Rough Draft: Wanted In a New World

Part 1: Man gets kidnapped and sent to another world.

Prologue

I walked out of my local 7-Eleven after a grueling day of classes. I’d gotten my lunch, and now I just wanted to get back home to my measly, loft-style, one-bedroom apartment, where my outrageous rent was two months overdue. I didn’t want to deal with that, or the fact that my landlord was hounding me for the money. All I wanted to do was eat in peace, then lay my aching head on the slightly smelly, but oddly comfortable, pillow that lay atop my similarly-smelly-yet-comfortable twin bed.

Alas; that would never come to pass.

On that very day, at that very moment, a blinding ray of light enveloped me and whisked me away. I screamed like a little girl when it happened. I felt something pulling me up at an alarming rate; it was so sudden, and so intense, that I dropped the bag that contained my turkey sandwich. Then the light that enveloped me started to change colors and shape. It was hard to describe what I saw after that: streams of light of different wavelengths, swirling clouds, and some strange runic symbols rushing past me. To me, it looked like I was traveling through hyperspace, while in the Tardis, while taking a massive dose of LSD. Then, just as suddenly as the ride had started, it ended with me laying flat on my back on a cold, hard floor. Waves of nausea and dizziness filled me. I was glad, at least, that I hadn’t had the chance to eat my sandwich.

“^*$(_*&*&@#dads$ga^)ag^&*g@a# a^g&#$^& )ga &)#$^ ) 7 r3w6,” a voice said from a far off distance, speaking in a language I had never heard before.

I tried looking in the direction where the voice was coming from, but that little trip hadn’t just disoriented me. It had left my body exhausted and sore. Also, I was still seeing spots from the intense light show. Still, I persevered, and managed to get up on my feet and peer at what was in front of me. It was a group of people, all wearing unusual clothing. My eyes were still blurry, but they looked like they wore clothes from the Renaissance Era, like the people from Assassin’s Creed II. Then I saw someone with a fancy crown on top of his head. The people around him, I realized, were loitering the way that royalty’s attendants would.

“The King,” I said in a groaning voice. I was finding it hard to breathe as well.

There was a commotion among what I assumed to be the king's entourage; they were all still speaking in a bizarre tongue that I couldn’t even begin to identify. At first, I thought they were some deranged LARPer group that took their role playing way too seriously, but then shit got real.

A ghostly woman in dark robes walked right up to me. She held a glowing orb and began to speak to me in that unknown language, but it had a more harmonic cadence to it. The orb began to glow brighter as the woman stretched out her hand towards my forehead. I tried to back away, as I was unsure of her intentions, but my body gave out under the strain and I fell to my knees. My stumbling gave the woman the perfect opportunity to reach out and grab my head. White-hot, searing pain flooded my head as I was bombarded with what I could only describe as knowledge. Images, pictures, and weird sounds pounded down doors and claimed space for themselves, and I could only hope they weren’t knocking anything else loose. It only lasted for a few seconds, but to me, it felt a hell of a lot longer.

“Whaaaat… did you… do?” I asked as I rubbed my temples, wishing away the mother of all migraines.

I turned to face the woman, but she quickly made her way back to the person with the crown. I was about to speak up once again to ask what they did to me, but I quickly stopped, as I noted something different.

“ g80(* 7_R* ($y#& _&*YFH*$ _#&... his reading is null, Your Highness,”  the ghostly woman said in a language that I somehow understood. “My deviation can’t seem to pick up any power coming from him.”

“What the fuck is happening?” I said as I did a double-take at what I was hearing.

“She cast the knowledge transference spell on you, Young Master.”

I quickly turned around to face the person who’d spoken. It was a woman dressed in a maid's outfit.

“The what?” I asked a little too loudly, which only intensified my migraine.

“The high sorceress cast the knowledge transfer spell,” she patiently explained, “thus gifting you the ability to understand our native language. I know you must be in tremendous pain, but that will pass in time.”

“Wait, the ability to understand your language?” I asked, my mind still in a fog. “Is that why I can understand you, and you can understand me?”

“It’s why you can understand us,” she said. “The gift is accompanied by… Well, that’s not important. What’s important is that we’re all able to understand each other right away. That’s why we give the gift freely to all Otherworlders.”

“Wait, you said ‘Otherworlder; what do you mean by that?” A sinking feeling started to well up in my stomach.

“You are an Otherworlder. We summoned you from your world to ours. Welcome to Lothian,” She’d slightly bowed to me.

I didn’t quite understand what the woman was saying, nor did I have the time to process it, as someone came up behind me.

“That is enough,” the ghostly woman said. “Leave us.” The maid quickly bowed again and walked off to a wall. I glanced over, and so several other people dressed in maid uniforms, and some kind of male equivalent.

“Come,” the sorceress said to me.

Unsure what to do or what to say, I just got up and walked with the woman. I was still suffering from the effects of the mental download, but the pain was slowly subsiding. Still in that haze of befuddlement, I seemed to have left my backpack behind, which was the least of my concerns. I was finally able to get a good view of my surroundings, at least. Everywhere I could see was nothing but towering stone walls, each with glowing crystals mounted on sconces every fifteen feet or so. It looked like a castle or a fortress, but, given the circumstances, it came across to me more like a dungeon - and those crystals weren’t something that belonged in any castle or dungeon from a history book.

For a few more moments, I still instinctively rejected the reality of what I was seeing, but that feeling faded on its own. None of my thoughts seemed to influence the process one way or the other. On our way to the stairs, we passed by a glowing window. Curiosity got the better of me, so I broke from following the dark-robed woman and moved closer.

"What the…" I said in shock.

What I saw when I looked through - or into? - that window was a large antichamber with a woman standing in the middle of it, wearing clothes like mine. The glowing aura was wrapping itself around her, as if she was controlling it.

Is that magic? I asked myself. My next few questions were more disturbing, but seemed much more reasonable as I silently ticked them off.

Am I unconscious, and not just asleep? Did I get knocked out? Do I have a concussion? Am I dying?

Even with all that running through my head, I wanted to get a closer look at that floating woman. Unfortunately, she had her back towards me, and the crystal window was a solid barrier, just like the stone surrounding it. All I really saw was that she had long, flowing, blonde hair.

