Somewhere on a green, green planet, two people covered in white robes lean back, tired, having just finished summoning, a group of people from another world. This was a daily occurrence at this point, and no matter how many times they summoned Heroes it never got easier for them. Solonus, of the order of Tamian, sat on his large red hood, with ornate stitching all across his robes, and looked over to his subordinate, Algar, in his simpler white gold hood.

“How many is that?” Solonus asked.

Solonus counted the unconscious bodies, of people from all around Earth, laying in the summoning circle below, “Twenty in the latest batch.”

“Seems low,” Solonus commented. When they had started this program of summoning people from another world, they would have around fifty people coming through. With this recent acquisition, he could confirm that something was wrong, with their magic.

“We are running a little low on power. Maybe we should spread out the summonings?” Algar suggested, looking out into the circle. Curious he asked, “How many did we get this week?”

Solonus pulled out a tally sheet and added the new number of summons before counting up the numbers for the week, “Let's see....about two hundred.”

“Yeah, we should probably let everything recharge. It would give the trainers a break.” With all the summons they had to pull in trainers from the other kingdoms to get all these people taught. It was even becoming a status symbol to be called upon by the kingdom of Heroes to teach the next generation.

With their business taken care of Solonus and Algar made their way down, to get a better look at who they had summoned.

——

In the middle of a grand hall, a place filled with the remnant magic of hundreds of summonings, twenty teens stolen from their world start to wake.

Belle was one of them, that last thing she remembered was going out for lunch with her friends, then suddenly the hard stone floor beneath her. She felt the stone lost and confused, her mind working slowly. She wasn’t the only one, and the rest of the people weren’t as lucky as her, one man was just in his boxers. It was the unreality of it all that kept her or any of them from panicking.

Belle felt there was something wrong but the dreamlike fog, prevented her from really thinking too hard, about it. In fact, she found herself tracing the magic circle below her, thinking it kind of reminded her of the aperture on a camera, just with lots of random symbols around it.

The rest of the group was just like her disoriented, meandering around, like in a dream, Belle included. Not a single person dared to speak, not wanting to face what this meant. That was until someone broke the silence with a yell, “Where are we? And who are you, people?”

That was the last thing Belle and everyone else needed to snap out of the fog clouding their minds, as they all began to realize this was not a dream, nor was this somewhere they knew. A cacophony of voices suddenly sounded shouts of accusation and paranoia, everyone, refusing to be near one another. Belle was afraid she had stumbled into some strange human trafficking when something impossible happened. Someone ran into an invisible barrier.

"What the hell?" They screamed, alerting the rest of the people of the barrier, by banging on nothing. People didn’t really believe it until they themselves, went up and touched solid nothing. Belle being one of the first to touch the odd surface, came back thinking it felt solid yet soft, almost like a hard gel. With her hand on the barrier and the magic circle, Belle realized what this was. Not wanting to keep this to herself she yelled at the top of her lungs “HEEYYYYY!!” The mob froze at her shout and turned towards her. Belle felt embarrassed by the outburst but powered on. Kicking the invisible wall, a wobbling sound resounded throughout, deafening now that everyone went quiet. “Guys, I don’t think we are on Earth anymore.”

“You are correct.” A man in a bright white priest's robes confirmed as he stepped forward for the group to see. Erasmus stood tall and with confidence, not an ounce of fear seeing the mob of people. He had been through this hundreds of times and knew exactly what would happen as soon as he stepped up. With him stepping out the mob suddenly had someone to focus their rage on, as the group stormed forward, baning on the dome and shouting at him. They had learned that lesson early when the second group they summoned stormed the priests nearly killing them. From then on they had always created a barrier before they performed the summoning.

Erasmus was one of their most trusted orators, though he was low in the hierarchy of the priesthood, thanks to the summonings they had discovered Erasmus had a gift for talking to people. That landed him the position of welcoming all newly summoned. Since he had taken the position, the number of incidents had dropped to almost zero.

Erasmus stood there listening to their shouts letting them voice their anger.

“The hell is going on?”

“Where are we?”

“Why did you take us?”

“Send us home.”

Surprisingly, not all the shouts were negative when one person shouted, “Do we get magic?”

Before they could really work themselves into a fervor, Erasmus decided he had, had enough and channeled a simple spell that caused him to radiate a bright light. This was another lesson they had learned, creating an almost holy seeming light tended to pacify a large majority of people, or at least made them more open to their words. With the light fading, Erasmus spoke calmly to the group, “Calm yourselves please.” The group grumbled and continued to yell for a short time before curiosity won out, and the rest of the people quieted, as the priest patiently waited.

Erasmus smiled, “I'm glad you all calmed down.”

Seeing a chance to get some actual answers Belle stepped forward, “Please explain what's going on.”

“I will.” Erasmus bowed his head, in apology, “Our world is overrun with monsters and we are in desperate need of help. So in our desperation, we had to use a forbidden spell to summon heroes from another world.” Erasmus raised his head looked directly towards the children, and pleaded, “Please, we need your help.”

“You kidnapped us, to beg us for help?” Someone shouted indignantly, yet the fire behind their words was no longer there. Erasmus's words were having an effect on the group.

Erasmus’s eyes turned sad, as his voice filled with remorse, “Yes. It was a last resort.”

