Light hit his eyes, causing Jonathan to blink a few times, to get his eyes accustomed to the light and he felt a wave of dizziness in return. Feeling the cold stone of the floor, he tried to get up but when he did, he felt a pull around his neck and hands that brought him back onto his knees. Struggling he looked up to see people around him in clothes he could only describe as something one would see in Game of Thrones or Final Fantasy. Some were wearing armour and some wearing robes. Feeling like he was on a bad prank show he tried to get up again.

Instead of a tightening feeling, Jonathan instead felt a hard punch to his face from the left. In response he put up his hands to defend himself but when he did his arms were pulled apart and held down. After a few punches hit him in the face, he heard someone shout something and looked around to see a girl in a long dress who shouted something at the men hitting him.

In response to this, a blonde man in armour punched him in the face, knocking him out. As darkness entered his vision he noticed the image on the mans’ breastplate, a bird with its wings spread out.

When Jonathan came to, his arms and legs were chained above his head and he found himself in a dark room with no windows and a door. After testing the strength of the chains, he came to the conclusion that the chains were too strong to break. Jonathan then tried screaming for help, he had already figured that since he wasn’t gagged; they weren’t scared of him shouting for help but decided to try anyway. Eventually his throat started to hurt so he stopped.

Questions ran through his mind. Where am I? What’s going on? Why am I here? How do I get out? Jonathan decided that the only question that mattered was the last. While he was thinking about how he was going to make it out, the door opened and a middle aged man in a robe followed by the blonde man in armour who knocked Jonathan out, holding up a torch, one of those "fire on a stick" types that you see on TV.

The old man then said something to the blonde man in a language Jonathan couldn’t understand and the blonde man nodded before putting one hand on the sword on his hip. The old man then walked up to Jonathan and started speaking in a language that Jonathan couldn’t understand, and then said something in a different one. This process repeated itself 5 times before he said a simple “Hello” in a slightly slurred but understandable version of English. Seeing Jonathans eyes widen in surprise, the old man knew that he understood what was being said. Amused at Jonathan’s choice of facial expression, he continued;

"Finally! A language you understand! I was worried for a moment there! My name is Magister Florence, and the lad in the armor is Michael, well, those aren’t really our names. Those are just what they would translate to in your language. You must be wondering where you are and why you were brought here. All in good time, but first-"

The old man, Florence, lifted his hand to touch Jonathans head. Reflexively, Jonathan jerked his head back and hit the wall. Seeing that there was nowhere to go, Jonathan decided to let Florence touch his head. When he did, Jonathan got a splitting headache which came to, and left him, quickly. Then the old man took out a piece of brown and a message in black ink appeared which he showed to the blonde man in armour, Michael.

Michael’s expression changed, whether that was good or a bad thing, Jonathan couldn’t tell, he only noticed Michael’s change in expression because of the change in the shadows on his face in the dimly lit room. The old man walked back to Jonathan and spoke;

“Interestingly, you are not as high quality as we’d hoped you’d be, considering the resources we used to obtain you”

Jonathan tried to respond with a ‘what’ but the old man continued without letting him interrupt.

“I’m sorry; I haven’t explained what’s going on yet! To be blunt, you are not on the place called ‘Earth’”

Jonathan had found his opportunity: “What.”

“Please do not interrupt me, as I was saying, you are not on ‘Earth’ you are on Arda, a plane of existence that is similar to, but different from your home. You see-”

Jonathan cut into the sentence: “Wait, you can’t expect me to believe that cr-“

While Jonathan was talking, the old man signalled to the Michael and in response he ran up to Jonathan and punched him in the stomach, making it hard for him to breathe.

“That was your last interruption, as I was saying, you were brought here to enrich our country by generously offer your services to us. You see, 10 years ago our kingdom was the most prosperous on this continent, then suddenly, all our mines ran dry.” The old man paused as if recalling the memory. The old man continued;

“As you can imagine, this caused quite a bit of chaos. We couldn’t afford to lose our position so we needed to come up with another commodity to trade, but what could be worth as much as the gold of our rivals?” The old man gestured towards Jonathan expectantly.

Jonathan glanced at Michael and decided that responding would be in his best interest. “I wouldn’t know, but seeing as I am tied up and the fact that you were talking about my ‘quality’ as if I was some kind of item, I would venture to guess that the answer to that-“ a cold sweat started to run down his face ”-is people.”

The old man smiled.

“Yes! You are more intelligent than you look!”

Jonathan flinched.

“People” he continued, “are worth more than their weight in gold. The problem was supply. We could not use our own citizens, that would lead to riots and we could not use those of neighboring kingdoms, it would have meant war.”