“Excuse me…” I tried to get my escort's attention, but she quickly cut me off.

“Keep it moving,” she said brusquely. Then she yelled for guards, and two hulking figures in full plate mail armor came up and flanked me on both sides. Not wanting to get in a tussle with the two men, I followed in the sorceress’s direction.

We made our way out of the dingy, stony room, and, for a moment, I thought we’d gone outside. That’s how bright the light was in contrast. After a moment, though, I realized that we’d instead entered a great hall of some kind. It was immense, and grander than anything that I have ever seen. Stained glass windows decorated the walls, marble flooring ran as far as the eye could see, and more people in fine but strange-looking clothing were walking about. I was about to ask where we were, but I never got the chance to. The ghostly woman quickly ordered the guards to grab me and toss me out of the castle.

“HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” I screamed at them, trying to break their strong grip. “WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!? UNHAND ME!”

Unsurprisingly, they didn’t listen to me. I felt I could have done a better job at breaking free of their grasp, but my body was still weak from whatever they’d done to me. Finally, they dragged me outside of whatever building I’d been held at, and I heard the sound of large, heavy chains being moved. Then, before I could even try to get my bearings all over again - as if I’d ever gotten them at all - , the two men threw me from their grasp, and I landed hard on a cobblestone floor several feet away from them. All the air from my lungs escaped from my body, which made it hard for me to get back onto my feet. By the time I did, there was a loud, metallic clang. A large iron gate slammed shut, with the guards that had tossed me standing on the other side of it. Then they moved to the side as two large, heavy, oak doors closed right in front of me.

“HEY!” I yelled at them through the door. “If you are going to kidnap someone and then let them go, at the very least you could call them an Uber or something!”

I was pissed as all hell, but the more rational part of my brain was relieved that I was no longer a captive of that strange group of people. I thought I was in the clear until I turned around and took in my new surroundings. What was in front of me was something out of a fairy tale: large stone buildings, rolling fields, and horse-drawn carriages rolling down the cobblestone streets. Everything looked like it came out of Cinderella. I was so shocked by the scene that I quickly ran forward and then turned around to see where I had just been. It was a castle - a fucking castle, like the kind one might see in Game Of Thrones, or some other fantasy show. The place had long archer towers with archer slits, and battlements where guards in plate mail were walking about, as if on patrol.

As I looked up at the towering structure, I tried to remember what that girl in the maid’s outfit had told me, and put all the pieces together: the large, towering castle; the Renaissance Era clothing; suddenly having been able to understand a language that I hadn’t been able to even guess at - well, either that, or one of the best-organized flash-mob con jobs in history; what I assumed to be magic being performed by that blonde girl - or, again, a group of people who’d spent an ungodly amount of time and money to play a massive prank on a complete nobody; and, finally, all the very real pain I’d felt.

It was the pain that tipped it over the edge for me. It was the raw, physical sensations I’d felt - and was still feeling, a little bit. I hadn’t been kidnapped by some strange LARPing group. I hadn’t been targeted by a bunch of rich psychos for a million-dollar prank. No, Luke J. Morris, certified nobody, had been ripped from the world he knew, and summoned to some other one - one with magic, and with a bunch of total fucking assholes who’d just kicked him out of their castle without ceremony or explanation.

“DAMMIT!” I screamed to the high heavens.

Chapter 1

“MMMMMMMMM.”

That was my stomach, growling in pain.

It had been several hours since I’d been tossed out of that castle, and I was now sitting under a bridge that ran over a stream. I had made my way through the city streets and found several cart vendors, but I’d had no money to pay - well, nothing that they’d recognized as money. Broke as I was - had been? Still was? -  I’d had a few dollars in my pocket when I’d been magically-vacuum-sucked out of my old life..

“MMMMMMMMM,” my stomach growled once again. This time it felt like it was upset at me for having dropped that turkey sandwich earlier, and for having skipped breakfast.

“Fuck,” I said to my erstwhile kidnappers, even though they weren’t there to hear it. “You summoned me to a new world and immediately tossed me out on my ass. The very least you could have done was give me a sack of gold or something.” I stared bitterly at the silhouette of the castle, off in the distance. I had a mind to start screaming at it, but decided against it. Screaming wouldn’t accomplish anything, or satisfy my empty stomach. Luckily, the bridge I was at was right next to an orchard grove just outside the city. If I couldn’t pay for my food, then I would just have to steal. I had never stolen anything before, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Deciding to follow my stomach and not my good sense, I got up, dusted off my jeans, and headed towards the orchard.

Before I got there, I heard someone call out to me.

“Excuse me, are you okay?” It was a feminine voice. I turned towards its source.

“Ah ya, I’m okay,” I said to her, trying to hide the fact that I was about to start my life of crime.

She looked at me for a good long while. I was afraid she might run away and call for the city guard or something, but instead, she asked me a very important question.

“Are you an Otherworlder?”

"Ahhh,” I paused, unsure of what the consequences of the truth would be. Then I decided I probably looked strange enough that anybody looking to give me trouble would have already. I also needed help. I needed a lot of help.

Also, she had a pretty face - not like a supermodel’s, but soft and pleasant. That shouldn’t have mattered, but it did.

“Yes I am,” I admitted. “How could you tell?" I tried to play off the last bit as a joke, but I was hungry and exhausted. I probably didn’t manage it.

“Your clothes,” she replied with a very disarming smile. “I know it’s a very big question, but… may I ask where you came from?”She seemed nice, and she had a pretty face. I was so tired, and so hungry, that that was all it took. I told her everything that had happened to me since I’d arrived in her world. She nodded along, and seemed satisfied that I’d started at the ending, rather than telling her all about Earth.

She was very sympathetic towards me. She told me that she was sorry for my misfortune, and even offered me some food. She pulled something out of her rough sack, and it was an actual turkey sandwich.

“Hmmm, thank you,” I said between giant, ravenous bites. “You know, I was almost about to go in there and pick some apples.” I jerked my head towards the orchard.

“Good thing I came then,” she said, again with that disarming smile of hers. “You know stealing is a crime.

“By the way, my name is Enna. I am a priestess for the great Lord Xion, but people just call me En. What is your name?”

“Luke. Luke Morris,” I replied. I still hadn’t filled my stomach enough to remember my manners. I just kept eating and talking at the same time. “So you're a priestess; what does that entail?”

