yelped and let out a frail whimper. That looked like it really hurt.

“You answer when you’re spoken to.” he said with a menacing look.

My anger flared, but I tried hard not to let it show.

“Get up,” he continued, turning to me, “it’s time we get you acquainted to things around here.”

I immediately got up and stood at attention.

He eyed me up and down, peering also into my pockets.

“Looks like the rumors were true. A wizard has joined our ranks.” he said, with a look like he was ready to crack a smile.

He laughed.

“Oh boy, if you’re one of those super humans, I’m gonna work you twice as hard.” he said.

“Sir, he doesn’t have any powers. Please don’t be too hard on him.” the girl interjected.

No, why did you open your mouth?

“If I wanted your opinion, I would’ve asked it for it!” he said, losing his temper. He looked like he was going to close in and punch her. A large truck of a man like that would have left a lot of damage to a girl like her if he got serious.

Instinctively, I jumped in front of her.

The uniform man stopped his fist.

“Hmm.” he said.

He readied himself and put some preparation into it. I felt a massive object strike my chest. Except that massive object was his fist.

I was knocked down, and my chest was on fire.

I gasped for air.

“Be out front in five minutes.” he said leaving the room. “And next time, don’t play the hero.”

It took 2 minutes for me to stop feeling like I was underwater. Slowly my breathing returned to normal. The girl looked at me with guilt in her eyes.

Once I regained composure, she asked, “are you okay?”

“…yeah.” I said, trying to act tough.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know.” she said, frowning.

“You stood up to him for me. I wasn’t going to let him do that to you.” I said.

“You should get going.” she said with a look of sadness.

“…yeah” I said, turning to face the door.

“Wait”, I said, “what’s your name?”

She paused for a moment and looked away.

“My name is Riley. It’s nice to meet you.” she said quietly.

Riley. That sounds like a name from Earth.

I’ll remember that. Riley.

I headed out the door and found my way outside where I saw the freakishly large uniform man who had hit me and about fifty other people standing in neatly formed intervals.

Chapter 11: The Barracks and the Field Master

The first words I heard when I finished assuming my place in line were passed to me in a whisper:

“Welcome to hell.”

“…So you grunts have been selected for what may be the true calling of your life. The purpose of your existence.” the man who had struck me said, his voice filling the room.

“I am your field master. Vaughan. Vaughan Von Strohn. It’s my duty to make sure you succeed here. You start off the lowest of the low. But one day, with enough hard work and determination, you could end up like me.” he said impactfully.

“I was once a grunt like you. But the higher-ups saw potential in me. And soon I was in charge of my own unit. You see. Someone like me who didn’t deserve anything got to become somebody. The bosses can change your life in a second. In that way, they’re like gods.” he said, with a look of admiration.

He marched side to side, looking like he was carefully thinking his next words.

“All of you here today are very lucky to be assigned to my unit. The other field masters are soft. Breaks every hour. Sometimes lunch and snacks. Ha!” he laughed.

“Well, we’re not having none of that here.” he continued. “Why? Because we’re the toughest unit.”

Then with a fist in the air so clenched that his blood vessels could burst, he bellowed, “if you’re not getting your hands dirty for the sake of the company, you don’t get to eat. Someone oughta teach them that.”

A nervous atmosphere enveloped the room.

People started looking at each other and whispering among themselves.

Von Strohn looked at the recruits and his giant hand swallowed air as it become a fist, almost theatrically.

The whispering stopped.

“Good. When I do that, it means silence.” he said.

“Well that’s enough for introductions. Today is your first day out in the field. It’s currently 2pm. You’ll have your meal at 8pm and then it’s lights out at 9pm. Then wake again at 4 am. I fought for 7 hours of sleep for you all. Normally it’s 6 ½ hours. Because of that, I expect you to thank me by giving it your all out there.” he said.

Wait, we only get one meal a day? How are we gonna survive on that?

I was used to eating one meal a day sometimes. But I made up for it by making it a feast. If the tray lunch I had just eaten was any indication of the amount of food we would receive, we were all going to starve.

“You’ll be given your pickaxe and head as a group through the caves. Once inside, you’ll each be heading in a different direction and start hacking away at the rocks you find. You’ll be looking for coal, but iron and other types of ores you may find, make sure to pick up as well. If you find gemstones, you’re looking at possibly taking the next day off. Goes without saying gold and silver are even better.”

At that, a few people seemed happy to hear about a day off.

“One more thing. By tomorrow night, you’ll be selecting two people among you to be the unit leaders. Those two will report directly to me. Their job is to let me know who’s slacking off. They’ll be taking time away from their mining duties every so often to check on the rest of you.”

Shit. Middle management. And they’re making us nominate the leaders. That’s basically asking to compete against each other for popularity.

“Everyone follow me.” he ordered.

We followed him out of the large building that reminded me of a prison. There was nothing close by, no road, it was like we were in the middle of nowhere. Just coarse dirt paths and a lot of coarse, rough desert soil everywhere. The land sloped and declined naturally, and was cracked all over.

I was genuinely confused about how they replenished their supplies and managed to provide for what was probably a few thousand people in such a place.

As we walked to the mines, the field master pointed to several facilities along the way. There was a shower we would be allowed to use for 10 minutes once a day.

So this place has running water.

I didn’t realize it sooner but this world (at least this country) had electricity. I don’t know why I didn’t notice that the fancier buildings in the Royal Shopping District had electrical lighting installed. I guess I was so used to seeing it, I really had thought little of the things we took for granted back home. And because there weren’t a ton of power plants around cities, I assumed that Renshire had graduated from direct current in favor of alternating current. One power plant could probably supply cities far away by using high voltage to transmit energy via utility poles very large distances. So my surroundings made sense.

Ok, so based on everything I’ve seen... the electricity, the color photographs in the book, the running water. I would put this world close to the year 1900 in Earth’s timeline. But still, there’s so many things that seem medieval about this world. One could argue for the year 1600 too..

The book I read also said that Renshire was established in 1503. They had developed technology to beat magic by then. So maybe some primitive guns or crossbows?

But still what is magic supposed to look like in this world?

These questions kept me occupied. We were getting close to the mines, which were located about a mile away from the barracks. I was walking in place with a bit over 50 other people. There were all kinds. Men, women, even some teenagers. Old men too. A few guards with guns made sure no one tried to run away.

The sun was beating down hot on all of us. It didn’t help that they didn’t give us any kind of personal water container. Or some heat protective uniform. We were all still wearing the clothes we came in.

Oh yeah, I’m a slave.

But I wasn’t going to realize the full extent of that word until later.

Chapter 12: The Pits

The mines seemed to be a fairly elaborate operation. Right at the entrance to the main cave were large wooden columns erected to support a narrow passage into the inside. The inside was illuminated by a row of incandescent bulbs protected by a glass frame. Each hung at neatly placed intervals.

We walked inside to a massive cave that stretched very far and wide. Out in the distance we could see tunnels that connected to other parts of the cave. They seemed to be dark, unlike the current area that was illuminated by hundreds of lamps.

They must have taken a long time to do this way out here. But they seem to stop short after this area for some reason. Maybe a supply issue.

“Welcome to the mining caves.” Von Strohn the field master said. “Or as we like to call it.. the pits.”

“This place will test your resolve and commitment to the company. Everyone gather around the cart and I’ll distribute your equipment.”

Each of us was given a pickaxe, a set of loose leather garments (no gender distinction), a hat and gloves, and an empty water pouch.

“Put on your new clothes right now and pile your old ones here.” he said, pointing to an empty spot on the ground.

Each of us looked around confused. I mean there were women and a few teenage girls here.

How are we supposed to change with everyone watching each other like this?

“Move it! Or there’s no food tonight!” Von Strohn barked.

Finally, one of the older men spoke up and said, “women and girls, please change together over there away from us.”

Great thinking, old man.

The women grabbed their things and quickly moved to where the old man was pointing. It was a natural cave formation that could provide cover. Because everyone was scared of Von Strohn, they didn’t waste a second removing their clothes and changing into the new ones.

Meanwhile the men did the same and soon everyone was ready. I put mine on.

The shirt had deep belly pockets, so I could put both the wands inside. Just had to be careful not to drop them.

The pile of clothes grew and then Von Strohn started grabbing piles at a time and throwing them in a nearby furnace.

“You won’t be needing these anymore!” he said, heaving the first pile.

Some of us loudly objected.

“Those clothes were a gift!” one woman said.

“Stop it!” a teenage boy shouted, trying to get his back. Von Strohn pushed him away with just a sleight of his hand

No!! Those clothes were the last thing I still had from my world.

I had to watch as he grabbed the pile that had mine entangled in it, be thrown into a fiery pit.

The clothes were burned up and black smoke came out of the mouth.

“Alright line up, so I can assign you to different spots.” Von Strohn said.

“From this moment on, you’re going to be assigned a number. That number is going to be your identity. If I call for that number, you had better show up.” he commanded.

We were randomly assigned a number from 100 to 150.

I was number 103.

It took about 5 minutes to give everyone their numbers.

Once we were sure we had our numbers, Von Strohn started to speak.

“You’re going to be branded your number on your right shoulder. Line up.”

Next to the furnace on a small table were a few metal stamps with insulated holders with numbers 1-9. He took each of them and put the numbered parts in the furnace.

We formed a line. The first person was 101.

Person 101 was an old man. We watched as he used two heated stamps with the numbers ‘1’ and ‘0’ to tattoo the old man’s arm with the number on his left shoulder. Thankfully, they were small. But the old man cried out in pain.

One by one each of us got our branding.

After it was my turn, I looked at my right shoulder and saw the number ‘103’ carved into my flesh.

“Now, you’ll all be traveling in groups of 5 in the direction I tell you. You’ll be joining other units like this one under the direction of field masters like myself. Finally, you’ll be digging wherever they or I tell you and exploring the cave further. Pay attention because you’ll be doing this every day.” he said.

Wait then what was the point of assigning leaders for our group?

The groups were set simply: 100-104, 105-109, 110-114, and so on, put into groups 1 to 10.

“Pick one person among you. That person is going to be holding one of these small lamps to light the way.”

Each of us chose our representative.

In my group there was a woman around her mid 30’s, a man in his 40’s, an old man, a teenage girl, and myself.

The younger man volunteered to carry the lamp from our group.

“Group 1 to the tunnel furthest to the left. Group 2 to the one next to that and so on!” he said.

Per our orders, the groups started heading in the tunnel they were assigned.

Our tunnel was long and narrow, with the only visibility coming from the lamp. Thankfully the caves seemed to be clear of any bats or animals. The only sounds were our footsteps and the occasional drop of mineral water from the cave’s crystal stalactites. Perhaps limestone.

The tunnels stretched for about half a mile.

In the meantime, the group was isolated from everyone else while we walked to our destination.

For the first minute or so, we walked in silence, stealing idle glances at the other members of the group.

Finally, someone spoke up, the woman in her 30’s.

“So, hi everyone.” she started, dusting off her clothes. “Maybe we should get to know each other a little since we’ll be working together.”

“I’ll start”, she continued. “My name is Elsabeth. I’m 34. Before coming here I was a seamstress in a small village.”

The man picked up where she left off. “I’m Taylor. 47. I was part of the militia of my village down in Reidom in the south. Until we were attacked.”

The old man went next. “Sorry to hear that young man. I’m Harry. 68 years old. I was a retired engineer from a poor village.”

All these people were from villages. I’m guessing attacks are commonplace? Or maybe they were abducted like me?

Elsabeth put her hand on old Harry’s shoulder.

“I wish you hadn’t ended up here, Mister Harry. “ she said in a comforting voice.

Harry sighed and said, “I guess you never know where life will take you. We just have to make the best of it.”

They all looked to me next.

Crap. Crap! What am I supposed to say? That I’m from another world?

I thought of an excuse. Nah, I can say anything, they have no way to know it’s a lie.

“I’m Jay. I’m 25 years old. I… uh… was an apprentice engineer from the city of Meade. Then somehow I ended up here.”

Last, the girl was up next. “I’m Samantha and I’m 19. I was from Meade too… a student at a university… until I got kidnapped.”

Damn. Those guys were ripping people from their homes and families and putting them here to become slaves.

If I ever do get magic powers, I’m going to find the Trash brothers and rat man and destroy their lives.

I swore to myself that if I got out of here I’d put an end to this whole operation and get justice for all the people whose lives were taken away from them.

Chapter 13: Slaves at Work

We walked the rest of the way there in silence. It took about 10 minutes at our pace. We found ourselves in a smaller pit than before and it was partially illuminated.

There were groups from other units in the pit. They all had different numbers. Some were in the 4 digits and I felt bad they had an extra digit to have burned into their skin. There were about 100 people overall, including someone who looked like the person in charge.

“Everyone, I’m field master Ryland.” said a brown haired man of average build, carrying a whip. The field masters seemed to have a gold-colored pendant they wore. I thought Von Strohn’s was just his personal flair. But this confirmed it.

“Please excuse this whip I’m carrying. Hopefully I won’t have to use it.” he said, cracking his whip.

“If everyone behaves, we’ll have 5-minute breaks every hour to refill your containers. And in 3 hours we’ll have a pre-dinner snack that my assistants brought for everyone.”

People cheered.

That’s not what Von Strohn said would happen.

I told my group, “did you hear that? Von Strohn said we’d get none of that as part of his unit, but we are anyway.”

They all nodded in amazement.

I wanted to figure out what was going on.

“Excuse me, sir.” I asked after Ryland stopped talking. Everyone’s eyes turned to me.

“We were part of field master Von Strohn’s unit. I was just wondering why we’re being watched under a different field master.” I said politely.

“Well, the field masters rotate on a daily basis. Even though you’re part of Von Strohn’s unit, a different field master might be watching this group every day. Somedays me, somedays Von Strohn, and maybe one or two others the rest.” he explained, returning the politeness.

At last someone who’s not a total douchebag! I thought happily.

This guy’s gonna give us breaks and food. We need to get on his good side.

“So, let me explain what you’ll be doing. You will break into the group you were assigned with from your unit’s field master and mine the rocks you see. Try to also mine through what look like dead ends, as you’ll be helping to uncover and create new tunnels.” he said.

“Now everyone I hope we can get along and work efficiently”, he said. “You may talk amongst yourselves. Just keep the volume low. Any fights that break out will be dealt with severely. Alright, let’s start!” he motioned to us.

And just like that our group found a pair of rocks and we started hacking away at them.

Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest.

Over and over, we repeated the same sequence of actions. And each time took more effort than the last as our energy was drained.

Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest.

I endlessly swung the pickaxe at the rocks, hoping to break a big one into smaller chunks and reveal some kind of ore.

It seemed like an eternity, like that one Greek story where a man is condemned to roll a boulder up a hill, watch it fall, and do it all over again.

Finally, we got our first break.

“Great job everyone. Line up to get more water if you need it. If not, just hang tight for 5 minutes.”

I dropped the pickaxe on the floor and plopped along with it.

It had been less than an hour and I was already aching.

I laid on the ground like a starfish. I noticed all the older people in the group had gone to fetch water.

Only I and Samantha were left.

She approached me and sat down.

“This sucks, huh?” she asked, trying to make eye contact with me.

I looked up at her and nodded. Honestly I didn’t want to talk, it would just create more labor for myself, what with moving my mouth muscles and all.

“At least it looks like we’re getting a snack in a few hours”. she said, smiling.

At that I perked up a bit.

‘Yeah I can’t wait”, I finally said. “The last meal I had was too small and I’m starving.”

“Yeah… about that…” she said. “Would you mind giving yours to me?”

“What? Yeah, sorry I do mind. Like I said I’m really hungry.” I said with a serious expression.

“Well, you know what I heard?” she leaned in and whispered, “that you’re a wizard. Doesn’t help that your wands are sticking out like that.” she said, with a sly grin. “And well, you see… wizards are the people that kidnapped you, me, and everyone else here.”

She started moving and jumping around as if she were doing hopscotch, taking care not to steer too far from me.

“People might not be so friendly if they find out about you. So I’ll keep your secret if you make it worth my while.” she said, winking at me. She started to hum in a soft tone.

So that’s how it is.

If it had been a few hours ago, I might have caved in, afraid of what others would think of me if they found out.

She thinks she’s going to get away with threatening me and take my snack. I’m sick of having things taken away from me. No, I’ll figure out a way out of this.

“So you’re threatening me?” I asked politely.

“Only if you choose to see it that way.” she whispered.

“Yeah, and you don’t think I could knock a couple of your teeth out?” I asked menacingly.

“Oh you probably could, but I don’t think it’ll go well with the guy with the whip.” She said, pointing to Ryland.

“At least you’re not as stupid as you sound. But you’re forgetting one thing.” I said, grinning.

“And what’s that?” she pressed.

“You’ll see. Go ahead and try to tell others. Don’t forget that we’re slaves. You might be surprised if no one comes to the rescue of a slave girl in a room full of slaves. Hope you’re not risking losing your front teeth over a little snack.” I challenged her.

It’s not a full proof plan, but it could work. If she tries to tell anyone I’m a wizard, I’ll whip out the fact that I have two of them and put the ownership of one of them on her. Since we’re both from Meade, maybe I could also pin the crazy ex-girlfriend card on her and hide the wands in advance. I have options here.

She stared at me without saying anything.

I maintained eye contact without breaking.

Finally her once friendly expression turned into a scowl.

She turned around silently and walked away.

2 minutes later, break time was over and it was back to work.

I hope defending myself like that was the right call. She could easily start planting rumors about me that could blow up in my face later. She definitely seems like the type. For now, I’ll keep up my confident front.

It irritated me that I now had a new enemy, especially one in my own unit.

Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest.

The dirt was rough and sometimes there were large clumps with rocks that hurt to touch.

I just wanted the day to be over.

Chapter 14: Night of the First Day

Seeing as how Samantha saw through my shirt pockets, I decided to stuff them with dirt from the rocks. With enough dirt, I’ll at least hide them from plan sight.

Eventually snack time came. We got to eat 2 mini bowl-shaped rice balls each. I was starving. And so was the rest of my group.

When I passed by Samantha, I didn’t show any emotion. I waited in line for my turn. When I got it, I carefully walked to an empty corner so I could sit down and eat.

Samantha had gotten hers already and was sitting down. Since she sat down pretty close to the distribution area, I couldn’t avoid walking far from her. Thinking she might try something, I paid careful attention to my feet.

Sure enough, her foot was stretched out where I was walking.

Trying to trip me. This girl is going to be a huge pain in the ass.

I avoided her and when I sat down I looked at her coldly.

She glanced this way and smiled innocently.

I decided to ignore her and eat my snacks in peace.

With several more hours of digging, the time in the pits was coming to a close. Ryland wrapped up everything and congratulated the new guys (my group and a few others) on our first day.

I walked up to Ryland and said, “thank you sir. It was a pleasure having you be our field master.”

“No problem. I hope your time here won’t be too bad.” he said.

It was now half an hour before dinner. We had to walk back on our own with our equipment. It would have been nice if they had some kind of lockers, but there was nothing.

By the time I got back to the barracks I was so exhausted, I almost wanted to skip dinner and go straight to bed. But the smell lured me in, and I found my place in line.

There were about 3 units together in the cafeteria. I figured they must do rotations of 3 every half an hour or something to feed everyone.

Alright no sight of the witch.

I was happy for a little while.

As I thought, the dinner was meager. A bowl of tomato soup, cheese, a few slices of bread, and a skinny stick of dried meat.

The cafeteria was full of noise. People were socializing with people they already knew, or those who had been lucky enough to be integrated into social circles.

I found an empty spot on one of the tables and sat down.

I jealously tore at my food until there was nothing left.

Soon, there was an announcement from Von Strohn.

“Listen up, grunts.” he started. “It’s about your sleeping arrangements.”

We turned to him like hawks.

“Don’t worry it’s very simple. Even the simpletons among you won’t find it that hard. We’re gonna be passing out sleeping bags. There’s only one per person. If you lose it, you ain’t getting another one. Units sleep together in one room. You have 30 minutes left and it’s lights out. That is all.” he grumbled.

Ugh. There’s no AC in here. Even if they leave the windows open, it’s gonna be hot as hell with 50 people in the same room.

I started wondering if AC had been invented yet, because none of the buildings I had been to had any, despite having rudimentary electrical lighting.

I looked down at my hands. They were covered in blisters.

When I looked up, Samantha’s face greeted me. Two guys that didn’t seem like they were from my unit were on either side of her, looking at me strangely, with growing pressure. I sensed minor bloodlust in their faces.

“What do you want, Samantha?” I growled, hiding my fear.

She leaned into me. “I was just telling my new friends about you. How you pushed me down and stole my snack”, she whispered softly, hiding her facial expression from the 2 guys, and laughing dryly. “Don’t worry, I haven’t told anyone your secret. Yet.”

She wants to keep me in fear, so she won’t tell my secret yet.

“This the guy, Sam? The one who stole your snack?” One burly man mentioned.

She nodded, pretending to look pained. “That’s him. Look at the tomato stains on his collar. He’s a slob and a thief.”

“So you like stealing from girls, huh?” The guy barked, grabbing me by the shirt collar. I instinctively tried to get his hand off, but then the other guy jabbed me in the back of the head.

“Stop—I didn’t steal anything. Argh!” I said massaging the place I had been struck. But they wouldn’t listen. All I could do was raise my arms in front of me to try to block their hits.

I threw myself on the ground to try to roll away from their reach and catch my breath. After my exhaustion from earlier, the last thing I wanted was a fight.

The guards in the cafeteria noticed something was up and blew a whistle. 2 of them had loaded guns pointed at us and 3 other ones tied our arms back.

Samantha wore the look of an innocent, hurt girl, as if she had been a victim in the fight. None of the guards did anything to her. I was really starting to hate her.

“Stand down!” one guard hit the bigger guy who had confronted me. That felt good.

“And here’s a little something for trying to start chaos in here.” another guard said, kicking my shin with steel pointed boots. A sharp pain made me cry out.

I noticed Samantha slip out and head down the hallway.

“You 3 are getting a write-up. You’re getting half rations of food for the next 2 weeks. That’ll teach ya to start shit in here.” the lead guard grumbled, setting down his gun.

They made us find our names in some forms, warning that if we lied we’d be found out and the punishment would be far worse.

Rat man must have told them my name. They had first and last like I was enrolled in school or something.

Eventually the guards left us alone but were still eyeing us like a hawk. I caught them filling out some paperwork in the corner of my eye, glancing back in this direction every now and then. My 2 assailants dispersed.

I wanted to leave badly.

The room Von Strohn said we were going to be in might not have anyone there yet.

I decided to get out of the noisy cafeteria and be the first one there.

Von Strohn’s office was on the way to the sleeping room. As I was getting close, I started getting anxiety. That man was one of the most frightening people I’d ever met. And I’d already felt what it was like to be on the receiving end of his wrath. I decided to speed walk past there and not look back.

But I picked up several noises that I couldn’t look past.

Am I hearing things?

I pressed my ear against the wall and listened in.

When the sounds got in focus, I could hear Von Strohn and some girl in the room. Both were moaning. The girl seemed to be making exaggerated sounds, but Von Strohn seemed to be really going at it. His huffing was like the wolf getting ready to blow the three little pigs’ house away.

It was then that I figured out who the girl was.

It was Samantha.

Of course.

Ugh. I thought angrily.

Thinking about Samantha made my mood worse, so I walked away.

I finally made it to the room. There were sliding glass doors to get inside and I used the remainder of my strength to open them and stretch my sleeping bag.

There was one other person besides me. It was Harry from my group.

“Jay, didn’t see you there.” he said weakly.

Even in the dark, I could see that he had been crying.

“Is something wrong, Harry?” I asked nicely.

“Oh, I’m just not used to the work is all.” he said softly.

Making a 68 year old retired man do heavy manual labor for 6 hours… they could have easily stuck him in the kitchen. These people sicken me.

“You did great hanging in there. It is really impressive at your age.” I said, trying to come up with something nice.

“Thanks. You know when I was your age, my journeyman engineer would have us do heavy exercise before coming to work. He would always say, `your skills are only as sharp as your endurance`”, Harry reminisced.

“I’m sure you were all the better for it, Harry.” I said. I really wasn’t sure what to say to him. I couldn’t really relate, so I just tried to keep the conversation going.

“You remind me of myself, Jay. I saw you keeping to yourself today. Take it from an old man: having friends is one of life’s greatest joys.” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“You’re right. I guess I’m having some trouble fitting in here. But maybe you can be my friend, Harry.” I said, extending a hand.

“Only if you’ll have me.” he returned the gesture and smiled.

“Of course. We should both get an early night in. I’m… very tired.” I said, turning to my sleeping bag.

“And we’ll have a few minutes of peace before the crows fly in.” he said, jokingly.

I laughed dryly. “Yeah.”

I settled into my sleeping bag. The rest of the unit wouldn’t come for a few more minutes. I tried to fall asleep as quickly as possible. But thinking of Harry was keeping me awake.

We got lucky today since we arrived on the spot past 2pm. Tomorrow we’ll be expected there as early as 5:30 am and we won’t get out till 7:30 or 8 pm. That’s more than twice today’s shift. I don’t know if Harry is going to make it.

I felt genuine fear for my new friend. I shut my eyes and tried to push away these thoughts.

Chapter 15: Unit Leaders

It was the 4th day since I had arrived in this world. I was being forced to mine in intense heat inside some caves as a slave. I had no idea where my family was or if they were safe. But the thought of seeing them again kept me going.

Upon waking to loud clanging from Von Strohn we all hopped in our uniforms, put away our sleeping bags and headed to the mines with our equipment. We got into our groups and headed into our groups’ respective tunnels to the mining site.

Most of us were stinky since they didn’t let us shower yesterday. Said 6 hours of work didn’t deserve one.

We’d have to make it until night.

To my horror when we arrived, our field master for the day was Von Strohn. He looked menacing in his uniform and gold pendant. And he cracked his whip every once in a while like a trigger happy child.

“Before we begin,” he said. “I want you to nominate 2 potential unit leaders among yourselves. If there’s more than two, we’ll have a selection round throughout the day to narrow it down.”

