The first thing that came to my mind before even opening my eyes was that after having not existent sleep for too long I must have collapsed... but then remembered the last moments of lucidity and thought that Nando or one of the others simply punched me in the face hard enough to knocking me out cold on the spot and then leaving me there without a care. Honestly, I wouldn't have expected anything else from such elements.
But then I opened my eyes and realized that it wasn’t the case. As a matter of fact, it must have gone much worse than that if my eyes were working right.
If I was in a white room like the ones described in the isekai novels… but not.
This room I found myself instead was dark, but not to the point of being unable to see, a strip of luminescent blue light ran through the curving wall like some kind of echo friendly low voltaic neon, that lit up the room just the bare minimum to distinguish the walls… or wall seen how there weren’t any breaks or corners, even where the wall met the floor and the ceiling there weren’t any, the floor simply curved steeple upward at some point and then curved again to become the ceiling.
I could analyze all this by my lying position, but I didn’t choose to do it from there because I wanted to stay there, in actuality it was because I simply wasn’t able to move…
My body seemed paralyzed as if I was under the control of a paralyzing demon… only with no demon to be seen everywhere… just physically immobile while lying on my flank… a real novelty for the genre, but with an unnerving something that was hurting my hand which, after some thought I started to suspect was actually my graft knife.
After some time when my eyes started to adapt to the low lighted room I took confirm of my precedent assumption, it wasn’t an effect of the light, this room had no corners.
‘Very magic like!’ I thought.
Then, my body started to slowly awake… together with a nauseous feeling probably resulted by the way of travel I got brought here.
Ignoring the feeling, I started to pushing with what little strength I got back… and ended to fall on my back, giving me the sight of most awesome thing I could ever hope to see.
On the ceiling of the room an orb filled with what seemed swirling darkness was planted at the center of a combination of circles of different measures positioned one over another in series of circles in turn one inside the other and filled to the brim with strange things that, obviously suspiciously, looked like magic symbols that spaced from geometrical figures, letters reminding me of Chinese and Japanese ideograms, little drawings of strange creatures, lines, points and a number of other thing pressed so much together to be almost indistinguishable the ones from the others.
Staring at such a thing I felt elated, everything here spoke of magic and supernaturals things and the realization pushed every other thought out of my head like they were meaningless thoughts born from a fading dream. They were unimportant.
‘The circle must be for some kind of summoning ritual and the orb must be the battery.’ I hypothesized, the simple act of trying to make some sense and give functions bringing with it a feeling of budding happiness for every second I was there, admiring the thing I craved for most of my life now a reality instead of some illusion of artistic reproduction of the idea of how a magic circle should look like.
‘The way the room is made must be to regulate the energies of the circle, so they cannot collide with an angle and start to bounce around fucking up a semi-eternal motion created by it…. Maybe?’
‘Or maybe because the bad things tend to accumulate in the angles where they are hard to clean…’ lazily thinking about this and that.. ‘.. I think I’m about to make something that will be ugly to clean…’ I am suddenly forced to realize that something very wrong was mounting inside me.
The more time is passing, the more I am getting back control over my body… and the more I got control back the more I felt nearer to puking everything inside my stomach out.
Feeling more and more nauseated but not dizzy, I slowly and unstably got up.
‘If I’ve to barf, it will not be in this marvelous place!’
‘There must be a toilet somewhere… or a window at the very least!’ with this thoughts in mind I straighten up noticing two things that by my precedent position I could not.
The first was that on the floor another series of magic circles where presents, they seemed like the one on the ceiling, not simply inscribed with colors on the surface which the entire room was made off like an enormous builder was dug – or teleported – out, but made by digging the symbols and the circles out and then filling them with crystals exactly in the same shape with the exposed part perfectly smooth and at the exact same level of the floor, leaving no irregularities so much that passing a finger on it, it was impossible to feel even the slightest disconnection between the two.
“Magical” I couldn’t hold myself from whisper but feeling immediately worse as the result.
I straighten up and noticed the second thing.
