“Alright, that’s it for today’s lesson,” concluded Hannah Neal with a single clap and an exhausted smile. “And thank you Kai for helping out,” she added with a wink.

“No problem,” replied the young man, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment.

“Yeah, thanks Kai,” drily replied one of the other three students, the apparent leader of the other two. He was massaging his shoulder, where the chair Kai threw at him impacted just a few minutes earlier. “You really beat that lesson into us.”

“But seriously guys,” replied the third of the kids, the pudgy-faced one with black hair. “Think of what would’ve happened if we picked a fight with one of them instead?” He pointed towards the trio of soldiers sitting in the back of the room, who were now exchanging bills of various currency amongst themselves.

“Oh shit, we’d be in the hospital then!” exclaimed the second child, the blond one, with an expression full of dread.

“But seriously, I hope I didn’t hurt you guys too badly,” said Kai, honestly feeling regretful for his actions. “I tried to just stick with some shock and awe, rather than breaking any bones or anything that bad.”

“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” replied the first kid. “But we’re going to kick your ass in combat training once we pick up on all your tricks!”

“Wait, combat training?” asked Kai in a fit of surprise. “This is the first I’m hearing about that.”

“Sheila hasn’t filled you in yet?” asked Ms. Neal.

“No, she just dropped me off here after breakfast and that was it.”

“Strange, I’d expect her to try and give you all of the details of what to expect here. Were you two talking about something else more important instead?”

Memories flooded into Kai’s head from earlier that day. “I did not get isekaid to go back to school! I don’t want to go!” “Come on, it’s not that bad! And you still need to learn how this place works!” “No!” “You’re going and that’s final.”

“Uh, yeah. We were talking about some pretty important stuff.”

“Huh, well she can probably fill you in later, then. In the meantime, I can tell you that combat training is more about self defense than how to be a soldier. Learn how to avoid and respond to the kind of threats you’d find in other Worlds, like how to avoid walking into a monster infested dungeon. You know, that sort of thing.”

“When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Excuse me, Kai Freeman?” asked a dull voice from the room’s entrance. Everyone turned towards the source of the voice and saw a short, nerdy-looking man with thick-rimmed glasses and curly orange hair. The bags under his eyes didn’t betray his sharp, calculating gaze. “I’m here to pick you up for your next appointment since Sheila couldn’t make it.”

“Oh hey, Gus!” exclaimed Hannah. “Kai’s been an excellent student, just like yesterday. Seriously, you need to bring in more kids like him.”

“You very well know I don’t have control over who the summoning ritual brings over,” he replied in a slow drone.

“Yup, that’s just like you, Gus. Can’t get a joke,” replied Ms. Neal with a cocky smile. “Don’t worry about that boring exterior, Kai. Gus is a sweetheart beneath it all.”

“So Kai, are you ready?” asked the monotonous redhead. “Your next stop is a short walk away, but I’m sure you won’t want to waste any time getting there.”

“Uh yeah, I’m ready,” replied Kai with a curt nod. It was hard to tell if Gus was being sarcastic from his tone alone, but with the only TOAL activities Kai knew of being school and combat training, it wasn’t hard to make a guess.

“Very well then, please follow me.”

The two exited the classroom and walked down the brightly lit halls of TOAL, utterly silent. Kai wasn’t exactly sure what it was about Gus, but the air he put out around himself wasn’t very conductive of smalltalk. Several times the young man tried to open his mouth and ask the most basic of questions like “how are you doing?”, “where are we headed?”, or simply “who the hell even are you?”, but not a single syllable came out.

“Of course, I haven’t introduced myself,” said Gus all of a sudden, followed by the faintest chuckle.

Kai let out a silent sigh of relief as he let the man beside him speak of his own accord.

“I’m head of logistics here at TOAL and oversee the larger-scale operations, as well as missions.”

“Oh, so you know where Artyom is,” interjected Kai. “Any idea when he’ll get back?”

Gus replied with a side-eye and a long stream of silence.

Kai simply returned it while making a goofy face. It was obvious that he was annoyed by the question, but the lack of an answer said more about the truth than anything else. And Kai really wanted to know now.

The staredown continued for several more seconds before Gus closed his eyes and looked back ahead in the most conspicuous sign of defeat he could muster.

“It’s classified,” he finally replied with a sigh. “I can see why he took such a liking to you.”

Kai responded with a pout at his meager spoils, but accepted them. This place really did seem like some kind of top-secret government facility, and he didn’t blame them for keeping secrets like one would.

“But hopefully he should be back in a week or two, if things go smoothly. That’s all I can say.”

“Alright, I’ll take that,” shrugged Kai. But now that the gates of conversation were finally open, and thanks to the fact that he wasn’t filling up the air with complaints about having to go to school, Kai decided to continue the exchange.

“So, everyone here’s from Earth?” asked Kai. Yup, a veritable master at smalltalk.

“That’s correct,” replied Gus in his distinct monotony. “And there are hundreds of other Earthers living off-site.”

