I awoke slowly to the smell wood smoke and grilling meat.

I glanced about me and found myself in a dimly lit cave. It appeared manmade considering the uniformity of its shape and size, roughly thirty feet deep and perhaps half that dimension wide. It was also still daytime outside judging by the light shining through the opening, which was no larger than a refrigerator door. Despite the sunlight the fire still cast dancing shadows on the roughly hewn walls towards the back of the cave where I was.

Lying uncomfortably on my back, I tried to move and pain immediately shot through my thigh and groin like someone had stabbed me with a knife.

“Ah!” I hissed.

I took a further look around the cave but could see no sign of big blue woman who had rescued me, but it was clear she had taken care of me while I was passed out. My leg was covered in some kind of moss and several pieces of skewered meat were roasting slowly over a small fire near the cave entrance. My stomach growled at the scent of it, but I was in no shape to even crawl over there to taste a piece.

Not that I knew what kind of meat it was.

Next to me I found a waterskin and I wasted no time propped myself up on my elbow to have a drink. The water quenched my parched throat and tasted faintly of citrus. I felt ten times better after drinking it and I wondered if perhaps it was magical somehow.

That made me think about my health stats and I brought them up.

Health: Diseased – Touched by Death

Poisoned – Toxic wound

Damn, still poisoned…and my cancer was still there too, of course.

Both of the notifications made me sigh.

A rustle of underbrush outside the cave entrance drew my attention, and I quickly tensed, but then immediately relaxed when I heart a soft meep echo into the cave. The cat-lemur poked his head inside and I smiled as he scampered to me.

“Hey boy.” I beckoned him with a snap of my fingers.

He jumped up onto my chest and began purring.

“Did you come to check on me?” I said kneading his soft brown fur. “I don’t care what she called you. I’m sticking with Meep.”

“Meep! Meep!”

From outside the cave I faintly heard something else approaching along with voices.

“No, I wasn’t trying to firstbond with him,” I recognized the blue woman’s voice. “I swear.”

“Well it looks that way to me,” another voice said haughtily. “Why didn’t you just bring him back to town instead of shacking up with him out here?”

“Because he won’t make it back to town without your help. Besides it’s all her fault he ended up out here in the first place.”

“My fault?” a third voice said.

“Yes, your fault. Why would you send him to a wormhole?”

“Because that’s what the spell said to do. It said the only way to bring someone from the outer planes is through a wormhole.”

What the fuck?

“That still doesn’t make any sense to me.”

The woman who had saved me entered the cave, ducking to fit through the small opening. She looked even more amazing than I remembered. Statuesque and exotic with her pale blue skin. Like a blue She-Hulk. She noticed me looking and gave me a huge smile.

“Ah, you’re up!” she said excitedly. “Guys, get in here. He’s awake.”

Right behind her came a petite woman with shoulder length blonde hair and pale white skin. A white, frilly one piece dress barely covered her tight athletic figure and ended at her upper thigh. Below, her shapely legs were clad in a pair of purple stockings. She looked like a pop star to me. Mesmerizing blue eyes, striking good looks—Taylor Swift level for sure. But what really drew my attention were the two sets of dragonfly like wings springing from her back.

“Oh wow!” she said, ogling me and I vainly tried to cover my exposed boxers with my hands. “He does look way better in person.”

“Out of the way,” a strong voice came from behind her. “Let me see.”

A third woman entered, pushing the blonde woman to the side as she ducked into the cave. Where the blonde was feminine and pretty, and the blue woman tough and sexy, this one was just straight up hot! Long slender legs ended at a pair of curvaceous hips, leading to a tiny waist and finally a heavenly bosom. Her face was exquisitely beautiful; a high end fashion model with a hint of malevolence, like a dangerous femme fatal. Her green eyes were piercing and on her head were two black horns that flared backwards and framed the sharp bangs of her jet black hair that stretched down to her waist.