The old man paused and adjusted his posture, to straighten it out a bit. When he was satisfied, he continued. “We did our best to come up with a method, but as you can probably tell, none of them turned out well. That was until our royal princess scoured the library and in a book written by her ancestors, found the answer, summoning. “

Jonathan had long thought that this old man was crazy, but that statement made it more evident that he was. “Summoning, as in-like in Naruto?”

“From what your predecessors tell me, no. It would better be described as something like a fantasy R-P-G where one party permanently summons another through the use of a ritual.”

“I don’t believe that, I think you drugged and kidnapped me. Maybe at the movies? I knew the popcorn tasted off. Then you waited for them to kick in and kidnapped me and now you want me as part of some sick fantasy.” A realization dawned on Jonathan as he continued.

“Where’s Marie? What did you do to her? You better have not done anything or I swe-” Just as he was speaking Michael hit him again, in the face this time.

“I wouldn’t have asked Michael to teach you some more manners but for an interesting subject, you are boring me. I guess I should dissuade your worries before we continue. Whoever this Marie is, she is untouched. Don’t you remember? When you were summoned, you were summoned alone. In her perspective you disappeared into thin air.”

“So she’s safe?” Jonathan asked in between bloodied gums

“Yes. As I was about to explain, you are not on Earth anymore. You are on Arda, and on Arda, there are various phenomena that are not present on your world. One of these, is mana; a natural energy that is present in all living creatures and objects on Arda. Mana fuels magic or in other words, magic is the manipulation of mana.”

“Even if I believed you, why are you telling me this?”

“I am getting to that” the old man said in an annoyed tone. “You see, the method uncovered by the princess was a summoning ritual whereby; by injecting large amounts of mana, about 2 weeks’ worth of it, into a specially drawn formation, we are able to summon objects or more importantly, people to Arda.”

“So you get people every week for free. I still don’t understand how you could make a profitable ‘trade’ of people when you get only one person per week.”

“I never said that we summon only person per week.”

“What? But you said I was summoned alone.”

“Yes, you were. You were summoned alone as a result of an experiment where we were trying to increase the quality of the goods summoned by decreasing the amount. I was sent to determine the results, and I’ve determined that you are a failure.”

“I’m getting real tired of being insulted.”

“Is that so? Well, you will grow out of those type of statements soon enough. That reminds me-“

Florence gestured again to Michael. Michael nodded and walked up to Jonathan, causing him to flinch. Michael then took a key out of a pouch in his waist and unlocked Jonathan’s hands but not his feet. If Michael wasn’t there Jonathan would have had the urge to fight his way through Florence, but since Michael was there he decided not to.

Michael then took a collar out the pouch, which surprised Jonathan because the collar looked too big to fit in the pouch, and attached it to Jonathan’s neck. Immediately Jonathan felt at the collar and to his surprise he found no latches or buckles, which made the prospect of escape harder than he would have liked.

Florence spoke again after Michael was done;

“I think it’s time to end this little party. Before I go, I should give you this”

Florence handed over the piece of paper with the black ink writing on it to Jonathan. He then said something to Michael that Jonathan couldn’t understand and in response Michael threw the torch on the floor near Jonathan and started to leave. Florence started to leave but continued to talk while doing so.

“That is your status; I’m usually not allowed to allow slaves to read their status. They say it ‘gives ‘em a foothold to rebel’ or something of the sort. The paper will change the word to match the language of the reader so don’t worry. Consider it a gift for generously offering to help our country advance. Goodbye.”

When Michael locked the door behind himself. Jonathan silently swore to get Michael and Florence back when he figured out his escape. Then he picked the torch up, before using it to look at the piece of paper. At first he couldn’t read any of the words on the page but the ink rearranged itself so that the words were in English.

Name:

Race:

Gender:

Title(s):

Class:

Level:

Traits:

Jonathan Sipho Mthembu

Otherworld Human

Male

-

Enslaved Human

3

[Racial] Tenacity

Attributes:

Strength:

Attack:

Defense:

Agility:

Magical Power:

Magical Mending:

Magical Defense:

Luck:

7

7

9

6

0

0

2

1

Skills and Magic:

Skills:

Magic:

[Quick Learner][Calm Mind][Attention to Detail]

-none-

Abnormal Status Condition

Slaves’ Curse Collar

Gods’ Displeasure

Unable to directly rebel against captors without being paralyzed in pain. Increases to match all resistances.

Due to your status as an otherworldly human, you have earned the being in charge of Arda’s displeasure. You have no ability to use magic as a result and your luck decreases.