“Followers of Lord Xion follow his ways of peace and true justice. We help the weak and punish the wicked, but, since you didn’t steal anything, I suppose I don’t need to break out the whips and chains.” She smiled at me again. I gulped a little.

“Thank you,” I said, “But the lousy king who summoned me didn’t leave me much of a choice, did he? Not very peaceful to kidnap someone, is it? Not very just to toss them away in a brand new world without a penny. So what do you say? Can Lord Xion help me out? I’d say I qualify as weak, and the people who brought me here seem pretty wicked.”

She sighed, and glanced towards the castle. “Your words ring true, Luke Morris,” she said, “but my church is very poor. I have little else to give. Shelter, perhaps, for a time.”

I stood and smiled at her. “That’s definitely something,” I said. “I’ll take it!”

We started to make our way to her church, and, during the walk there, she began to tell me a little bit about her world: Lothian.

“So wait,” I interrupted her, “sorry. Big question. Magic is real here? Spells and witches and stuff?”

“Well,” she replied gently, “as you might imagine, it’s a lot more complicated than ‘spells and witches and stuff,’ Luke Morris, but the simple answer is yes.”

As we traveled, I couldn’t help but notice Enna's appearance. She was pretty, but in a subtle way. Her body was slender, and the way that she moved told me that she possessed a certain grace, even though she was trying to hide it. Upon closer inspection, her face was also quite attractive; again, she just wasn’t doing anything to accentuate her natural beauty. She was also, as far as I could tell, well-educated. Since I apparently understood her language completely, I could tell that she was speaking a bit formally and using fairly advanced words from time to time. Unfortunately for me, I could also tell that she wasn’t telling me everything. In fact, it seemed like she was making a real effort to hold back something pretty darn important. That didn’t sit well with me, but I didn’t want to alienate the only person so far who seemed interested in helping me. I kept my mouth shut, and we entered the city.

As we walked down the bustling street, En kept up a running commentary, pointing out places, people, and various facts I’d definitely need to know. One tidbit she let slip was that nobody knew how to send Otherworlders back to their own worlds, and that sent a very motivating wave of fear and dread through my whole body. I needed to get up to speed in a real hurry, because this world was probably my new home, forever.

The city that we were in was Mort, the capital of the Kingdom of Bartfort. According to En, magic was what ran Lothian, and it was powered by something called Ethereum - more commonly called ‘Ether.’ Ether could be found everywhere, according to her - , from the fields of grass to the very tops of the mountains; from the sea; and even from the air. People also had Ether inside of them, but only the skilled or the blessed could harness its strength. Those people wound up being wizards, sorcerers, or even adventures, the latter of which was a true profession.

The more she talked about adventurers, the less surprised I was. They sounded exactly like the guys you’d play as in a Dungeons & Dragons game. They were morally flexible, ready to risk their lives, and spent much of their time scouring dark corners of the world for treasure, or killing monsters, or both. Sometimes they’d get hired for a particular job, but sometimes they’d just head out into the world and see what they ran into. Then they’d bring back rare ores, gems, and even Ethereum shards, and the folks back in the cities would use them to craft strong weapons and magical items.

According to En, the Bartfort Kingdom was famous for producing those weapons and items, but, in recent times, had been producing and exporting far fewer of them. She told me that she suspected there was some connection between that, and the king summoning Otherworlders.

We slowed our pace through the city streets. En’s face darkened. I could practically smell the moral outrage emanating from her. When she started her history-lesson-slash-moral-lecture, I didn’t dare interrupt.

Apparently, the people from her world had been summoning Otherworlders for centuries. It had been big business, and also a big part of politics and warfare. It had also gotten bad - really bad. I thought about what might happen if countries on Earth were able to randomly pluck wizards from other worlds. Maybe they’d snag some low-level guy who could only summon water to wash clothes, but maybe they’d get somebody who could summon enough lightning to knock out entire power grids. Then maybe somebody would randomly summon not a wizard, but a super-scientist who knew how to build a bomb that regular humans wouldn’t have been able to build for another thousand years.

This world had averted the worst disasters, apparently, but only because En’s order - The Holy Order Of Xion - had managed to amass enough power and followers to bring everyone else to heel. That had been about a century ago, give or take. Miraculously, the leadership had stayed true to their original position: no more summoning Otherworlders.

“So wait,” I finally said, “you guys are, like, in charge? You can arrest and imprison kings? As in, this king? As in, the asshole who did this to me?”

“Can,” she said, “and, by the grace of Xion, will.”

After that dire proclamation, though, her face softened.

“Yes, you should know a little bit more about that,” she said. “The class system.”

That didn’t sound good.

“The Holy Order’s laws are absolute,” she said, “and its followers are of the highest class in society, but royalty and nobility are also considered ‘higher,’ compared to the remaining two - the Merchant and Commoner classes, respectively.”

I sighed. I still needed to keep my mouth shut, lest En decide to withdraw that offer of shelter. Still, this talk of ‘classes’ and kings and commoners sounded close enough to some backwards parts of Earth’s history. I supposed the religious stuff was complicated by the fact that magic was real, but I still didn’t feel very good about it.

Like with adventurers, her rundown got less and less surprising as she went on. The Merchant class sounded like fairly common guild stuff: professionals and craftsmen that were better-respected than dirt farmers, but who’d turned their whole deal into a big club that was very expensive to become a part of, unless you had an ‘in.’ The Noble class, well… En had her own reasons to dislike them, so I quickly got the sense that they, too, were a lot like the nobles that Earth had mostly tossed into the dustbin of history. Frankly, I was surprised that her order hadn’t spanked them harder for almost destroying the world. That felt like another question I shouldn’t ask.

I asked the obvious question instead, since it seemed harmless enough: how to get in on the top floor - her floor.

“Usually for one to enter the Holy Order of Xion,” she said, “one must devote themselves to his teachings and training. This of itself takes over ten years of study and devotion.”

“Ten Years!” I exclaimed. I didn’t even want to go for my master’s in computer science once I graduated with my bachelor’s of science.

Then I remembered that was never going to happen. I hadn’t wanted to go for my master’s, once I would have graduated with my B.S., if some asshole king hadn’t magically kidnapped me across the boundaries between worlds.