My group looked at each other. It would be great if someone from our group was chosen because they would have a possible say in defending us if something happened, and they wouldn’t turn us in for slacking off.

Without hesitation, old man Harry looked at me and said, “I think Jay would be a great choice. A young man like him is going to be a fine asset. We should give them the opportunity to better themselves into strong leaders for the rest of us.”

I was genuinely touched. Maybe he was being nice, but I wasn’t used to kindness these past few days.

The others stared at me for a second and then Elsabeth and Taylor both nodded.

Samantha protested.

“I see your point. But I disagree. I think I would make a great leader. In my university I was running for student vice president of the entire student body. I think the job should go to someone with experience.” She said in a confident voice.

Like hell. The job cannot go to her. If she gets this title, she’s going to make my life a living nightmare.

“I thank you guys for the nomination. I am touched that you believe in me, and I promise to live up to your expectation. As they say, if your peers believe in you, that’s enough to go on. I’ll be running for it.” I said proudly, trying to drown out Samantha.

She got in front of me, blocking my view in front of the others. “I don’t know if you all witnessed what happened last night, but Jay got into a fight in the cafeteria. He and two guys from a different unit were arguing and it quickly turned physical. I tried to stop it, but you know how boys can be when they want to prove themselves. I just think, for someone who’s going to be watching over all of us, I wouldn’t be at ease knowing his temper could cut loose at any moment.”

Taylor looked uneasy for a moment. “I—I did see that…Now I sure didn’t stick my nose in the whole thing, but if I recall correctly, Jay was the one approached by those two. I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt and call it self defense. He doesn’t seem to be the type to talk with his fists.”

“I’m sorry sweetie, but I still would like Jay to try. I do think this job is better suited to a strong young man. These jobs can get very physical if there’s an emergency.” Elsabeth said. Taylor nodded in agreement.

“I had a talk with Jay last night. Elsabeth, Taylor, Samantha, I know a good man when I see one. I’ll put my honor on the line when I say we can trust Jay to step up for this role.” Harry put his hand kindly on my shoulder.

Samantha was silently fuming. Her frustration was pouring out of her face despite her best efforts to keep it hidden.

“Are you ready?” Von Strohn asked.

Besides me, there were 9 other people who were nominated by their peers, since there were 10 groups. 8 other young men, a woman, and Samantha who nominated herself. So much for two nominees; every group wanted someone from theirs to get the role. Maybe it would mean more breaks for them;.

Von Strohn readied a speech. “Congratulations to the ones standing here. You’ve been selected by your peers, so I hope you live up to your potential.”

Just as Von Strohn was about to say something else, one of the nominees from another group said, “Sir, I overheard the conversation from their group.” He said pointing to me and Samantha. “He was the nominee. Not her.”

Von Strohn just grumbled, “I looked over these nominees already. You have a problem with my decisions, maggot?”

“No, sir, it’s just—"

Von Strohn’s facial veins visibly protruded as his face turned red. “It seems some of us forget whose leadership they follow.”

The nominee winced and covered his mouth, realizing what a fool he’d been, but it was too late. Von Strohn was on him like a schoolyard bully. He cracked his whip and pushed him down, lashing him 3 times on his back.

He clenched his jaw, ready to spit, and started masticating his lower jaw muscles.

“Does anyone else have something to say about my nominees?”

No one pressed it further. Only a fool would engage him right now.

Von Strohn stretched his neck and regained some sense of composure. He made a motion to shoo the nominee that had spoken up. Now there was one less.

“Alright. It seems we have our choices. I’m going to choose the hardest working from among you today. I’m going to pay close attention to all of you. If I see you slacking off or doing anything that makes you look weak, you’re out. Prove to me that you’re worthy.” Von Strohn declared.

I’m going to try my hardest. I have about 14 hours to go.

We were dismissed and joined the rest of our unit at the rocks.

Because we had Von Strohn, we’d have no breaks the whole day and no snack.

I was just worried about Harry. I’d have to make sure Von Strohn was paying more attention to me than to him.

And luckily, he was. The 10 nominees were all he seemed to care about.

He eyed us like a hawk.

More than once, I met his gaze and each time quickly turned around and used all my strength for a big swing.

On several occasions, he came up to me and spit in my face.

What the—?

I tried my hardest not to show disgust, knowing it was probably a test.

I also noticed he liked to use his whip like if it was a toy.

“That’s some fine work, grunt.” he said to me. I was about to say thank you but instead winced in pain when he decided to whip me in the ass. The mixed signals I was getting from him exhausted me.

I couldn’t say anything back. He laughed. “Good reaction. Take it like a man. Keep it up.”

I hate this guy.

About 2 hours in, I saw Samantha drop her pickaxe and walk over to talk to Von Strohn.

I stole glances as much as I could, so I could tell they were smiling to each other and laughing.

Then she walked to a little corner away from everyone and started sitting down. She mined very slowly. The pile of ore she collected from the rocky dirt was heaps smaller than anyone else’s, including mine.

Okay, so she’s out. But still, why isn’t he saying anything?

Time marched on slowly. The slaves hacked away at the rocks, made clearings into new tunnels and isolated the spoils from the rocks.

My throat was scratchy and dry. Good thing no one was talking to me. In fact, no one was talking at all at this point. Just hacking away endlessly at the rocks, cave stalags. I decided to try to make a game out of it.

Ok. All this mining is raising my endurance skill and luck. The more I mine, the closer I am to striking gold and getting a day off.

3 hours later, I heard a body hit the floor. The loud thump reverberated to every corner of the cave as an echo. I turned my head to see who it was.

It was Harry. A concerned chatter ensued by some of the slaves. The others around him said had been breathing harder for a while, but there was nothing they could do. I quickly dropped my pickaxe to inspect the situation.

Harry was on the ground, having a hard time breathing, like if he was suffering an asthmatic attack but not quite. The heat and exhaustion must have made it too hard to catch his breath.

“Alright I’m going to need someone to walk him to the infirmary.” Von Strohn said, walking over to Harry.

“Please let me, sir.” I volunteered. “I am his friend and he trusts me. I’ll have him there and be back before you blink.”

Just as he was going to say something, Samantha got in front of me and interjected, “No please allow me. This is a delicate situation and a woman would calm his nerves.”

“Sam, get him there.” he ordered, ignoring me.

She skipped happily to where Harry was and picked him up, put his arm around her shoulder and tried to walk with him. He wouldn’t budge.

“On second thought,” she said, “it might be best if there are two of us. He’s a bit heavier than he looks.”

“Alright 103, get going.” he huffed, rolling his eyes and pointing to me.

I grabbed Harry’s other arm and we carried him out.

Once we were out of sight from Von Strohn, Samantha let go of his arm and said, “you’re plenty strong. I think you can handle this.”

“You’re right I can.” I retorted, trying to keep my cool.

Forget her. I have to get him into a cool room quickly.

To my dismay, it was even hotter outside than before. I managed to load Harry on my back after several attempts and carried him with my back arching down. He was heavier than he looked. I thought I might collapse myself. When we made it to the infirmary, a medic type was there to take him on the bed. It was Riley.

I hadn’t seen her since I arrived here and I wanted to catch up, but Harry came first.

“What happened?” she asked, analyzing her patient.

“He collapsed while mining and was out of breath. We carried him back here.” I explained.

“Okay, I’m going to need you two to step outside.”

We nodded and left.

I wasn’t going to get the chance to talk with Riley or look over Harry. Von Strohn was expecting me back.

I turned to Samantha and said, “Alright, it’s done. Let’s go back.”

“Umm, you can head back. I’m staying here. Someone has to make sure he’s okay after all.” she said half-heartedly.

Of course.

“Fine, I don’t care. Just actually do your job.” I said.

“Just leave already. I’m tired of seeing your face.” she snapped.

I left and headed back for the mines.

I was a bit relieved Harry wasn’t working anymore. He could rest.

“Where’s Sam?” Von Strohn asked when I got back.

“She wanted to stay there so I didn’t stop her.”

“I’ll talk to her later. Back to work, 103.” he grumbled.

Finally, close to 2 hours later, Samantha came back and picked up her pickaxe.

The day passed.

Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest.

The pickaxe felt like a bag of bricks after 13 hours and my arms felt like gelatin. But I and everyone else had made it through.

“Congrats on your second day.” Von Strohn said.

“I’ll now be announcing the Unit Leaders from the nominees.”

“Number 113, step forward!” he commanded. “You’re now a Unit Leader!”

Number 113 stepped forward to shake Von Strohn’s hand. A few people from his group cheered.

“Now, number 104! Come on forward!” he continued.

Samantha stepped up to shake his hand. He had a warm smile on his face for her. “Congratulations.”

My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

No way. She took a million breaks, disappeared for 2 hours. And she gets the job?

I shook my head slowly, wondering where I had gone wrong.

I worked way harder than her! I took his damn spit on my face, his whip. And she slacked off for most of the day! What gives?!

I shook my head in disbelief. Over and over, I tried to approach it from different angles. Had I not worked as hard as I thought? Did I lose points for taking Harry to the medics?

But then it all started to make sense.

Right. How could I have been so stupid?

They were boning.

They were having sex and she has him wrapped around her finger.

Samantha returned to our unit, looking smug. She turned to look at me for a few seconds, with gloating in her eyes. It was as if her eyes and overall facial expression were saying “Loser!” But there was something more. For a split second, I know a saw something else in those eyes. Something that gave me a prickling sense of dread that would stay with me.

“Everyone head out. Dinner and a shower and then lights out.” Von Strohn said, turning to leave.

That night the cold shower felt harsh against my skin and the food had no taste.

I ate quickly and went to the room to try and get some sleep.

I passed by Von Strohn’s room and again I heard the familiar sounds I heard yesterday, but I shrugged it off.

I set myself inside my sleeping bag and knocked out.

Chapter 16: Living Nightmare

The next morning, I woke up half an hour early to check on Harry. I tiptoed to the infirmary, making sure I wasn’t caught. I approached the room and looked through the transparent window into the room. He was still lying asleep. The door was half open, and I heard talking so I eavesdropped.

“How is he?” Von Strohn asked.

“He’s still recovering, sir.” Riley said.

“I see. Well, have him meet us at the pits by 1pm the latest. No exceptions.” he said. He turned around and started to leave, and I panicked and got out of there.

I hope he’ll be okay.

That morning we did our usual routine and headed to the mines.

Upon arriving to the mining site after going through the narrow dark tunnels with my group, I was once again displeased to learn that Von Strohn would be the field master for the day.

Not only that, but as soon as we got there, Samantha didn’t miss a beat and walked beside him.

“Welcome back grunts. I hope you got plenty of sleep.” he started.

“Today your Unit Leaders will be joining me in helping to increase efficiency.” he said.

I looked at Samantha and she smiled devilishly at me.

I had almost lost hope for the day. But it was about to get much worse.

About half an hour into mining, Samantha walks up to me and says, “you know, you’re swinging it wrong.”

I said, “What? This is how I usually do it. No one’s said anything about it before.”

“It looks sloppy. You should fix that, or I’ll have a word with the field master.”

I tried to adjust my swing to make it harder. That only served to tire me out faster.

Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest.

The rest of the day proceeded in a similar fashion. Every so often, Samantha would yell at someone or me. Her favorite insults were to compare whoever she was yelling at to me.

By the end of the day, I was beat. But I had survived. Thankfully, the food was good and the shower was nice. I realized that Harry hadn’t joined us. After I was done eating, I went by the infirmary and saw that he was no longer in the bed.

Feeling a sharp sense of dread, I went to the room with the sleeping bags and he wasn’t there.

I checked the showers. I checked back in the cafeteria. But he was gone.

Where… where’s Harry?...

I went to sleep that night beside myself with worry.

The next day came. The 6th day of me being in a new world.

None of us realized it before, but being the Unit Leader basically meant being totally exempt from mining. All they had to do was walk around and yell a few things at a few people.

Number 113 still did some mining out of duty, but Samantha just walked around.

It was soon clear to me that I was her favorite target.

“You’re fidgeting and looking around a lot when you should be swinging. Are you being slow on purpose? I hope not, Jay.” she said, turning her face to Von Strohn.

She’s nitpicking every little thing I do. Damn her!

“What’s that?” Von Strohn yelled out in our direction. “Sam, if someone’s slacking off, you have my permission to correct them.”

Samantha looked like she got hit with an idea. She smiled sinisterly. Then took a quick glance around us.

“Hey, start mining more slowly.” she whispered to me. “Or I’m gonna bother you a lot more.”

“What’s your problem?” I demanded angrily. “First you tell me I’m being slow. Now you want me to speed up?”

“Ugh. You’re slow in the head, aren’t you? Don’t forget I know your secret. So do what I say and don’t question it.”

I shook my head in disbelief. I had no power over her in any capacity. She was a unit leader and she knew I was a wizard. People at least ignored me right now. If they found out my secret, I’d become an outcast overnight.

“Fine. Like this?”

I was swinging so slowly, I probably got my pickaxe to the rock every 10 seconds or so.

“Good, keep up that pace for a while. Don’t go any faster.”

She left me alone for about 15 minutes but still eyed me like a hawk.

I don’t get it. Does she want Von Strohn to yell at me? What a child.

But soon I figured out her real purpose.

Mining so slowly, it looked like I was resting and taking it easy compared to everyone else. People around me started to notice. I heard a few whispers from the miners closest to me.

Two of them were in chatter, facing each other.

“Hey, that guy’s just standing there. He barely swings.”

“What gives? I’m working like a dog and he gets to relax?”

Soon the rumor that someone was taking it easy spread through the whole cave.

Even Elsabeth and Taylor were shaking their heads at me.

No one spoke out, though. It was never more than passing whispers, out of fear that they get in trouble if they spoke out. But the resentment towards me was growing. Samantha circled back to me after a while and yelled at me loudly to mine faster.

I heard a few cheers. While others looked my way with contempt.

So she just did this to make herself look good and eat away at my reputation. Her mind games are going to wear me out.

Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest. Pick up. Swing. Rest.

For another 8 hours. Endless repetition. Hands burning. Feet aching from standing in place. My head started to feel extremely hot. The sweat was pouring from my follicles. I started to feel dizzy. I set my pickaxe down for a moment and wiped my head.

I was hoping to sit down for a minute and take a swig at my water pouch when Samantha strolled over.

“Okay, I was being lenient but now you’re way out of line.” she barked, mimicking Von Strohn. “You’re getting a write up.”

“Please, I just need… to sit for one minute. My head is extremely hot. I just… need to drink some water.” I said, feeling out of it.

“No, you’re the only one not working. Do you think that would be fair to the rest of them?”

Von Strohn noticed the commotion and walked up to me, asking, “what’s going on here?”

“I’m writing him up for insubordination.” she said.

“What’d he do?” he asked.

“He refuses to work and just wants to sit.” she continued.

“Oh is that right?” he turned to me.

I was speechless. I knew this girl was heartless, but she’s more than that now.

I couldn’t defend myself. I was too dehydrated and out of it. I was starting to see doubles of Von Strohn.

“Well, I’ll show you what happens to people who refuse to work around here.”

Von Strohn blew his lips like a whistle and the sound made everyone stop what they were doing.

“Everyone gather ‘round. It’s time we make it clear to the slackers what happens to those who don’t work.” he said.

He forcibly got me up and pushed me to a big empty area.

People dropped their pickaxes and started spectating from a distance.

Von Strohn cracked his whip in the air and then brought down a fiery lash on my back.

I howled in pain.

The lashes continued one by one. My clothes were getting slightly torn up. With Von Strohn’s strength behind them, each lash felt like being struck with a burning red, hot hammer.

“3!”

“4!”

“5!”

I broke down. “Please stop, I can’t take it!” I screamed. The nerves on my back were inflamed.

“You were in the running for Unit Leader and can’t take a few lashes? Pathetic.” he hissed.

“6!”

“7!”

“I’ll do anything! I’ll work really hard! I swear!” I shouted.

“8!”

“9!”

“10!...”

From the corner of my eye, I could see Samantha holding back a smile.

I got 15 lashes. By the end, I was nearly unconscious.

“Now get up and get back to work.” he ordered, making a motion as though he were going to give me another.

I stumbled up. It was nearly impossible to stand, but the tremendous fear I felt helped get me back to the rocks.

By a miracle, I survived working until dinner. Samantha stopped picking on me, even though I could barely hold up the pickaxe.

People stared at me as I limped out of the mining site. Taylor helped me by letting me walk with him until we were out of the mines. My speed had slowed so much I was 20 minutes late to the cafeteria.

When I got there, I immediately stood in line, the very last one.

I stumbled in place until it was my turn to grab food when the lunch lady said, “oh you’re number 103? I’m sorry but I was ordered not to give you any food tonight.”

Food was the one thing I had been looking forward to, and now my remaining spirit was crushed.

I lost my strength and dropped to the floor.

A few guys close by that had been there when I was receiving lashes, left their spot and helped me up. Together we made it to the room with my sleeping bag.

“I’m really sorry, man. You didn’t deserve that.” one of them said.

“Yeah, Von Strohn looked like he wanted to kill you.” agreed another wistfully, walking out.

I couldn’t face them.

My body felt destroyed. I still remembered the lashes and winced.

I won’t make it much longer. I hate it here. Please someone. Help me.

My vision became blurry as tears rolled down my eyes. The sleeping bag I was holding provided only a small layer of comfort against the hard, wooden floor. I was not looking forward to sleeping in it, but my body was at its limit

I dropped onto the sleeping.

I tossed and turned in it, trying to find a good position. But they were all equally uncomfortable. I missed my bed.

Soon, I lost consciousness.

I had a strange dream. There were no pictures or anything. Just a voice.

And it said only one thing, “The conditions have been met. Capacity has reached 100%.”

Chapter 17: The Awakening

I woke up. I didn’t feel tired, but slightly alert. But it still felt like some dream-like state. My vision had been replaced with a visual stream from my brain. I was seeing a slow-moving video of some sort.

These visions were all in first person.

In my first vision, I was examining my hands and as I held my wand. I could see my hands and myself in a field of grass, under a stormy sky. Lightning flashed violently and thunder crackled. I saw a visual meter appear in the corner of my vision and I selected a level in the lower tiers. I imagined a spark of electricity similar to the ones generated by a Tesla coil, and a purplish white spark about a foot long appeared about two feet in front of me, making a crackling sound. It vanished just as quickly as it came. Suddenly, my brain was embedded with the knowledge of how to use electrical magic.

In my second vision, I was in a rainforest.  There were lots of animals, such as squirrels, iguanas, even large insects like beetles. I looked down and saw I was naked. For some reason, I was very interested in the animals and started chasing them, until I caught up to one. I saw myself touching a large iguana measuring about 4 feet in length with my wand. Then I saw myself envisioning transforming into one. A white glowish substance, almost liquid, enveloped my wand and soon my body. In a few seconds, I had transformed into an iguana and I still had the consciousness of a human with access to the subset of animal instincts of the animal whose form I had taken. Suddenly, like the first vision, my brain was embedded with the knowledge of how to use animal transformation magic.

In my third vision, I was in a dark room completely devoid of light. There were no sounds or anything I could see except total darkness. Finally, something flicked on an electrical switch to a ceiling light and the light illuminated the room, revealing a barren room with a single object in the center: a small wooden table. I was puzzled about the purpose of me being there, until a strange blackness filled the room, becoming more concentrated, and finally taking the shape of a human but looking as it was made out of a black light. The shadowy figure materialized before me and started moving around. It seemed to have a consciousness of its own. The shadow then grabbed the table and flung it across the room. Suddenly like my previous visions, my brain was embedded with the knowledge of how to use dark magic.

I had a few other visions that involved my wand, but I was unsure of what to make of them. Some seemed to involve the presence of other wands, and I was confused by what they meant.

Slowly the last vision faded, and my eyes refocused to light reflected off my real surroundings and I saw that I was still in the room with the other 50 people in my unit.

Those visions were so vivid. And somehow I instinctively know how to use magic now. Just what happened to me?

Then a voice in my head responded, “I believe I can answer that, Master.” It said calmly.

I felt the blood in my veins constrict immediately as a gripping fear stopped my heart. What was that voice? Was I developing schizophrenia?

Just as I was about to scream, I felt a hand cup itself over my mouth to prevent me from making a sound. Except there was no one there. It was… something else.

“Please remain calm. I am the being from your third vision. I am now and forever in your service.” it explained.

“Who are you? No, what exactly are you?” I asked it.

“I am the manifestation of your control over dark magic. I am a separate consciousness, sustained by your power. I can do many things, including materialize into a physical form and return to void. I can exist wherever there is light to cast a shadow.” It continued.

“So I can talk to you in my thoughts?” I asked.

“Yes, your consciousness and sensory inputs are linked to mine in a two-way link. Meaning also that I have access to your mind. I can react hundreds of times quicker than you could. This should prove useful to you.” It said.

“Wait, how can you do that?” I asked, confused.

“My consciousness exists on a plane of magic outside of the physical nature of this world. I am exactly like you mentally except with a faster processing speed, without most human emotions.” It said.

“So you could react to the speed of a bullet coming?” I wondered.

“Yes, from what I gather from your memories, a bullet is launched from a gun at a speed that no human could dodge. But to me, that speed would appear to be very slow motion.” It said.

“If that’s true,” I pressed, unsure of what to make of this information, “then how are you speaking to me normally right now? Wouldn’t the words I’m speaking appear to your sensory input very slowly?”

“By linking my mind to yours and by accessing your brain frequencies through your magic power, I can adjust to your flow of time. When I unlink, then my normal processing speed returns.” It continued.

My brain was starting to hurt. There was so much information to make sense of. For now, I just knew one thing. Based on what I had seen from my visions, my abilities seemed powerful.

Powerful enough to really escape from here?

I can turn into animals too right? What’s stopping me from becoming a bird right now and just leaving this shithole?

I tried it. I imagined a smooth-feathered pigeon and turning myself into one. I strained my face in anticipation for almost a good minute, but nothing happened.

“Hey, uh… shadow being? Are you there? Why can’t I use the animal magic I saw like I can with you?”

“From the details of your second vision, it seemed like you gained access to the animal after touching it with your wand.” it answered.

Damn. So I don’t have any animals unlocked.

“Can I call you Shadow?” I asked. “Naming things helps refer to them quickly.”

“I will respond to whatever name you give me. There are many more things you need to learn about me, but for now your escape takes priority.” Shadow responded.

I got up and tiptoed across the room, trying to not wake anyone else up.

As silently as I could manage, I slid open the sliding doors and was in the hallway.

I poked my head out and double checked if there was anyone out there. The staff liked to keep a few lights on, so it wasn’t totally dark. I looked out one of the windows there and it seemed to be very dark outside. It must have been very early in the morning.

“Shadow, how exactly do you move?” I asked.

“In my light form, I can travel at the speed of light, bouncing between the shadows cast by objects reflecting and blocking light. In my material form, I move with my physical body that matches yours.” Shadow said.

“I see. I want to talk to the girl I’m imagining. Riley. Do you think you could find her for me in your light form?”

“No problem. I already have. Shall I lead you there?”

Awesome…

“Down this hallway there is another one where her room is, with the other medics. Go straight down and take the first door to the right. She’s asleep.” Shadow said.

I had now had confirmation on Riley’s exact location.

Incredible. With Shadow I could find my family so much faster! I thought, overcome with excitement.

“Shadow, keep a look out for anyone coming my way.” I said.

“Of course, Master.”

I followed Shadow’s directions and soon I was in front of the room. The door was locked. I had Shadow go inside and unlock it from the inside, and I was in.

I quietly opened the door and pushed it quietly to close behind me. It creaked a little but luckily no one woke up. It was a small room, but still there were only two beds and about ten medics, about half of whom slept on the floor.

Riley was the one closest to the door.

I had Shadow nudge her until she woke up. I placed a hand over her mouth to stop her from saying anything. I leaned in very close and whispered, “Riley, it’s me. The wizard guy with no powers from earlier. I need you to get up and follow me so I can talk to you for a bit. Be very quiet.”

She did as I instructed and followed me outside.

I asked her where we could talk in private and she said that the kitchen would most likely be empty.

I had Shadow inspect it and the adjacent rooms just in case.

I grabbed her hand and we snuck into the kitchen like a cat in the night. I closed the door behind me.

“Okay, what is so important you had to interrupt the few hours of sleep I get?” she demanded angrily.

Crap. Of course she’d be angry. I have to get straight to the point.

“Riley, I know we barely know each other, but there’s something I need to tell you.” I said emphatically.

“I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Jay.”

She looked at me with expectation. “Well?”

She straightened her messy bed hair and wiped the gunk from her eyes.

“Today, I woke up and could use magic.” I blurted out quickly.

She stared at me doubtfully. I employed the tactic I had seen in my vision to cast a spark of electricity. I imagined it with enough voltage to appear before the naked eye.

Then a small spark a few inches wide flashed before our eyes.

She gasped.

“So it’s true?!” she asked in disbelief.

“Listen, I have more powers than just this. I have another one that might make it possible for me to escape.” I continued. “But I wanted to ask you if you wanted to come with me.”

She hesitated.

“I…” she started. “Why me? I’ve just talked to you like twice.”

“Well, I—"

She looked away for a second and said, “it’s not that I don’t want to get out of here, but if we’re caught they’ll do horrible things to us.”

I thought about the situation from her point of view for a moment. She’d been trapped here for half her life… since she was a child. She must have been through a lot, and probably had grown to fear the field masters more than me.

“I know, Riley. You were kind to me the first day I came here. If it hadn’t been for you, I might have not had the courage to keep going.” I admitted.

She still seemed distant.

I can’t just leave her here. I have to think of something. I gotta show her proof of what I can do.

Then it hit me.

“Shadow, find any weapons inside the building. Look for guns, bats, or anything they could use to hurt me.” I ordered.

About a second later, Shadow said, “I found a loaded gun under every field master’s bed and their whips as well. Some of the guards carried guns as well. Shall I bring one to you and dispose of the rest?”

“Absolutely! But don’t get rid of Von Strohn’s whip.”

I thought about Shadow’s abilities for a bit. Something didn’t add up…

“Wait but how can you do that if a physical object cannot pop out of existence with you?” I asked.

“It will take longer since I will use my physical form to carry the objects with me.” Shadow said.

