When Eric woke up, he found himself lying on a hard, wooden floor. His back hurt, and his chest still felt sore, but at least the pain wasn't extreme.

He sat up slowly, looking around. The room he was in was small, dimly lit, and in an overall poor condition. The old wooden walls looked worn, some of the boards rotting. The room looked like a storage room, with several wooden crates scattered around.

Eric took a quick moment to look himself over. He was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing when he had been transported, but they now looked significantly more dirty then they once were, like he had been dragged through the mud.

Which, considering the circumstances he had just experienced, was very likely.

He got to his feet slowly. As he did, his legs buckled slightly, and he braced himself on a wooden crate for a moment. The room he was in had no windows, but there was a flimsy wooden door in front of him. He made his way to it, trying the doorknob.

The door didn't open. Despite the poor quality of the door, it still had a lock, and Eric doubted he had the strength to break it down, dispite how weak it looked. Because of this, he instead knocked on the door, as hard as he could. ''Anyone there?'' he called out, surprising himself at how hoarse he sounded.

He had just finished speaking when he heard footsteps on the other side of the door, and the door was opened by the same young woman who had knocked him out earlier, Elain. She gave him a rather dispassionate glance.

''Oh, you're up.'' she said, ''Great. Took you long enough.''. She had abandoned the rather expensive robe she had been wearing earlier, and was instead wearing a plain brown shirt and brown pants.

''Yeah, guess I am...'' Eric said weakly, ''You're....Elain, right?''. She gave a brief nod. ''Yup. So you remembered that, at least.''.

''R-right. Listen, where am I?'' Eric asked. Things were not going how he had imagined they would go.

''Like, right now? You're in a house.'' Elain said blandly, ''I really don't feel like telling you the rest of it. Don't know you well enough. Anyways, now that you're awake, the rest of my party wants to meet you, so move it.''. WIthout another word, the marched away from the door, turning to the right and vanishing down a hallway, leaving Eric with no real choice but to follow her.

As Eric followed Elain through the halls, he took some time to try to see just what kind of house he was in. The house was clearly in poor quality. It was small, around two stories tall. It was made pretty much entirly out of wood, and Eric could see that entire sections of the walls had rotted out, exposing other, empty rooms with nothing in them. While the house itself was dark, gaps in the walls let in light from outside.

They emerged into what looked like an entrnace hall, though there was virtually no furniture at all in it. A staircase lead up to the second floor. Elain ignored the staircase though, instead opening another door, gesturing at Eric to follow her.

The room they entered was a bit more furnished than the other rooms in the house. An old couch dominated the middle of it, the colour a faded green. Two chairs were on each side of the couch, plain wooden ones with very thin cushions on them. Not very comfortable looking. A single wooden table rested in front of the couch, with a lit lantern on it, providing some light to the otherwise dark room.

Sitting on the couch was a young man. He looked around the same age as Eric or Elain, perhaps a bit older. His hair was blond, a bit past earlength, and more on the messy side, like he had rolled out of bed in the morning and hadn't bothered to fix it. His eyes were a pale blue, and he was wearing dark robes. They looked rather impressive, black with purple designs on them, in the shape of skulls and other weird symbols Eric couldn't make out.

Behind this man was the other woman from earlier, the armoured one. She still wore the armour, with the helmet on, though her massive sword was sheathed, resting against the wall next to her. She herself leaned against the wall, watching Eric from behind her visored helm. Even with it on, Eric could still tell she wasn't exactly relaxing, at the moment.

He heard the door shut behind him, as Elain stepped into the room behind him, closing the door, before plunking herself down on a chair, wincing slightly.

For several awkward moments, no one spoke. The man sitting on the couch gave Eric a friendly look, and for several moments just stared at him, like he was trying to figure out what to say. Eric, for his part, just stared back. Finally, before the silence could go from awkward to uncomfortable, the man spoke.

''Well, I uh, suppose I should apologize for the rather rude kidnapping from earlier,'' he began, ''But we didn't really have the time to well, have a proper discussion. I hope that we can have one now. I'm Talfryn, by the way, and the person behind me, she's Siana.'' he added, giving Eric a broad smile.

Eric took this all in, before nodding. ''R-right. And I'm Eric. And like I was asking Elain earlier, where am I?''.

Talfryn smiled. ''Well, right now, we're in Carnasca, the capital of Allaria. Great place, absolutly wonderful. Have you been here before?''

''Well, no, I...haven't.'' Eric said slowly, ''Right, capital of Allaria. And uh, where in Carnasca are we right now?''

''An abandoned house in the slums.'' Talfryn said promptly, ''We're experiencing some....financial troubles right now.''. From her spot on the chair, Elain snorted. Talfryn ignored her, continuing to smile at Eric.

''Okay, right,'' Eric said, continuing to speak slowly, trying to figure things out, ''And....why and how did you kidnap me? Was it to rob me?''

