I saw light through my closed eyes. I opened them. I was in a cage with eight other people. There were two other cages in the torch-lit room. The other cages each had ten people. Some wore glowing robes while others wore glowing armor as I had worn until the green people destroyed it. I was the only naked one there.

“Are you a mage?” Asked a tall brunette with glowing robes.

“Uh … yes. I guess. Everyone here is a mage?”

“Yes, young man. And a word of warning, don’t bring out your spellbook. They have spells that can rip them from your soul. They did so to Marcus over there,” she pointed to a man who sat with an expressionless face staring at the ground below him.

“I feel for him, my spellbook has become as important to me as my cell phone was,” I said.

I gestured to the other cages, to all the people in the room, “Everyone is without spells now?”

“Yes. Our fighters were all killed and we gave up the battle.”

“Your fighters? You could summon fighters?” I asked.

“What? No. No one can summon. That would be a deal-changer ability. Each of our three spells includes Mystic Armor and Sleep. We all used those and our free spells so now we only have Mystic Armor or Mystic Robe.”

“Hmm,” I said as I looked around the room. I counted 12 guards, four for each cage. There was one staff-holding, medallion-wearing creature sitting at a table looking bored. I had one Force Slave and a Night Vision ready. I cast Force Slave and told it to kill the bored-looking one with the staff.

Within seconds the staff carrying monster was nothing but a pool of blood. My creature had traversed the distance and killed him in a breath's time. One guard ran to get help as eleven others ganged up on my warrior. I watched as its life energy went down.

“Release us,” I called and within seconds the door to the cave was cut open by bloody claws as the last three guards attacked it. One of the mages gestured at my servant, and its life energy was filled again. Within seconds the last of the guards perished and my Force Slave moved to my side.

I walked over to the creature that had a staff and searched the body. Beneath the robes was a case with a book in it. I took out the book, opened it, and looked through the pages. They were readable. There were six chapters; Mystic Robes, Steal Spellbook, Soul Gem, Scribe Scroll, Create Item, and Sleep. It was a tight fit, but I fit both spell books into the satchel I found on the dead mage's body.

“What do we do now,” I asked putting the satchel over my shoulder, “and do you mind if I take the spellbook?”

“Go for it, if you didn’t have that spell we would all have been stripped of ours and then sacrificed,” she said.

“We were going to be sacrificed?”

“Like every villain, he talked too much so we learned a lot of this world.”

“They’re gonna come after us with everything they’ve got,” I turned to my Force Slave and said, “secure this room, please.”

“That is one powerful spell you have.”

“That is a nice gem I saw on that dead mage, may I have it?” I turned to look at the speaker and I could see the brunette’s face soften. She nodded and then looked at me.

“Sure,” I said and he picked it up. His expression changed, he became weird for a moment. He then smiled and said, “thank you,” and ran off.

I turned to the brunette, “Who was that?”

“My son.”

“You sure don’t look old enough to have a son that old.”

“The healer can perfect life energy. Oh no, they’re here.” I looked to the north door to see the door vibrating with blows from the other side. We were under attack.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said.

“We are barricaded in here rather well, so we memorize spells. We will have enough sleeps to put them all down I hope,” she said. I sat down and took out my spellbook, and memorized Force Slave, Mystic Armor, and Night Vision It took about 4 and a half hours. During that time the heavy doors held and my Force Slave stood by my side. Since the doors were holding I turned to my next spell and started learning and understanding Time Stop. Four hours later I had Time Stop memorized. It lets me hold time for as long as my will held. My next spell was Summon Djinn, and I began to study it.

“How many spells does he have,” I heard numerous times.

“He got that monster’s spellbook.”

Some time while I was memorizing Summon Djinn, one of the monsters called through the door,

“Humans, send your strongest to us and we will let you all go. You have no food or water so you will die in there if you don’t obey me. My god demands sacrifice and your strongest will do very nicely. Take as much time as you like to think about it. You have until you die of thirst.”

Silence.

Suddenly a humanoid appeared. The upper half of this being was blue-skinned and had silver eyes. It was man-sized and dressed in flowing white robes. It looked at me and said,

“What would you have of me master?” There was pressure in my mind. It was a light, but constant pressure. The djinn was fighting me. I looked to the brunette mage.

“We need water and food.”

The pressure eased when I commanded it to create a feast for all of us. I was beyond hungry and thirsty so I began to enjoy the feast. There were lightly salted roasted duck, cinnamon carrots, glazed apples, and jugs of water, grape juice and apple juice.

The talk around the table fascinated me. Each one of these people made it to the top of their hill and got the spellbook and a bonus to will and luck. Each also had a special spell that was unique to them. It amazed me how one person could increase life force as another could animate bodies that had no life force. People could teleport, create objects from the air, some could even go invisible. I myself would be able to answer any question using the Akashic Record.

Akashic Record was the last spell in my spellbook and I had finished memorizing it. I then made sure I had every spell in my spellbook memorized and Mystic Armor, Force Slave, and Summon Djinn cast.

The number of spells you could keep going is based on Will I found, and my Will stat was impressive. I checked my Status:

PHYSICAL

MENTAL

WILL

LUCK

7

8

90

60

SCIENCE 1

MATHEMATICS 1

SLEEP 1

DETECT MAGIC 1

MYSTIC ARMOR 1

FORCE SLAVE 1

NIGHTVISION 1

SUMMON DJINN 1

TIME STOP 1

AKASHIC RECORD 1

There were several earth elementals, fire elementals, and imps in the room. All of the Mages had glowing golden armor or robes. To this, I added my djinn (genie) and Force Slave. We were a force to be reckoned with. One of the earth elementals formed a hand of earth and moved across the floor to the north door. It opened the door and fought the two green creatures. Faster than any of the monsters were the fire elementals that caught and burned to death any monsters trying to run.

There was a cloaking spell on us, maintained by one of the wizards with us. We were invisible while ahead of us were about thirty illusory mages and ahead of them were Elementals, Djinn, Force Slaves and summoned wolves, and more.

It took three hours to clear the entire dungeon that we were in and we looted 10 spellbooks. One spell book went to the man who lost his while he was captured. At the fall of the last monster, there was a voice in my head again,

“WELL DONE HUMANS OF EARTH. YOU HAVE COMPLETED THIS TASK WELL AHEAD OF PROJECTIONS. YOU SURVIVORS WILL BE RELEASED FROM THIS TUTORIAL TO PREPARE YOUR WORLD FOR THE BATTLE FOR YOUR LIVES. AS YOU USE YOUR POWERS THEY WILL IMPROVE SO CONTINUE TO USE THEM. YOU WIZARDS HAVE DONE WELL, YOUR COMPATRIOTS, HOWEVER, AFTER KILLING THE WOLVES TURNED ON THEMSELVES. OUT OF FIFTY THOUSAND ONLY ONE HUNDRED LIVE. I GRIEVE WITH YOU. SHOULD YOU WISH TO CHALLENGE ANOTHER DUNGEON FOR OTHER REWARDS YOU MAY. GOOD LUCK HUMANS.”

“There must have been a power grab on the hills, Only one hundred are alive now,’ I said. I wanted to return to the hill area and see what became of those people, but that was not to be.

The next thing I know is that the mages are gone, the room is gone and the dungeon is gone. I am in the middle of a heavy snowstorm in the midst of a college campus I know well. I am back where I started. Everything looked the same save one thing. A huge black metallic tower stood north of the school.