Ok, I understand what it’s trying to do.

“Be careful not to make noise when you open any doors or walk.”

After a bit of time, it occurred to me that I had been talking to Shadow without clueing in Riley, so I said, “Riley, very soon, I’m going to have a loaded gun in my possession. And it’s going to happen by magic.”

She looked at me in shock. “Can you really do that?” she asked with a serious expression.

In about 15 seconds, Shadow manually opened the door in his physical form and handed me Von Strohn’s gun.

“How was that gun floating like that?!” she asked, bewildered.

“Shh! Keep it down!...Wait can you not see it?” I asked her.

“Why, can’t she see you?”

Shadow answered, “the form you saw has no real light behind it. It is just a magical construct that appears to only you.”

“I just saw the gun floating towards your hand! Amazing!” she said excitedly.

“Okay, now do you believe me?” I pressed her, setting the gun down nearby.

She nodded whole heartedly. “I don’t know what you did, but if you can move things from far away, we might just be able to get out of here.”

It seemed she was on board with coming with me.

“There’s one more person I want to find. Where is Harry?” I asked, with a grave expression.

“I’m sorry—who?”

“The old man I brought to you a while back. The one that had collapsed in the pits.” I said, getting worried.

Her face quickly changed to a pained expression as she put her hand over her mouth. Her eyes puffed out and a few tears silently fell from her cheeks.

“Von Strohn… he…” she let out weakly.

“What?” I let out weakly.

“Harry is… dead.”

For some reason, my first reaction to those words was anger. “Riley this isn’t funny.”

It’s not true.

“He wasn’t waking up by the time he was supposed to be in the pits. Von Strohn said he didn’t want to waste resources on a… useless body. So he… strangled him until… until he died!” she cried.

Her words were getting minced, but she quickly made out, “And I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone!”.

It’s not true. It can’t be.

I kept staring at her. Waiting for her expression to change. For her to say she was just joking. Some sick, twisted joke. But she continued sobbing.

I started crying.

No. No!!!! Harry, no!!!

It’s not true! He can’t be dead…

He believed in me. He was one of the only people here that cared.

My sadness turned to a blinding fury.

Von Strohn.

He killed Harry. He strangled him in his sleep. Harry would have probably recovered if he just had a bit more sleep. But that monster didn’t want to waste resources. He finds no meaning in human life.

For the past week, I’ve been powerless. I couldn’t do anything when he spat on me. I couldn’t do anything when he thrashed on me with his whip. And I couldn’t be there for Harry, my only friend in this god-forsaken place.

But now… now I’m going to make you beg for mercy, you heartless piece of shit!

Von Strohn!

Chapter 18: Inner Workings of a Plan

Riley looked at me with fear in her eyes. I hadn’t said a word out loud about Harry. But my thoughts were eating me alive. I realized I must have looked frightening to her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I usually keep my feelings bottled up. I’m not good with expressing how I feel to others.” I said, softly. “He was my only real friend in this place.”

“It’s okay, Jay.” she said softly. I’m the one who—”

She bit her lip with a heavy face, searching for her next words.

“I said nothing to anybody. I just let it happen.!” she blurted out. Her guilt came out in waves of tears. “It’s my fault! It’s all my fault!”

Her eyes puffed out again and she tried to wipe her eyes.

I put both hands on her shoulders and said, “Riley. I’m going to get revenge on Von Strohn. I suffered a lot in this place. Harry suffered until he died. This whole operation deserves to burn to the ground.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked softly.

“With my magic now, it should be easy to escape at least. Plus this gun is handy and loaded. Just give me a bit of time to come up with a plan.” I said, trying to get my raw emotions under control.

I grabbed my left hand with my right to stop it from shaking.

“But still,” I continued. “Just in case they have anything I haven’t thought to look for, I’ll be searching this entire area.”

I paused for a moment, searching for my next words.

“Will you help me?” I finally asked.

“I…” she looked nervous but then calmly said, “yes, I’ll do whatever I can.”

“Okay, then let’s do this.”

I asked Riley for the time.

“It’s 3 AM.”

“What time do the field masters usually get up?”  I asked.

“In about 20 or 25 minutes. Von Strohn is always the first one awake, though.” she mentioned.

Crap. Is that enough time? Gotta get busy.

Shadow had gotten rid of his main weapon. His whip was still where he had left it. His gun was in my shirt pocket.

“Meet me back here in about 15 minutes. There’s something I need to do.” I said.

I took a risk and tiptoed across the area, having Shadow tell me if anyone was close by while also mapping out the furthest edges it could reach and tell me how the buildings were structured. The field masters’ offices were spaced far apart. One in each “wing”. Each wing housed a unit. The wings connected to the main cafeteria and the baths, and that was the only way to travel between units, except for entering from the outside doors with dirt pathways towards the pits. The bosses’ offices were located in a much smaller separate building next to this one.

Although the field masters were asleep, there were rotations of armed guards so that this place was under surveillance 24 hours a day. I avoided all of them with Shadow. Except one.

On my way back from the investigation session, I realized just how specific my words needed to be when I dealt with Shadow. I mistakenly gave it the order to tell me how many slaves there were in total in the units, overriding my previous order to be on the lookout for guards… and one showed up.

“Hey, you! What are you doing here?” the armed guard barked. He held up a small rifle at me. I had no choice but to put my hands up and turn around slowly.

Shit.

“Shadow, can you punch in the gut or something? Just knock him out. Hurry!”

It was next to him in a fraction of a second in its light form and turned to physical form just as it gained momentum into a punch at his stomach.

Shadow’s punch packed so much power from the distance it had used before turning to physical form that the guard’s body hit the closest wall and made a loud thump. He grunted as I heard his back snap and blood erupting from his mouth. I quickly got out of there. Thankfully there were no other guards within 50 feet, according to Shadow.

“Shadow, that’s too much power. That could kill someone.”

“I apologize, Master. I will recalculate the distance and speed necessary to knock someone out.”

Now that I had the whole place mapped out, I needed to decide what to do.

There was a clear option before me. Playing it safe.

I wanted revenge on Von Strohn. I’d do what I needed to, grab Riley, and we’d slip past the guards posted at the door of Von Strohn’s wing and get out. The first key to all this was the cafeteria. I’d need something, or maybe someone, to prevent people from getting inside from the other units until I was ready to go. To that end, I’d use Riley. If there was an audible noise, I’d have Riley make up some excuse, like a dangerous equipment leak in that area. But I’d leave that up to her discretion. If that didn’t work and some staff member tried getting through, I’d have to improvise.

Just then it occurred to me. Shadow moves and operates extremely fast and far, except when it needs to carry objects or do something in its physical form.

“Shadow, is there a maximum range you can be apart from me?” I asked.

”With your current magic power, I will struggle to be beyond maybe 1000 feet from you. The further apart, the weaker my existence. However, within that range my abilities won’t be under 90-95% than when I am beside you.” Shadow said.

1000 feet huh? That would put maybe less than a quarter of the building inside Shadow’s range. Wow, did I really go almost 3,000 feet just now to map the buildings?

For a second, I entertained the thought of taking over the whole building instead of playing it safe.

What if… I took over everything? I mean I didn’t expect Shadow to be so powerful. He took out that guard in the blink of an eye!

It would be nice to shut everything down. I could save not just myself but everyone from having to work all day in that insufferable heat. But with only a quarter of the building I could access at a time, I’d need a lot more people involved.

I sighed heavily.

There’s just too many variables. I can’t take over the whole building unless I started some kind of riot among the slaves. I’d basically need to recreate the riot scene at the Flame Nation Prison from Avatron the Final Winduser. But I don’t have that kind of influence here at all. Maybe if I show them my powers? I mean if I’m strong enough to stop all the staff onsite then who’s to say they won’t try to push their luck and escape? And that kind of chaos would cause a riot…

That’s it! If it looks like it’s heading towards a riot, I’ll incite it further and take over. If not, then I’ll escape with Riley alone.

I ran back to the kitchen, where I had agreed to meet back up with Riley. She was waiting there for me.

“Riley, I got it. Here’s the plan.” I pulled her closer and whispered it into her ear.

She started grinning.

“I love it.” she replied happily. “But… what will you actually do to him?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll think of something soon. And I promise we’ll escape.”

She perked up. “Maybe everyone will get to escape today. I’ll be the best distraction ever, I promise!”

“If it starts getting dangerous on your end, you run and scream. My magic will reach you.” I said.

“Oh, I’m not worried. I know how this place runs inside and out. Give me a little more credit.” she winked at me.

“How much time do we have?” I asked impatiently.

“Maybe 5 minutes till Von Strohn is up.” she said.

“Good. Get in position, but hide. Don’t let people see you be the first one there. Blend in until there’s a good crowd. Then count till about 10 minutes and start your distractions. Keep the guards from coming to Von Strohn’s unit.” I ordered.

“Roger that, captain!”

She quickly made her way to the cafeteria.

We set our plan into motion. Step 1: isolate Von Strohn’s unit.

With Riley in position, I allowed Von Strohn to wake up naturally. He would have half an hour to himself before waking up my unit. I was going to confront him in front of everyone.

Enjoy it. This is the last normal morning routine you’ll ever do.

I had Shadow tail his every move, while I pretended to sleep.

Von Strohn stretched in his bed.

He got up and reached for his whip.

“Wonder if I’ll get to use this baby today…” he said, caressing it.

He examined his bed next.

“Sam left a stain on my bed. Shit.” he complained, putting his pillow over it.

I took this time to have Shadow tell me details of Von Strohn’s room.

“Anything you think might carry sentimental value?” I asked.

“Nothing at all.” Shadow responded.

According to Shadow, Von Strohn didn’t care much for decorating his room. There were no knickknacks, nothing precious to him. No paintings or décor.

Bland, huh? Well I guess it doesn’t change anything.

The minutes passed slowly. I got fewer updates from Shadow as there was nothing useful to report.

I was in my sleeping bag looking over my sleeping comrades. I wanted to get in the mood of thinking of them as my partners early, in case we did end up escaping together.

But do I… kill him? Or something else?

I was nervous and excited.  As well as conflicted. The person I was becoming was something I would have never expected. I didn’t want to become someone who used magic to step all over people. Because that’s what the kidnappers who brought people here did.

I have more than enough justification for ending his life. But still, can I actually go through with it?

I don’t remember the last time I had all this time to myself to just think. I had been so focused on surviving that even in the pits when I had nothing to do but think, I couldn’t. In the showers, I couldn’t focus with all the noisy guys around me. In the cafeteria it was the same. At night in my sleeping bag, the thought of having to do it all again the next day made me want to knock out right away and not think at all.

Magic has given me the freedom to choose my destiny. And I’ve chosen to be free of slavery. I’ll get out of here. Find my family. And I’ll… I’ll live however the hell I want!

Finally I heard the familiar clanging, bringing me back to reality.

“Up, you grunts. Useless maggots! Get ready for the pits.” he yelled.

It’s time.

Chapter 19: Von Strohn & Friends

The slaves did their usual routine. Roll their sleeping bags and put them on the side of the wall. Many were yawning and stretching. Some were striking conversations. Others were crying. There was clearly a wide range of people. Some of the people who were smiling and laughing with their peers seemed to have gotten used to this way of life and somehow accepted it. And others were visibly breaking down.

I felt bad for everyone. For those who had gotten so used to things they didn’t know life wasn’t supposed to be like this. And for those who realized their situation and hopelessness.

I rolled my sleeping bag and put it up against the wall.

I left the room and joined the other slaves for Von Strohn’s quick morning briefing.

Samantha was living it up to her position and went around the room doing a quick head count. At this point she had become Von Strohn’s second in command, and if you disrespected her, you’d have to deal with the big man.

When she got to me, she stopped for a second and smiled.

“Did you get any sleep last night?” she asked sheepishly.

“I’m just fine, thanks.” I responded curtly.

“It looks like those lashes didn’t leave too big a scar. I’m happy for you.” she grinned.

She was unable to contain her excitement and burst into laughter.

“I wasn’t expecting you to turn out so pathetic! The scary guy who said he’d knock my teeth out cried like a little girl when things got a little rough.” she joked.

I was hiding Von Strohn’s gun inside the short pockets full of dirt.

Not yet.

She resumed her head count, having grown bored of taunting me.

“Everyone’s here! Except the old guy from before.” she said sweetly to Von Strohn.

“Perfect. He was transferred to another unit.” he said.

Right. Another unit.

I felt my hands clench so tightly I thought my veins would pop.

Von Strohn told us to stay for a few minutes for a special announcement.

“Listen up, grunts. Yesterday some of you got to witness a little spectacle. There was a traitor among you who felt like not working. The only one who spat on your backs while the rest of you were doing it right.” he started.

“Well today, we’re going to hear what he has to say. 103, get up here and share a bit about what happened.” he instructed, motioning me to come next to him.

Riley should be doing a distraction by now.

I walked up to the little stage, emotionless and stood next to him.

“Now then. Why don’t you start?” he said.

“Right, sir.” I began. “I recognize some familiar faces. I’m sure those of you who saw what happened must either be very glad that it wasn’t you, or feeling very sorry for me. But to those of you who don’t know, what happened, this is the short version.”

“I was whipped.” I continued. “Whipped until my whole body felt like a broken vase. All for deciding to take a break, while the rest of you worked.”

“That’s right. Well, grunts, you see what happens…” he said.

“I’m not finished talking.” I blurted out in a voice that didn’t even feel like my own.

Von Strohn was taken aback. No one must have ever brazenly interrupted him like that before. My anger was starting to seep through.

“In the intense heat we have to work in, I was betrayed by my own body. I started feeling dizzy and I was soon to collapse. I abandoned my post, betrayed you all. And for that I am sorry. But to the man standing next to me, who saw fit to punish me for that, I’m not sorry. For any of it.”

I pulled out the gun from my shirt pocket.

Half the audience audibly gasped. Everyone stared intently.

Von Strohn fumbled out his words. “What the hell? Where did you get that?!”

Ignoring him, I had Shadow punch his gut with a good intensity, but not enough to knock him out.

I finally understood how Shadow worked. It can pop in and out of existence, and change instantly between its light form and physical form, wherever an object is reflecting light. As long as there’s sufficient ambient light, it can move to any place it wants in a 3-dimensional plane, as long as it’s in its magic form, at the speed of light. Once it becomes physical, it becomes affected by gravity and becomes a physical copy of myself. Shadow can use this to gain momentum towards a target at high speed in light form, and become physical at the moment of impact. Adjusting the variables present, it can pack a lethal punch, or conveniently, a disorienting one.

Von Strohn was knocked down and, massaging his gut, said, “Ow… what was that?...”

“The tables have turned Von Strohn.” I felt my anger rising. The more I looked at the bastard in front of me, the worse it felt.

“No, you’re not getting away with this! Guards! Gu-“… he let out, before getting a serious punch to the face by Shadow. This time he fell backwards.

“The next time you say something unnecessary, I’ll take a shot.” I cautioned.

He stopped talking.

I looked at the audience and many were scared. A few in the back were turning to leave, and I had Shadow push them back in place.

“No one is leaving until they witness this.” I ordered.

I looked around, looking for Samantha. She had somehow slipped out. I stopped noticing her around the time Von Strohn was knocked down. I had Shadow scan the room and she was hiding behind a large table. Shadow grabbed her by her hair and put her back on the stage.

“No! Let me go! Stop!” she cried out.

“Samantha.” I said solemnly, turning to her. “You tried taking something precious to me. Blackmailing me into giving it up. You lied and got me into a fight with others. You got me whipped. All for trying to catch my breath for a second.”

“Hell, it’s like you did everything you could to make my existence here a living nightmare!” I laughed almost maniacally, surprising myself and everyone there.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. “But more importantly. You abused your power and it never occurred to you that you could use it to help your fellow slaves. But, I’m going to let you off easy today.” I said.

“…W-what are you going to do to me?” she squeaked nervously. Her tone was quiet and timid, reminiscent of the good girl act she used so many times.

“Von Strohn.” I said, turning to him. “I want you to whip her like you whipped me. 2 lashes for every one I received.”

“What?! No! Please, my body is too weak. I can’t take that!” she pleaded helplessly. “Jay, I’m really sorry. About everything. I swear I’ll never say anything to you again!”

“You know I felt sort of the way you’re feeling now. But you seemed to enjoy when I was begging it to stop. I mean just earlier you laughed me at me for being weak. What was it you said? I was ‘Crying like a little girl’? Am I wrong?” I asked slowly.

“…No. Look I’m sorry. I—" she said, starting to cry, but I cut her off.

“Honestly, I couldn’t care less about what you have to say. Von Strohn, get on with it.” I ordered.

He got up and got his whip.

“Looks like you get your wish after all.” I whispered to him, staring at his whip.

He looked at me confused, but then readied himself in front of Samantha.

He brought down his whip on her. The first lash looked like a toddler whacking a building toy with a toy hammer.

“Like you mean it.” I said, pointing my gun at him.

Then he brought it down with full strength.

“1!” I said.

She hollered hysterically. “Stop!! Please!”

“2!”

“3!”

“4!”

“5!”

She kept screaming and muttering something, but I didn’t care.

After the 20th lash, she stopped saying anything. Stopped moving. Her body was rendered unconscious. Even though Samantha put me through hell, I still felt a little bad for doing that to her.

I took a quick glance around the audience and noticed Elsabeth and Taylor looking at me with fear in their eyes. Taylor looked down at the floor when we crossed gazes.

“Do I stop? She’s unconscious.” He asked me.

I nodded.

“We’ll stop it short. She’s done.” I said. “But you’re not.”

“Me? What did I do? I was following the orders I was given to not let anyone slack off.” he reasoned.

“Are you sorry for what you did?” I asked.

“What? Yeah sure. I have a gun to my head, so of course I’m sorry…” he diverted. “…You maggot!”

He quickly reached for my gun with his hands, growling those last words. It completely caught me off guard and he smacked my head.

With his tremendous strength, I was knocked down and disoriented. He immediately reached for the gun I dropped as I massaged my aching head.

He succeeded. With zero hesitation, he aimed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. The loud bang deafened my eardrums as the bullet left the barrel. I thought it was all over. That my life would end over a quick mistake.

But I wasn’t dead.

The crowd in the audience gasped.

I’m… alive?

“Shadow, what… happened?”

“The power that binds me to you allows me to act when you will be killed if I do not intervene. No instructions are needed, master.”

“Thank you… Shadow. You saved my life.”

Von Strohn instinctively jumped back.

“What… are y-you?” he asked in a frightened voice I had never heard.

I got up with the adrenaline coursing through me after nearly dying and dusted off my slave clothes.

“For the sake of everyone here, I’ll pretend you didn’t just do that, Von Strohn. I’ll ask you one more time. Are you sorry? Not about the lashes. The other thing you did.” I said slowly.

“I didn’t do anything…” he said, taking a step back.

“What happened to the old man who you said was transferred to another unit?” I asked.

“I.. I don’t know. He’s out in Fraisner’s unit now. He’s no longer my responsibility.” he said dutifully. The same lie from before.

“Is there going to be another ‘unfortunate accident’?” I demanded angrily.

“I… what are you talking about? What do you want from me?!”

“The truth!” I yelled, my blood boiling.

He burned a hole in my eyes and spit at the ground. He finally understood.

“Fine! Here’s the truth! He was dying anyway. I only made the process go faster.” he defended coldly.

“How do you know he was dying?”

“He was out cold! And who knows if he was ever gonna work. I made the right call. Better to make it quick so the bed is freed up for others.” he continued.

“Are you a medical expert? Do you understand that sometimes people sleep for more than a night to let their bodies recover?” I barked, now in a seething rage.

“He wouldn’t survive out in the pits anyway! It was better this way!”

“If you really cared that much, you could have put him to work in the kitchen, or anywhere else! But you murdered him. Strangled him in his sleep until he was dead! You can’t justify that, you bastard!” I roared.

If it wasn’t for not wanting him to get off easily, I would have pulled the trigger on his chest.

I let out a deep breath, trying to calm down.

“Von Strohn. Since no one else can or will do it, I’m going to judge you myself. You’re going to answer for your crimes.” I decreed.

“Lay down and spread your arms and legs.” I ordered, raising my gun again.

Being in no position to refuse, he laid down and did as I asked. He looked like a starfish on the ground.

“You’re gonna kill me?” he asked incredulously, on the floor. “So the good guy act was all a show, hypocrite?”

“I won’t kill you.”

I looked at the audience and pointed to four men who appeared strong.

“You, you… you and … you.” I said. “Get up here with us. Two of you hold him down by his elbows, and two hold him down by his knees.”

“What are you gonna do to me?” he asked, his voice cracking.

I ignored him. Once everyone was in position, I closed my eyes and envisioned what I was going to do to him.

“Can you do it, Shadow?” I asked.

“Easily.” It responded.

Without wasting a moment, Shadow found a sharp butcher knife from the kitchen, and brought it here.

To me, it was clear a figure was holding a knife. But to the audience, a knife was floating on its own and making its way to Von Strohn.

“Don’t touch me! No!” Von Strohn struggled in place, trying to break free from the 4 men who were pinning him down.

“Don’t let him get up.” I ordered them.

Without hesitation, Shadow brought down the knife with large momentum and cleanly cut off Von Strohn’s left hand. His eyes bulged and he screamed like I had never heard.

Shadow quickly did the same for his other hand and both his feet.

I told the four men to take off their shirts and wrap them around Von Strohn’s open wounds for temporary measures.

But to really stop the bleeding, I had Shadow bring large rolls of sterile bandages from the medical supply closet. I and the four men quickly helped the nurse to wrap Von Strohn’s arms and legs and apply pressure until the bleeding stopped. I intended to cripple him, not kill him.

Von Strohn had lost a lot of blood but was still breathing. He was still conscious but looking weak. He had screamed desperately for a while, but eventually he calmed down. The fact that no guards rushed the scene proved to me that whatever Riley did as a distraction really worked.

When the atmosphere had settled, I faced everyone.

“Von Strohn has brought suffering to many, but his punishment was for the murder of an old man named Harry in his bed. As he is now, he will be unable to repeat his actions to anyone ever again.”

No one said a word. Common objects had been floating around, and a floating knife had been used to chop someone’s body parts off with no one to do it. I looked around but was met in cold glances of abject terror.

“This is the power of a wizard.” I said, raising my wand. “Rest assured, I won’t harm any of you. Like me, you were victims in this tragedy. You were taken from your homes and brought here to be made slaves. To work every day and not be allowed your basic human right to freedom.”

Then as part of my plan, I laid it down thick. I felt the atmosphere could work in my favor. If this worked and they rioted, it would lay out the foundation I needed to take control of the whole building.

“Slaves! No. Friends!” I began, triumphantly. “Today, I brought justice on the man who killed one of us. An old man who couldn’t defend himself. But what about the rest of you? I can’t do much for you on my own. As things stand, you’ll get all get a new field master and be sent to the pits again, like nothing happened.”

“Is that what you want?” I bellowed. “Do you want to work every day for a company that doesn’t give a damn about you? That keeps you here against your will?”

A few people in the audience started saying “No!” Then others joined in and things got louder.

It’s working.

“Shadow, get Riley here. She’s done. And be prepared to stop any staff members that get here. Just knock them out.” I ordered.

Shadow told me it had just had to hold her hand to walk over here. I was relieved she wasn’t afraid.

I pointed to her in front of everyone and they turned their heads.

“This is the nurse who was watching Harry, the old man who was strangled to death by Von Strohn. There was nothing she could do to stop Von Strohn from killing Harry. But thanks to her I was able to get justice for him.” I said.

“Today, she is going to be escaping with me. We’re getting out of here and never mining or doing anything for this company ever again.” I continued. “So, friends, I ask you. Do you want to help me free you?”

I felt the tides of emotion begin to turn in the audience. People were looking up, devouring my words; glancing sideways at each other and back at me.

“With your help, I can! I will take control of this place and stop whoever tries to prevent us from leaving! All I need from you is… to cause chaos! I want to see a riot! On my command, we will all storm out of here together, destroying as much of this place as we can! And we can all escape! Who is with me?!” I shouted, holding my fist in the air.

Just then, four staff members showed up. Shadow knocked them out in a mere second and the people cheered.

“We can do this! We’ll escape!” a few shouted, as they turned to each other and hugged, and gave each other high fives. Many more were emboldened and started speaking up.

“103 will save us!”

“We won’t have to mine all day anymore!”

“Everyone, let’s help him!”

”This is it, Shadow. When we storm through the hallways, knock out every guard you see.” I ordered.

“Ready when you are.” It said.

“Friends. We are ready then! Remember to help each other. The enemy is the people who locked us here against our will!” I roared. “Destroy everything! Grab any weapons you can find. Let’s go!” I ran to the front of the crowd, grabbing Riley’s hand.

My unit rushed behind me and together we ran directly through the cafeteria, into the wing that would be closest to the exit that had the bosses’ offices in front of them.

On the way, they had turned into a frenzy and were knocking over tables, equipment stands, anything they could find. A few of them had grabbed pipes, and sharp objects they had found along the way and were destroying company property. There were a few people with grudges against some of the guards. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stop everyone from doing the right thing and not hurting them.

“This is for kicking me down the other day, you bitch!” one of the slaves shouted, as he stomped on the face of a guard already unconscious.

I had to keep going.

“We’re escaping. Join us everyone!” one slave said to another as we passed by.

We ended up with a lot of new comrades. We were liberating every unit we came across. By the end, there were over 1000 slaves among us.

Shadow was knocking out guard after guard, many of whom were in rooms in adjacent walls and had no knowledge of what was going on.

However, it stopped at one personnel. “What should I do with Field Master Ryland?” It asked.

“Bring him to us.” I said, thinking of a video instruction I could play in my head for Shadow.

Shadow did as I showed in my mental video and knocked him out and carried him to us.

Finally, when the entire building had been cleared, I made everyone get silent and instructed them to stay here and wait while I brought out the bosses of the operation here.

I appointed two people to assume command and keep everyone in check, an old man and a teenage girl. They happily accepted.

There was nothing that could stop us now.