‘This is terrible, they will ruin everything… they ARE ruining everything!!!’
Behind me were the three sons of bitches that only few minutes before I wanted to kill so bad… and they were puking while unconscious all over the magic circles… and they soiled themselves too as their pants were getting both darker and deforming around… you get it...
In horror at the idea of ending the same way I started looking around in search of someone that wasn’t unconscious or puking or… about to puke. But there was anyone, no welcome committee, no groups of clerics or wizards, mages or sages who just ended the summoning…
There wasn’t even a door!!!
The entire room was only composed of the room itself, the doable magic circles on floor and ceiling and the strip of blue light running around the room drawing another circles at mid-height.
‘Fuck! How I get out of here? How the fuck did someone get IN to make the circles?’ I cursed in silence to not spur further the inside of my stomach to come out.
‘It does not have any sense! The circles could not have made themselves…. Or not?’
‘After all, those were all magic things! Ain’t magic able to do anything? So obviously there is a way to get in and out, via magic!’ an interesting thought, but not one that helped me in the now as I didn’t know the way to do it.
Which actually didn’t gave me a way to get out, but maybe there was a magic switch to teleport me out or make a door appear… so I started searching the “wall”, looking and touching every centimeter I could reach while trying to not wake up the others, if they woke up they could have started to puke even more or worse... then went in a panic when I realized I was in an obviously sealed room. With no way in for oxygen, I was on a timer… one that was likely shortening hastily as panic took over making me consume even faster the little oxygen present here…
My head went crazy and I found with some apprehension that the worst thing I could come up with wasn’t some painful death for asphyxiation but that they – my unconscious co-workers - could have woken up and tried to damage the circles thinking that the components were some precious crystal that will gain them money…. That would have been a tragedy, if our only way to get out of here was the circles…. If that was the case then damaging it was the same as cut our own throats.
And the nausea grew but I did not found anything that could take me out of there, not a switch, not a symbol that once touched would have taken me outta there.
‘I am at my limit… no, I’ve to resist! I will... not ruin… this…’
By that time I must have ended to check the entire room twice or maybe even thrice, hard to say seen how it was the same all around.
The other were now starting to give signs of waking up, twitching and coughing.
‘There must be a way to get out!’
I was despairing, I did not know what awaited for me out there, but of one thing I was sure, whatever that was, I wouldn’t live it with those three for all the money in the world!
If our appearance in this place was a casual thing and not the doing of a person or a group of people, which apparently wasn’t cause you don’t leave your fucking guest\summons\whatever alone, then that meant that no one would come and take us out. But if I could get out thanks to my lucky early awakening… even if painful and a bit bloody, and used that time to find a way without giving out that a “magical way” existed, these poor ignorant, blinded by “reality” normal people, once awaken they will search for a door to get out, and once they will not find it…
I thought about it with some satisfaction and not only a bit joy
‘They will loose their fucking minds! They will be scared! Maybe even start to fight one another trying to kill in hope to save more oxygen to breath only to die in vain!’
The thought made my heart race with joy!
Was I a bad person for thinking that and feeling that way? Likely, yeah. Still, I did not care.
But what if we were summoned by something or someone?
The possibilities were then numerous.
Were we summoned to be heroes?
Were we summoned to be guinea pigs to test the summoning magic or something?
Were we summoned to be sacrificed or enslaved?
Well, I wanted to be out of there in those cases! Even if it was a summoned Hero cliche? ‘Yes! Fuck It! Too much pains, too much obligations AND expectations!’
‘Moreover, being a hero with those human’s scum?’ the only idea almost made me puke for reasons that didn’t concern my upset stomach.
‘No! Nay! Never! I prefer death! Absolutely fucking not!’ was the only answer I could come up with.
They could take all the richness, the best teachers, the fame, the power and the most beautiful, provocative and sex hungered whores this world had to offer and show it up their assess until they comes out of their mouth for all I could care.