Elain scoffed at that. ''Like we'd rob someone like you. You have nothing on you worth anything.''. ''But,'' Talfryn added, jumping in to the conversation quickly, ''We are curious as to what someone like you was doing, wandering by themselves, on the road, with no traveling supplies and essentially in their pajamas. Were you escaping from some bandits? Robbed, perhaps?''

Eric frowned. ''No.'' he said flatly. He decided that telling these borderline strangers the truth of his situation wasn't exactly a smart move, so he kept his answer simple.

''Alright then.'' Talfryn said, maintaining the smile on his face, though Eric thought he could see a hint of annoyance on his features as well, ''You going to go into specifics on that?''

''Not really, no,'' Eric replied again, wondering if it was possible for him to open the door behind him and run out before they could chase him. ''You probably wouldn't believe me, anyways.''

Elain laughed. ''That's probably the most cliche line I've ever heard. Honestly, just tell us. Or else Siana here is just going to beat the answer out of you.''. At those words Siana looked up briefly, giving Eric a look from behind her helmet.

''Okay, right, good to know.'' Eric said nervously. He had never been one who could hold up very well under intimidation, so he cracked pretty much instantly. ''What if I told you....that I'm from another world?''

For several long moments, there was silence in the room. Talfryn raised an eyebrow, Elain just gave him a blank look, and Siana continued giving Eric her helmeted stare.

Then Talfryn shrugged. ''Seems pretty believeable. Surprising, but believeable''. Elain nodded in agreement as well.

''Wait....what?'' Eric asked, confused, ''Seriously? You guys buy that?''

Talfryn gave him a funny look. ''Why wouldn't we? Dimensional travel is a thing, you know? I'm honestly surprised you didn't know that, thought everyone knew that. It's rare, but not unheard of.''.

Beside him, Elain nodded. ''So you aren't human then, that's for sure. Humans aren't exactly native to any other dimensions. What are you then? Demon, faerie? Come to mess around with us humans for a bit? First time, probably, considering how bad of an act you're pulling right now.''. Talfryn nodded in agreement.

''I'm a human! Seriously!'' Eric blurted out, ''I don't know what dimensions you guys are talking about, but I'm from this planet called Earth, and theres a bunch of other humans living there, but we don't live like we're in the Middle Ages anymore or where whatever you guys where.'' he rambled.

''Ooookay, whatever.'' Talfryn said, waving a hand vaguely, ''I understood about half of what you said, and quite frankly, I'm not in any real mood right now to try to decipher everything else you've tried to say. I'm going to assume, then, that you're some kind of faerie or demon until proven otherwise. In the meantime.....'' he frowned, ''Was there anything else we were supposed to do here with...Eric, was it?'' He asked Elain.

She shook her head. ''Nope. Kidnapping him was kind of a split second decision, in case you forgot.''. ''Yeah, true.'' Talfryn muttered, ''And honestly, I kinda don't know what we should do with you from here. Alright then. Elain, put this guy to sleep and dump him on the streets, I guess. We're done here-,''.

''No.'' Standing behind Talfryn, Siana spoke for the first time since kidnapping Eric, ''He knows too much about us. We can't just let him go, theres a chance he'll rat out on us to the city guard, or the Guild. We should kill him.''.

''W-wait, w-what!?'' Eric yelled francticully. Talfryn gave Siana a look. ''Really? I mean, now that you brought it up, letting him go really isn't an option, but at the same time, let's not think of killing him just yet. How about we recruit him?''

Siana folded her arms. ''Recruit him? For what? He looks pretty useless, if I'm going to be honest here.''

''As a loyal criminal follower of ours, Siana.'' Elain explained patiently, seemingly catching on tp what Talfryn was getting at, ''We can just have him do meager tasks, and we can keep an eye on him so he doesn't rat us out.'' Talfryn gave Elain a nod of approval. '"Exactly.'' he said.

''W-wait, h-hold on. Criminal follower?'' Eric stammered, starting to unconciously back away from the three of them.

''Oh, yeah. We should probably explain what we do.'' Talfryn said, his friendly smile returning. ''Me, Siana, and Elain here are a group of adventurers. Or were, I guess. We've all got our liscenses revoked around....two weeks ago? Bunch of random criminal activities. But we still need to eat, so we decided to join up and give crime a try. Of course, there's only the three of us, but with you, we'll have four!''.

''And we'll finally have someone to boss around.'' Elain said happily. Siana gave a brief nod. ''I agree. You two are right. He'll do for any meager tasks, I suppose.''

''W-wait, no, please! I don't want to be involved in any crime, or anything!'' Eric protested weakly, ''I just wanted to go on adventures and stuff!''.

''Too bad!'' Elain proclaimed, smirking triumphantly, ''You're with us now, whether you like it or not!''.

Eric decided that now was better then never, and turned, making a break for the door with the intention of fleeing.

He hadn't even made it two steps before Siana tackled him from behind.