Fuck.

Then a thought occurred to me.

“En,” I said, “you are a member of Xion, but you are about my age. How could that be?”

“Well,” she replied, “I was found by one of their priestesses when I was young. I lost my parents and wound up as an orphan. She took me in and taught me everything I needed to know. It’s quite common, actually.”

“Oh… I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” I said, feeling bad for having brought up the loss of her family - a pain that I knew very well.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Sister Flaira was kind and taught me in the way of Xion. She was also my magic instructor and taught me everything I know.”

“That’s cool,” I replied. “I would love to learn how to do magic, but I guess I don’t have any.”

“Why would you say that?” Enna asked me.

“Well, because the king summons people to exploit their power, yet he immediately tossed me out. I also remember something they said - that I was ‘null.’ I guess that means I have no magic, unlike that other girl.”

“Girl? What other girl?” Enna asked in shocked confusion.

“There was this other girl in that dungeon. I didn't see her, but I saw a glowing aura around her. At first, I thought I was seeing things, but after what you told me, she must be another Otherworlder.”

Rage and worry warred on En’s face. "To summon one person from another world is bad enough,” she said, mostly to herself, “but summoning two? What was the king thinking?”

“Yeah, and she must be pretty powerful,” I said, “because after all, why else would he be confident enough to just kick me out onto the street, where any random Holy Order person could find me? You know, since it’s a crime, and he could go to jail for it? Man, he didn’t even bother killing me. That’s crazy. That’s almost like he wanted you guys to know.”

That stopped En dead in her tracks. She whispered something under her breath. It was a turn of phrase - an idiom, an expression - but I knew what it meant. That spell the dark-robed woman had cast on me had been thorough.

En had just whispered the Holy Order equivalent of “Oh, shit.”

She struggled to regain her composure. “Thank you for this information,” she said. “In fact, perhaps I might convince someone higher in the organization to reward you for it.”

She lifted up her arm, and, out of nowhere, a black raven landed on it. She whispered to it urgently, and as she did, a faint glow began to surround it. Then, with a huff, she shoved it back up into the air.

“Wow,” I said, “What was that?”

“That was a carrier bird for communicating long distances. I just sent what you just told me to my people. Hopefully they’ll do something before that girl is abused any further - to say nothing of what value the king may be extracting.”

I nodded at that, but something seemed off. Why did she have to whisper to the creature instead of saying it out loud? It might have been the way they operated, or she might have been worried that they might be overheard. Whatever the case was, my stomach was now on edge.

“It will take some time for me to get a response, but luckily we made it to the other side of the city and we have someplace to take shelter for now,” she said, pointing to a run-down church that was far off into the distance.

That didn’t add up either. En had just finished saying that the Holy Order Of Xion was the highest class in this world - that they’d essentially conquered the whole thing about a century ago, even though they hadn’t quite done what conquerors usually do. There we were, in the capital city of some important kingdom, and we were about to take shelter in a total dump on its outskirts.

Still, it was the roof over my head. My alternative was none at all.

We made it all the way there, and the place looked worse up close. The inside didn’t look any better.

“You weren’t kidding,” I said, waving my hand instinctively to ward off the dust. “This place has seen better days.”

“Yes,” En said, “This church is poor. Unlike the Nobles, who receive their wealth through taxes and the selling of goods, the church mostly relies on donations. As you can see, not many people donate to this church, but it should do.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. I didn’t want to push it, but there were no harmless questions I could ask. This just did not make sense. En had staked out her order as the whole world’s policemen. If this was the local police station in a high-risk area - you know, the capital city of a kingdom where some ambitious king was breaking the law - then something was rotten. Something was fucked.

I took another look at Enna. She didn’t look like she belonged in this run-down dump. Her clothes looked nice and well-kept. I really didn’t want to believe that she was part of what was rotten.

She led me towards an altar, and I warily followed.

“Now, while we wait,” she said, “let's look at what kind of magic you possess.”

“Magic?” I echoed. “I really don’t think I have any. After all, the king did throw me out. Why would he do that if I have some form of it?”

“That can not be,” En insisted. “All Otherworlders always have some form of magic, and quite powerful too. It is what we call Exclusive Magic: magic that only Otherworlders possess. They somehow must have read you wrong, or you might have something that can not be read. We have to give it a try.”

“I'm all up for it, but how do I do that?” I asked. “You said it requires time and training for a person to use magic, right?”

“People from this world,” Enna said. “Otherworlders are different in so many ways. In fact, some theorize that the very process of ripping someone out of their world and shoving them into a new one is what allows them to break so many rules. It may be why Otherworlders can manipulate the ether.”

“Manipulate the ether?” I echoed. “But that’s just… doing magic, right?””

En looked at me sympathetically. “You’re not wrong, Luke Morris, but having our language magically shoved into you is not a perfect solution to your ignorance. When it comes to Otherworlders, we say ‘Ether Manipulation’ to mean that they - you - can conjure up magic by thought alone. You don’t require years of study, nor the foci.”

She pulled out a book and a dagger upon saying the final word, motioning towards them meaningfully. “Items like these help us better control our Ether. They make it easier for us to conjure spells, which, in turn, allows us to conjure more powerful or complex ones than we otherwise could.

“You don’t need them,” she continued, “but you do require some knowledge. Your Exclusive Magic is its own beast, but Ether is from Loth, and so you do need some small touchstone - a spell name, the general effect, and something of a visual in your mind. Believe me, Luke Morris, it is a shortcut that would make the laziest of louts stand up and make the journey. Otherworlders have the potential to be the most powerful sorcerers in our world - emperor class - and they can achieve those heights in a shockingly short period of time.”

“Okay, wow,” I said, trying to process everything she’d just said to me, “so then, you could just give me that touchstone for a super simple spell. That’d be a good test.” “In due time,” she said, “but first, I want to see your Exclusive Magic. I want to see what it can do. I heard that long ago, an Otherworlder was able to control the weather with the wave of his hand. Another could make fields grow in an instant - something that not even our highest tier wizards are capable of doing.”

“Okay, but how?” I asked. “It’s Exclusive to me, and I don’t have a clue.”