I would prefer to start from the bottom up as an ignorant commoner who appeared from nowhere than have to see their shitty faces and working with them every single day of my life…. with even the certainty they will treat me as they always did and even worse in the moment their ego would fill because they are declaimed as “heroes”… at the first dangerous situation they would stab me in my back and use me as a bait so they could flee and saves their life! Of that I had no doubt.
‘I’ve no intention to have a traitorous beginning where I barely survive to come back super strong! Fuck that! This ain’t a novel and I’m no main characters, first shit that happen I will be dead!’
It was a sobering thought. Especially seen how all the recent release are all about that very same troupe.
But reality, when you are the one living it, comes knocking with ideas and realizations that are much different from such “all go well” stories.
‘So let me out! Let me the fucking out’ I started to think while checking the strip of light. If the wall didn’t have a way out than maybe the strip would.
“Come on blue light, let me out!” I said.
Then, somehow I was out.
That had been strange. When I said that I wanted to get out to the wall… or the strange blue stripe thing, or while I was touching it I guess, I felt a feeling not dissimilar from what I felt while transported here, just much softer. And a moment later I was in a corridor with the same characteristic of the room I just left, no corners but with plain floor and ceiling that continued on my left and right.
Somehow, I felt refreshed. the air inside the room was starting smell too much of puke and bodily stench. Out here instead was… different.
“Thank you!” I said to no one in particular while standing there.
“●●●●●●●●” came a sound resembling a voice from my left.
I slowly turned toward the sound. The heckle on my neck straight on while a bad feeling wormed its way in my mind.
And found myself almost face to face with a black skeleton.
I stared at him, or it if you will. Utterly unable to even say a word or move as terrified as I was. I say terrified because I felt both fear and awe.
The skeleton looked at me with… I’ve no idea how a skeleton could physically express it’s emotions…
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
If I could look myself in a mirror I was sure that I would look a lot like an apparition more than a living person so much I must have paled with fear.
The both of us stayed there a moment longer watching one another, then….
The first retch started pushing up my throat.
“… I… puking…” I gurgled out, not even sure way I said it.
As if to answer, the skeleton pointed it’s long black finger down the corridor on my right, then raised it’s index and middle fingers in V shape and then signed to its left.
“...gurg… that way… second door… gurg... on the left?…” I asked.
The skeleton moved its head up and down once, as if to nod not saying a word.
I turned on my back and run.
It came out that this places did not have real “doors” per se.
I just noticed that in the never interrupting strip of blue light appeared from time to time points where the singular line divided at the center in two streams that would draw a curve around a central part before connecting back together. These circles left a central space the size of a head with at the center of it a solitary marble of the blue lights no bigger than a few centimeter.
Thinking back, that very same thing was present in the room I was closed in.
By luck or by the inherent understanding that in a magic world doors are probably for losers, I understood that this circles and dots were the “doors” the skeleton meant.
Reaching the second dot on the left wall I prayed with the last of my strength to be right in assume that was what the skeleton meant. Or even to not find myself into some kind of torture chamber instead of a toilet or the magic\alien\skeleton equivalent.
“Let… me… in…” I gurgled barely holding back the spray of slag trying to come out from every orifice.
And then, after experiencing the same feeling of displacement, I was into what looked like some sci-fi version of a toilet. thankfully and immediately searched for the most probable thing to be a wc so I could puke in… I’ll let it to you imagination to fill the rest. Yep, then things got ugly.
“…. fucking buttons… I ended with a jet of water in the face instead of flushing the toilet… if that was a toilet…” I said after having found the right button for the flush and now searching for something to dry my face but finding nothing.
“Well… whatever, It was just water… I hope… let me out?” I asked to the blue dot while touching it out of both reflex and because I was starting to get the hint that physical contact had something to do with the activation.
Then I was out in the corridor… or not… I was actually back to the “summoning room”, the three fucker in front of me were now awake and… actually puking and farting violently, not differently from how I did less than a minute prior… just with much less grace and property… and straight on themselves, on the already ruined floor and inside their clothes as they seemed unable to control their corporal function at all… or thinking at least to their pants first.
