The diameter of the room was only about ten meters, so it didn't really take Adam too long to verify that Nora was no longer present. It took him longer to come to terms with it. He had clearly seen her on the floor having some kind of panic attack. She had been right there beside him, and then she wasn't. He had heard her called an escape artist by the some of the school's administrators, but he figured that it was simply a manner of speech. The only door was on the opposite side of the room behind a squad of robed men. He had been watching the chief robed man speaking the entire time. There was no way she had slipped past, but the fact remained that she was gone.

Adam briefly considered the other options. The robed man claimed to have brought them there. Could she have been sent elsewhere? He was hardly familiar with the intricacies of teleportation, but he felt that it was at least worth asking. What if she really had managed to sneak out though? He could wind up outing her if he brought it up. It was a tough call to make. Adam decided to give it a shot and play things by ear if things started looking ugly.

"Where is our classmate? There was another one with us. Where is she?" Adam inquired.

His words seemed to break the spell over the rest of the class, and with a roar, they instantly returned to shouting. By now, the previously downed victims of Nora's rampage had resumed consciousness and were out for blood. Likewise finding her absent, they turned their fury on the unsuspecting robed man, demanding to know where he had hidden her. The poor man struggled to understand what all of the commotion was about. He looked to his advisors for help, but found them similarly baffled. After some time and much yelling, the class managed to express that one of their number was missing, the missing girl was in a lot of trouble, and they wanted to know what he had done with her.

"I know nothing about another girl," the man replied apologetically, holding out his hands. "Nobody has left this room. All that I brought over are here."

In the eyes of the class, this meant that Nora had somehow been left behind, but Adam knew what he had seen. He wasn't sure how she'd done it, but Nora had lived up to her reputation as an escape artist and made it out of the room. He hoped that he hadn't caused trouble for her, but he honestly felt that whatever trouble she may wind up in because of his actions, she would be able to deal with it just fine.

Truth be told, Adam was more than a little bit upset with Nora. Just yesterday they had been able to get closer, but as soon as things had gone south, she had abandoned him and escaped by herself. He understood that this feeling was ridiculous and that another body would have greatly diminished her chances of escaping unnoticed, but he was still upset. Here he was, marooned in a strange land, and the friend that he had just turned on half of the class to protect had left him high and dry.

He wondered if he would ever see her again. They didn't know anything about this place. It didn't make sense to him to run off without any information about their surroundings. For all they knew, they might be able to go home if they rejected the man in the robe's offer. He strongly doubted it. Something told him that the man would say whatever it took to get them to stay, but you never knew.

Over the next few hours, Ms. Harmon's homeroom class berated the robed men with questions. They came to know a great many things. The chief robed man was named Bertrus Altinius. He was something like the king of the country where they were located. The man he kept looking to for help was named Marcus Cogitan and was Altinius' chief advisor. The country was named Umbrian and it was one of nine kingdoms and several duchies that make up their world's single continent, Lapravia.

For all Adam knew, it might not be the only continent. With the level of technology he had observed, it was highly likely that this planet's residents simply hadn't reached the point of exploring their world to its entirety. They seemed to be stuck somewhere in the Middle Ages. If Nora had been there, she would have confirmed it to be a second tier realm. While the living conditions didn't appear to be as bad as Adam had been led to believe, that probably had a great deal to do with a little something called magic.

Altinius had confirmed the use of magic in his summoning. The ornate swirling patterns carved into the walls and ceiling made up a 'formation' called The Gate. Formations allowed magic casters to control spells many times more complicated than they would normally be capable of. It was typically used as a scaffolding to build one's own spell off of, but in this case, the formation had been gifted to them by some sort of higher being. All it required was a power source and it would build the spell all by itself. To explain, Cogitan had lowered his hand to run along the runes. Wherever his hand neared the runes, they began to glow a brilliant gold in response. It was truly a wonder.

The most important thing that they had learned was that they would not be going home. The only thing that this formula did was summon, which made it less of a gate and more of a magical kidnapping machine. The royal casters didn't even know how it worked or how it selected groups to summon. It was a one way gate, and they were no closer to reverse engineering it than they had been 50 years ago when it had first been bestowed upon them.

With no other options, the class ended up accepting Altinius' request to stay and learn magic. There was nary a student who hadn't been entranced upon seeing Cogitan activate those glowing runes. It wasn't such a difficult proposal to accept.

With that, some of the other robed men led the students and a pair of extremely befuddled adults to the pre-arranged quarters where they would be living for the duration of their studies.

It was slowly beginning to sink in. For all intents and purposes, this was their lives now. Everything that they had known was now out of reach. Their families, their technology, their everyday modern conveniences; all of this had been swallowed up behind an insurmountable barrier of time and space. In a single instant, they had become more lost than they had ever been.

That night, many of the girls slept together in one room, weeping and reminiscing about the things that they had left behind. The boys quarantined themselves to their own rooms, either crying to themselves until they passed out, or staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, their worries screaming into their heads and furiously fending off sleep.

Adam was the latter. He had always considered himself to be the adaptable type, but nothing he had ever experienced could have prepared him for this. Every time he came close to calming himself down, an image of his parents, or his sister, or his home intruded on his thoughts and brought him right back to where he had started. It wasn't despair that filled his mind though, it was desperation. He was frantically sorting through ideas. Ideas that could take them home, ideas that could lure out Nora. Anything to give him even an inkling of power in this unfamiliar place. He couldn't stand the feeling of being out of control. He needed something that could give him sway, but all his thoughts led back to magic.

Magic was might here. If he wanted to be respected, he needed powerful spells. If he wanted to reverse that formation, he needed a deep understanding of the magic that had brought them there. He may even be able to use magic to find Nora. Even if Altinius hadn't asked them to learn magic, Adam wouldn't have had any other choice. There was only one path forward.

Satisfied with his conclusion, Adam closed his eyes and sunk himself into the plush bed that was probably well-above what most commoners could afford here. Passion burned within him. It seared his lungs with every breath. The warmth comforted him and sunk him into a deep and peaceful sleep. Tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow would be the first step in taking back control of his life. He couldn't wait.

***

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