Enna sighed. “Again, Luke Morris, you do make a valid point, but please have some trust that I know what I’m doing. I’ll even tell you now that the exercise I’m about to have you do is just that - an exercise. It’s meant to focus your mind. It is not necessarily the truth of things.”

I held my hands up gently. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m a curious guy. Please, continue.”

She nodded, and I felt her inner schoolteacher reassert itself.

“Okay,” she said, “first, close your eyes and focus inwards. Think of a pond. It’s filled with a sparkling, magical liquid. It’s not water; no, it’s Ether. It’s magic. It’s power.”

I did as she instructed and focused inward. I tried to visualize the pond. I had no idea what I was doing, but somehow, I imagined myself in front of a body of bright, glowing water. That seemed like a good sign, but I definitely wasn’t standing in front of a pond. I was standing on the shore of something much, much bigger.

“Well, it’s a little bigger than a pond,” I said, “but I think I mostly have it.”

“Good,” she said. She didn’t seem concerned about the details. “Now reach out and touch that pool of power. Let it flow towards you. Don’t strain for it. Don’t demand of it. Let it come naturally. Let it be drawn towards you.”

I did, and I felt something rush into me.

“I… I feel something.” I said. I literally did - a strange, tingling sensation all over my body.

“Good,” she said again. “Now, find your magic.”

“How?” I asked, feeling the power flow all around me. “Do I need to recite some kinda spell or something?”

“Normally yes, but remember you are an Otherworlder. Let your mind wander. Let your subconscious and your unconscious guide you towards your Exclusive Magic. When you feel like the power wants to be released, then release it - and, ah, try to aim it at that altar, over there.”

“Okay,” I sighed. I grimaced, and tried to stop thinking. It was hard, because I was also supposed to be visualizing that pond-that-was-way-too-big, and then Ether floating inside of it and into me - which probably wasn’t even Ether, because apparently this magic wasn’t from this world. As I said, I was having a very hard time not thinking about things.

There was nothing to do but just keep trying to… not think. After a while, I suppose I must have succeeded. I felt the Ether-that-probably-wasn’t-Ether shift. I felt that demand that Enna had talked about. It wanted to be released.

I opened my eyes and directed the energy towards the altar. A word came to me, unbidden, and I spoke it aloud.

“Null.”

Once it was uttered, a dark, purplish mist appeared out of my hands and encompassed the stone altar. Air started to rush all around us, and into a black void where the altar had once stood. Then, with a final whoosh of air, the black sphere shrank, leaving absolutely nothing behind. The stone altar, the wooden floor under it, the chair that was right next to it, and even part of the ground, had all disappeared. There was nothing left, as if they had never existed in the first place. The only evidence was that the spell had had a shape - a sphere, judging by the chunks missing. The chair, though, wholly within that sphere, was just gone. It was completely gone.

“En… What just happened?” I asked.

“It’s gone, all of it,” she said, worry laced within her voice. “This must be your power. The sorceress wasn’t saying you had no power, Luke Morris. She was saying ‘null.’

"Wow… that power, it's… truly terrifying," I said, looking down at my own hands - one of which had directed the mist towards the altar, and unmade it.

I was about to tap into that power once again, but that sinking feeling in my stomach began to drop like a stone. It reminded me of one of those carnival rides where you strap yourself into a chair, have it hosit you into the air, and then drop really rapidly all of a sudden. It was a great thrill ride. I had a lot of fun on them, but there was no sense of fun this time - only of danger, and death.

I don’t know how or why, but my mind screamed at me to turn around and jump back. Without even thinking, I did exactly that.

The dagger would have struck me in the back of my head. As it was, it cut my cheek. Blood started trickling down my face, but I paid it no mind. All my focus was on the person that had almost killed me: Enna. Her hand held the dagger with a trail of fresh blood on its blade: my blood.

Chapter 2

“ENNA… WHAT THE HELL?” I yelled at her as I felt the stinging sensation on my cheek.

“Sorry, Luke Morris, but you should have let me land that first strike. Now I can not guarantee you a quick death.” Her voice was monotone. That disarming smile was gone - nullified, even. It was like it had never existed.

She lunged at me; her dagger thrust towards my gut. She was aiming to kill, and she would have if I’d been completely defenseless. I wasn’t, though; I’d studied the martial arts back in my world. I knew I was at a severe disadvantage, but I wasn’t going to just give up.

I quickly reached out and blocked her dagger arm and forced it to the side. Then, carrying the momentum, I thrust a knee into her gut.  Judging by how quickly she recovered, I got the sinking feeling that that may have been my one free shot.

“I see,” she said. “I should have gotten to know you better when I had the chance.” Her breathing was labored, thanks to that hit. Her words were still extremely unsettling. It was quite clear what she meant. She wasn’t lamenting the fact that we hadn’t had a proper first date.

“Enna, why? Why are you trying to kill me?” I pleaded with her while still keeping my distance.

“It’s not your fault, Luke; You are innocent in all of this.”

“Then why are you trying to kill me?”

“I already told you,” she said. “And you already showed me - and yourself. I will mourn your death, Luke Morris, and you have my oath that the king will pay.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly.

Strangely enough, that caught her off guard. Her stance softened just a little bit, and she tilted her head, as though saying, “You’re welcome,” with complete sincerity.

“Okay, no, fuck this!” I shouted at her, still backing away. “This is fucked. Your world is fucked. It’s backwards fucking zealot bullshit. You can’t just go around killing people because they might do something wrong, especially when the only reason they’re here in the first place is that they were magically fucking kidnapped!”

“I don’t know of your world, Luke Morris,” she replied flatly. “Perhaps it is a better one. Here, a person may also be a god, and that god may be a destroyer of worlds. If they can be killed before they come into their power, then they must be.

“Fire Lance,” she said, and, just then, I realized that the book in her left hand was even more dangerous than the dagger in her right.

Five separate sources of flame materialized around her, and each elongated to match the incantation’s second word. All at once, they launched towards me. I dodged, avoiding a direct hit. Still, one of them grazed me and left a nasty burn on my leg. I was pretty sure they were third-degree, because, after a moment of horrific pain, I felt almost nothing.

“Stop fighting, Luke Morris,” Enna said. I heard something resembling compassion in her voice; it was a creepy counterpoint to the monotone. “You are only prolonging your suffering. Give up and I promise you a quick death.”