‘Fuck, I have to get out of here’ I thought trying to turn around and move toward the blue light.
But as confusing as finding myself back here instead of the monochromatic, tube-like corridor, my body instead moved toward the others, getting dangerously near a paddle of vomit and stopped just a little distance away from them, and then against my will I turned.
There I saw the black skeleton standing near the wall, hands behind it’s back in what appeared to be a composed posture, staring at us.
‘… Fuck… this leave only guinea pigs or sacrifices…’ I mentally commented.
Now I was stuck, my body refused to listen to me and I felt not different from a marionette of the old shows I saw on the tv as a child.
Right that moment I had a will, but it meant nothing.
Unable to do anything else I stared at the skeleton searching for a sign of emotions or intentions as I read in manga and novels but…
‘He is just bones… black bones… no muscle, no meat, no skin, no eyes… how the fuck can I interprets some nude bone?’ I asked myself realizing immediately the obvious and despairing as a result.
And yet I continued to look at it, mostly because I could do nothing else, I could not even move my neck, at best I could move my eyes…
‘Well, if I have to die in a bit, I at least will do it after having enjoyed some more this magic circle.’
‘My first real joy of the day… and even of my entire life, if today is the day I die, then I will be doing so with the proof of magic fixed in my eyes and brain… not with the proof of necromancy, that’s for sure….’
So I stared ad the signs and lines inscribed in the ceiling, as the ones on the were now covered in body wastes. How the different circles where positioned one near the other and one over another, how the symbols seemed to rarely repeat themselves in the same circles except for two who seemed quite frequents.
“This is art.” I whispered without even realizing myself to have voiced my thoughts.
The parts and lines looked confused or even jumbled at first sight… probably at second too, but the more I tried to follow and distinguish one part from the other the more differentiating and recognizing a sequence from the rest came easier.
It was really like art. A confused, over compressed one but still it was mesmerizing.
I could only agree with myself that I could have stayed there for hours and still not get bored or losing the awe I was feeling.
Time must have passed by at incredible speed because the disgusting sounds stopped only to be replaced by fearful shouts, questions the kind of: where are we? What place is this? What happened? A skeleton? A monster? I don’t want to die!
‘So noisy’ I started to think ‘I’m in my happy place so why don’t you all…’
“Shut up.” said a calm and baritone voice.
‘Yeah, that what I was about to…. Wait, WHAT?’
I was knocked out of my daydream by a voice I never heard before.
For a moment I thought of looking around to search the person who spoke those words, but my body was still out of my control, I could only look at the black skeleton, noticing how impressively tall and massive it was.
‘Only with his bones he is around two meters high, his rib cage is large, when alive he must have been quite the sight, probably a Great Warrior of some kind, ripped with muscles and wielded an enormous ax… no, a sword! Axes are more for hotheaded muscle brains, swords require techniques and grace and intelligence over brute force and blind charges, he seem to possess a more calm and controlled demeanor than the aggressive kind…’ I belatedly realized I was likely making stupid and nonsensical thoughts, not really thinking straight seen the situation but I honestly didn’t care.
<< Kufufufufu, actually I always preferred using a lance and unarmed combat, but thanks for having noticed my “calm and controlled demeanor” kufufufufufu>> said the low and baritone voice laughing softly but with a connotation that would have well suited some evil mastermind. Which, for all I knew, he was.
‘Oh it’s nothing much, I just assumed from… fro… fr…’
I went wide eyed and stared at the skeleton in shock, my mouth hanging.
‘….I-It… y-y-you… j-j-just… r-r-read.. m-my.. m-m-m-mind?’ I somehow formulated in shock lucking at the skeleton. My surprise so over the ceiling I felt I was stammering in my own mind.
The voice didn’t answer me, the skeleton just slightly bend it’s head to the side, but I had the feeling it was smirking at me while enjoying the reaction he provoked.
After a few moments.
“Well then, now that you all have calmed down…” sounded the low baritone voice while the skeleton stepped forward.