I ran outside the building to the office where the bosses were. First, I peered inside the window on my knees. It was the face of the operation they had going on. I didn’t know if Slavery was in fact illegal or not, but I figured if it was, this office was how they avoided getting caught.  It looked completely legitimate, almost like an old corporate office before the computer era.

I stormed inside, and at least 10 people stopped what they were doing to look at me, surprised as to why I had entered in such haste. Some were office workers, others higher up; maybe secretaries.

I had Shadow knock out all but one. In about two seconds, they fell.

“Are the bosses in there?” I asked.

“Please don’t hurt me!” he screamed, after seeing what I had done.

“Just answer my question and you’ll be fine.” I said. That was a lie.

“Yes, just inside.” he said, before getting a jab to the head.

“Thanks.”

One of the bosses had a loaded gun pointed at me when I opened the door. He spared no thought at shooting me.

I had told Shadow not to knock them out, but now my life was in danger. It quickly reacted, knocking the guns right out of their hands after deflecting the bullet.

“Come with me, or you’re going to end up like everyone outside.” I ordered them.

One of them gulped and they got up and followed me.

We went out of the dull looking office building, looking down at everyone fallen on the ground, unconscious.

Then we made it back to where the unit was gathered.

“Any problems?” I asked, the old man and the girl, already knowing the answer.

“None!” she exclaimed proudly.

“Great job, you two.” I said, smiling.

I turned to face everyone and cleared my throat.

“Everyone. Thank you for your patience.” I started. “I have brought the men that are in charge of this operation.”

I don’t know if this is everyone, or if this is just some branch of something bigger. But I’m going to find out.

“Now, stand up, hands behind your head, and tell us your names and your business here.” I ordered them.

“James. Deputy Officer.” one said.

“Bradley. Supervisor and Regional Chief of Command.” the other said.

“Bradley, who do you work for?” I asked.

He stayed silent.

Time for a scare. And an experiment.

I envisioned a high voltage spark coming off a Tesla coil and adjusted my vision meter.

A 2 foot long arc of static electricity appeared and struck the ground right next to Bradley. It looked like a bolt of lightning had come out of thin air next to him. There was so much power that it had left burn marks on the ground.

“Eeeeeeh!” he screeched.

Everyone gasped in surprise.

I didn’t know I could do that.

“Markus! This isn’t worth it. They’re not paying us enough for this.” Bradley turned to James, who was apparently actually Markus.

“You idiot! Don’t say anything else!” he lashed.

Aware that I had been lied to, I had Shadow punch Bradley in the gut. He whimpered.

“You better start telling the truth and tell me what I want to know.” I said, grabbing him by his suit collar.

Just then Field Master Ryland woke up with a yawn.

“Nice of you to join us, Field Master Ryland.” I said, letting go of Bradley.

“...You? You organized an escape?” he said, trying to make sense of the situation.

“Yes. We’re free. All of us.” I yelled proudly.

People roared again, chanting ‘103’ over and over.

I’ll never get tired of that.

“I see.” he said. “Well it makes me happy to hear that.”

“Will you join us?” I asked him.

“Absolutely. I’ve been sick of this place since before I was forced into this job.” he said right away.

I knew I liked this guy.

After not much further convincing, Bradley told us this was a single branch in an underground operation all over Renshire. Not just mining, but slaves found themselves in all sorts of jobs. Apparently a big donor in Renshire privately funded this. I reasoned it might have been a big company or maybe even some rotten nobles, but for now I couldn’t be sure. They swore to me they didn’t know who it was. I joked that because of his cooperation he would make it out of here alive. And then Markus also started spilling things.

“So tell me Bradley.” I said, raising my wand and creating a few sparks around it, “how is it that you can keep people here and not get busted?”

“We have files of everyone here. Records of personally identifiable information.” Bradley admitted.

Markus sighed. “So we’re telling them everything, huh? Fine. The reason we can legally keep everyone here is that we have falsified claims of debt. In Renshire, we can’t legally own slaves, but as you know, if someone owes you a large sum of money, you can legally require them to work for you under your conditions, so long as you provide them shelter, food and basic necessities. Everyone here is basically an indentured servant with a legally verifiable heap of debt.”

Field Master Ryland seemed shocked to hear that. As was I.

“And you’re telling me all of this? Why the change of heart?” I asked.

“We’re as good as dead anyway. Either you kill us, or they do. Only reason I won’t tell you the bosses’ names is ‘cause I don’t know ‘em. Maybe God will have mercy on my soul for everything I’ve done till this point if I come clean. I suspect our corpses will turn up by a lake this time tomorrow.” Markus continued solemnly, seeming almost at peace with the idea of his imminent death.

Jeez. I almost feel sorry for the guy.

“There’s another thing I want to know. What is the real name of Rat Man? And how do I find him?” I asked.

“Of who?” he asked, visibly confused.

Oh right. Only I call him that.

I gave him a description of the people that had assaulted me.

“His real name is unknown. But he is known in the underground by an alias. Cromwell the Slave Driver. However, the name changes often. To reach him we were given instructions by an encrypted channel. We relied on his services to source fresh workers.” he explained.

Yes! Now I have a name to the body. I could stretch this further and make him set up a fake meeting. But that’ll have to wait. I promised to get these people out of here.

“Your information has been very valuable. Provided it is all true.” I said. “What do you think, Ryland? You’re a field master. Can you confirm their stories?”

“Yes, from at least what I have been able to gather. But much is new to me.” he said.

I nodded.

“Excellent. Looks like we’ll all be getting out of here.”, I said. “Unfortunately, you two and everyone involved in the staff here will be arrested, if I can get a hold of law enforcement.”

I looked around in confusion.

Wait, who is law enforcement here anyway?

Ryland butted in, as if reading my thoughts. “The knights of Count Sylvian. This land falls under his jurisdiction.”

When I said they would be arrested, Bradley and Markus seemed… almost glad. Their eyes lit up and they looked at each other in surprise.

“Wait, really? Arrested?” Bradley insisted, smiling. I ignored him.

“I suppose that includes me.” Ryland added.

“You were forced into the job, right? Originally were you not a slave?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Then I don’t see why you’d have to be punished. This was a slave’s duty after all.”

His eyes beamed. “I’m grateful, 103. Thank you.”

“Now, everyone let’s get out of here!” I raised a fist.

People rushed outside, but I stayed behind with Ryland.

I had learned that telephones existed when Rat Man was trying to sell me off. I wondered if they had recently been invented, but there were already telephones operating in this branch and possibly in the others.

“Ryland, get me the number to the knights.” I said. “It’s time we close this chapter.”

He relayed the numbers to me, and we both walked to the office where the phones were inside the bosses’’ office.

The knights wanted to know where we were calling from.

I was going to force the information out of Bradley and Markus, but they willingly provided it. All that was left was waiting for the knights to arrive.

Now I was going to start focusing on what I intended to do a week ago: find my missing family. And since I had become a full-fledged wizard, this would be easy! After all, I had three amazing powers now.

Wait for me, guys. I’m coming.

Chapter 20: Free Man

I made a mistake. I told the slaves they could all leave. I got too caught up in the moment. Hundreds of people had fled, but many stayed behind, possibly waiting for me. Also I had no idea how they would adjust to life outside the pits. Who knows how many potentially dangerous people I had just unknowingly released. I tried not to think about it. The ones left behind were comprised of teenagers, old men, many women, and a few men, Ryland, Riley, the bosses, and the unconscious people.

People were waving at me. A few said, “thank you so much.” as I walked by.

“I will never forget what you’ve done for us!” said a woman. I waved and smiled.

Of the ones left, I saw a few familiar faces.

“Elsabeth! Taylor!” I said, hugging both of them.

“Jay! It’s good to see you.” Elsabeth said, returning the favor.

“I’m sorry you had to witness all of that. About Von Strohn… and Samantha. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I know she was part of our small group. But to me, she was evil.”

Taylor nodded. “I imagine she put you through a lot. So it was her fault that you were whipped back then, huh? Unbelievable. And after you did all of that for Harry. It’s clear to me that she didn’t care about any of us.”

Elsabeth put both hands on my shoulders. “Listen, Jay. Even though you freed us and so many people, we did see a side of you I never expected. You have incredible power. Please, keep using it to help people. And only that.”

“Now, now.” Taylor interjected. “I think Harry was right about Jay. I know he will put it to good use. What we should say is… be very careful about who you show it to. And try not to chop people’s hands off if you can help it.”

I laughed nervously. “…Right.”

We all let out a sigh of relief. Seeing each other like this reminded us we were free now.

“You know they’re calling you Saint 103.” Taylor winked at me, giving me a light punch.

“What I want to know is why didn’t you tell us you were such a powerful wizard?” Elsabeth asked me. “I’ve never seen that kind of magic before. You were something else.”

“No kidding.” said Taylor.

“To be honest, when I met you guys I didn’t have any magic powers. I only got them today. People were so hostile to me anytime I accidentally showed them my wand.” I said. “And wait a second, why are wizards so hated here?”

“It’s the culture here. The King and the Nobility have taken an open stance renouncing magic in this country. It’s a crime to openly use magic without a special permit. And wizards are hated because of stuff people read on the news. You won’t find a good deed done by a Wizard on a newspaper, that’s for sure. Plus a lot of wizards do shady things like kidnapping people like us.” Taylor continued.

Aw man. Just my luck. If we had ended up in another country that is pro-magic instead of Renshire, we might have gotten a lot more help. Maybe even free stuff.

“How do you not know this if you lived in Meade?” he pressed.

I didn’t have a good answer. Then someone came to my rescue.

Riley walked up to me. “Jay, what should we do now?”

“Riley! Guys, this is Riley, the nurse that took care of Harry.” I said, introducing her.

“Thank you so much, young lady. Harry was a precious friend.” Elsabeth gave her a hug.

“I only wished I could have stopped him from killing Harry.” Riley said, sulking.

“Don’t do that.” I chastised. “Don’t start blaming yourself. It wasn’t your fault.”

She shed a few tears and rubbed her eyes. I gave her a hug.

She looked into my eyes and smiled.

She’s such a nice person.

“Oh my!” Elsabeth exclaimed.

“Ahh, young love!” Taylor joined in, winking at me and chuckling.

Wait, what??

“No, it’s not--?” I began, but then was cut off.

Ryland walked up to me, and whispered, “103. No, Jay. There’s something you should know.”

I turned to him, and he continued, “I think you should leave this place before the knights arrive.”

“Okay, Ryland. Hold that thought for a moment.” I said.

He nodded and went off for a bit.

“Riley, Elsabeth, Taylor.” I said, turning to them.

“I’m going to discuss something with Ryland. What are you all going to do from here?” I asked.

“I just stayed to thank you. I’ll be walking further south to my village.” Elsabeth said.

I nodded. “I’m glad. I hope you make it back safely.”

“Sure would love to accompany you at least part of the way, miss. Would be dangerous for a woman to go alone.” Taylor said.

She blushed. “I think I just might take you up on that.”

I think I could start to feel something in the air between those two.

Looks like Taylor doesn’t miss a beat. Get ‘em tiger.

“Well then you’ll be just fine with Taylor looking out for you.” I winked at him, becoming his wingman.

Taylor put his arm around her shoulder, and she settled in. They waved a little to me and started walking away.

Wow, they’re further along than I thought.

“If you’re ever in trouble, you got a friend in me!” I shouted when they were a bit further away, singing that song from the movie Toy Chronicles.

Riley was looking at me during the whole conversation with them. It looked like curiosity but she was also fidgeting a lot. Maybe she was growing impatient?

“What’s wrong, Riley?” I asked.

“Huh?” she said, quickly. “Nothing’s wrong! I just…”

“I was just waiting to have a chance to talk to you, too.” she said.

“Oh yeah. I was just seeing off the people that were part of my mining group. They’re the people I got to know the most while I was here. Well, them and you, I guess.” I said.

She smiled. She fixed her hair a bit.

“By the way, what are your plans from here? Going to try to find your family or hometown?” I asked.

She shook her head. Her face grew pained, like she remembered something horrible.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, with a careful tone.

“I don’t remember where I used to live. And my family… was murdered when I got kidnapped.”

She looked up at the sky. Her face was now just a bit lighter, like she had let go of something heavy.

“So… I’m not totally sure. It’s great that I’m free to go wherever I want now, but you know… I never thought this day would come.” she said distantly.

I decided not to bring up her family, to not upset her more.

“Well whenever I don’t know what to do, I just ask myself what sounds fun. What kind of goal I could see making my life really fulfilling. And then I just go wherever I need to achieve that goal.” I made something up on the spot. Of course that was a lie. I was a NEET and all my goals in life had failed.

She paused and thought for a moment.

“Can’t think of anything. Maybe ‘cause you’re pressuring me.” she said lightly.

Nothing huh?

I started getting the impression that outside of the medical training she’d received and the cooking she did, Riley didn’t really know that much about the world. Maybe it’d be hard to adjust on her own. So I got an idea.

“Well, why don’t you join me for a bit on my journey, while you figure out what you really want to do?” I asked.

Her eyes immediately lit up. “I’d love to… but are you sure?”

“Yeah, I could use the company. Plus I owe you a lot for all you did for me.”

She smiled. “Okay, then. Thanks for having me.”

“Awesome! Wait here. Ryland seemed to bring up something urgent, so I’ll go talk to him for a bit.” I said.

Ryland was close by, seeming to be in deep thought when I walked up to him.

“Ryland, before you said I should go now. Why?” I asked. “I should be here to tell them about what happened.”

“The rest of us can do that. But you’re a wizard. Whether what you did was right or wrong, using magic is a crime. And they’re not going to look the other way.” he advised.

“I seriously doubt the knights can stop me if it comes to that.” I said cockily, pulling out my wand from my shirt pocket and waving it around.

“Maybe so, but you could end up as one of this country’s most wanted criminals. Do you really want to be on the run for the rest of your life?” he questioned.

I hate how right he is. I save a bunch of people and the first thing they’re gonna do is arrest me. I mean the Academia Emporium store manager was trying to detain me when I dropped my wand and I didn’t even do anything!

“Then what do I do?” I asked nervously.

“I will tell them we were saved by a very talented group of mercenaries who had been hired to infiltrate this area. I think that is a believable story, since mercenaries often come and go as their tasks are done. Of the people left, the only ones left who could betray you is Von Strohn. But I’ll deal with him by discrediting everything he says.” he continued.

That’s a smart plan. I wish he would team up with me. I need him! He might have insight that could help me find my family.

Just then I thought about Samantha. She could also ruin my anonymity with her big mouth if she happened to wake up around that time. I had Shadow move her body away from here and out in the desert. It was hot and she could die out here, so I decided to leave her in some shade in some of the small trees. What happened to her after that was not my problem.

Hope there’s no wild animals here. Or monsters. I thought, shrugging.

“Ryland. I’ll agree to do what you say. It’s a good plan. But! I will hide somewhere and watch the situation. When it’s all over, I want you to team up with me on a small mission. It would mean a lot to me if you’d at least consider it.” I said.

“Consider it done. It’s the least I could do for what you did.” he said without hesitation.

We firmly shook hands on it. I smiled.

Ryland told the slaves who stayed behind not to mention me, for my safety. He then told them the mercenary story that we should use.

The knights arrived about two hours later. They had made it pretty far very fast, considering this was a very remote area, according to Bradley’s description. They were from Count Sylvian’s Knights Brigade, the name of his private army as a wealthy noble. According to Ryland, several of the count’s knights were stationed in a military base. They would be dispatched if it was a large scale emergency, whereas smaller scale skirmishes would be dealt with by apprentice knights. The base happened to be over several miles away.

I watched one of the knights dismount from his horse. They were all wearing plate armor. But the metal was a very blinding shade of white. It was very reflective like metal, so the surface couldn’t be a coat of paint. The one walking towards us seemed to have a lion insignia painted on the chest plate.

“Hey Ryland, why are they wearing armor?” I whispered.

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“How is plate armor supposed to stop a bullet from even a small rifle?” I asked, puzzled.

Steel plated armor couldn’t even stop a handgun. If there’s more advanced weaponry in this world, armor is pretty much useless, right?

“The knights’ armor is forged in adamantium metal, one of the strongest metals in the world. A small bullet would barely dent it.”

Adamantium metal? That can stop a bullet?

Whatever. I had other things to worry about for now. He signaled for me to go hide before I was seen.

“You there. I am Captain Justinian.” the knight captain said, pointing to Ryland. “What’s the current situation?”

Ryland took care of everything, from explaining what had happened to avoiding mentioning anything related to magic.

The knights were extremely grateful. They said there had been a lot of kidnappings reported, but their investigations had amounted to nothing more than indentured servant cases, which were legal.

“This is a major first step!” a knight said, eagerly shaking Ryland’s hand.

One of them sighed and said, “yeah, though this does create a lot of work for us. We still have to track down the ones that left. If they had all still been here, it would have saved us at least a couple of months.”

Doh. These people left on my signal.

I felt like a fool.

But onwards and upwards, I always say. I shook off the guilt and waited impatiently for the talking to conclude.

The talks took longer than expected. The knights walked with Ryland a bit further. I could no longer hear them and asked Shadow what was going on, but there was nothing useful.

Blah blah blah. It feels like they’re all becoming friends. This is less of an investigation and more social hour.

After another 10 minutes, the chit chat stopped. The knights thanked Ryland once more and said they would take it from here.

They also mentioned they’d be back to pick up the slaves that stayed behind.

Ryland asked if they needed anything else.

“You’ve done enough.” the knight captain answered him. “We’ll relay this information to Count Sylvian. He’ll likely petition His Majesty for use of the Royal Espionage Corps in finding the people that left. We need to verify whether any criminals were among the captive.”

The knight captain made a gesture where he closed his fist and stuck it to his chest. The rest of his men did the same and made an attention salute before getting back on their horses and going off.

Chapter 21: Stories & Goodbyes

The knights returned 2 hours later. But before that, Ryland, Riley the remaining slaves, and I chatted about our lives.

Ryland and Riley would be joining me on my quest to find my family. I wanted to clear the air first. Ryland was, after all, a field master. It would make sense if Riley resented him.

I cleared my throat. “So… uh. Have you two met? You know, before?”

“Yes. Riley would help take care of my wounded slaves.” Ryland said normally.

“Ry was my absolute favorite field master!” she exclaimed, burrowing her head on his shoulder.

Okay, so they’re on good terms. Nice.

“I’m glad to hear it.” I put my hands together. I decided to wait to tell them more about me and our mission until after we were the last ones left.

I learned some interesting things about the world and about Renshire from talking to the slaves. For one, even though I had never seen a monster yet, they did in fact exist.

An old man, sitting cross-legged around us in the center of a large circle, continued his story.

“For the young ones here, you may have never seen them. That just shows you have hard the knights have worked to get rid of them. But they do exist, and they’re closer than you think.” he said, mimicking a monster’s cry and attack pattern.

“What are they, sir?” a teenage girl asked, frightened.

“Minotaurs. They’re as tall as 8 feet with the body of a man and the head of an animal, each one packing the strength of at least 2 men. They’re rabid. If you’re spotted, you’re as good as dead. But what makes them truly scary is that they also hunt together. You’ll never encounter just one.”

“Psst.” I whispered to Ryland and Riley. “Have you guys ever seen one?”

“Nope.”

“I’ve heard of them at least.” Ryland confirmed, stroking his chin.

“There’s many a knight stationed in the southern border between the Central Federation of Nations and Renshire. A few minotaurs always get through. Never stray too far from a town.”

The old man got up and walked over and pointed to me.

“…Unless you’re the saint here.” he gave a hearty laugh.

Before I could say something, we heard a rumbling sound in the distance. Shadow confirmed that it was the knights. They brought back even more of their men and at least 20 horse-drawn carriages.

“I guess they’re here.” Ryland said, getting up and preparing to greet the knight captain.

Soon it was time to go.

Ryland and I waved to the slaves loading up on the carriages.

“Thanks again, Saint 103!”

I felt a tear in my eye.

Finally we loaded the last person.

“Are you not coming?” asked one of the knights to me.

Crap. I was supposed to be hiding. I still look like a slave! Good thing my wand’s in my shirt pocket with dirt. But what do I say?

“Sirs, this has been my assistant in the process of keeping the peace. He’ll stay with me to see the last of us off.” Ryland said, giving me a quick stink eye.

Bless your big brain, Ryland.

I nodded.

“Don’t speak much, do you lad?” he asked me.

I shook my head.

“Well alright then.” he said, getting in the driver’s seat of one of the vehicles.

Phew.

I playfully slapped Ryland on his shoulder.

“That was some quick thinking, Ryland. I appreciate it.” I said.

“Well we can’t have you getting arrested before this big mission you wanted me to do, right?” he retorted. “So what exactly are we doing?”

Riley broke her silence. “Yeah, since I’ll be coming with you, I’d like to know too.”

“Before I tell you what my mission is, I want to describe a little bit about the circumstances that got me caught.” I started.

I had been practicing and going over the details of this story for a couple of hours in my head. I took in a big breath.

Here we go.

“I’m from Meade. About two weeks ago, I started experiencing intense amnesia. I forgot a lot of things about my job and I was let go. I remember that much. The amnesia sort of worsened, and I still have trouble remembering much of my life before last week. I found myself wandering off in a dangerous part of town. I slept in a dark alley and that’s when I got kidnapped.”

“That’s awful.” Riley said, with her hand over her mouth.

Ryland looked at me with a look of suspicion.

“You were confused about where you were and ended up sleeping in a dark alley?” he asked.

Not the most believable story, but I’m gonna have to milk it. Amnesia is the best way to explain all of this without letting them know the truth about my past world.

“I remember that day very clearly because it was around the time my amnesia significantly improved. Still not sure what caused it. That day my family wanted to celebrate my improvement, and by that I mean that I wasn’t forgetting recent stuff that was happening anymore, but still couldn’t remember the stuff that came before that.”

They nodded. It didn’t seem like they doubted me.

Okay, good.

“Anyway, I got separated from them, and because I had forgotten so much of my past I couldn’t figure out where I was and it got too late, so I slept in the alley.” I continued.

I made a big sighing gesture, as if I just got done telling my life story.

“…So anyway, our mission is to locate my family.” I declared. “…And don’t worry I know who they are and what they look like.”

“Okay, your family… you guys got separated inside of Meade, right?” Ryland asked.

“I’ve never been there, but sometimes I would hear stories from slaves from Meade. They said it was a pretty rich city.” Riley commented.

“It did seem well off.” I said, remembering the more affluent sections like the Royal Shopping District. “And yes. That day I got wind of something and started running because I wanted to bring it back to show everyone. Unfortunately, I had run off too far and ended up in a shopping district. I got lost and couldn’t find them anywhere.”

“Well, I understand the situation now.” Ryland said. Riley gave a thumbs up.

“But you sound more like a lost child than someone who orchestrated a prison break.” Ryland again eyed me suspiciously.

“Hey now, that was only possible because of my powers.” I defended. “Let’s help this lost kid find his way back home, okay?” I joked.

Riley snorted a quick laugh.

I got a little more serious. “For now, I think it might be getting late in a few hours. I really want to get out of the desert and find a town.”

“We should probably walk in the same direction as the knights. They were from a town close to Meade.” Ryland commented.

Chapter 22: Unexpected Travelers

Once we agreed on where we should start going, I took one final look at the buildings where I had been enslaved. One week in that place felt like an eternity.

Good riddance.

“You guys all set to go?” I asked them.

Ryland nodded.

“I’ll be right back.” Riley said looking like she was holding something in. “Just need to make a girl’s trip!”

She darted off back to the buildings and went about her business.

When she returned, we set off in the direction the knights had gone.

“So both the town we’re trying to reach and Meade will be further south… once we get out of the Rostrum Valley, that is.” Ryland said, waving his hand over the desert expanse.

“Oh, that’s where we are?” Riley asked curiously, her eyes darting from side to side. “…and where’s that?”

I nodded. I wanted to know, too.

“Are you amnesic, too, Riley?” Ryland asked her.

“No, I just haven’t been outside the mines for 10 years, soooo…”

“…Right.” Ryland nodded understandingly. “Well, this place is called the Rostrum valley. It stretches for several miles and all you’ll see are mountains and…” he said, picking up some rough desert soil. “…this stuff. So not much to see. If we keep walking east of here, we’ll start seeing fresher soil until we find some forests.”

“And from the forests, we can start heading south?” I asked.

He nodded. “The town the knights are from is much closer than Meade. The plan is: stop there first, refuel for a bit, and then head further south.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” I said excitedly. I was itching to be back in town to look for my family again.

We walked for a long time east. The sun had started going down, so the air had grown a bit cooler. The soil in this direction was getting less cracked and darker brown, with the topsoil looking more and more nutrient rich. Just as Ryland had said. There was more grass growing naturally, and lots of tall grass. I could start to see the end of the valley mountains.

Suddenly, we heard distant screams. I could barely make out the words, but I knew something was wrong and it was coming from the direction we were walking.

I wasted no time in making use of my new powers.

“Shadow, go check out what’s wrong!”

Shadow had a range of 1,000 feet and if it was loud enough to be heard, whatever was happening couldn’t be more than a hundred feet or two from us.

“Master, there is a family of people running from… beasts. I believe they are the minotaurs the old man was talking about before.” Shadow reported.

“Can you do something? Try to save them!”

“I would try, but regrettably there is a magic user among them.”

“Huh? So what? Just take them out.”

“One of my few natural weaknesses is holy light magic. It seems there is a light barrier around each of the minotaurs. I cannot touch them.”

Riley and Ryland stared off into the distance. They had heard the screams but couldn’t see what was happening either.

“What do you guys think that was?” Riley asked.

“Guys.” I got in front of them and said. “There’s a group of monsters. Minotaurs! Up ahead. And there’s people running from them.”

Riley’s jaw dropped instinctively. “We have to go save them!” She made eye contact with me and wouldn’t look away.

“Jay, can’t you use that power from before? You know, the one you used to knock out the guards?” Ryland analyzed quickly.

I shook my head. I grabbed them both by the hand.

“Come on, we have no time to waste! I’ll think of something else!” I shouted, picking up the trail of the people running.

“W-what are w-we gonna do then?” Riley asked, panting. Her laborious breathing indicated she was very out of shape despite her thin figure.