“I am going to pass on that,” I shot back. “I have no intention of dying here.”

“Your intentions are irrelevant,” she said. “I am sorry. You were… nice. I liked you.”

“Fuck you,” I screamed at her.

She didn’t seem offended, or even moved. “Fire Lance,” was her reply.  I was on the ground, with my leg burned, barely recovered from my first desperate dodge. There was no way I could dodge again. Those fire lances had been weirdly slow, but I was completely out of position.. I needed to do something, but I didn’t know what.

The five new balls of fire were almost javelins.

Then I remembered something: I also could use magic. It was incredibly dangerous, and might very well kill me anyway, but I was past the point of caring. In a last-ditch effort, I called upon the power inside me. I had no idea what I was doing, but I thought of what I wanted to do. The words seemed to pour out of my mouth on their own.

“Null Area.”

A purplish-black wave exited me and rushed all around the room. At first, I thought it was going to consume everything and make it disappear, as it had with the altar, but the only things that disappeared were the five fire lances that had surrounded Enna. A look of shock and horror filled her face.

"What did you do?” she said. Then she shouted it. “What did you do?”

She started to utter a litany of spells, I assumed, but nothing happened. She waved her dagger around, and her book. She was acting like I’d just cut off one of her limbs, and she couldn’t believe it wasn’t there anymore.

I knew I’d just bought myself one more chance, and so I took it. The adrenaline was enough to carry me up and into the flailing assassin, and I gave her a hard kick to her stomach with my bad leg, which did not feel good at all. Still, it was worse for her. I felt a few of her ribs crack as she went flying backwards. She crashed into a bunch of old pews, then rolled around on the ground, clutching at herself, groaning in pain. She’d held on to both the dagger and the book, though, which shocked me. I didn’t dwell on it for long. My leg was throbbing, and I knew I had to run.

I was just about to start when I heard maniacal clapping coming from the church’s entrance. It practically demanded that I turn to look.

“My my, what a show,” said a man in gleaming armor. “What happened, Sister Enna, did you lose your edge?”

“Brother Micheal… what are you doing here?” Enna grunted out. Those cracked ribs were making it hard for her to breathe.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked smugly. “I am here to see if the job is done - that abomination is dead.” He pointed at me theatrically. “Alas, the great Sister Enna, disciple of the great priestess Flaira and her named successor, can’t seem to handle the job. I wonder what she’ll think once she hears about this colossal failure. Maybe she’ll finally see reason, and name me as her successor instead.” He began to laugh. It dripped with malice and overconfidence.

“Enough, Brother Michael,” Enna wheezed, “this man is dangerous. He used his magic to cancel all magic in this room.” She tried her best to stand up. Micheal began to walk toward her, but, instead of helping her up, he smacked her hard across the face.

"Silence, you. I would not listen to the advice of a failure. Just stay there and let real men handle this.

“Brother Daniel," he called out, gesturing to a newcomer, clad in similar armor. This one held a chain, which led behind him. He gave it a good tug, and into the run-down church stumbled a figure that I recognized: the maid who’d spoken to me after that sorceress had cast that horribly-painful language spell.

Her once-immaculate maid's outfit was dirty and ripped in various places. Her hair bun, once immaculate, was now half loose strands. She even sported a fresh bruise on one of her cheeks.

“Brother Michael, who is that?” Enna asked. I was surprised she was still trying to talk.

“Oh, this?” he asked, pointing to the maid. “This is one of the king’s maids who works in the castle. After your little report, I knew I needed better intel. As luck would have it, this little lady was down at the market, shopping for some food. I invited her to join me for a spell, and we had a nice chat.”

“And those bruises?” Enna wheezed.

I was still impressed, but could hardly believe she’d waste her labored breath on the question. It was beyond obvious what had happened. This asshole had kidnapped and tortured her for information. Was she stupid?

“Well, wouldn’t you know it,” Michael practically sang, “quite the cat had caught this little mouse’s tongue. We tried to knock it loose, and when that didn’t work, we had to get even more creative.”

Just as he finished saying that, Brother Daniel once again pulled hard on the chain, bringing the metal collar around her neck fully into Enna’s view. It glowed faintly red.

“You enslaved her - an innocent!” Enna croaked out, and was about to say more, but Brother Micheal beat her to the punch.

“She was no innocent. If she was, she would have come running to us immediately to tell us what her king had done. Nobody in that castle is innocent. They’re collaborators at best, and I’ll see them all imprisoned - at best.”

“But my king threatened -'' was all the maid could say before Brother Daniel smacked her hard with his gauntleted fist. After that, it was just wailing and sobbing.

“Quiet,you!” he growled. “You do not speak unless spoken to.”

“You see?” Michael said smugly. “She defies us even now!”

“Brother Michael,” Enna said, still wheezing,  “it is wrong to forcibly enslave a person. Mother Superior would not look too kindly to this.”

“Well good thing Mother Superior isn’t here,” Brother Micheal retorted, and then he bashed Enna's face in, rendering her unconscious. “Unruly bitch, she thinks too highly of herself. Maybe it’s time to make her disappear. Now, abomination, are you ready to die?”

I laughed at him.

His face screwed up in confusion. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” I said, “It’s just nice when assholes are so up-front about what giant, gaping assholes they are. Now I won’t feel the least bit guilty about fucking you up.”

“Oh, looks like the abomination thinks too highly of himself after defeating that bitch over there,” Michael crowed. “Enna is indeed regarded as one of the top executioners in the Holy Order - or will be, right up until I inform the Father and Mother Superior that she died trying to kill you. You might have beaten her by taking away her magic, but she is a mage, while I am a paladin. My expertise is in hand-to-hand combat.”

He then drew out his sword and readied himself. “You better pick something up.  Wouldn’t want to make this too easy.”

I did what he said and found two old chair legs. I grabbed them and readied myself. I managed to dodge and deflect Michael’s incoming attacks, but my leg was still killing me. It turned out that third-degree burns weren’t an all-or-nothing thing after all. Worse, I could tell that the asshole paladin was toying with me. He had several opportunities to strike me down, but instead, he only left slash marks all around my body.

“You Otherworlders think you're hot shit,” he sneered. “Having that much power at your disposal, you wind up pissing it all away, or fold when you come in contact with a true man with skill. If I had what you have, I would use it to the fullest extent there is, and rule this world.”