Holy crap…were all the women on this planet this damn beautiful?

Her coke bottle figure was wrapped in what looked like a black body suit, but on closer inspection it seemed to be made of…scales? I did a double take of the woman. What on earth was she? What were any of them for that matter? Besides totally hot, of course.

“Still looks nothing special to me,” the scaled woman said with a roll of her eyes. “I hope he’s worth it.”

“He will be, I’m sure,” the popstar said. “The legends say that mages from Earth are the most powerful there are.”

“He can fight too,” Blue She Hulk said folding her massive arms with a nod. “Killed a couple of Bullywogs with just a stick.”

“That supposed to impress me? Looks like he nearly died from it.”

“Hey, I’m sitting right here, you know?” I said waving at them. “No need to keep talking about me in the third person.”

They all looked at me somewhat startled, as if shocked I could actually speak.

“Let’s just get him to the guild,” scale lady said, like I was some huge bother to her. “If he could barely survive one day in the Vult what chance do we even have?”

A flare of indignation shot through me at her dismissive attitude. “Hey! I didn’t ask to be brought here. You three abducted me and dropped me in the middle of a damn jungle filled with dune worms, terror birds and poisonous ninja turtles. I’m lucky to even be alive.” I then felt a little bad for directing my ire towards all of them and looked to Blue She Hulk. “Thanks to you, that is.”

She cleared her throat and seemed to blush a little. “Don’t mention it.”

“So you have some balls,” Scale lady said with a smirk. “Yay for us.”

“Perhaps we need to start over.” The blonde girl stepped in front of the scaly lady and performed a little bow. “I’m actually the one responsible for bringing you here. And for dropping you in the jungle too. So sorry about that, by the way. My name is—”

“Yunni, right?” I said cutting her off. Although they were no longer three balls of light their personalities weren’t hard to match up. I pointed to blue She Hulk next. “I’d guess you’re Phee and you…” I frowned as I pointed to scaly lady. “…would be Devena. Correct?”

Devena shot an accusatory look towards Phee. “You told him who we are already?”

“No, I didn’t!”

“See! He is a sage!” Yunni exclaimed happily. “The legends are true. We’re all saved!”

“No, I’m not a damn sage,” I said irritated. “I overheard all of you plotting to kidnap me back in my damn office on Earth. And just so you know, there are no mages on Earth. So you’ve probably got the wrong guy.”

Devena frowned at Yunni. “Is he telling the truth? Did you mess everything up again?”

Yunni opened her mouth to rely but didn’t seem to have anything to say.

Devena grimaced and shook her head. “By the Goddess you’re incompetent.”

The harsh words sent Yunni’s gaze casting downwards and staring at the space between her sandal-clad feet. Devena’s continued glare made me feel even more sorry for petite winged girl.

“Look just explain what the hell is going on, please,” I said to break the tension. “I’ve already accepted the fact that this isn’t some dream…well, maybe it’s a nightmare sort of, but you get my point. Who are you and what do you want with me?”

“Before we get into that,” Phee said. “Perhaps you could tell us exactly who you are?”

I balked. “You have no idea who I am? Seriously? What made you even take me?”

Yunni shook her head. “The legend just said that long ago, the most powerful mage to ever rule our guild came from your world. So we tried to bring another one of you back.”

Fuck me. “Wow I feel super special now. Especially considering that magic doesn’t exist where I come from.”

“Just tell us your name,” Devena said impatiently.

“It’s Cole,” I said. “Cole Jacobs.”

“Well, Cole Jacobs,” she said strutting forward. “We three are the last remaining members of House Velmar, one of the oldest Guilds in Grandia.”

“And one of the brokest,” Phee said flatly.

“Not now, Phee,” Devena said, raising the back of her hand to her. “The reason we brought you here is because we are in need of a Guildmaster.”

I recalled them mentioned something like that before when they were abducting me. “And what exactly is a Guildmaster?”