“Let me welcome you to the Magister Test!”
There where no more doubts the voice came from the skeleton, and it was speaking in english.
I tried moving, but I was still incapacitated, I had no idea what the others where like and I did not care in the slightest, the skeleton said two words that for me were somehow cliche, Magister, as in someone part of an organization… just with magic instead of law. And test… a magic test, commonly used to find out who had talent or big mana pools in fantasy\isekai novels.
I had no idea what was the catch nor did care.
I could have died that very moment and I would still be satisfied.
For a moment, I thought the skeleton was looking at me in a strange way but then turned and started to talk, I was very sure that he could read mind so it probably thought that I was some kind of an oddball for not be terrified like the others… or maybe he just thought that I was dumb.
“Seen how no one of you have any question…”
“… I don’t want to become a skeleton…” said a voice filled with fear and sounding very nasal.
“Oh and you won’t…” said the skeleton reassuring.
“… Maybe?” ended It.
“aaaaaaah noooooooooo!!! Pleeeeeaaaassseeeeee!!!” begged him, probably Daniele, by the sound of his voice,
‘I’m now a little bit curious to know what they are thinking…’ and if they have become marionettes too in its hands… quite probable seen the situation.
“That depend on your choices, and trust me, saying things no one asked of you to it’s a good way…. To have a bad end!” said the voice sounding displeased… but kinda mocking too.
It was likely taking pleasure in the fear he, by the voice felt a lot a he, was causing to the others.
Then no one said another word, even the sniffling stopped.
“Now, let’s continue.” retook the skeleton after the interruption.
“In this Magister Test your skills, your senses, your capacity of analyzing and comprehension will all be tested and the same will be your ability of choices making!”
“For the ones who pass it…” said the skeleton attracting everyone attention.
“… A price equivalent of the points gained will be given!”
“For the ones who fail it…” It said, provoking terror in it’s audience…
“… They will be set free!” said the skeleton with a joyous sounding voice changing it for the first time by it’s low way of talking.
Everyone took a breath of relief… everyone apart from me, that is.
“Any question?” Asked the skeleton good naturally.
Taking the opportunity to speak with no risk of consequences it was obvious that someone would start to make them.
“If the fail of the test means that we will be sent back, then can we forfeit it and be sent back straight away?” asked Nando speaking for the first time.
“But of course…. Not!”
“It costed resource to take you here, so I cannot let you go without having done the test first!”
“Then…” started to say Nando.
“I said any question, not any questions! Now I’m the one to talk, any problem with it?” asked with a calm tone that was anything but.
“… no.”
“I imagined as much. Let’s continue.”
The skeleton moved one of it’s hands for the first time raising it in front of itself.
In it there were four little medallion made of some kind of brown metal and covered with etched symbols.
“These medallions are the proof of you participating at the Magyster Test and are enchanted with a number of effects.” said the skeleton before pausing.
In normal case such a pause would be an incentive to ask questions… but because it did not specifically said that we could, no one dared opening their mouth.
Not hearing a word the skeleton went on, but I had the feeling that now there was only a hint of disappointment.
“The Medallions gives you access to a very limited number of rooms in this place, you are finding yourself into. These rooms are the test room where your test will be, the dormitory room where you can sleep, the refectory to of course eat, the library where you can read or research and the bathrooms disseminated a bit all over, every other room will not permit you in so don’t loose time trying.” he explained with what looked a practiced and prearranged speech.
“The other effects are identifications for the defense system in place. Which mean that if you move around without it the self-defense system will destroy you so fast you will not even be able to realize it. So while it’s a peaceful death I think you would prefer to many others, not moving around without them on yourself is the winning choice if you want survive.”
The warning was clear. No medallion equals certain death.
“Next, the medallion permit you to breath even where there is no actual air for you to, it just so happen that only in this room there is breathable air for your species, which I see is rapidly going down, so take them.” said him while making the medallions fluctuate toward each of us.