“Sounds like you’re the one who’s full of yourself,” I retorted. “I knew guys like you back in my world. They all have two things in common.”

“Pray. Tell,” he sang out while flashing his sword around.

“One, they are all bark and no bite,” I said, flicking away his overconfident swing, “and two, hey often have the tiniest dicks.”

“You little ing-” but he couldn't finish as I spun around and smacked his face, the only part of his body not protected by gleaming plate or chain. Blood began to spray out of his now-broken nose. He only staggered a little bit, but that was all that I needed. With him stunned, I managed to put some distance between us. Once I was well away from the mad paladin I reached out my hand and began to conjure a negate spell. My goal was to nullify the ground he stood on and create a giant pit, but just when I was about to touch that pond made up of Ether, a wave of nausea hit me like a ton of bricks. My vision became blurred, my legs began to feel weak, and then, to top it all off, I began to vomit blood.

“What did you do to me?” I asked, though with all the blood coming out of my mouth, it was garbled.

"Ahhh," Brother Micheal yelled out as he snapped his nose back in place. Once he got over the pain, he scanned my body up and down. A wicked grin grew on his bloody face, his nose still a little crooked. "Looks like Sister Enna did her job after all. You, my dear Otherworlder, have been poisoned by the Death’s Kiss, a very deadly poison. You must have gotten it when she first cut you.” He pointed to the cut on my cheek. “Oh, you’re in for a treat, you monster. Your death will be so slow, and so painful - and the best part is, there’s no cure. None! Even if you somehow stumbled upon somebody who wanted to save your wretched life, they wouldn’t be able to! You are beyond all hope. Your only mercy is death.”

“Crap,” I said, falling to my knees, my insides starting to feel like they were on fire.

“And,” he said, “after that cheap stunt you pulled, I’m certainly not going to grant you it. No, I think it’s Brother Daniel’s turn. His expertise is torture. He’ll know exactly how much extra pain your body can tolerate, atop what the Death’s Kiss is already going to deliver, without dying… until it’s time.

“What do you say, Daniel?” Michael asked theatrically. “Up for a little fun?”

“Sure, as long as we share credit for the kill,” Daniel said, an evil smile forming on his face as he dragged the maid along.

“Fine with me, but I am taking that maid with me. It’s been a while since I had something moderately pretty wrapped around my prick.”

“Fine, but don’t rough her up too much. You tend to leave them bloody afterward.”

“Oh, don’t worry. If I do then we always have Enna here to be her replacement. Besides, I’ve always wondered what she’d look like stuffed with two hardened pricks.”

‘You guys are the worst,’ I groaned in my head, afraid if I speak then I would cough up more blood.

“She won’t like that, but I have something that could correct that,” Daniel said. I had no idea what he was talking about - only that it was probably something horrible.

“Whatever,” he said dismissively. “Have your fun before that piece of shit decides to croak.

“Come here,” he yelled as he grabbed the chain that was connected to the maid.

“No, please no,” she whimpered, tears forming in her eyes.. “Please let me go. I won’t say anything.”

I wanted to help her, but as soon as I tried to stand up, Brother Daniel came up to me with his mighty war hammer and struck me in the gut, sending me spiraling to the floor. I groaned in pain, both from the new position and the hammer blow. I wished it had killed me, but it didn’t. True to his reputation, Daniel began to beat on me with his hammer, always keeping me not just alive, but more-or-less aware of all the pain. As I was slowly getting beaten to death, I could hear the pleas the maid was yelling out as she was dragged to the back of the church.

“Do you hear that?” Daniel grunted. “Brother Michael is about to give it to her. Normally a simple command could make her compliant thanks to the enslavement collar, but Brother Micheal likes them to struggle. If she knows what's best for her, then she better just lay there and take it. Just like you.” He kicked me hard in the gut.

There was nothing but a smile of pure joy and satisfaction on that piece of shit's face.  It was right there and then that I vowed that before I died, I was going to wipe it the fuck off, and then break his drama-queen rapist boss in two. Unfortunately, if I was going to do any of that, then I had to do something about the poison that was ravaging my system. The pain from the hammer blows was bad, but the pain I felt from the poison was much worse. It felt like my body was burning from the inside out. If I couldn’t do anything about that, I couldn’t even begin to worry about the two deranged, but highly skilled, warriors wearing full plate armor.

It was so frustrating, being beaten by a total scumbag while suffering the ill effects of an incurable poison - the thing that was actually going to kill me, because the scumbag in question was so good at torturing people that he wouldn’t even let me die before that. I needed a miracle - something that would negate both the poison and the paladins.

As if by divine intervention, an idea flashed in my mind. It was beyond desperate. It was crazy - but I was in a crazy world. I fought through the pain, somehow. I held the idea in my head. I reached into the well of Ether-that… you know what, I was just going to call it Ether; fuck the details. Then I struggled to take a breath. I did need air to speak the word, after all.

Luckily for me, Daniel seemed to like hearing his victims moan, groan, and beg. He could’ve kept me from speaking, but he didn’t.

“Negate,” I said.

As I called forth my power, Brother Micheal, the deplorable paladin, was too busy tearing away what was left of the poor maid's clothes to notice what was happening behind him. If he hadn’t been, then he would have seen the flash of dark-purplish light, and the stunned expression on his partner's face. He did, however, hear the thunderous boom after I sank my fist straight into his partner's chest and sent him flying into the wall. A large spider web of cracks in the stone wall marked his final resting place - adorned with a fountain of blood spraying from his catastrophically-destroyed body. Brother Daniel was a bug on a cracked windshield, but that impact hadn’t been what had killed him. I had. I’d also put a crater into that once-shiny plate armor.

“Brother Daniel!” Michael screamed out. He searched in a panic for signs of life, but there were none. He stood up and turned around to face me, his face filled with shock and rage. I’d kept my fist out, just so that he’d know it had been me.

“How?” he demanded. “How are you still standing? The poison should have already run through your system. You should be on the floor crying in pain! How are you still alive?”

“Sorry, asshole,” I said. “I don’t monologue. I get shit done. And you? You’re the next piece of shit on my list.”

I had a feeling he didn’t get the movie reference, but the tone of my voice was enough to push him over the edge. He wasn’t just angry, or even enraged. He seemed downright rabid.