“I suppose I’ll need to explain what a guild is first,” she said with a sigh. “Listen carefully. Here all magic is ruled by guilds. Each guild possesses its own sphere of magic.”

“Except for ours,” Yunni said with a grin. “We’re kind of different.”

“Not now, Yunni,” Devena snapped. “He’s needs to understand the basics first.” She then turned back to me, clearing her throat. “As I was saying, guilds possess magic and the guildmasters are the keepers of that magic. Various schools follow the various different sphere.”

“What are these spheres?” I asked.

“The elements. Fire, water, light, dark, blah, blah, blah. From those you obtain the various subsets, like Enhancement, Evocation. You get the picture.”

“Okay,” I said, still not fully grasping the details, but I’d played enough D&D to get the basic idea. “So what’s this got to do with me? Like I said. I can’t do magic. At least, I don’t think I can.”

“You don’t need to in our guild,” Yunni said giddily. “We do all the magic for you!”

“What do you mean?”

Yunni performed a small pirouette. “We’re the magic! House Velmar is the Guild of the magical beings.”

“So like…” I pointed towards all of them. “All of you?”

“Yes, very astute,” Devena said flatly. “The other guilds all consists of humans.”

“Because only humans can wield mana and absorb crystal shards,” Yunni added. “Like you!”

I think back to that weird Satyr guy I’d met in the jungle. “Yeah. That’s what this goat dude told me when I first got here. Oh! Speaking of that…” I reached into my pocket with a hiss of pain and withdrew my three remaining mana crystals. “How much are these worth in gold?”

Devena examined them with interest, her emerald eyes squinting. “Where did you get those?”

“Traded some guy name Yaya Shareef Eldeen for a contract worth 50 gold. I had five of them. 10 gold each. How much do you figure they’re actually worth?”

“Ten gold?” Devena laughed. “They’re worth barely tree gold each, I’d say.”

I grimaced. “Man, I knew that dude was shady.”

“So you’re already contract bound?” Phee said with a whistle. “Wow, you move fast. I hope we won’t have to deal with an enforcer imp soon.”

“Yeah I didn’t really know what I was getting into. Anyway, back to this Guild stuff. You’re saying only humans can wield magic and only Guilds can give them that magic. But your Guild doesn’t have any magic. So what use would I be as a guildmaster then?”

“You’d be very useful,” Phee said. “You bond with us to increase our own innate strength and powers by giving us a portion of your own.”

I raised my brow at that one. I do recall Phee mentioning bonding a couple of times. “Alright so, what does that involve exactly? Bonding.”

Phee ran a hand through her dark hair, blushing a little. “Well… joining together…physically, for one…” Then she added quickly. “Or blood oaths. Those work too.”

“But not as strong,” Yunni said grinning.

Devena let out a sigh and rolled her eyes. “The bonding is secondary. The main thing is that as you grow in power so can we. You have the vision don’t you?”

I was still trying to get my mind around the whole bonding thing. We’re these totally hot women saying they needed me to bone them to make them stronger? This gave a whole new meaning to the term fantasy world.

“Well?” Devena said, breaking me out of my daydream.

“Huh?”

“The vision. Do you have it?”

“What vision?”

“Are you able to see you own strength and that of others?”

“Oh, you mean being able to see stats and stuff?”

“If that’s what you call it, yes,” she said. “Once you—well… if you become our Guildmaster, you’ll be able to enhance our abilities the same way.”

That sounded kind of cool. I wondered what kind of stats each of them would have.

“Does everyone have this…vision?”

“To varying degrees,” Yunni said. “But only humans can use it to advance their minds and bodies, and also use it to cast magic.”

“Weird,” I said. It’s almost like some kind of gaming code was running the place. “Where does this vision come from?”

“The great goddess Lythandra blesses us with it,” Yunni said. “It’s her holy law that defines everything within Grandia. The guilds. The hierarchy of orders.”

“The hierarchy of orders? What’s that?”