A moment later I was freed by it’s control and fell on the ground, probably because my mind, once it realized to not have control over the body, it let it go flabby under the control of the magic.
But I heard the same happen to the others, so I knew that we had been all restricted like marionettes suspended still with no control on our bodies.
I lifted myself up and eagerly took the medallion that was still fluctuating in the air in front of me and turned to the others out of curiosity of what they would do.
I knew for a fact they were some of the more headstrong… and not really the brightest people around. So the possibility of one or more of them refusing to take the life-saving medallion, or even try something far dumber was still on the table.
At that moment there were who was already standing and putting the medallion on their neck, and who was standing in that moment... and then put on their neck too.
‘Well. I’ll be damned. Thought that one of the two aggressive ones would try something… that Daniele took it instead of trying to fly instantly…’
Feeling very surprised none rebelled or attempted to flee I left them be. I had bigger concerns at the moment.
Honestly, I felt dubious about the words of the skeleton, by the way he said it, without medallion I wouldn’t have been able to get out of this room… but I actually did. I even survived no problem and didn’t get pulverized for the disturb.
Which was both a proof he was lying and… ‘well damn… he doesn’t even care to change his speech after seeing me out there!’ didn’t care enough to change what by now appeared as a pattern.
‘Without medallion I should have been disintegrated by whatever this place is the exact moment I got out, but now I felt pretty much alive, the same goes with the air out there.’
‘After all the skeleton said that only in here there was air, probably taken from our world… or I suppose I could say that, this place can still be on the planet… but I would not bet on it… but when I went out I could breath without problem. So… thoughts.’
‘How many of it’s words are truth and how many are lies’ I thought while faking to put on the medallion but taking things very slowly, if the thing was cursed I would very much prefer not get fucked over by it.
<
‘Caught.’ I took the medallion out of my sleeve where I tucked it when I pretended to wear it and this time I put It on for real.
“Good, the last couple of things, the medallion act as a translator permitting you to understand each other even when coming from different places, seeing how you seem to know each others I get it that I randomly taken all of you from one place. But whatever, I advise you that trying to stole, for any reason, the medallion from one another is impossible for the time you have it on you, the one to wear it is the only one, aside of me, who can take it off. Moreover, the medallion….. doesn’t give you access to this room and doesn’t permit you to activate the portal to leave, that’s all.” said the skeleton.
‘Susipicious.’
“Now you will prepare for the test, seen how… you are reduced, I suppose you should wash, eat and rest, but first a bit of an explanation.” it said while moving toward the wall its back on us like he didn’t care of us and didn’t consider us a menace.
“This blue… thing it’s what permit you to orient yourself, come in and come out of rooms. All you have to do is touching it and asking directions and a red series of points will appear on it for 2 meter in the direction you have to move to reach your destination…. And in case you are dumber than you look. I had it will move with you to continue directing you without the need to stop every few meters to ask again. Once arrived at destination it will either start to blink on the door access or disappear after having pulsed. Meaning you are on the wrong side of the corridor… I had to add this function and specifically explain it because… there were some not so brilliant “people” that when saw the points disappear instead of watching around they stuck themselves in place and asked again directions hundreds of times without realizing that just on the other side of the corridor there was a red light blinking…” it said with a comical tone, evidently subtly questioning if any of us was that level of dumb.
“Now, once out you are on your own. The Test starts in twelve hours more or less, when the time will come the medallion will notify you with a little notice. In the dormitory there are two changes in every wardrobe in front of the beds, use them after having washed yourselves, dirty like that you are unwatchable even thought I do not possess eyes nor olfactory organs... but I would not be happy if you dirty my home, throw what you are wearing in the bin, careful not to end in yourselves… it suck quite hardly….. what else…. Oh, don’t be late or you will start with a demerit.” said the skeleton while moving toward the wall.
It was about to put it’s hand on the blue light when he stopped as if remembering something.
“Just in case you don’t are intelligent enough to understand this, I gave you all the info you needed, out!” it said pointing at the wall with a thumb and then disappeared leaving us alone.