"I don't know how you did it or how you defeated Brother Daniel, but I'm going to make you suffer for this," he yelled as began to dish out a series of slashes. None of them connected. To me, they were moving incredibly slowly. I slid past and sidestepped every single swipe. The look of disbelief that ever-so-slowly formed on his face was profoundly satisfying. In a fit of desperation, he leaped into the air and began to perform an overhead slash. It was idiotic; he already knew that much quicker attacks weren’t connecting. I could have easily dodged it, but I decided he deserved a little more than that. I just stood there and let him unleash what I assumed was some sort of bullshit,  maximum-power, ultimate-move attack on me.

As his sword slowly descended, I reached out and grabbed it. I stopped it with my bare hands. Brother Michael unceremoniously dropped to the ground while his sword remained motionless in my hands. To his credit, he managed to get his feet under them. The struck the stone floor with a dull, metallic thud.

"How are you doing this?" he asked. It came out of his mouth in slow motion. I actually got bored waiting for him to finish talking.

I gave him a faux-innocent look, then casually snapped the blade of his sword.

I swear I almost heard his heart break at the same time. Slowly, his face morphed again. He was genuinely surprised and afraid. Best of all, he looked like I’d just killed his favorite puppy. That was a bad analogy, of course, since I was pretty sure this guy strangled puppies and kittens for fun.

“MY SWORD!” he cried out, staring, wide-eyed, at his broken blade.

His dick! That was a much better analogy. He looked like I’d just snapped his dick in half.

Comparatively speaking, he recovered quickly. He tossed the sword away, and made to punch me in the face. I casually grappled his arm and snapped it in two. It was like snapping a twig. He howled in pain; I dropped his arm, and it dangled hideously at his side.

I was done waiting for him to make new moves. In a tribute to Patrick Swayze, I delivered a roundhouse kick to his chest, sending him flying. It wasn’t as hard as I’d punched his friend, but Michael’s chest plate still caved in, and I heard several of his ribs crack.

Now coughing out blood, Brother Micheal began to scurry away as I approached him. I knew I had to end him, and it wasn’t like I didn’t want to. Just as I was about to deliver the finishing blow, though, he actually managed to do something halfway intelligent.

“This isn’t over yet,” he said, and, unfortunately, I assumed that he intended to keep fighting. That was a mistake. It gave him enough time to throw down an item that he’d concealed in his good hand.

I coughed and hacked as the smoke entered my lungs and my vision became obscured. I fanned the smoke with my hands to try to get it to dissipate so I could finish the fight, but when it finally cleared, it was too late; he was gone. I looked everywhere, but eventually, I considered the possibility that it hadn’t been a regular smoke bomb. I remembered, again, that I was in a world where magic was real. He probably magically teleported; that was really the only explanation for how he’d managed to get away so quickly, when my reflexes and cognition were both so supercharged that everything was happening in slow motion.

I couldn’t complain too much. My insane idea and my desperate spell had worked, more or less. With a word, I’d negated my own limitations. Here, in this magical world, that had meant that I’d propelled myself to the absolute peak that anyone - Otherworlders included - could ever achieve. Apparently, though, my mind had seized upon the physical too much. I hadn’t given myself super intelligence, or super magic, or freedom from some of my own worst impulses - like overconfidence, and a flair for the dramatic. That was good to know for next time, I supposed. I’d have to work on my imagining skills. Maybe I’d work on imagining what it would be like to negate the limits of my own imagination.

That made my head hurt.

I went outside and saw two horses. That pretty much settled it. He’d used magic. I couldn’t exactly accuse him of cheating, but he was still a piece of shit. He was still on my list.

“Fuck,” I grunted. I knew he was going to make my life really, really difficult before I got another shot at him.

I stepped back into the church and sighed. I thought long and hard about whether I should check on Enna. I decided against it.  She was a zealot assassin. She’d probably complain to her superiors about Michael and Daniel while still never wavering in her resolve that I needed to die. She’d never be my ally. She’d never be my friend.

I was just about to leave again when I heard some sniffling in between the pews. It was the maid, cowering on the floor, trying to cover herself with her torn clothing. It was a good effort, but I could see her left breast exposed.

“Listen, if you don’t want to get killed when that guy brings reinforcements, then I suggest you leave now,” I said, as I looked around for anything to take along with me.

“I… I can’t,” she said, trying to hold back the tears.

“The fuck you can’t,” I said. “You’re dead if you don’t.”

“No, I can’t,” she said, pointing towards the collar around her neck. “He ordered me not to.”

I remembered, then: enslavement.

“Well, that’s not fucking happening,” I muttered to myself. I found a dusty blanket that wasn’t in complete tatters and used it to help cover her up. Then I squatted down and looked at the collar.

“You didn’t kill him,” she whimpered. “Why didn’t you kill him?”

I figured that was a rule. She was still stuck because Michael was still alive.

“Just shut up and let me focus,” I snapped.

She was startled a bit. I sighed, but didn’t apologize. I was too busy trying to summon my power yet again.

I placed my hand on the collar. “Negate Enslavement,” I said. The dark, purplish mist swirled around my fingers and slid over to envelope the glowing metal. It swirled and swirled until the glowing red runes faded completely. There was a click, and then the entire collar fell off the maid’s neck and onto the stone floor.

“I’m free,” she said in shock.

"Ya, now run before…" I drifted off as I tried to stand up. Then, all at once, a dark-purplish glow flared all around my body. Then it vanished. I felt like I’d just gotten hit by a car. Every bone and muscle in my body screamed out in agony. This time, I knew I wasn’t going to stay conscious. The last thing I saw was the worried expression on the maid’s face as she looked over my writhing body.

“Young Master,” I thought I heard her say, but then everything went black, and I seemed to fall down into a dark void.

“My, aren’t you a strong one,” a soothing voice called out to me. I had no sense of where it was coming from. It was everywhere and nowhere.“Who… who are you?” I asked out loud, but my voice sounded muted. I asked again, but I only heard a sensual chuckle.

“It’s time to go, little fella, but don’t worry; we will see each other again real soon.”

Then all of a sudden, I was falling. When I looked down - or at least what felt like down - I thought I saw something that looked like…

… like Earth?