“Hundreds? I’m pretty sure if that many people were getting portalled away, it’d be on the news.”

“Of course it would, but they’re not all getting brought from the same Earth.”

“Wait, same Earth? Like are there multiple?”

“Once again you’re correct. Just like there are near-infinite fantastical Worlds out there, there are also a near-infinite number of Earths. They’re almost all the same, save for a few minor differences here and there. The biggest difference I’ve seen is with the time period, where it could be 2021 on one Earth, but 1021 on another.”

“Huh, any examples?”

“Well there’s Yi, one of TOAL’s founding members, who was from around the year 1100. But outside of that, there’s not much, luckily.”

“Hey, as long as there’s no alternative history where America lost World War 2 or the Civil War, I don’t really mind.”

Careful observation would reveal that Gus’ eyebrows rose a few millimeters. “Thankfully, we’ve yet to find anyone from such a version of Earth. Pray that we don’t.”

Kai nodded in response. He anticipated a laugh out of his chaperone, but he realized he was expecting too much. Instead, Gus ended up killing the mood with his fearful statement. But not wanting to accept defeat so easily, Kai gathered his confidence and willed it into another question, just one attempt at rekindling the fire against the awkwardness.

“So, how about you? Did you also get rescued by TOAL? Those other kids I met didn’t really seem like the type who got rescued themselves, they probably would’ve been pretty happy back wherever you found them.”

“To answer your questions, yes. I was rescued by TOAL. And those children actually came to us. They missed many of the luxuries from Earth and decided that staying here for some time would be the best way to obtain them.”

“Yeah, I can see them doing something like that,” replied Kai with a chuckle. “But I don’t blame them, I’m pretty sure I’d miss having access to the internet too.”

“Regrettably, we don’t have internet access here,” replied Gus with a deadpan.

“I figured,” replied Kai with a mopey shrug.

“But the library has plenty of Earth media stored, from books to movies. You might be able to find plenty of familiar entertainment there.”

“Really now? Any chance Sheila scheduled some time for a visit there?”

“For tomorrow. You have another two items on your agenda for today.”

“Damn, gotta wait then. Oh yeah, you didn’t tell me how you ended up here.”

“Right,” said Gus, as he closed his eyes and let himself go back to memories of old. “I was pulled into a Gilded World, just like you. However, I didn’t have the luxury of getting an immediate rescue, so I was stuck fighting a war I didn’t want to be a part of.”

“That’s the shit Artyom and the rest of you guys saved me from. Thanks again for that, by the way.”

“Our pleasure and duty,” replied Gus with a curt nod. “But thankfully for me, as the ‘Chosen Hero,’ I was knighted and provided with a pittance of land, so it wasn’t so bad of a start.”

“But they still expected you to fight against whoever, though.”

“And thankfully, they really were evil. Even compared to my fellow lords and ladies.”

“Right… why do I have the feeling there was more to your story than grabbing a sword and rushing them down?” Kai figured Gus absolutely did not seem like the kind of guy who got his own hands dirty.

“Doing such a thing would’ve gotten me killed, despite what the people who summoned me believed. Maybe I could have if I had the proper support, but with the political climate amongst the other nobility, I wasn’t going to get any.”

“So were they just in-fighting all the time to the point they could never agree on helping you?” asked Kai.

“On the dot. In fact, the only reason they summoned me in the first place was for the sake of earning additional prestige for actually ‘doing something’ against their enemies instead of just sitting about and arguing. They were more interested in cultivating their own individual power than fighting off complete annihilation.”

“Alright, I’m calling bullshit,” interrupted Kai. “There’s no way anyone’s that stupid, and I’ve met some real idiots back home.”

“You’d be surprised,” replied Gus with raised eyebrows. “Some people really can get that greedy and excuse even an impending apocalypse if it means getting just a little bit more for themselves. It comes with the territory of politics.”

“So what did you do?”

“I got into politics.”

“Well you don’t seem that stupid to me.”

“I appreciate that,” Gus deadpanned. “But I was there to do a job, and I did it. I learned to play the game just as well, if not better, than those I was up against, and pulled enough strings to create a united front against the enemy to defeat them.”

“Well alright,” replied Kai with a mixed expression. As deliveries went, he felt that Gus’ was pretty disappointing. Like what, he just got good, showed everyone up, and saved the day? Even if that was pretty much the core plot of all of his favorite stories, he could’ve at least tried to make it sound interesting! Though seeing as how it was Gus, Kai could only once again blame himself for getting his expectations up that high in the first place. Maybe he could ask Sheila about it? She seemed like she’d be a better storyteller. In fact, he’d have to ask for her story as well.

“After the kingdom was saved, I realized I had a talent for that sort of thing,” continued Gus.

Kai, broken out of his thoughts, looked back at him, hoping for a slightly more satisfying resolution.

“With all of the backstabbing, assassins, and seducing going on, I also learned to be extremely careful and brought that talent to TOAL.”