“Yeah, if you can’t use that power then we’ll just be running towards our deaths! Do you have another plan?” Ryland raised his voice, more concerned than usual. It was weird. I could barely hear his breathing. He seemed to be in incredible shape.

What can I do?

We continued running as fast as we could. The screams were getting louder, as were the pounding footsteps of what sounded like over a dozen monsters.

“Help!!!” the voice of a man cried out. “Please!! Somebody!!”

The figures finally came into view. Four people were running from almost 25 man-beasts. It seemed to be a family. A man and his wife, both looking to be in their early 30’s, were each carrying a young child in their arms as they ran for their lives. They were dressed in light clothing. The minotaurs were like large muscular men lacking sexual organs, and covered in fur or feathers from the neck up. Their heads were various animals, some bulls, others strange, demented birds. They screeched in wild animal noises.

Luckily, the man beasts weren’t fast, probably as fast as a human fast-jogging. They seemed to be slightly slowed down from the weight of their upper body that was overly muscular compared to their lower body. That must have been the only reason the family had survived so long.

“Harietta, don’t look back. Just keep running! We—we’ll find help soon!”

The wife kept stealing glances at the beasts chasing them, trying to gauge the distance between them. In one foul step, she tripped on a large pebble and accidentally flung her young child in front of her. She cried out.

“Harietta—no!” the man called out, turning as fast as he could manage to pick up his fallen wife.

He hadn’t noticed us coming towards them. Soon we were a little over fifty feet from them. I had run brazenly to save them without a plan. And now that they were in front of me, I felt as though all I could do was watch as the minotaurs caught up to the couple and their children, looking to tear them limb from limb with their huge hands.

Before the first minotaur could reach them, I saw the visual meter of my electrical output in the right corner of my vision and focused on it. I imagined a high energy electric field between the left and right sides of the minotaur’s body. There was no spark or anything this time. I couldn’t tell if anything had happened.

But then the minotaur froze up and stopped moving, falling over on its side. It was paralyzed. I realized what had happened. Unlike visible sparks which came about from high voltage, I created a low voltage, high current scenario that had fried its body’s nerves and motor control. My magic had worked!

The herd noticed what happened to the one that had gotten the closest to the wife and child and stopped chasing. They all cocked their heads robotically, searching for the cause of their fallen comrade. Their head movement grossed me out, and their eyes bulged when they finally noticed us.

My little stunt bought us a few seconds of time. But soon I heard a loud, deep grunt. Like the bark of a large dog. It came from deep within the pack. The other minotaurs moved out of the way, revealing a large man beast with a reindeer head holding a wooden stick like my wand gripped in one of its massive hands.

The beast man immediately focused its gaze on me and made another loud grunt, this time sounding more menacing, like it was giving an order. Its gaze was so intense it felt like a dagger pointed at my soul. He then pointed his right hand at our group. The other minotaurs became rabid and started charging at us, ignoring the family of four in front of them.

Riley screamed in terror as she dropped to the ground and covered her ears.

Ryland grabbed my slave shirt by the collar and shook my body. “Jay!! Jay! You have a plan, right?! What do we do?!” he bellowed in my ear.

Except I didn’t have a plan.

All I had accomplished was shifting the focus of those charging monsters from the defenseless family to us. In that moment, I felt a striking sense of guilt amidst the overwhelming fear causing my hands to shake. I was going to cause the deaths of my two new companions. Riley and Ryfield would be dead because of me. After the small hope I had just given them to live their lives free from enslavement.

I froze. My body felt like gelatin and I couldn’t move. I nearly dissociated, hearing Ryland’s screams in my ear less and less as reality started getting further away.

He slapped me across the face. Hard. The shock brought me back.

“Zap them all! I don’t care what you do, just do something!”

From the sudden shock back to reality, I found the courage to try. I wasn’t sure how fast I’d be able to cast an electric field, but I had to try to take out one at a time.

I readied my gaze and visualized what I had done instinctively before when I paralyzed the first minotaur. I selected a target. It fell under the same paralysis.

It took a few seconds to feel ready enough for the second. In this life or death moment, I learned the extent of my current powers. Using electrical magic had a few second cool down between casts.

The minotaurs kept running, undeterred when one of their comrades fell. The ones behind the fallen trampled over their bodies without hesitation. I managed to take down almost a dozen before they were within arm’s length of Riley, who was still cowering on the ground.

There were still too many left—almost a dozen. They reached for Riley, who begged me to help her with eyes opened wide.

“Shadow, cover Riley with your body!”

Shadow quickly brought Riley into a fetal position so it could cover most of her body with its material form. The minotaurs encircled Riley, trying to grab at her, but finding Shadow’s various body parts instead. Confused, they screeched again. I felt a pulsing headache every time the minotaurs touched Shadow. It must have been the light magic barrier around their bodies. The barriers touching Shadow were weakening it!

I didn’t waste another moment.

“Don’t let up Shadow. Protect her with all you got!”

Despite increasing pain in my head, I zapped the minotaurs one by one until soon there were only about 4 left. I was just about ready to collapse. Before I could cast the next hit, I saw a blinding white light right in front of me. It was so bright, it seared my vision. It was like looking straight into an industrial headlight from point blank distance.

I was blinded. I lost my balance and fell on my rear. I couldn’t see a thing except a wash of colors as my eyes slowly readjusted to my surroundings.

What the--?! Oh, the magic user, I forgot!

With only four enemies in front of us, Ryland acted on his own. He stepped in and kicked one of them from behind. Strangely, as if they all shared one body, all of them stopped grabbing at Riley and leaped towards him instead.

Ryland ran like a bastard, having successfully pulled the enemies’ attention.

“Riley, are you okay?!” I asked frantically.

Shadow left her alone, allowing me to fully inspect her body. She was covered in purplish bruises, but nothing seemed serious.

She opened her eyes and looked up at me.

“I’m…I’m okay. It just hurts everywhere. Something…protected me from most of their hands.”

Another flash of light in front of my eyes.

Shit, I need to take the reindeer out!

Blinded again, I asked Shadow to be my eyes. It reported that Ryland was still being chased while the reindeer minotaur was about 20 feet from us, keeping a distance from us.

What is it doing? If it wanted to, now would be the perfect chance to get us. It must still be on guard about my powers.

My eyes readjusted again a bit faster than the first and I immediately zapped it. It fell over. I had tried to kill it, but the electric field I could produce was only strong enough to cause paralysis. Another thing I had learned about my powers so far.

Ryland noticed the magic user down and yelled out, “Jay, there’s a really sharp stick around you. Kill it!”

I looked around at the ground and spotted the stick he was talking about. It had a sharp end like a spear. I grabbed it and ran at the magic user. It was sprawled over the ground, unable to move. I lunged at its eyes with the sharp end and used all my strength to drive it through his eye sockets, deeper into its head. It screeched and bled furiously, until finally the last of its strength gave out.

I had managed to slay the reindeer minotaur, and with it gone, the light barriers around the minotaurs dissipated and I ordered Shadow to take them all out using full power.

Without holding anything back, Shadow was able to deal massive damage as it accelerated towards each of them faster than a bullet and sent them flying far away with a body tackle.

Ryland stopped moving as he noticed his aggressors no longer chasing him.

“Huh?!” he yelled out.

He shifted a dagger-like gaze at me.

“Jay, if you could do that this whole time, why did you wait so long?!”

He looked furious with me. But if he could look at me like that, then our worries were over. I sighed in relief.

“Ryland, I wasn’t able to before.” I said, pointing at the reindeer minotaur. “That one was a magic user. It was somehow preventing me from using that power, so all I had left was electricity.”

He walked up to it and inspected the corpse. “Hmm. That’s strange. I’ve never heard of a minotaur that can use magic. This one must be exceptional.”

“Ugh, whatever.” Riley whined in pain. She was trying to act tough, but her poor face was unable to hide the truth. She was terrified. “I’m just glad those things are gone.”

Technically, they’re still alive.

“Shadow, kill them while they’re paralyzed.”

After the minotaurs were all dead and we calmed down a bit, the family of four came over to us.

With tears in his eyes, the man shook my hand and gave me the most admirable handshake I’d ever received.

“Wizard. You saved my family’s lives. I—” he sniffed. “I will never be able to repay this debt. You have my deepest gratitude.”

I blushed. “No need to thank me. I’m just glad I got here in time. By the way, what were you doing out here?”

One of the kids burst into tears and the wife consoled him.

The man breathed a sigh of relief as if he finally felt out of danger. “I live in a small town east of the forests nearby, in the barony of Prash. I run a general store for crafting supplies. I had finally saved enough money to afford a trip to Meade for a small vacation with my family on our horses…”

Ryland butted in. “So how did you end up near the Rostrum Valley? Meade should have been southwest—”.

“—I know!” the man choked out, dropping to his knees, his hands catching his fall as he lost his breath. He clenched his fist tightly with regret. “I know, I’m a fool for putting my family in danger. I shouldn’t have listened to him!”

“Listened to who?” Riley asked.

“An old merchant who visits our town, who often sets up shop. He said that there would be a circus inside of a forest somewhere close by to here and that anyone who knew about it was welcome to attend. I thought that sounded strange, but my boy…he was so excited to go, I just couldn’t say no.”

“So you agreed that you’d stop by there first?” Ryland asked understandingly.

He nodded.

“Except we couldn’t find this circus. When I gave up and started heading south to Meade, I stopped to let our horses rest near a small river…”

All the color drained from his face, leaving a pale, ghostly visage. “That’s when they ambushed us.”

His wife tugged on his shirt, whispering something nis ear.

“I—I won’t stand for this Harietta!” he shouted, making his wife panic at his sudden change of expression. “Not for this—disrespect! He just saved our lives! It doesn’t matter what he is.”

I got confused.

Was she badmouthing me?

“What are you going to do now? Will you be alright?” Riley asked them. Though from the look on her face, I was more worried about her.

“Don’t worry about us, miss. We’ll be searching for our missing horses. Our family is too poor to lose them.”

Hmm.

“Shadow, think you could help them out?”

Shadow proceeded to do a search around its range.

“It seems they’re in luck.” It reported. “Not just because I found them, but because they’re together. A few hundred feet north of here, there is a small meadow with a wooden small gate. It stands out from the rest of the area. The horses are grazing on grass. They have two small red ribbons tied to their necks.”

I cleared my throat, interrupting the man admonishing his wife on our behalf.

“Sir, do your horses have two red ribbons around their necks?” I asked.

The man immediately perked up. “Yes! How did you know that?”

I ignored him. “Your horses are north of here in a meadow. Both of them. Several hundred feet that way.” I pointed. “You should hurry before they stop eating.”

The man looked at his wife, both confused. I heard whispers between them. “How… could… know that? Magic…”

With that, the man grabbed his wife’s hand and led their family in the direction I pointed. We were at the end of Rostrum valley and we could see a few forests in the distance. He waved at us in the distance. I never got their names, but I didn’t stop them as they went away. Their family had been through a lot just now.

“Jay, Ryland, what should we do now?” Riley asked. “Should we go off with them?”

I shook my head. “No it’s probably better to sleep out under the shade of a tree here at the edge of the Rostrum Valley. Then in the morning we’ll continue our search. It’s easier to see out here than in some thick forest. They should be fine now.”

“Yeah, I’m beat. There’s a good tree at the intersection there.” Ryland agreed, pointing to a good resting place.

We were all exhausted. We were going to go without food tonight. But I think none of us cared. We hunkered down in the shade of the tree.

I was still feeling the effects of the light barriers on Shadow. My head felt like it had been punched by a gorilla repeatedly. Despite this, I soon drifted to sleep.

Chapter 23: The Forest People

When I woke up, the sun was beating down on my face. If this was morning, it wouldn’t be at this angle yet. So I figured it must already be the afternoon.

I looked around. Riley was silently crying.

My head was still pounding a little, but I pushed through that.

On top of a gnarled root of the tree we slept under, she was hugging her knees. I thought back to yesterday. The hordes of man beasts running at us kept flashing through my mind. I figured it must be even worse for Riley, since they all flocked to her first. In fact, there had been a point where I couldn’t see her anymore since they completely encircled her. What’s worse, Shadow is invisible to anyone but me as I learned previously, so Riley probably thought they would slaughter her. She had no power. Nothing to stop them.

“…Riley?” I asked carefully.

She looked up at me.

“Jay.” she said silently without facing me.

“Yes…?”

“Please…” she squeaked out softly. “Kill me.”

I was taken aback. “Riley, no. I can’t…Why?”

“I keep seeing it in my head. Over and over. Those monsters’ hands trying to get me. Their horrible faces. I… can’t stop seeing them.”

She stopped burrowing her face in her knees and faced me. She looked dead inside. Her lips so dry and cracked.

I couldn’t think. I didn’t know what to do to make her feel better. Was there anything I could do?

Out of instinct, I reached to hug her, catching her by surprise. She resisted like an angry child, but I didn’t let go.

“Let—let go!” she struggled. “I…”

Her face swelled up and she burst into tears, stopping her struggle.

“Why…?” she spoke softly. “Why won’t you just do what I ask?”

My eyes opened wide. I felt every heartbeat in my chest, crashing. “I’m not going to kill you! Are you crazy?!”

I felt my face swell up with anger. “How could you even suggest that? I didn’t defend you from those monsters just so you would die later anyway!”

“Then… how?” she wiped her face. “How do I make them go away?”

I felt my jaw clench out of my control. “I’ll tell you how, Riley.” I let go of her and stood up, unable to take my eyes off her.

“Live! Laugh at those stupid monsters that tried to kill you but ended up dying themselves!”

Just then, Ryland woke up. He had serious bed hair. It looks like he had ended up sleeping on the grass. It was rather comical.

“…Keep your voices down.” he said, as if he were hungover. “Why yell when we’re right here?...”

Riley’s frown melted slightly. She let out a chuckle. Then started laughing more, uncontrollably.

“Ryland, your hair! It’s standing up!” she cackled.

“Huh?” Ryland reacted, quickly trying to fix his hair.

I don’t know what happened. But Riley looked much more alive.

“Thank you… Jay. I’ll try.” she whispered in my ear.

After we talked some more, we all agreed to get up and start walking south. All that waited for us was a bunch of trees and cobblestone or dirt paths along the way. So it was hard to get excited.

At a good walking pace, Ryland estimated we should have reached the town in several hours. Except in reality, we were all walking much too slowly to keep up with his estimates. I was doubling over in pain, covering my stomach with my hand. I was starving.

We had been walking in silence for a while now. Ryland broke the silence.

“You know I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I think I figured out what your power is.” Ryland said.

“Oh, you think so? Well if you guess right, I might tell you.” I challenged.

“You have something like an invisible hand or body that you can move. The only thing I don’t understand is how you move it when it’s out of sight.” he reasoned.

Wow, good guess. With enough time, he could probably figure out what it really is.

“You’re not too far off.” I said, arching an eyebrow.

“So it really was an invisible body?” Riley said, patting her shoulders and hands.

I guess there’s no harm in telling them my power. I trust them. It’s not the same as telling them I’m from another world. ‘Cause even in this magic world, even I wouldn’t believe that without proof.

“It’s close. My power is a shadow being that has its own consciousness. It can move really fast and become a physical version of me.” I said.

“Incredible! You know I’ve always been fascinated by magic, so I studied what little knowledge I could find from old bookstores when I wasn’t a slave.” Ryland said. “I’ve never heard of a power like that.”

The hours passed. Since we walked along a trail, we didn’t go into any forests to hunt. We just wanted to get to the town as quickly as possible. Ryland figured it was the shortest route there.

Time seemed to pass slowly and fast at the same time. The trees started blending together and I couldn’t figure out where we were anymore. My stomach had stopped bothering me despite not having eaten anything still. Before we knew it, the sun was starting to go down again.

How has a whole day already passed? I know we woke up late, but still…

Ryland spoke up now. His face was dead serious.

“Let’s go into a forest.” he said sternly. “We can’t avoid eating. I bet we might be able to find the circus they were talking about. And there’s bound to be food.”

Before I could say anything, he took the lead without warning, walking fast. Something about him seemed different. He led us into a forest. But it almost seemed like he really wanted to find the circus for some reason.

Maybe he’s a big fan of traveling circuses. I thought, shrugging.

I am really hungry.

We walked right in, slipping past a few tall trees On the outside it didn’t seem as big as it really it was. Once past the first sparse trees, it quickly became densely populated. Moss on stones, broken branches, fallen leaves, all sorts of creatures, logs that had fallen to age became hiding grounds for bugs. And of course, countless trees.

There were a few routes with fewer trees that seemed almost as if someone had created them. But there weren’t any signs that might say “Detour!” or any directions, so I wasn’t sure.

For five minutes, we walked straight but then I heard some leaves crunch near a tree.

I signaled everyone to stop moving for a second and to not make noise.

“Marley, stop running!” a young girl about maybe 12 years old said, out of breath.

“You gotta catch me!!” a little boy about 8 years old running on stubby legs said.

The sight of the little boy running was funny. He was short and chubby so he looked like a toy. I imagined a white beard and pointy hat on him like a garden gnome and Shadow laughed.

“So you can laugh!” I said triumphantly.

“Yes, that is quite amusing.” It responded.

“Mikaela, it’s sad you can’t catch me. You’re too slow!” he said, dodging trees like an expert.

“Shadow, trip him. Not too hard. Wait for it…” I said, almost bursting into laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Riley asked me with a look of confusion.

“Just watch.” I said, pointing to the little boy Marley.

“Okay, now!” I told Shadow.

Then Shadow tripped the little boy and softened his landing. The little boy screamed.

“Sis, I felt something holding me!” he shrieked.

“What? But there’s nothing there.” she scanned the area around him. “You’re imagining things.”

“Aw man, his screaming ruined it.” I said, shaking my head.

“You’re awful!” Riley whispered to me. “You might have really scared him.” She hit me softly but still with a bad intention.

“Alright, I’ll go say something.” I said, defeated.

“Little boy!” I said, running up to him. “Are you okay? I saw you falling.”

“Mister, did you see something touch me?” he asked with big eyes. His face suddenly became a gnome’s.

“Umm..” Why is this so funny to me? It was starting to slip out. “No--pfft, sorry.”

“Anyway,” I continued, “what are two kids like you doing out here alone? It might be getting dark soon.”

Ryland and Riley caught up to me.

“Are you lost?” Ryland said, crouching down to the boy.

“No, I was just trying to get my little brother back to the festival.” the little girl said.

“Festival? Out here in the forest?” I asked. “Not a circus?”

“Yeah! There’s a big party this time of the year. It’s in a different place every time, and this year was in this forest!” the little girl said excitedly. “I thought you guys might be here for it too.”

“We were just traveling this way. But, you know. A festival sounds fun. Which way is it?” I asked her nicely.

“It’s that way!” she pointed ahead of us. “It’s a little bit deeper, but you can’t miss it!”

“Thanks a lot, miss!” Ryland said. “We’re very grateful.”

We walked and waved to them with smiles.

“How can there be a festival in a dark forest?” Riley said.

“The old man the family mentioned must have gotten confused and meant festival instead of circus. Though, I can understand your confusion about that as well. A circus will setup shop anywhere, but who would want to celebrate a festival here?” Ryland said, his face still gravely serious.

What’s with him?

“Let’s hurry, maybe we can still find something cool.” I said, trying to lighten Ryland’s mood.

Ryland stayed quiet.

We started jogging quite fast.

After several minutes and being slightly out of breath, we started seeing festive lights on the trees and signs. The trees were becoming much more sparse.

“8th Annual Magic Festival!”

“Welcome!”

“Come one, come all!” … some of the signs read.

We all looked at each other, in surprise and excitement.

As we got closer we started hearing lots of voices and market stands came into view.

At the heart of it, there were no trees and instead a big open space filled with people and market vendors. There was a stage and chairs in front of it, maybe 50 in all.

“Beads, ward off any evil!” I heard one vendor shout. An old lady with a pointy nose and chin that reminded me of a witch. “Keep those knights out and the magic in! Hehe!”

“Get your Magic Festival meat kabobs right here! Kids eat free.” one large butcher shouted.

My mouth salivated. I was about to tug on Riley’s and Ryland’s shirts when a few people came up to us.

It was a couple of teenagers and they immediately started talking to Riley.

“Hey there, pretty lady. This your first time here?” the tallest one asked.

“Yes. We’re new here. I’m Riley and these are my friends Jay and Ryland.” she introduced us.

“Well Riley, you came at the right time cause the main event is coming up.” he said, getting closer to her. “The main festival staff are gonna start juggling stuff on fire with wind magic. Like a magic circus!”

“Hey, show her the trick!” one of the other boys nudged him.

He cleared his throat and made an exaggerated gesture, like if he was a circus ringmaster. “Miss Riley, have you ever seen real magic?” he asked.

“Maybe a few times.” she giggled.

“Well, be amazed!” he said, revealing his wand and making some exaggerated motion.

But nothing seemed to happen.

“Now, try jumping.” he continued.

Riley jumped about 10 feet in the air and seemed to fall much slower. It was as if she had landed on the moon.

“Wow this is fun!!” she said, trying to jump higher.

Is this… gravity magic? It looks like he can manipulate the effects of gravity on an object.

I was completely in awe.

“Hey man, do you think I could try?” I asked eagerly, tapping his shoulder.

He looked my way for a second and then looked again at Riley. I clicked my tongue.

Cheeky runt is ignoring me.

Other people caught sight of Riley doing crazy jumps and stopped to stare and point. Soon there was a wave of lively onlookers clapping and cheering. One person even shouted, “How high can you go?!”

Riley readied her stance and jumped about 20 feet, enough to land on a tall branch of a tree.

“Look I’m gonna jump off!” she said.

“Wait, Miss Riley… I think –” the magic boy said, trying to stop her.

“Riley, stop! Don’t get carried away!” I shouted with him.

Riley jumped with full confidence that she was going to land safely. But her speed was much faster than before.

“Sha—”  I tried to say, but she was already about to hit the ground.

Shadow rushed to catch her and she landed in its grasp before landing. She stuck the landing well and people again clapped.

The boys looked at her in confusion, wondering what had just happened.

“Sorry Miss Riley, I tried to tell you. The effects don’t last very long. But I’m working on it!” he said proudly.

“Don’t worry, that was really fun.” she said hugging him. The magic boy looked like he was on Cloud 9. His friends were laughing and making kissy faces.

So the effects only last around 1 minute. Not bad for a fun time. He must get all the girls his age. I sighed.

Still, it was my first time seeing magic that wasn’t my own. I was getting super excited, wondering if I’d get to see other powers.

Riley said that we were going to shop around, but that she would try to see him again in the main event. The boy smiled and waved like a kid in love.

We went off to check out the wares of some of the vendors.

I ignored the shop with the lady selling ‘magic beads’, because I wrote it off as nonsense.

“Do you guys really think magic beads are real?” I asked.

“No, it sounds like she dabbles in the other kind of ‘magic’.” Ryland said sarcastically.

There were so many people it was hard getting to the front of the shops to browse at times.

We then found ourselves in front of an animal performer with a small gated area and a monkey doing various public stunts. The man was holding a whip that would catch on fire at the very edge as it was going to hit the monkey. Then it would cool off.

Another performer was playing a flute and the monkey seemed to respond to it. The little beast was an acrobat, doing incredible backflips through a small ring suspended in the air by a pole.

Fire magic! Or maybe it’s a party trick? I wondered.

“It’s so cute!” Riley said. “I want to squish its little cheeks.” She closed her fingers together.

“Wonder how long it took to get a monkey to do backflips.” Ryland laughed, clapping.

The man was holding out a hat and people were throwing copper money in it.

When it got around to us I made a gesture indicating we were flat broke. The man flashed a frown and then continued watching over the monkey.

Sorry bro.

We left the monkey attraction and walked over to a quieter vendor.

This one barely had people around it. Instead there was just an old man who seemed bored and was reading a book.

He had various gemstones on display. Back in my old world, my mom had a fascination with gemstones and jewelry and would often buy them, only to later get buyers’ remorse and then try to sell them online. I helped her list them, polish them, and in that time, I learned how to identify and classify real gemstones. Or it least tell if it was fake right away.

I went up to there and he had seemingly genuine rubies, sapphires, emeralds, opals, and more… even diamonds.

He looked at us for a second, probably concluded we were poor, and then continued reading his book. To be fair, I still had on slave clothes. Riley was rocking a nurse’s outfit, and Ryland had on slightly better attire than me (being a field master) that was still in good condition, but he wasn’t exactly oozing wealth. I wasn’t really interested in gems, but I wondered if they had a purpose in being here in a magic festival.

I knocked on the wood of his display stand and said, “Excuse me, we’re interested in what you have here. Do these gems have magical properties?”

He arched an eyebrow and put down his book.

“Do you know about these, young man?” he asked in a coarse voice.

“Actually no.” I said, holding up my wand. “But maybe they could decorate this baby.”

His eyes grew wide. “Oh they’ll do more than that!” he exclaimed, getting up. “Attach these to your wand and your magic will grow exponentially!”

Hold up. Seriously?

“Shadow, is that true?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” it said quietly.

“How do they work?” I asked curiously, eyeing a diamond. I made sure to keep a distance so the old man wouldn’t think I was about to steal one, even though I easily could have with Shadow.

“Hundreds of years ago, a few pioneering wizards discovered that certain stones were natural catalysts for magic. The hue they naturally reflected could greatly bolster the power of a certain type of magic, relative to the purity of the stone.” He said.

He held up a ruby. “These naturally deep red hues can make fire magic more potent. Fires start faster and get much hotter.”

He held up an emerald. “These emeralds can affect the flow of wind magic, making it much more responsive and powerful.”

All of us said, “wow..” at the same time.

Fire magic. Wind magic. Gemstones. It was really starting to feel like a fantasy world. Maybe there’s dragons too? Goblins and monsters besides minotaurs?

“What does the diamond enhance?” Ryland asked inquisitively.

“The pure diamond offers the highest caliber enhancement. All magic is strengthened. It is said to boost magic power itself.” he explained, grabbing a small diamond with a little tweezer instrument.

“Alright, sir. You’ve convinced me. What can I do to get one of these off your hands?” I said greedily, pointing to the diamond.