“Meh,” Phee said waving her hand dismissively. “Something I’d rather not talk about right now, to be honest.”

“Anyway,” Devena said. “Do you understand what a guildmaster is now?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“So you’ll agree?” Yunni said hopefully, clasping her hands and shaking them. “You’ll become our guildmaster?”

It’s not every day three strange but totally sexy women practically beg you to have sex with them. And as inviting as it all seems, my spider-sense was tingling that something wasn’t quite right with the picture. “Hold on a minute. You guys still practically kidnapped me from my world. I don’t know if I’m cool with that.”

Devena let out a sigh. “I knew this would be a waste of time. We should have settled for one of the damn locals.”

“What locals?” Phee said with a scoff. “None of them want anything to do with us.”

Okay I’m beginning to smell the rat here. “And…why not?”

Yunni frowned cutely, pushing out her lower lip. “We’re kind of not that powerful compared to the other guilds. At least not at first. Plus there’s the whole…order thing…”

“It takes time to for most of us progress to a point where we could even equal the strength of a human mage using primal magic spheres,” Devena explained.

“How much time?” I asked.

“Years.” She shrugged. “Even decades depending.”

“Decades?” My mind suddenly returned to Susan’s office and my one year diagnosis. “I can’t do anything that’s going to take decades!”

I must be crazy. Why am I even here considering this? “Look, you guys seem great and all, but I’m not so sure about this. Plus you don’t seem totally sold on me either, so why don’t you just send me back home. You can do that right?”

I’d left Susan waiting for me. Susan; who was a real person…in the real world. I still didn’t know what the hell this even was for sure yet. Bonding with magical creatures? What if this was hell and as soon as I did it, I’d be trapped here forever while they turned into horrid looking demons?

Okay maybe that was a bit extreme, but the fact remained; I couldn’t just be jumping into this like it was my new home. I had a job back on Earth, a big one too. And a ball buster of a boss who I’d just stood up as well.

Plus I had cancer to deal with.

My innards shrunk at that thought.

“Yes,” Yunni said looking up at Devena as if for confirmation. “I suppose we could send you back. If that’s truly your wish.”

She then cast her eyes down again and I felt a little bad for disappointing her.

“Perhaps it’s for the best,” Devena said with a decisive nod. “If you’re this shaky on just becoming our Guildmaster, then I doubt you’d have what it takes to be able to pull off what we really need you for.”

I raised a brow at that one. “And what’s that?”

Devena sighed and placed her hands on her hips. “Well we didn’t bring you here to simply bond with us all day, you silly human. There’s a reason we’re here in the Vult…Us, along with every other guild in the realm.” She then paused as if considering something. “It will probably be easier just to show you. Follow me.”

She turned to walk away but I quickly stopped her.

“Ah, wait…” I said. “That’s not going to happen. I can barely move right now.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ah yes. The reason—” she said sardonically “—that Phee called me out here.”

Devena then stood over me and closed her eyes. Lowering her hand towards me, a bright light exuded from her palm. Warmth filled my body and instantly the pain in my thigh eased.

Devena uses Healing Palm!

You are healed!

I checked my health status.

Health: Diseased – Touched by Death

No more poison, at least. And I could move my leg freely again too. I sat up and tested my strength, stretching. “Wow…I feel brand new.”

I then decided to see if I could check her stats.

Identification: Minor Success!

Name: Devena

Race: Unknown

Class: Unknown

Insight Level: Unknown

Strength: Unknown

Agility: Unknown

Dexterity: Unknown

Constitution: Unknown

Will: Unknown

Intellect: Unknown

Charisma: Unknown

Okay, so I pretty much only know her name. I did the same with the others and got the same results. Perhaps I’d need to bond with them or at least become this Guildmaster to see anything further.

But even that I wasn’t sure of yet.

“If you can walk then follow me,” Devena said heading for the cave exit. “There’s something you need to see.”