Kai nodded along with a hopeful smile. Now this was starting to sound like a story!

“I’d consider myself pretty decent at those kinds of political games, but my real skills lie in finding them out early on and either mitigating or redirecting them for my benefit.”

“Oh yeah! Tell me about thot slayer Gus and how he foiled a femme fatale trying to kill him with a knife in bed or a poisoned drink!” thought Kai to himself.

“Eventually, my peers were planning to summon additional Earthers for a new conflict, and this time, they weren’t planning to land them to prevent a repeat of my performance. They would’ve been nothing more than soldiers to die for their selfish gain. So in response, I was able to sabotage the portal and turn it into a beacon into the multiverse, a sort-of ‘call for help’, if you will. And that brought TOAL to my doorstep. With their help, we were able to get rid of the portal instructions to prevent any future summonings, and I decided to join them. Now, here we are.”

Well, once again, Kai was a victim of his own hubris. From teasing such an amazing premise to completely jumping it over to the finale, to finally skipping over even that and ending the story without so much as even a crumb of fun!

“So, what did you think of the story?” asked Gus, his voice sounding completely sincere. “Was it informative to your liking?”

“Well, it was informative…” he hesitantly replied.

“Then I’ve achieved what I set out to do.”

“You sure did,” replied Kai with a sigh. He tried to not let it get him down however, and straightened his head and looked back at Gus. What caught his eye was the slightest curve of his mouth. Wait a minute…

“You did that on purpose!” exclaimed Kai. “You knew I’d be disappointed by that story!”

“I told you Kai, I consider myself to be pretty good at these kinds of games, and it’s good to stay in practice.”

Kai let out a deflating sigh. He’d been gotten. Completely bamboozled. Utterly smeckledorfed! Kai knew that TOAL was full of surprises, but didn’t expect one like this. Perhaps that was the nature of being surprised, expecting it to happen doesn’t really let it count, and he absolutely did not expect this.

“Fine, you got me,” he pouted. “But do you think you can tell me about one of those spoiled assassinations or seductions? Those really did sound pretty interesting.”

“Hm, each of those stories requires a lot of setup, and I don’t think there’s enough time for me to go through it all, at least not now. So maybe another time?”

“Fine,” Kai grumbled. He simmered in his frustration for a little while longer before he realized there were some holes in the story that needed patching up. “Hey, how does taking away their instructions for building a portal actually keep them from doing it? Couldn’t they have just made a copy?”

“You’re sharp,” replied Gus with a short nod. “Portals between Worlds all run on Rune magic, which degrades in potency every time you copy the runes down to another medium. So even if they did make copies, their ritual wouldn’t work anymore, at least not well enough to summon anyone from Earth.”

“Hold on. When I was rescued, I remember Abhi mentioned something about ‘levels of degradation’ or something like that. The ones he found were level 5, I think?”

“Yup, that’s the scientific term for it, and that’s the lowest tier we’ve found so far. Also, beyond just taking away their notes, we also keep a close eye on any such World to make sure there aren’t any unexpected spares.”

“Guess you have your bases covered, then.”

“Of course, what do you take us for?”

Kai let out a small chuckle. “That’s fair. So what else can you do with rune magic besides making portals?”

“Not too much else. It’s mainly used in conjunction with rituals to affect space. We just use it for portals, however. To and from Worlds, and in between points in the same universe. We only give out schooling for that branch of magic to researchers and soldiers, however. If you want a career here, the latter would be the quickest way of getting yourself some working knowledge.”

“Alright, I’ll think about it then,” replied Kai, considering what it would be like to join up with either of those groups. He’d been planning to join the army back home, and at least as a soldier here, he knew for sure he’d be doing good.

“Ok, we’re here,” said Gus, snapping Kai out of his thoughts. “Head inside and have fun.”

“Hey, thanks for the chat,” replied Kai with a half-smiling nod. “It was… pretty interesting.” He walked up to the doorway the two had arrived at and opened it up. With someone like Gus leading him, he was expecting to be led to a lecture on logistics or political theory, or something equally boring.

Instead, what met him was a dark neon-lit room with rows upon rows of game cabinets, monitors, and various game consoles.

“Wait a minute, this is an arcade!” he said in shock. “What’s going on?”

“Sheila felt bad for making school be the first thing you did with us on your second day, so she scheduled you some time at our arcade.”

“Why didn’t you or she tell me that?! It would’ve made me feel better about things.”

“Well, she wanted it to be a surprise, though she definitely could’ve simply told you from the very beginning. Well, that’s Sheila for you.”

“You got that right,” replied Kai with an incredulous look. Though to be fair, he didn’t really know Sheila all that well, but somehow a stunt like this just fit her so well.

“Anyway, try out the different machines and get to know the people inside. They can be a pretty interesting bunch. Have fun.” Gus gave one final wave at Kai and turned around to leave.

“Alright,” said Kai aloud. “So where do I begin?”