“Hah! Sorry lad, but unless you’ve got several gold on you, even the smallest of these diamonds is off the table. All the stuff you can find in regular stores is fake. You cannot imagine how difficult it is to get real, genuine gemstones in a land where magic is forbidden.” he said.

Ryland nodded. He whispered to me, “every time a slave dug up a gemstone in the mines, the field masters would have a field day. These things fetch a high price in black markets.” he said, making a pun.

“How much is a gold coin?” I asked Ryland.

“It’s 100 silver coins, each one of which is 100 copper coins. It’s an exorbitant amount of money.” he explained.

I wasn’t sure of the value of money in this world, but I thought back to the street vendors when we first arrived in Meade. 10 copper could get you a pound of squid or octopus. Back in the United States (of America) something like that would probably be worth like $20 or $30. In the US rates, several ounces of silver would be worth a few hundred dollars. But here, it seemed like even one silver coin was worth over $1,000 back in my world if we’re talking octopus. Not to mention it sounded like some of the goods were imported, so that would hike up the price. I needed to gather more data.

“Okay, well… we definitely can’t afford anything here. But I appreciate you talking to us. One day I know I’ll make good use of one of these.” I said.

“Thanks for entertaining an old man. By the way, what kind of magic do you have?” he eyed me curiously.

“I… can use electrical magic.” I said, making a small spark in front of him.

“Wow, rare magic indeed.” he rubbed his hands together. “For that kind, you might look into an amethyst or diamond for enhancement.”

Adding that to my mental notes.

We turned to walk away and waved at him.

“Man, this place is a blast! I feel like I’m learning so much.” I beamed.

“Well for you, you’re probably interested in this stuff ‘cause it will actually help you.” Riley said. “But I just want some food!” she said, rubbing her stomach.

“We’re broke, remember?” Ryland said with a sigh.

Yeah, I could really use something to eat…

“Maybe I could perform some magic and people will throw money at me.” I suggested.

“It’s absolutely worth a try!” Riley said with a hungry look in her eyes. She looked dead serious. I tried not to laugh.

Chapter 24: Assault

I was motioning to Riley to be quiet so I could think of what kind of show I could put on, when we heard a few screams off near some trees.

Everyone’s attention was forced towards the piercing shrieks in the outer parts of the festival, away from the main stage.

Just then, some men in uniforms rushed the crowd from behind the trees. They completely encircled the entire festival in a tight, spaced-out formation. They had been waiting for this. They weren’t knights in armor, but they were wearing camouflage uniforms. And all of them carried rifles.

One man shouted with a lot of stripes and badges on his uniform emerged and shouted, “By order of the Dukedom of Rostrum, which governs over the jurisdiction of Count Sylvian, in which we abide, you are all under arrest for conducting an illegal event for the practice and promotion of magic without permit. If you resist, my men will have to take you in by force.”

All the order in the forest broke down. People started screaming, and there was plenty of magic going around.

Gusts of wind that looked too concentrated to be natural formed and hit a few guards. Some had some pretty good knockback, knocking unsuspecting soldiers over, but many looked too weak to do much.

One large man yelled, “Wizards! Defend yourselves and your rights!”

In response, one of the soldiers in uniform cried out, “Chief! Let us shoot!”

The chief’s face didn’t budge. It was a stone wall, just silently observing everything.

“It’s burning! Ahh, help!” one of the soldiers shouted. He dropped his rifle and started rolling on the ground, trying to relieve himself. But his uniform wasn’t on fire. I assumed that it was being dangerously heated up and roasting him. A few of the festival attendees revealed concealed weapons and shot the guards. Most attendees, however, relied only on magic.

After witnessing all of it, the chief said, “Men, shoot if you have to.”

At once, the men in uniform raised their rifles and began shooting at the crowd.

More screaming. A few people were gravely injured and blood splattered out of their arms, legs, shoulders…

I was so overwhelmed, I couldn’t give Shadow any orders or even think to myself. There was just too much chaos around me.

Many attendees were now being shot. They wailed as bullets pierced their chests, shoulders, anywhere the soldiers could land a hit.

“Get together! Staff, defense plan A!” one of the festival attendees said. A large man with a prominent beard.

A few people that moved swiftly like ninjas all ran from the crowd and started taking down several of the soldiers with magic. They wore dark cloaks and a hazmat suit-like mask. I wondered what the mask was for, but I soon got my answer. 5 staff got together and started shouting in unison.

“God of Light, Trusaene, reveal your divinity and blind my foes! Holy Light Burst!”

It was the same power the reindeer minotaur had used against me, but on a much larger scale. After they finished chanting together, a blinding white light erupted over a 50 foot radius. Even after several seconds, the light showed no sign of receding. I had no choice but to close my eyes or be blinded.

A few staff members took advantage of the tides turning in their favor and brought out large wooden crates of some stuff. They threw them on the ground, smashing the crates and littering the forest ground with dust. The other staff members created large updrafts of wind around the ground, picking up stones and a lot of dust and blowing it around like a sandstorm. Despite the soldiers coughing and trying to clear their vision, their primary objective seemed to be getting the guns out of the soldiers’ hands however possible. Even if it was just dropping them to clear their eyes.

The staff members managed to fell at least 40 soldiers during the confusion, on top of the 10 that were down before, but at least 30 remained standing.

“Oh, no you don’t! Do it now!” the chief yelled at a small teenage boy.

The boy held up his wand and people screamed.

Huh? What’s happening? I didn’t see anything.

“My magic! It’s not working!” shouted a man.

The man who had called for the defense plan said, “No, it can’t be! Large scale nullification magic?!” he shouted. “Anyone who has a gun take them out!”

But with magic gone from their side, the people who had guns were vastly outclassed by the trained soldiers and they were shot down.

“Is there anyone who can still use magic?!” he yelled desperately.

Riley shook me up and said, “Jay! Do something!”

Thanks to the shock, I regained my senses. “Shadow take out every soldier you see!”

Do I still have Shadow? Did they take out my magic too?

“I’m here, Master.” It responded. “Right away.”

Shadow knocked out the 30 soldiers remaining in seconds. Luckily they weren’t covered in suits of armor, mostly just protective gear so shadows’ hits could land and not rely on high speed, which could kill them.

“Leave the chief and the kid. Don’t let them escape!.” I said.

Everyone stopped fighting and looked around in utter bewilderment.

“What happened? Did anyone see who did that?” Defense plan man asked.

“It was my friend! Right here!” Riley said, waving at me.

Why did she draw attention to us?

Well, the jig was up.

Shadow brought me the kid and then the chief of the soldiers.

I guess I had to take center stage now.

“Yes it was me.” I shouted.

“What did you do?” he asked, bewildered, walking up to me.

“I have a special magic that lets me extend my body. I physically knocked these guys out.” I said, still trying to calm down.

“I’ve never seen so many soldiers taken out so fast.” he marveled. “But how was your magic not affected by that kid’s nullification?”

I genuinely don’t know.

“Shadow, any clues?” I asked it.

“The boy’s magic power was too weak to affect yours. I felt a force try to detach me from you, but I was able to overpower it. Without at least matching magic power, it seems nullification magic is useless.” it said.

So if I had less magic power than him, we would have all probably been dead.

“I’m not sure.” I lied to the man. “But I’m just glad I wasn’t affected.”

“Medics, tend to the wounded!” he shouted.

A few people with medical supplies and blankets rushed to the scene and started treating those who were injured. Other people went around collecting the weapons of the fallen soldiers.

“Well I definitely wouldn’t want to fight against you.” he said. “My name is Gerald, and on behalf of the Magic Festival Association I sincerely thank you for saving everyone here. Without you, we might all be dead right now.”

He ushered me to the main stage. I looked around. Blood covered the ground. The soldiers were either dead, or unconscious. The festival attendees wore a mix of exhaustion and shock as they tried to help each other, try to wake up lifeless bodies in vain, and searched for survivors.

“Ladies and gentleman, if I may have your attention. On top of our staff members, who bravely responded to the call to arms, please give a warm round of applause for this young hero, who knocked out the remaining guards with his fantastic power!” he blared.

People started to cheer, but one person cut them off.

“Applause? What for?!” she shouted in agony. “Did you all see how fast the soldiers went down? If he could do that, why didn’t he do that from the start? My fiancé got shot because you waited. He’s dead because of you!” she pointed at me.

People looked at each other… then at me, and some shouted curse words at me.

“Why did you let them shoot us?” a woman demanded.

Their angry glares were scaring me. I couldn’t say anything. I started stepping back and losing my balance.

“People, please! If not for the quick action from this young man, everyone here might have been in danger.” Gerald tried calming the crowd.

I tried to defend myself. “I’m sorry I… didn’t act sooner. I was terrified of the soldiers. I couldn’t think or… act. I’m very sorry for your losses!” I let out in broken speech.

At that, people looked down at all the injured and dead and some broke down crying.

I looked at the mess the soldiers had created.

I started to cry.

Why didn’t I act sooner? I could have stopped them before they started shooting.

Why did I just freeze up? Just like before. Why?! People are dead because of me.

I dropped to my knees and put my face in my palm.

Riley and Ryland put a hand on me. Riley said softly, “it’s not your fault, Jay.”

But deep down, I knew it was. I couldn’t atone. Nothing could bring back the dead.

Chapter 25: Aftermath

I had buried my face away for a while. I didn’t want to see or hear anything. I just wanted to disappear. My conscience was heavily anchored by the sight of death around me. I took one more look around, before quickly burying my face again.

I didn’t say anything to Riley and Ryland, who were standing and facing the scene, trying to console me. I was pathetically sitting on the ground, hiding.

It took about 10 minutes for me to get up and do something. Riley and Ryland had left me, helping somewhere else.

I looked around trying to find the chief of the soldiers and the boy who had cast nullification magic.

They had been tied up.

Shadow had found rope and tied them himself and was preventing anyone from going near them. It was still following the order I left it with.

I slowly walked up to them and the chief glared at me and spat on my shoe.

“Wait till I’m out of here. You’re all going to be put to death for the crime of using magic.” he said, annoyed.

The boy, who was clearly afraid, said, “please! They made me do it. I didn’t have a choice. Let me go!”

Then it occurred to me.

The chief wasn’t at all scared. He was pissed, but calm.

Do they have backup on the way?

“Shadow, do a perimeter search. Go as far as you can and scout in a circle. Let me know if there are more of those soldiers coming.” I ordered.

“Of course.” it said.

I walked up to Gerald and said, “Gerald, when I was going to talk to the chief and the kid, I realized he was pretty calm. I think they might have backup on the way.”

“Yes, it’s possible. If you don’t mind staying, your power will be very useful in case they have more nullification wizards. That said, we’re all trying to wrap up quickly and get out of here.” he said to me.

“I’ll help however I can.” I agreed.

For the next hour, I helped carry and move things, having Shadow take breaks from patrol and help out as well. Soon, the wounded had been moved to a safe area, and many people had fled.

The people left were wrapping up the last of the decorations and things. It seems they didn’t want to leave a trace behind.

“Has anything like this ever happened before?” I asked Gerald.

“This is the first time they’ve ever surrounded us like this.” he said. “They were waiting for this ambush. I don’t know who leaked information about this event to the Espionage Corps, as most people gathered here are a member of the resistance.”

“There’s a resistance?” I asked.

“The Allied Resistance Against Wizard Oppression, or Allied Resistance for short.” he said. “It’s the largest militant group for magic support in the entire kingdom. The king has been after us for a long time, but until now they had never made any real progress.”

He turned to me. “We help wizards and hold events. We’re fighting to change the unfair laws in this country. Jay, with your power, we could have a real stand to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again. Would you join us?”

I paused for a second. I couldn’t give him a definitive answer. I just wasn’t in a frame of mind to be spurred on by his words.

“I’ll consider it. But I’m on my way somewhere out of this forest. I have something I need to do there. And until that happens, I can’t give you a yes.” I said.

“I see.” he concluded gravely.

“I’ll leave the kid and the chief with you. You can do whatever you want with them.” I said.

“Thanks. They will be a real help to reaching our goals.” he said happily. “Would you need an escort to the city you’re traveling to? We’d be happy to help you.”

Sounds like he really wants me to join the resistance.

“It’s a town down south. My companions and I will be walking there.”

Gerald kept pressing further. “It wouldn’t happen to be Meade, would it? We could have you there in much less time! We have spare carriages and some of the fastest horses around.” he said proudly.

We weren’t going to go as far as Meade yet, but this is even better! I could look for my family as soon as we arrive!

“We would very much appreciate the escort then.”

“Excellent. Consider it a thank you for today. And I really look forward to hearing back from you in the future.” he said. “I’ll go get it arranged. Give me a few hours.”

Later that night, no military backup arrived.

Looks like I was worried for nothing.

I told Riley and Ryland that we’d have an escort to Meade on a carriage, courtesy of Gerald. They were thrilled we weren’t going to have to walk.

Since things had settled down, the weight of my burden returned. I felt the bleakness return to my face, my spirits starting to sink lower. My face was feeling heavy. Just looking anywhere but the ground was starting to feel exhausting. As I looked out at the last few people remaining. The magic beads lady had stayed behind, as well as the old man with the gem stall. He waved at me, smiling. I stared back.

Hey, Jay, come on! I saved that guy, didn’t I? He’s waving at me. He only gets to do that because he’s alive!

I slapped myself lightly with both hands on my cheeks, trying to bolster my spirits. “Alright!”

“I know something tragic just happened, but I am famished. I really wished there was something we could eat.” Ryland said.

“I agree, Jay! Can’t you get them to give us food too?” Riley asked, pressing herself against me.

“Almost everyone is gone. If we wanted food, we should have asked a lot earlier.” I sighed.

“Shadow can you find an animal we could eat?”

It started circling around the perimeter again. “I spot a few. A small deer, a squirrel, or a small colony of beetles. Which ones do I get?” it asked.

The menu sucked. I wanted to leave a negative review.

“Guys, if you could eat a baby deer, a squirrel, or a few beetles, what would you pick?” I asked them.

“Uhh, a fawn would be the most food. But if we could get the squirrel too, that would be great.” Ryland said. Riley nodded.

“Alright Shadow. Catch both of those.” I said.

Soon Shadow brought us the baby deer and the squirrel. It had suffocated both with its invisible hands.

“Okay, now we need to get a fire going.” I said, shaking my head as Riley was comforting the dead animals.

“They’re our food now, Riley. It’s the circle of life.” I said, showing my disapproval. “Also anyone know how to skin an animal?”

“I do.” Riley said nonchalantly. “I’ll need a knife.”

Shadow fetched her a knife that had been abandoned during the commotion.

She began to expertly cut up and remove unnecessary skin and organs like the anus. In a few minutes she had completely skinned it and removed the liver, heart, and kidneys.

“We can eat these.” she said.

Ryland and I stared at each other in amazement.

Who would have guessed?

“Okay, nice job Riley. We should start a fire now.” Ryland said, matter-of-factly.

Wish we had some fire magic right now… or a lighter. Wait a minute.

Ryland reached for two sticks and rubbed them together furiously until he got a little smoke ember coming out of the wood.

“Quick pass me any fibers you find on the ground.” he said, fanning the tiny fire.

I laughed. I threw his little science experiment on the ground.

I threw a small lightning bolt at the ground with my magic. It exploded into a fire.

Riley laughed hysterically.

“Aw, Ry! It’s okay! It was a good plan.” she said, poking fun at him, unable to stop laughing.

Ryland sighed. “Yeah or do that.” He went to sit down and kicked some dirt.

“How about you cook it for us then? If you’re feeling useful.”

He cheered up a little. “Too easy.”

“Yeah, please chef!” I said. “I’d just end up burning it.”

Ryland used a bunch of thick fibers he found on the ground and made it into a round shape. Then he created a little rotisserie stand from thick tree branches tied together with some fibers. He then stabbed the meat with a stick and attached that to the stand it to start rotating it on the fire. Honestly, I was impressed he could create a standing structure just from sticks and fibers. He had good survival skills.

Ryland spent a good while tending to the roasting food.

Finally, when it was evenly cooked he took them and started blowing it. There was a good amount of smoke coming out.

“Alright let’s divide up the haul.” he said, getting big leaves from a tree to use as plates.

We took a few bites and it didn’t taste bad, just bland. Flavorless meat.

Wish we had scored some seasoning from the kitchen earlier.

A few minutes later, Gerald showed up in a carriage. He was the acting coachman, holding the reins to two muscular, well-groomed horses. We were the last people here.

“Good, you’re still here. Nice of you to get a fire going. I was afraid I wasn’t going to find you.” he said.

“We cooked some game in the meantime.” I said, chewing with my mouth open, and showing off our food.

“I can see that. Well let’s get going. If we wait any longer, you might end up camping here tonight. Best to get a move on!” Gerald said hurriedly.

I munched on my food and climbed inside.

Chapter 26: City Bound

Vroom. Vroom.

I had never been in a carriage, but it felt very different from a car. We watched in silence as the hills and trees flew past us.

Every now and again, I noticed that Gerald would look at me and then look away as I noticed him staring.

Odd. Whatever, once we’re in Meade, this guy’s a thing of the past. I’ll just decline his offer to join the resistance.

I was watching a deer in the forest to the right scurry away, when Gerald broke the silence.

“So what is it you hope to do in Meade?” Gerald eyed me curiously. He grabbed the reins and whipped the horses to move faster

“Well. I’m visiting the place and resting for a few days. Then I might start looking for a few people I was friends with to catch up.” I said, while eating my food.

Okay so it’s not totally a lie. Just leaving out a few details.

Riley and Ryland looked at me funny. I smiled nervously at them.

The less these people know the better. I wanted to figure out some way to tell them to stay out of this.

Then, looking to escalate the situation, Gerald turned to me and said, “hah! You know we have a small headquarters in Meade. Lots of good food and some very important people in business show up to our events.”

Ryland’s ears perked up and he immediately sat upright from his previously slouched position.

What’s with him? I wondered.

I couldn’t care less about the resistance or events. I need to get this guy off my case.

“That’s nice. I’m happy that there’s people who use magic openly…” I said distantly.

Gerald took my words as a sign to double down.

“Yes, indeed! Why some of the biggest movers and shakers in every industry often show up. With the network you could build at these events, why in a few years you might find yourself in an executive position at any big name company.” he said excitedly.

Okay, that doesn’t sound so bad. Maybe after I find my family, I should go to one? I need to think about how we’ll make a living here.

“Wow. I’m sure only a select people get invited there.” I mused.

Then Ryland butted in.

“Mister Gerald, if I may. Are these the famous Coultry Events that often circulate around?” Ryland asked politely.

I turned to face Ryland but the side of my eye caught the change in Gerald’s expression for a second. I could have sworn I saw him give Ryland the stink eye. That made me feel uneasy.

“No. That’s something else entirely...” he trailed off. His eagerness to talk completely vanished. All that left was an awkward silence.

After a while, the city where the knights had been dispatched from came into view, but the carriage went past it.

Then, about a bit over 2 hours after we had stepped into the carriage, we had arrived in Meade.

I saw the same familiar gate that I had to come up with an excuse to enter on the first day. But there were different guards around it. Probably a different set for the night shift.

I wasn’t sure how we were going to get inside this time, but if worse came to worst, I was going to knock them all out with Shadow’s power.

We walked up to the gate and were greeted by 5 guards. But they quickly stepped aside to let us in.

“Good to see you again, Mr. Gerald.” the one in charge bowed.

“And you, Frederick.” Gerald returned the gesture with a small salute.

Ryland politely said, “I see you’re well connected.”

“Oh, they know me. Once they learn a face, it’s not hard to get in a second time.” Gerald said with a see-through laugh.

What’s with Ryland? He’s been asking Gerald a lot of weird questions and making strange assumptions.

“Gerald, I very much appreciate you taking us all the way here.” I said. “I’ll let you know once we’ve finished our business here. How should we keep in contact?”

“Yes. We’ll be in touch.” Gerald said abruptly and got back on the carriage, whipping the horses.

What’s with him now?

Just like that he was gone.

Chapter 27: A Night in Meade

So much had happened the past few days, that I was completely wiped out. And still hungry.

We weren’t going to make much headway in finding my family, so I thought we should find a place to crash for the night.

This time, with Shadow, there was no way I’d allow anything to happen to me or my companions.

I had done some thinking while on the carriage and realized that I had been pretty careless. If there had been more minotaurs that night, we would have been slaughtered in our sleep. So I was going to find out more about my powers.

“Shadow, you don’t need to sleep, do you?” I asked.

“No, I am free to watch over you at all hours of the day. Just be explicit about your instructions.” Shadow responded.

Perfect. In the morning, I’ll be able to resume what I was supposed to do a whole week ago. But this time, I’ll have something with more coverage than Earth’s best drone to help me. Man, this is unreal.

I looked down at my hands and took out my wand from inside my shirt pocket. I marveled at this incredible thing that allowed me to transcend human limitations.

I grasped it tightly and looked up at the starry night sky.

There are infinite possibilities in this new world. Who would have imagined a world of magic existed in a parallel reality to Earth?

I couldn’t wait to show it to my family.

“Earth to Jay.” Riley said impatiently, knocking on my head.

“Huh? What?” I said, snapping back into reality. “Oh, right. Let’s find a place to sleep for the night. Maybe an inn?” I said.

“You guys keep forgetting we have no money. I’m tired of reminding you.” Ryland said jokingly.

“Just decide on a place, please. My whole body feels like gelatin. If we need to sleep under a tree, then okay. I’d just really like to stop being conscious for the day.” Riley moaned.

“Look, I’m not sleeping in anything less comfortable than those hard sleeping bags tonight. We deserve that much after everything we’ve been through, don’t we? Which leaves us with an inn. And we’re getting in one way or the other.” I said in a serious tone.

“Well, then we have two options. Steal a key and sneak inside or threaten the innkeeper.” Ryland suggested with a shrug.

“I like option 1. I have a feeling it won’t be too hard.” I smiled mischievously.

“Covert ops!” Riley squeaked excitedly, doing a little jump in place. I was glad she was feeling better. She wasn’t so upset over the minotaur incident as much.

We walked past the market and looked for street signs that looked promising. In a few left and right turns, we found ourselves on a small street that had a few cozy looking buildings with the lights still on.

One in particular had a sign saying, “Beaver’s Bed & Breakfast”. It was a 2-story brick building, with a beaver on a wooden sign hanging from the top.

We all perked up and looked from a distance inside a large window. Inside, there was a female innkeeper at a desk counter reading a newspaper. She looked to be in her mid 30’s and quite plump.

“So what’s our plan?” Riley asked.

“Alright, so all the keys are behind her on the wooden flat rack. Lucky for us, there’s little stickers with the room numbers. So we’ll just grab one and head upstairs to the right room, which I can find with my power, while she’s distracted.” I said.

“And how do we distract her?” Riley pressed.

I had no idea. With both of them looking at me for a good solution, I was starting to feel anxious.

Thankfully Ryland came to my aid.

“Maybe I can tell her that there’s a lot of trash in front of the inn it’s starting to stink. You can grab a trash can and dump it here. Once she comes to check it out, Jay grabs the key with magic and you two rush upstairs. I’ll meet you there.” Ryland suggested.

“Why you? I can probably be a better distraction.” I said.

“Have you forgotten what you’re wearing?” he retorted. “She’d probably just think you’re a beggar and tell you to scram.”

I looked at my slave clothes and sighed.

“Okay, but what if she doesn’t take the bait?” I asked.

“Then you can improvise something with your powers.” he said.

Our plan was set.

First we located a nearby trashcan. There were a few in the alley right next to the inn.

I ordered Shadow to grab large handfuls of trash at a time, since grabbing the whole trash can might end up being seen by her.

With the smelly distraction in place, we got to work.

Ryland headed inside and charmed her into going outside, while Riley and I looked through the window.

Once, she was outside, Ryland made sure she’d talk to him with her back away from the shop. So on cue, we snuck inside and quickly tiptoed up the stairs. Shadow got us the key for room 203.

A few minutes passed and Ryland wasn’t coming upstairs.

“Should we go back and get him?” Riley asked.

“Where is he?” I asked Shadow.

“He’s coming up.”

“No need. He’s here.” I told her.

Ryland came into the room and we quickly shut the door and locked it.

“How’d you get in?” I pressed him.

He told us he brought the trash can close and knocked it over where she could see it from the window. Then she waited for her to go outside and put it back herself and he got in.

“Easy as pie.” he said, grabbing the keys from me and spinning the chain on his index finger.

I was glad we didn’t have to resort to violence to get a good night’s sleep tonight. I was too tired and I might have gone overboard.

“Okay, there’s two beds. Are you two going to be gentlemen and let me have my own?” she said, tilting her head and blinking on purpose.

Ryland and I looked at each other and sighed.

Two friends on a bed. I mean there’s a lot of times I stayed at a hotel with my friends for a trip. So this isn’t weird or anything.

I really wanted to have my own bed, though.

Riley plopped on the bed and put her pillow over her head. She wrapped herself in her covers.

I took the left side of the other bed and Ryland took the right. We all said good night.

The bed was very comfortable, I let myself sink into a deep sleep. So comfortable in fact, I forgot to give Shadow any orders for the night.

Chapter 28: Rude Wakeup

I woke up to Riley screaming, “Let me go!”

She struggled while an apprentice knight had her turned around and tried to put her hands in a metal lock similar to rudimentary handcuffs.

I felt metal tightly grappling my skin. My hands had already been cuffed together. My heart started racing and I got a wave of nausea pounding my stomach as I remembered how I had woken up tied to a pole when the Trash Brothers kidnapped me.

I quickly looked over to the side of my bed, but Ryland was gone without a trace.

“Shadow, what happened? Why didn’t you say something?” I asked furiously.

“I told you before I need explicit instructions to do something on your behalf unless it threatens your life.” Shadow said.

I forgot! What do I do? Where the hell is Ryland?

“Don’t struggle, little miss. Or it’s only gonna get worse for you!” the apprentice knight yelled at Riley, pinning her down.

I saw the chubby innkeeper, who turned to me and gloated, “Thought you could get away with stealing my key and not paying for a room? Well, have a fun time in prison!”

I am not going to prison. No way.

“Knights. There was another person here. What about him?” I asked quickly.

“There was no one else here.” he said nervously, looking away from me.

“I know you’re lying. What did you do with our friend? Did he tell you about us?” I demanded angrily.

“Friend?! You insolent low life. He’s no friend of yours.” he slapped me. “Know your place!”

“Fool!” One of the apprentice’s superiors hit him in the face. “Don’t say another word!”

Ow. What’s going on? They know something about Ryland.

“Jay, do something!” Riley shouted at me.

“Try anything and you’ll be tried for assault on a knight.” the apprentice knight closest to me warned.

The head knight turned to the innkeeper and they started talking in a low voice. I could see the keys to handcuffs dangling in a keychain on his belt next to his gun.

I took a deep breath and analyzed our situation.

I can easily escape. There’s only four. I doubt they would have anymore knights here for just us. I’ll risk running from the law, but maybe all I have to do is give these guys a concussion to forget me. But before that…

“Shadow, where did Ryland go? You must have seen something.” I asked.

“I did. Ryland left a few hours before the knights arrived. I am not exactly sure if it was a coincidence or if it was planned.” it said.

Did he actually sell us out? What would he have to gain? Maybe the lady actually called the knights ahead of time and he said I was a wizard and that he would help them arrest me if they let him go?

“Take everyone out, except Riley. Try to give the knights a concussion. Hopefully they won’t remember us later.” I ordered.

Just a second later, Riley and I were the only people left conscious and standing. Shadow had improved its technique on knowing just how much force to put behind a tackle or punch to the head to knock a person out.

Riley and I looked at each other.

“Let’s get out of here.” I pointed to the handcuff keys.

“We’ll be criminals if they remember us.” Riley whispered, frightened.

I joked to try to lighten the mood. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.” I fake laughed. “There’s too many dumb rules in this kingdom, like not being able to have a room for free after escaping slavery.”

We grabbed a key from the knight’s chain. We quickly tried to get out of our cuffs. It was an awkward fit and I wasn’t sure which way to turn, but with a lot of fidgeting, I managed to get out. I undid Riley’s cuffs and we headed out the door.

“Wait. Let’s not leave the bodies here.” I said, stopping for a moment.

“Shadow, how did they get here? Horses?” I asked.

“Horses.” It replied immediately. “Shall I put them on their horses then?”

“Do it.” I said.

Shadow grabbed one body at a time and dragged them down the stairs, out the door, and on a horse. When all the knights were on their horses, he released the parking bind the horses had and he gave each a big kick. The horses squealed and started galloping away with the unconscious knights. Riley and I were looking out the window. It was a sight to behold.

We looked at each other and both laughed.

“They’re gonna feel that bumpy ride when they wake up.” I said, rubbing my back.

“I hope they’ll be okay. Poor things.” Riley said, soothingly.

“Let’s go find Ryland.” I said, looking her in the eye. “I want to know if he betrayed us.”

“Ryland wouldn’t do that!” Riley immediately interjected. “He’s not… he’s not like that.”

Riley looked down at the ground.

“That knight was acting weird. I feel like he knew we were asking for Ryland. And he got angry that we referred to him as a friend. I want to know what that was about.” I said gravely.

“Well let’s go find him, then. So I can prove to you he wouldn’t betray us.” Riley insisted.

We looked out the window of the inn, and then only got our heads slightly out the door. Once Shadow gave me the okay, we bolted out of the inn.

We went around a lot of places in town. The market, the knights’ stations, corner stores, other inns, the shopping district. With Shadow all we had to do was go to a place and it was almost like we had a 1000 ft sonar device to pinpoint anything we were looking for.

After an hour, we still couldn’t find Ryland.

“Jay, why haven’t we actually gone inside the stores to look?” Riley pressed me.

“My power lets us search a 1000ft radius very fast. There’s no need.” I assured her.

“We’re not getting anywhere. Let’s at least ask someone if they’ve seen him.” she said.

“Shadow, what do you think?” I asked it.

“Master. I have a suggestion. Why not use your third power to get a bird’s eye view of the city? I could search the whole city better if you were in the air and could move faster.” Shadow suggested.

“Third power?” I asked it.

Just then I remembered my second vision. I had completely forgotten I could use animal transformation magic.  From my vision, I knew I had to touch an animal with my wand to have it copy its DNA. I hadn’t touched any except a dead squirrel and a doe. And I wasn’t sure if they had to be alive. I’d have to get Shadow to grab a bird for me so I could touch it.

“I don’t think I should. I’ve never done it before. Besides, Riley can’t turn with me. I shouldn’t leave her behind.” I said.

Now’s not the time for experimenting. Let’s just keep looking.

We spent another hour looking before we gave up.

We asked a lot of people on the streets and gave them a description of Ryland. Nobody had ever seen or heard of him.

I was pooped.

“Let’s take a break.” I suggested.

“Can you get us some food with your power?” Riley asked. The last meal we had was dry, bland game meat.

I started feeling guilty for staying at the inn without paying. “I’d rather not steal again if we can help it.”

We stopped and rested under the shade of a tree. I sat down first and Riley huddled up next to me. There was a gentle breeze that blew in our direction.

“Umm… Jay?” Riley looked at me.

“Yeah?” I said.

“If we don’t find Ryland, what should we do?” She asked innocently. “We can’t look forever.”

“I know. Let’s just take it hour by hour, kay?” I reassured her. “We’ll look for a bit longer and then call it a day. Then I think we should figure out how we could make a little bit of money to buy food and maybe a place to stay.”

She nodded.

“I know you said you got amnesia recently, but do you really not remember much about Meade? Like don’t you have a house somewhere here?” she asked.

“My family was poor. I remember that much. I doubt we had anything like that.” I replied.

She sighed and dropped her head on my shoulder.

We got up and continued walking for about 10 minutes, further away from crowds and the bustling inner city life, to the outskirts of Meade. We made it to an area that looked like farmland. Several barns were placed at neat intervals, surrounded by lots of land where crops were growing. We could see cows gnawing on grass, and pigs in mud. Chickens in their coops were squawking. I had told Shadow to still be on the lookout for Ryland or my family.

Just then I heard I heard Shadow’s voice in my head.

“Master.” it said. “Your brother is up ahead.”

Chapter 29: Reunion

“Are you absolutely sure? It’s really him?” I asked eagerly, in disbelief.

“There is no doubt.” it assured me.

“Riley, I found him! My brother!” I boomed. “Let’s go, hurry!”

I grabbed Riley’s hand and started running as fast as I could go to the barn that Shadow indicated.

“…Jay! Slow… down!” Riley panted, out of breath. “I’m… not as fast as you!”

I ignored her and grabbed her hand tighter.

Just up ahead, in the 5th barn in the farmlands, we spotted Mario.

“Boss, where do you want these?” Mario asked, patting sweat off his forehead.

“Just lay them down anywhere. And feed the chickens, will ya?” a big burly farmer said from a bit further away, using an iron-tipped colter to furrow through some soil in preparation for seeding.

“Got it!” Mario said, setting down a few large boxes. He grabbed some feed from a container and poured some into the chicken coops’ feeding area.

I didn’t waste a second as soon as he was close enough to hear me.

“Mario! Mario!” I yelled as loud as I could.

“Jay? Jay! No way. I can’t believe it!” Mario shouted hysterically. “Where did you go? We spent every day looking for you. What happened?”

I pushed up my speed and ran up to hug him, letting go of Riley’s hand. She kept running at her own pace.

I felt an incredible rush of energy. I wanted to tell him everything that had happened to me until now. I didn’t know where to begin. But I needed to know where the rest of my family was.

“Where’s mom? And Flo and Gigi?” I asked after hugging, ignoring his questions.

“They’re inside the barn. Dude, we have to show them you’re alive! Let’s go!” Mario got behind me and pushed me inside.

Inside, the rest of my family seemed to be doing some work with the animals. Flo and mom were under a large cow with a bucket underneath it. It seems they had learned how to milk cows. Only Gigi was doing her own thing. She had a paper and pencil and was drawing something.

“Mom! Flo! Gigi! It’s me!” I yelled when we got inside.

“Jay!” They all shouted in unison.

I ran up to hug each of them.

“My baby! Where were you?” mom exclaimed.

“You’re not dead… thank God.” my sister sobbed.

Gigi dropped her drawing tools and ran up to hug me. Because of her height, her head planted right into my chest.

“Jay! Yay!” she said, not letting go of me. “Where have you been?”

“I’ll explain all of that. But what are you guys doing here in a farm?” I asked.

“After you left, the professor introduced us to people looking to hire workers on a farm. They provide housing and food in exchange for work.” Mario explained.

“So you guys have been here all this time?” I pressed him.

Oh snap, Riley’s waiting outside. It might be rude to keep her long.

“After we met up with them and agreed to work here, yeah. We got really lucky.” Mario continued.

“Guys, wait. There’s someone I want you to meet.” I said, walking out the barn door to bring Riley inside. “Everyone, this is Riley. She was a nurse at the place… I was staying in. She was really kind to me.”

Riley waved awkwardly and managed, “Umm… hi, everyone.”

Gigi didn’t pass up the opportunity and said, “It’s a miracle! Jay has a girlfriend!” She jumped in place before running up to Riley.

Riley and I looked at each other with our mouths open.

“Gigi, she’s not my—” I said, but was drowned out by Gigi asking Riley a million questions.

“How did you guys meet? Don’t you mind that Jay doesn’t use deodorant? What do you see in him?” Gigi pressed her. Riley blushed and put her hand over her mouth.

“Gigi, stop it!” I barked.

“Fine. I was just asking.” she said, defeated.

She slunk back on her little chair and picked up her drawing tools again.

Riley found the courage to speak up. She cleared her throat. “Jay… is an amazing person. He saved my life.”

Everyone in my family gave each other a puzzled look, as if collectively thinking, What’s she talking about?

Just then, the burly farmer walked in. He was a tall and well-built man with white hair and facial wrinkles. Probably in his early 60’s.

“Well, hello. Who’re the new ones?” he asked curiously.

“Mr. Rogers, this is my son Jay. We got separated from him before we started working here, but he found his way here back to us. Also his new friend!” my mom explained.

“Always nice to see a fresh face. Good to you meet you, son. Your family’s been here on my farm helping out. They were real worried about you. And you lass, welcome. The name’s Cort Rogers. If you feel like staying, you’re more than welcome. I could always use the extra hands!” he said kindly. He coughed and started heading towards the barn door to leave.

“Why don’t y’all take a break to catch up? I’ll be outside.” Mr. Rogers suggested.

“Thank you, sir.” mom said.

He nodded and walked out of the barn. He was staying close by. I wasn’t sure if he meant to eavesdrop or not, so I had Shadow kick one of the cows that was feeding on grass and it started running in circles.

“What in all hell?” Mr. Rogers yelled, waving his hands to calm the cow. After a few seconds, the cow settled down further away and Mr. Rogers checked to see what had triggered it.

Before my family could look outside, I started speaking.

“Guys, I have something to tell you.” I began. “For the past week, I’ve been in a really miserable place. Basically… I was a slave.”

I looked down at the ground and paused before continuing.

“When I lost you guys that day, I looked everywhere. But it turned to night. I didn’t have anywhere to sleep, so I found a place next to a few dumpsters. The next thing I knew, I was kidnapped. The people sold me to work as a slave mining inside a cave.” I said, carefully.

My family was speechless.

“I managed to escape… with Riley here.” I said, looking at her.

Riley nodded in confirmation.

“Wait… are you serious?” Mario asked slowly, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I am. I have this to prove it.” I showed them the number ‘103’ that had been burned into my shoulder. “They burned this number into me on the first day. Everyone there got a number.”

No one said anything.

“…Are you okay, Jay?” mom finally asked. I could tell she didn’t know what to say to me.

“I’m fine now.” I nodded.

My sister was sobbing more now.

“Jay… this is serious. Tell us everything that happened.” Mario said.

I made sure Mr. Rogers wasn’t close by and then said, “I’ll start from the beginning then.”

I started from when I had separated. I told them I went to the Royal Shopping District and found my way to a shop. I told them people freaked out and wanted me detained when I accidentally dropped my wand in the shop. I told them I went out looking in the night but got tired so I slept near a few dumpsters. I told them two thugs knocked me out and I woke up tied to a pole, where a slave driver had me tortured for information and finally sold me off to a mining slave company. I told them everything I had gone through in the pits. And finally, I told them how I developed powers that let me shut down the operation and escape. I decided I’d tell them the other stuff that happened after freeing the slaves… another time.

They listened intently. The girls all had an open mouth but were quiet and looking at each other.

Mario’s fist was closed and was growing visibly furious.

“I can’t believe they did that to you.” Mario finally let out. “Jay, we’re going to find those bastards and make them pay.”

I sighed. “I know you’re angry. I want to find them too. But right now, I just want to forget about all that. I’m tired…” I said. “And really hungry.”

Mom immediately perked up and picked up some of the breakfast that had been on a little stool. “Please eat!” she said, shoving the plate in front of me.

Are they just gonna ignore the part where I said I got magic powers?!

It was two eggs over easy, a slice of bacon, a biscuit, and some cheese. I could see little trails of almost clear smoke emanating from the eggs, so it was still warm.

I looked at Riley who was salivating and eyeing the food intently.

“Mom, is there any more? We both haven’t eaten much.” I said.

“This is all that’s left from breakfast. I’ll go ask Mr. Rogers if there’s anything left.” she said, going outside.

“Riley, let’s split it in half.” I suggested. She nodded so I grabbed the fork and knife and tried to slice everything in two. I was so hungry I grabbed everything with my hand and stuffed it in my mouth in one bite. So I gave Riley the fork. But she ended up doing the same.

Flo and Gigi wanted to ask Riley a few things, so they formed a girl pod. I left them alone so I could tell Mario something he’d really want to hear. Something that would change his life forever.

Chapter 30: Gamer Tests

Before I could, Mario pulled me to the side and we walked to a remote corner away from them. I guess we had been thinking of the same thing.

“Jay, there’s one thing I want to know, though.” Mario said. “What do you mean you got powers?”

I didn’t need to hold my wand in my had to use my powers, as long is it was very close to me. Both my wand and my brother’s were still in the slave shirt pocket.

“Mario, magic is real.” I said.

“What are you talking about? What magic?” he shook his head, frowning.

“It’s time I blow your mind then.” I said, pulling out my wand for a theatrical effect. “Mario, this is our reality now. You and I… we are wizards!”

I held my wand up and imagined a strong separation of charge from the air around the tip of my wand traveling along a straight path and angling downwards to the ground. I set a high voltage and low current.

At once, a spark of electricity nearly a foot long appeared and grew longer and longer as it traveled along the projected path and struck the barn floor, leaving black marks where it hit.

Mario took several steps back with his mouth wide open. He waved his hand vigorously, making a trail with his hand along the bolt’s path, gasping.

“What the hell was that?!” he shouted.

“Keep it down, dude.” I whispered loudly. “That’s one of my powers. Electrical magic.”

“One of them?! What else can you do?” he pressed, eyes opened wide.

I explained to him everything I knew about Shadow. I even mentioned how I had used it to escape and find my way here.

“Impossible. No way.” he again shook his head.

“Yes way. Watch this.” I said, preparing my demonstration.

Instead of communicating with Shadow in my mind, I started speaking to it. “Shadow, pick up that box and put it next to Mario.”

Shadow picked up a small box about 10 feet away and carried it over slowly, understanding my intention of showing him off.

“That box is floating!!” he said hysterically. “What’s going on?!”

He was walking away backward from the box that was magically floating towards him.

“I wasn’t lying, dude. This is Shadow. It can’t talk to you, but it’s there.” I said.

“Let’s wave a bit.” I said to it.

Shadow picked up a little metal rod that was on the ground and waved it, as if saying hello.

Mario looked at me, totally stunned.

His eyes fixated on my wand. He went completely silent for a moment.

“I don’t believe it… magic is real.” he let out in a low voice.

He stopped to think. Then he said, “…wait, does that mean… Jay, do you still have mine?”

I nodded and patted my shirt pocket. Then I pulled his out from my shirt pocket.

“I kept it warm for you. You’re welcome.” I joked.

He smiled super wide, looking like his smile was going to rip beyond his face.

“I’m so sorry I doubted you, man! You were right!” he said, overjoyed, patting my right shoulder with his hand.

I handed it to him, but something strange happened. Just as it left my hand and touched his, he quickly grasped it and stopped moving.

His eyes seemed to fixate on something and he just stared straight in front of him. He didn’t move an inch.

“Mario? Hello?” I asked, putting my hands over his face. He didn’t respond or even move his eyes.

“Shadow, do you know what’s going on?” I asked it.

“Master, your brother seems to be in the process of gaining his power.”

I took a step back and thought back to what happened to me. I remembered seeing visions of how to use my powers and wondered if the same thing was happening to him.

It took Mario almost two minutes to snap out of his daze.

Finally he turned to me.

“Jay, I saw myself using magic just now. I know what my powers are.” Mario said.

So he did see visions.

I felt myself become terribly excited. I couldn’t contain it.

“Well tell me what they are!” I said, rubbing my hands vigorously.

“Dude, they’re crazy. What I saw in these visions, could they really be real? It was like straight out of a fantasy movie.” he marveled.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well to me only one of my powers really makes any sense. I can move the air to move how I want. But I can’t explain it. It’s like it’s more than that. It’s like I make tiny changes to the air around something and make it move exactly how I want. Or big ones. But if I want to be explosive, it’s like a giant bomb of air. The vision was so detailed.” his words rushed out.

He can use wind magic?

From what I had seen it was a pretty common magic. The people in the forest had used it to defend themselves from the armed military guys. But the way they used it was nothing like what he described. The strongest I had seen used air like a forceful knockback that might only work if it caught you off guard.

Just then, the girls interrupted us.

“What are you guys talking about here by yourselves?” Flo asked.

“Jay, I want you to show me what Riley was talking about. She said you could move stuff without touching it.” Gigi asked me, grabbing my shirt.

I shifted a dagger-like gaze at Riley.

“I’m sorry! I couldn’t help myself!” she admitted, blushing bright red.

“Girls. Mario and I are having a serious discussion right now.” I said, not wanting to be interrupted. “Bro, let’s go for a walk. I need to know more about what you were saying.”

He nodded.

“We’ll be back.” he said, waving naturally.

We left the barn. I saw mom and Mr. Rogers having a chat. They were laughing and sipping tea.

“Mr. Rogers, do you mind if I show Jay around?” Mario yelled, pointing to me.

“Not at all, boy!” he yelled back.

Alright, green light. The talk I’m going to have with him right now is going to change our entire lives. We could even discover some of the secrets of this world.

“Shadow stay here and guard my family. Don’t let anything I would consider bad happen to them.” I ordered.

“Understood. Remember not to wander too far off, or I won’t be able to exist here.” it said.

We walked around the farmlands, past a few planted fields until we reached a completely open plane surrounded by a few trees. Nothing but grass and a few hills in the distance.

“Alright we’re alone. What did you mean you can make tiny changes to the air?” I asked.

“In my vision I got like this sixth sense of the movement of air currents. Even now, the air looks different to me. I can’t explain it. But watch this.” Mario said.

He was carrying a metal rod he took from the barn and set it standing on its circular base on the ground. It was slightly wobbly and kept falling until he found just the right angle to set it on.

“Okay, so you so how it’s standing by itself right? Supported by the ground?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Okay. I’m gonna explain it. When I think about making it float, it’s like I see the amount of energy I need to put to make the air under it shoot it straight up against the air and gravity that’s already pushing it down.”

We were standing about 5 feet horizontally from the rod. Mario stared at the rod intently and then I saw what he meant. A small current of air propelled the rod upwards at a quick pace. The rod went up and then slowed down its ascent until it stood perfectly still. I looked at him and saw him slightly straining his face. It looked like he was having trouble controlling it. The rod seemed to be floating in mid air but now wobbling around an axis.

He let it go and it dropped to the ground.

“That’s really cool! I think you just need to practice it more.” I said. “We should push your power to the limit and see what it can do.”

I didn’t struggle with my magic. Maybe wind magic is a lot harder to use?

“I think if I develop this power more I’ll be able to make anything move by using air to move it in whatever way I want it to go.” he said excitedly.

“Dude, maybe you’ll be able to fly someday.” I laughed, joking.

He took it seriously.

“Yeah! Oh man, I didn’t think about that but you’re right!” he beamed.

“Hold on. I have a sense of the power of the air I can use. I think it could be enough to lift myself up.” he said, looking like he was about to try something.

Come again? That’s dangerous!

“Wait, what are you--?” I was cut off.

He launched himself about 20 feet into the air vertically straight. He had shot straight up without rotating. It was like he had stepped on a video game launchpad. But I realized he hadn’t thought about controlling it once he was in the air because he started rotating and falling until he landed straight on his ass. He managed to spread a little force to his hands. Otherwise he might have been looking at a serious injury.

“Ow, shit!” he yelled. That looked like it hurt.

He did it! That looked like an insane amount of air.

When I thought about it, the amount of air needed to lift up a 150 lb person 20 feet in the air was tremendous. The air would have to shoot a high velocity upward around the person like a jet engine for like a second, producing thrust. And for it to uniformly maintain his rotation it would have to be all around him, shooting straight up.

That’s insane. If he learns to control this power, he can use the entire atmosphere as a weapon or tool to achieve anything he wants.

By the time I noticed him again, he was already positioning himself to try again.

“Maybe you should control it better before you use it on yourself!” I shouted.

But it was too late.

He flung himself up almost 25 feet, but this time let out a grunt and more air was being pulled around him to prevent his fall.

He floated for almost five seconds, hovering 15 feet above the ground. I had just witnessed a miracle. Since he was more prepared this time, he brought air currents to slow down his terminal velocity downward until he appeared to be coming down like a napkin in the breeze. The rate at which he was learning to adjust and fine tune the air to suit his needs was staggering.

“I feel like I have more than enough power for it, Jay.” he said quickly. “But I need to learn control. Man, if I wanted to, I could go much higher than this. It’s like I see the possibilities!”

He was eager to test the full extent of his power.

This atmosphere was intoxicating. As a gamer, it was a dream come true. It was like the air was giving me energy and I felt invigorated and alive. Everything looked clearer and I started to notice the dandelions below and little insects around them. The grass looked so sharp. I smiled big and wide and Mario shot himself up again in the air shouting, “Woooohooooo! Yeah!” as he flew.

It looked so fun!

Up until now, I had heard almost nothing but bad things about magic. People had given me awful looks for even having a wand. Scowls and anger, acting out of fear. Even the slaves I had saved who praised me, I could see a look of fear in their eyes. But right now, none of that mattered as I saw my brother go higher and higher, looking so brazenly alive.

After a few minutes, he settled down.

“Okay!” he exclaimed. “I think I have the hang of this.”

“Why don’t we try something else. Didn’t you say you could do like an air bomb or something?” I asked.

He thought for a moment and closed his eyes.

“Yeah, I think all I’d need to do is create strong air currents shooting outward of a small area.”

He tried it. I saw something like a ball of air grow outwardly and vanish as it lost energy.

“I think I could take that concept and just think of us as the area we want to shoot out.” he said, getting closer to me and waving his hands, wanting to try something else.

“I’ll try to get a huge force behind it.” he continued.

His expression got serious and he moved his hands outwardly and yelled, “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

The air around us became turbulent and it suddenly felt like we were caught in a tornado. The trees around us shook violently for a second as the air pushed everything around us. A lot of branches fell swoop.

Oh my god.

There was so much power in that outward expansion that if anyone hadn’t gotten a good stance they might have been lifted off the air and knocked several feet back.

“Woah!” I shouted. “Let’s test out your other powers before I get blown into a tree!”

“I held back a lot though!” he said. “I’m going to have to come back later and see what I can really do!”

Mario’s next power was something totally different. According to him, it was like a power that affected his senses and made him attuned to magic. If activated, he could pinpoint the location of magic power. He could also see the amount of magic power and type of magic someone or something had as if it was showing up around that person or thing, radiating as waves of different color light, like some crazy synesthesia. I thought it was really cool that magic could affect a person’s senses.

“It’s amazing. When I turn it on, I see a lot of light coming out of you, Jay. It’s a mix of purple, white, and there’s a heavy amount of black.”

Is that for my powers? A different color light for each power?

“So there’s a light of black, huh? Maybe it’s the strongest one I have… or maybe the one I use the most?” I wondered aloud.

“But man, that power is going to be so useful for finding other wizards.” I reasoned.

“Yeah, the only thing is I can’t see the light that would come out of me. I guess it only works on others.” he said.

“Go really far that way.” I pointed. “Tell me if you can still tell I’m here just by magic.”

“Good idea.” he said. He turned away and started jumping crazy high and landing softly. He was like a magic spring catapulting himself and landing softly. It looked like he was already a pro at propelling himself into the air and getting a good landing with wind magic. He was moving horizontally really fast west of me.

Within 10 seconds he was already 200 hundred feet away from me.

Then he started jumping back. It was really frightening to see someone coming straight at me at such high speed.

This must be why people are afraid of wizards.

When he got back to me, he said, “I could easily tell where you were. I felt like you were a magnet drawing me into you. It was scary accurate. But this is so fun. I’m having the time of my life right now.”

“This is big news. Alright what about your last power?”

His last power was the strangest of all.

“I feel like I kind of control all kinds of light. But I have this hidden sense of light that we can’t see too. It’s weird. Like radio waves or something.”

Mario hadn’t really paid attention in science classes, but I think he could at least manipulate visible light energy, probably part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

“Wait can you make light barriers?” I asked, immediately thinking of the reindeer minotaur.

“Light barriers? I dunno. The vision for this power was really vague. And I don’t know if it’s that useful. Like, watch this.” he said, pointing to the seemingly nothing.

In a flash he was able to create a rainbow of lights right in front of me. They weren’t focused like a laser, more like a wash of colors in mid air.

I wasn’t sure what to make of it. This would be something we’d have to explore.

But at the moment, it didn’t seem all that interesting.

“Master. Your mother has gone to search for you. It seems she wants to ask you something.” Shadow said.

“Mario, let’s head back. I think my mom is looking for us.” I told him.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“My Shadow power told me. I had it watch over them while we came here.” I explained.

“Your… shadow. Right. It talks to you and… does whatever you say. I’m still not used to that thing.” he said, scratching his head.

We walked back without using our powers. On our way back, I got more serious and told him that we shouldn’t use magic in the open. I had been through so much and the one thing burned into my mind was the hatred people showed me when they found out what I was.

They could be the nicest people, but everyone I met now, I couldn’t help but imagine how they would turn on me the second they found out.

“I know. You can’t imagine how much Mr. Rogers bad mouths wizards. He blames us for this country’s problems. I thought he was crazy, ‘cause I didn’t know magic was real. We can’t let him find out.” Mario said nervously.

“You know, I didn’t understand why before. But there are some wizards who are part of the kidnapping rings that turn people into slaves. Like what happened to me. I can see how we’d be hated.” I said, dejected.

“By the way”, I continued, “you know we’re not on Earth anymore, right?”

He stopped for a moment and stared at the ground. His shoulders dropped and he sighed.

“When I found out, I went insane the whole day. If we weren’t around the professor and Mr. Rogers, I’d have screamed at the top of my lungs.” he said. “He showed us a plastic globe he has in his room, and I felt like the whole world lost its color. I mean, how crazy is that? That we would go to a different world that no one on Earth would ever even know existed.”

“Apparently we’re in some place called the Kingdom of Renshire”, I said, rolling my eyes.

“At least whatever got us here didn’t leave us with nothing.” he said, caressing his wand.

“You remember the day before it happened?” I asked. “When we were fishing and you started asking me how I thought the fish felt being taken from its home?”

He nodded and laughed gravely.

“We’re the fish.” I said seriously, closing my fist. “Do we figure out a way to get back in the water, or learn to survive on land?”

He took another pause and stared into the distance. The breeze rustled our hair.

Finally he said,

“Both. I guess.”

Chapter 31: Twist of Fate

Mario and I walked back to the farm where we heard mom calling out for us. “Jay, Mr. Rogers was kind of enough to get some more food. Hurry because it’s already getting cold!” she said, waving at us.

Please be more bacon.

My mouth was starting to salivate. I ran inside the barn where I found a plate of eggs and bacon waiting for me.

Mr. Rogers!!! Thank you! I thought to myself, shedding a few tears.

Riley, Gigi, and Flo were all talking and giggling to each other. It seemed they had all gotten along quite well. They didn’t even notice Mario and I walking in.

I scarfed the food down and even licked the plate.

I guess I was making a lot of noise while eating, because Riley finally noticed me and said, “Jay! Your sister and niece are so nice! I love them!”

“Uh huh, yeah.” I said, getting heartburn after eating too fast.

I looked for some water. I found some close to where the plate had originally been and gulped it down.

I burped loudly and Gigi said, “Gross!”

After a few minutes, Mr. Rogers walked in and made a statement.

“Everyone, I’m glad you got this touching reunion. I hope Jay and Riley have gotten settled in. That being said, we’re going to have a few important inspectors coming in today from the duke’s agricultural staff in preparation for the harvest tax. We need to get this place ready. They do not like to be kept waiting”, he said seriously.

Everyone besides Riley and I sprang into action. They started tidying things up, picking up loose parts on the ground, counting chicks and chickens. Mario followed Mr. Rogers outside. It looked like they were going to start harvesting. Before going outside, he turned to me and waved for me to join him.

Mr. Rogers pointed to the fields that needed to be picked.

“They want to see samples of the products they’re going to be collecting. Get some ripe looking ones and put ‘em in this basket.” he said.

On top of eggs and milk, Mr. Rogers’s farm grew tomatoes, wheat, carrots, and legumes.

We harvested a few samples and did as Mr. Rogers asked.

The little basket Mr. Rogers brought out had a small umbrella attached to it to protect the crops from the sun. I thought it was pretty neat and it looked entirely handmade.

Once we were done, we brought the basket and met up with the girls, who were collecting egg samples and doing inventory checks.

For about an hour, Mr. Rogers had us doing small tasks to get ready for the inspection. Then they finally arrived.

The inspectors were dressed in an elegant vested uniform, with blue shoulder pads decorating the edges. They had an air of self-righteousness that didn’t sit well with me.

“Welcome to my humble farm. My name is Cort Rogers, and I wish you gentlemen a fine spring harvest.” Mr. Rogers bowed as he welcomed the men.

The men revealed a small document with a stamped seal and gold trim and said nothing. They were laughing among themselves and deep in conversation.

“You know how this goes. I hope you’re ready with your sample. You’re the last farm today.” one of the inspectors said.

“Of course”, he said, raising the basket from the ground.

The men put on a few leather gloves and studied the samples. Then they turned to Mr. Rogers.

“Well it looks like the ones you picked passed. But we’re going to need a few random samples too to inspect.” he said pompously.

“You. Boy.” he pointed to me. “Show us to the fields.”

I looked at Mr. Rogers and he nodded, approving their request.

I led the men to the fields.

They didn’t look at me once except when I told them what crop each field had. They were still just talking to themselves.

Since I had nothing to do, I started listening in to their conversation.

“…Lady Walters’s daughter has grown up to be quite the looker, eh?” one of them said.

“You better believe it. What I’d kill to be the guy she’s supposed to marry when she comes of age.” the other said, laughing hoarsely.

“By the way, apparently the duke’s bastard son has come back.”

“No fooling? I heard that he brought down some slave operation up north. And he found out where the magic festival was happening this year.”

One of the men started making a gesture with his hands like he was holding something heavy and the other laughed.

“Big sack o’ balls little Ry grew into, huh?”

My ears perked up.

Did he just say Ry? Slave operation and magic festival? Could it be?

“Duke’s probably gonna give him a medal and a promotion. It’s the least he could do. I mean he ain’t inheriting the dukedom like that rotten older brother of his, but his father could show a little appreciation, y’know?”

“Little Ryfield came back with some weird gold necklace around his neck. Sounds like he already got his reward to me!” he slapped his leg and crackled.

Ryfield? But a gold necklace? That’s gotta be Ryland! It has to be his field master necklace they’re talking about.

I wanted to say something, but I thought these men might get upset if a simple farm boy started talking out of turn.

I decided on what I would do. I’d wait until these men left and I’d follow them. I had to know if they were talking about Ryland. I looked around and noticed they had parked horses. There were only enough for them.

Obviously. What can I do? Is there a horse around here I can borrow? I could stay a few hundred feet behind them with Shadow in that case…

But Mr. Rogers didn’t have a horse.

After a few seconds of furious head scratching, the answer dawned on me like the light at the end of a dark cave.

It was time to put my last power to use.

It took several more minutes to get all the produce inspected. The men waved and said that the samples were satisfactory and that I should give my master their regards.

I decided to put my plan into action.

“Shadow, I need you to find a bird that can keep up with a horse.” I ordered Shadow.

“Looks like most birds will do. Let me get one for you.” it said.

I saw Shadow’s light form practically teleport in front of a bird on a tree and then in material form grasp it too quickly for the bird to react. It dropped from the tree and presented the bird to me. The bird looked at me with beady eyes and kept turning its head several degrees back and forth.

I put my wand on the bird and felt my head get very hot. For about 30 seconds, I got something like a migraine. I wasn’t sure exactly how it worked, but I waited until the pain stopped for me to remove my wand off the bird.

Then I let the bird go and it flew away.

Okay… now how does this work? I know I need to imagine becoming a bird with the intent of transformation, but do I have to take my clothes off? I mean, in my vision, I remember being naked.

I decided to recreate the conditions of my vision in case something bad happened. I would strip down and take everything off.

I put my slave clothes behind a small oak tree.

I was naked.

Okay, gotta act quick before I get arrested for public nudity.

I looked at my wand and breathed rapidly. I was extremely nervous.

Please don’t let me screw this up.

I held it up slightly and imagined becoming the bird I had just seen. I had the intent to transform.

At that moment, something strange began to happen to my wand. My wand seemed to melt down and turn into a gooey white liquid that dripped down into my arms. The liquid began to magically spread to my whole body and not even a second later I was covered in it.

My body began to shine brightly and I saw my physical form begin to change.

The transformation happened so fast I couldn’t analyze the changes in my body, but very soon I had wings and a tiny feathery body. I had become a bird!

My tiny wings were flapping and I flew around my immediate area.

I’m still me! I can think! But I’m a bird!

I did circles around the tree where my clothes were.

“Shadow, are you there?” I asked.

“Right here, Master.” it responded.

“Can you materialize?”

“Yes. You have more than enough magic power to use myself and other powers simultaneously.”

Amazing! I can use Shadow and the animal transformation at the same time!

I couldn’t get enough of flying. I flew all around the branches and took to the skies.

I felt a need to look for food. I started trying to find seeds or anything that looked edible.

“Master be careful. Do not give in to your animal instincts. You must remember what it’s like to be human, or you will lose yourself as an animal.” it said.

I freaked out. For a second, I forgot I was human. The most important thing to me became looking for food.

Woah. If I’m not careful I might forget I’m not really a bird.

I was glad I had Shadow with me.

I flew low to the ground and decided to morph back into my human form. The process reversed and the white liquid solidified into my wand and I was back to human in less than a second. Everything felt completely painless.

I put on my slave clothes and ran back to the barn. The men were already getting on the horses and preparing to leave. I’d have 1000 ft before they were totally out of reach.

I ran back to the barn.

I saw everyone except Mr. Rogers who was outside doing some other work.

“Everyone, I’m going to go somewhere for an hour or two. I just heard something about a friend I made when I was a slave. I’ll be back I promise, just stay here!” I said, turning to leave again.

Mom stopped me.

“Jay, no. You just came back to us. I can’t lose you again.” she said, grabbing me. She looked like she was about to cry.

I put my hand on her shoulder and said, “Mom, don’t worry. It’s not like last time. I promise. I know how to find my way here. I’ll be back!” I ran off before she could say anything.

I ran quickly behind the side of the barn and took off my slave clothes again and set them down near a small haystack.

In less than a second, I was a bird again and asked Shadow to pick up the trail of the men. Thankfully they weren’t too far as it looked like they were taking a leisurely pace back to their destination.

I flew about 20 feet above them. We soon left the farmlands and found another part of the countryside. We merged into a solitary street that was more like a forest trail. The path was surrounded by trees but was clearly man-made. After 30 minutes, we reached a very large estate. By all accounts of the architecture I’d seen in this world, it must have been a mansion. Walls made from lumber that had been painted white reached almost 50 feet high at the very top. There was even a really tall tower separate from the main castle that was almost 60 feet tall. It was so high, I could barely see the top, even while being several feet in the air. I marveled at the structure.

The large gate had two guards posted. I stayed above so I didn’t hear the brief conversation the inspectors shared with them, but I saw them pull open the gate.

I decided to fly ahead of them and check out the estate. It was huge. The large mansion was in the center, and there were several forest trails around. There was even a small farm inside. There were all kinds of people working there. There were a few small buildings around with people inside. I wondered if this was the duke’s estate. If this belonged to a lower nobility, I couldn’t imagine what the duke’s must be like.

I found myself wanting to find seeds again. I flew down to a low altitude and started looking on the ground for anything the farmers might have dropped.

Snap out of it!

I shook myself. I needed to learn better control of this power.

I flew around a few people harvesting crops in the field. I heard idle chatter among them but nothing useful.

I decided I would wait for someone to open the door to the estate and then fly inside and check around… when I heard a familiar voice.

“Lord Ryfield, you do not need to trouble yourself with doing inspection on your father’s farm. We have personnel for that, sir!” an old man with a butler outfit and gray hair with a troubled expression was trying to convince someone to stop what they were doing.

A very familiar looking man responded, laughing, “I need to make sure these workers are getting proper breaks and are being looked after. And please, Sebastian, remember my alias.”

He was wearing very expensive looking clothes. The same blue fancy shoulder pads I’d seen on the inspectors, but his were much more impressive. Half his uniform was trimmed in gold and silver.

The voice sounded so familiar. I got closer and listened in more.

“Please, sir. You should let your men do their jobs. Your uniform will get dirty!” the old butler said.

“Nonsense. Looking after my people is my job. I won’t be long, Sebastian.” Ryfield said.

I felt my tiny bird beak fall a little. There was no doubt in my mind. Even though this man looked different, he was definitely the same person I had met in the pits. This was field master Ryland.

I felt flush with anger.

He was the duke’s son? A duke that could very well be connected to the royal family. Why the hell was he in the pits then? Why was it going on in the first place?

Ryland left Sebastian’s side and went towards the fields. I had so many questions, but more than anything I wanted to give Ryland a piece of my mind.

I needed to get back to human form. The only problem was that I’d be naked. I was getting desperate. I couldn’t let Ryland get away from me. I’d have to knock someone out and take their clothes.

So that’s exactly what I did. There was a man and a woman walking out of the barn, chatting. I flew inside to check the interior. Mostly empty. But more importantly, vacant.

One of them waved to the other and they split up, heading to different fields. I told Shadow to knock out the man once he was out of everyone’s sight and drag him to the barn.

Inside, I transformed back to Jay the human. The man was unconscious in front of me.

Sorry about this.

I slapped my face with both hands, steering my resolve.

I took off his shirt and pants and put them on.

I dragged him to a corner where the lack of light would hide him from plain sight. Then I put some hay over his body but left his face uncovered.

I poked my head slightly out of the barn door.

Ryland was getting closer. He was chatting with every person he encountered. Many were smiling to greet him and took off their caps or hats in respect. I’d wait until he was close enough and pull him in myself or with Shadow.

Soon he was at a tree directly next to the barn, looking to get shade.

He sat down for a minute and then got up.

Immediately, I made Shadow give him a big shove to get closer to the barn door. Ryland let out a cry in confusion, and once he was close, I pulled him inside with all my strength and shoved him to the floor.

“What the--?” he said, his hands catching his fall. He looked up at the person standing over him. I pulled the barn door closed from the inside and found an empty lamp that was on a shelf. There was a bit of oil left, so I made a tiny electrical spark and lit the lamp. The lamp was only bright enough to illuminate my immediate area.

I put the lamp up to my face and turned to Ryland.

“—Jay?” Ryland whispered.

“That’s right, Ryland. Or Ryfield. Whatever your real name is.” I said, menacingly.

“It’s Ryfield. I only went by Ryland in the pits.” he slowly answered.

“You know… I wasn’t sure why you ditched us back there.” I started. I started walking in circles around him.

“I only found out you were here because a few guys who worked for you were saying that the duke’s son came back. At first I didn’t know who they were talking about. But then they said he took down a slave mining operation… and he uncovered the location of the magic festival.” I continued.

I stopped and looked down at him. He got up and dusted off his important uniform.

“Now who else could that have been, except you?” I questioned.

I felt a flash of anger run through my veins.

“You know, Ryfield. I had no idea you were so important. Someone like you probably has hundreds of people working under him. So… I keep asking myself… why was someone like him a field master in an illegal slave pit? What was he doing?” I continued.

“Maybe there for some laughs? Secretly enjoying himself as he watched all those slaves break their backs every day? Maybe he wanted to feel like a god when he gave them a break and water and they looked at him.” I continued.

“—No! That’s not it…” he let out weakly.

My voice started shaking.

“…T-t-hen what is it, Ryfield?!” I raised my voice.

“Why did you let those people suffer for so long? What were you doing in there? Why did you let Harry die?!”

I began to feel an uncontrollable rage swelter inside me.

It grew until I couldn’t hold it back. An anger making my hands violently convulse.

“Give me one good reason to not beat the ever living shit out of you right now!!”

Ryfield’s hands gave out on him and he dropped back. His facial expression looked very pained. For a few seconds, he couldn’t move.

Then he slowly lifted himself with his hands but stopped mid-way.

His voice sounded broken, as he struggled to speak.

"Jay, for 2 years, I had to watch the people I'm supposed to protect be treated like animals. Every day I had to remind myself that there was a reason for all of this. A reason big enough to keep hell's factory in operation.”

He got up all the way slowly and looked me in the eye.

“…Being the bastard son, I've always had to prove my worth. Since I was a child, I've been training with the King's personal espionage unit. I learned information you cannot find except in the darkest corners of the underground markets.”

He kept going.

“When I learned that there was a deep network of kidnappers looting villages and taking the women and people who couldn't defend themselves, I had to get to the bottom of it at all costs. I spent so long keeping my identity hidden and living as a slave to my missions, just for the slightest bit of information."

His jaw clenched and his face twisted in pain.

"...But for all my training, my undercover missions, the blood and sweat I've bathed in to get enough evidence of their crimes... it was all for nothing!”

As he said this, he broke down crying, falling to his knees.

“In the end, I couldn't do a single thing except watch! Watch as the underground kept getting stronger and darker every day. Watch as they moved on from attacking weak villages, to organized patrols in major cities, abducting almost anyone. Getting bolder. Taking more people, beating them down and turning them into slaves. Except every time we tried to bust them, our investigations came up with nothing. They were legally protected."

Ryfield looks up at me, still down, with tears streaming down his face. He tried to wipe his face.

"…One day, I got a lead I had been looking for.”

“A real chance. I was told of a mining operation that was masquerading as a real company. All their paperwork was in order and yet suspicious people came in and out. People that we could interrogate under the right circumstances. We knew this had to be a part of something much bigger. For months, my team worked undercover to get me inside. And we did it. I started as a grunt but thanks to my connections was quickly promoted to field master. Finally this was our chance to tap into the network itself from the inside.”

His voice was unstable. I could tell he was really trying to maintain eye contact with me.

“Our attempts to setup interrogations… were useless. We couldn’t touch them without setting off the alarm that the espionage was on their trail. But there was no point in destroying our only lead. If we didn't take them out at the source and figure out who was behind all this, the branches would just grow back.”

His expression softened and he looked at me with the eyes of a wounded dog. His voice just barely came through.

“Please, Jay. Please understand. I had no choice but to let this go on. I'm ashamed that for 2 years I was just barely ahead of where I was when started… until I met you."

His words hit me like a truck. I couldn’t move. I kept staring at the ground with a stupid look on my face. A million thoughts were going through my mind.

I didn’t say a word. Just continued looking at the ground. I looked at my hands and then my wand. And then it hit me.

“…It was you.” I said weakly.

“You’re the one who brought those soldiers to the magic festival… wasn’t it?” I asked him.

He shamefully dropped his head and nodded.

“After the knights left with the slaves, a few of my men stayed and followed us. Waiting for my orders.” he said.

I was stunned. I didn’t think to have Shadow look out for soldiers, or anyone really, when we were going to the forest where the festival had been for the first time.

“So all those people who died… it was because of you.”

“Organizing a magic festival is a serious crime, Jay. I had no choice.” he defended.

“What were they doing that was so wrong?” I choked out. My voice cracked. “They were peaceful and celebrating!”

“Jay, there were people there who—“, he spoke, but I cut him off.

“I thought you were different. You’re the same as those rotten scum who go around kidnapping people…” my voice got louder.

“You say you want to protect your people, but you let innocent people get shot and murdered. Just for using their powers.” I yelled with all my might, unable to contain myself.

“I have a duty to protect my people from magic!” he yelled back.

I gasped. I felt betrayed and like I had been stung by 1000 needles. For this long, I was led to believe he wanted to help me. There had been soldiers waiting on his orders the whole time. They could have stepped in during the minotaur fight. To help Riley. But he did none of that. He was just using me.

I felt so overcome with hatred and anger in that moment, I was only a second away from lethally electrocuting him. I grasped my wand like I was going to crush it and imagined the highest electrical output I could conceive. In my head, the lightning packed so much charge and voltage that Ryfield was instantly turned to ash. The barn would have surely caught on fire as well. But I could kill him. And get away with it. Because I’d just fly away as a bird when it was done. And that would be that.

But a single thought stopped it from taking effect. I remembered how magic had been used to bring people there, to the pits. How many people hated it because it had taken their family away. I could see why it was dangerous.

I looked at him intently and waited.

“Jay, I know many of the attendees were innocent. But the people running that event, I’ve had my team looking into them. Especially Gerald. You remember how he got when we were on the way to Meade, don’t you? When I mentioned the words ‘Coultry Events’?” he asked.

“We have a strong suspicion that they’re connected to the underground. The Coultry Events are meetings of some of the ring leaders of slave operations. We’ve never been able to uncover them, but we think Gerald might be the missing link.” he continued.

I stopped for a moment to think.

“…So you’re saying Gerald and the Allied Resistance might be in charge of the slave operations?” I finally asked.

“It’s possible. But more likely they’re at least major players. I wanted my men to apprehend him, but he has people in Meade that I had to be wary of. So I let him go. Jay, I know you’re angry. But please stop to think. I don’t want people enslaved any more than you do.” he said.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I dodged. “For all we know, the resistance might be just a thorn at your side that you want gone because they use magic freely.”

“Jay. If we can get evidence of Gerald’s involvement and figure out the next part of the Coultry Events, we could possibly undermine the whole slave operation. Until then, I’ll agree to do anything you say.” he said willingly, with a look of defeat as he raised both his hands.

“You know Ryfield. I don’t care if you’re a noble. I don’t care if you helped me out. What you did was wrong. And even if it turns this country against me, I will have justice for the people who died that day.” I swung my fist in the air.

I sighed and let out a deep breath. “But until your team can find evidence, or a lack thereof, I’m willing to put all of this aside. You just focus on figuring out who the scum really are and bringing them to trial.” I ordered.

“…Then will you help me?” he asked with a glistening beam in his eyes.

“I’ll consider it. But I want something from you.” I said calmly.

“What?” he asked.

“A royal seal. Or any kind of official document. That will say that I am allowed to use magic wherever and whenever I want.” I stared at him intently.

“…I can’t do that, Jay. I don’t have the authority.” he said.

“But you know people who can. Convince them, or this is where our friendly relations end.” I gave my ultimatum.

“Jay, I mean it. Not even my father can issue something like that. For many years, that power has been reserved for the king and is only given to select graduates of an elite military academy at their ceremony.”

“That’s stupid.” I said. “Why can’t a duke grant that power? What if he needs people with magic for a mission?”

“Then he has to ask the king to assign him military personnel. That rule was established to make sure the king maintains control over the nobility.” he explained courteously.

“I see. This whole kingdom is rotten. But it looks like it starts at the root— with the king.” I said malevolently.

“You’d best not speak ill of the king.” he said nervously. “Even if it’s just us here.”

“Okay, whatever. So you’re saying I’d have to graduate from this military school to be able to use my powers, right?” I pressed him.

“Yes.”

“Okay, then I want you to get me enrolled as a student. And get me on the quickest route to graduate.” I said.

“Are you sure? The academy is very hard on its students. And on top of that you’ll go through the Advanced Track. They won’t let you use your powers until you graduate, either.” he said.

“How long would it take to graduate?” I asked impatiently.

“It would take normal students 3 years. But the Advanced Track should have you done in 2 years. 1 year if you’re exceptional.” he said.

“I’ll do it. Get my brother enrolled too. He has magic.” I said.

“…Wait so you found your family?” he asked.

“Yes.” I said.

Ryfield gave me his famous look of suspicion.

“Very well. I can at least manage that. You’ll both be entering the advanced track of the Lakefare Royal Military School.”

“One more thing. I want lodging and meals paid for. And I want my family watched over while we’re away.”

“Jay, academy students usually pay for enrollment themselves. I can get you in on scholarship, but I can’t make them pay for your meals too.” Ryfield said.

“Then you pay for it. And I said I want the rest of my family watched over while we’re away.” I demanded.

He sighed. “Give me some time. I’ll get something arranged.”

I nodded. I went up to him and we shook hands.

“Meet me back here in about 3 days, at noon. Go tell your family the news. You’ll be just in time for Spring Enrollment too if I hurry.” he said.

“Alright Ryfield. I’ll play this little game of military school. And once I’m out, I’ll make the king take notice of me. And I’ll change the laws of this country from the inside. Magic won’t be outlawed someday. Mark my words.” I said, turning to leave.

I took off the guy’s clothes in front of Ryfield and gave them to him.

He covered his eyes and asked, “W-what are you doing?!”

I laughed.

“What’s it look like? I’m using magic illegally.” I said.

I transformed back into a bird and made a quick little trip flying in a circle around him.

He was so stunned with his mouth wide open, I thought he might pass out.

“Jay— you’re a…” he trailed.

I flew away. Far away. Into the sky.

Off to tell my family that I was going off to military school. I guess this is the first step to changing the world!

Afterword

I am Soichiro Yomenagi, the author of this book. It is my distinct pleasure to bring you the first book of my new series Shadow Lord: The Strongest Legendary Hero is a NEET. The concept of NEET can be favorable to some and toxic to others, as I’m sure some who identify as NEET might not say the nicest things in online forums, their natural habitat. As a former NEET myself, the word rings a little bit of comfort. It was a special period of my life where I got to seemingly do whatever I wanted without the burdens that come from having a daily job.

I have a great amount of respect for other light novel authors, and as an avid consumer of isekai animes, of the wonderful shows that result from the source material. I got inspiration from many sources, including one special series with a shield. But perhaps my biggest is one series that I’m sure one day will rise to stardom, Hell Mode: The Hardcore Gamer Dominates In Another World With Garbage Balancing and of course its creator, Hamuo-sensei. That is one series I could not put down and am eagerly awaiting the next volume for!

I am also grateful to my beta readers and a small private chat community of authors that I am privy to. Though we clashed at first, you gave me necessary insight to make my first book the best it could be.

I hope that you found this book enjoyable. For those of you who did, there are more volumes on the way. And in case it wasn’t clear where the story left off, the next book will focus on Jay’s Military Academy Arc adventures. There will be much more than that of course, but I’ll leave that for discovery upon reading. You won’t have to wait long as I’ve already written the book and in the process of getting things together to release to my wonderful readers. The second book of hopefully many to come in this series.

Thank you and I hope that will continue to show your support for this series!

Copyright

Shadow Lord: The Strongest Legendary Hero is a NEET

Volume 1 – by Soichiro Yomenagi

Original Translation – Soichiro Yomenagi

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2022 Soichiro Yomenagi

Cover Illustration by Paolo Santo

All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. In Accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

Next up: The Military Academy Arc & The Entire World’s Races!