The group was silent, seeing the honest plea, no one really knew what to say. Belle only had one real question, “Can you send us back?”

The priest shook his head, “Part of the spell that brought you here will automatically send you home when the world is safe.”

“So, no,” Belle said shortly, not trusting the man, giving a conditional release. Whether or not anyone else had figured it out yet, they were all prisoners. We didn’t know any of the customs, or anyone. We would be completely relying on the people for our continued survival. Belle didn’t like it but she didn’t see any way to go against it either without, drawing a target on her back.

“We will give you all as much support as we can possibly give. You all can grow at incredible rates that our people can't match. Will you all please help us?” Erasmus asked again.

Belle muttered angrily, “I don't think we have a choice.”

“Can we just walk away?” Someone asked a question Belle locked in on the priest. Now would they tell us directly or come up with some excuse?

Erasmus stood back to his full height, “Yes. If you would like to walk away and wash your hands clean of us we understand. We will even still help you in whatever you choose but, again, we can't send you back.”

One by one, it seemed everyone, was reluctantly coming to the same conclusion, they would be treated better if they helped. Finally, Belle stood forward, knowing she didn’t agree with this but seeing as it was her only real choice she spoke, “We’ll try.” Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

Erasmus clapped his hands, “Wonderful. With that, the contract is sealed.”

A black ring encircled everyone's wrists.

“What's is this?” Belle demanded, now wondering how badly she had just screwed up.

Belle did not like what appeared on Erasmus’s face, “It is a mark of the kingdom for all of you heroes.”

——

With the newly summoned Heroes taken the agreement, they were filed out of the room, by Algar, leaving, Solonus, and Erasmus alone in the room.

Solonus walked up to Erasmus, asking, “Why do you always give the speech like that?”

Erasmus was still smiling and waving to the newly summoned as the last one left the room. “They always get fired up for a month or so, pushing themselves to grow faster. It's always fun seeing their optimism and drive. I daresay, if we left them alone they would really become powerful.” He said, excitedly.

“How long does it take for them to realize they’re slaves?” Solonus shook his head, he had never really tried to check up on the Heroes after they left the halls, hoping that they were treated right, but too afraid to find out.

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Erasmus hood thought for a moment, surprised by the question, “About a month or two, really depends, but the second they agreed their debt began to tick up.”

“Wow, so that's how you're doing it?”

The two men heard a third voice and turned to look at a man in similar clothing as the teens who just left, except this man was obviously older. Erasmus didn’t think much of it, as they must have missed one of the summoned. much of it

Solonus, on the other hand, “Who the hell are you?” He was panicked especially after what they were talking about, and a little afraid of what the man might be capable of. These Heroes tended to get random powers so he didn’t know what the man could do. Solonus began to signal for guards.

“Just a truck driver,” Del answered, calmly, while walking further into the room.

“A truck driver?” Erasmus was familiar with the concept, having been through many summonings, but something wasn’t adding up. He was now certain he hadn’t been part of the summoning, “How did you get in here?”

With a vicious smile, Del replied, “I drove.”

Seeing the maliciousness, Erasmus raised a hand, "Bind!" A glowing rope surrounded the man as he walked around, as he completely ignored the spell, as it dissipated around him finding no purchase. “Yeah, that's not going to work.” He taunted Erasmus, as he continued his walk around the circle, before asking calmly, “So how long have you been doing this?”

“Guards. Guards!” Solonus threw subtly out the window and started screaming for the guards, while simultaneously preparing spells to fight the strange man, only to find his power blocked.

Turning back to the priest Del glared, “Oh, they can't hear in here.”

Feeling a deep wrongness the two instinctively tried to take a step back, only to find that they suddenly couldn’t move.

“Hey, it's rude to leave an interrogation without permission.” The truck driver huffed, not stopping his search of the summoning chamber.

Panic was creeping into Solonus before he worked up the courage to ask, “What do you want?”

“You to stop the summonings. You’re punching holes in other worlds, and you're not even plugging them.” His voice filled with frustration, at the men, taking them both off guard. “They are a pain in my ass.” He wined.

“What?” Solonus panic was replaced by confusion, this was not going the way a rescue or liberation should have gone.

“Yeah, these holes are a pain in my ass. Also, I don't like what you're doing.”

“We are doing our God's work,” Erasmus said indignantly. He truly believed that this was what their God wanted them to do. The best way for their world to move forward, and progress their society. They had already seen a boom in the industry thanks to the ideas, and knowledge from the other worlds. This only reinforced his belief in what they were doing.

“Don't worry, I'll talk to him next,” Del said ominously. He kept searching the chamber for the anger visibly grow on his face until he couldn’t hold back, “So you've been summoning like this for years. What do you do? Train them up then sell them to the highest bidder?”

The two priests smartly said nothing.

Del shook his head. “True, inter-dimensional slavers. Can't believe that myth was real.” The man shook his head. He had heard of the rumors but those always turned out to just be an over-exaggeration, where the kingdom runs them ragged, or they somehow stumble into slavery. Sometimes they would put a slave seal on them when they appeared, but that was a one-and-done kind of thing. This. This was a full-on slave trade.

“Sir, we are not slavers, we are protectors of this world. Now I insist you release us.” Erasmus continued haughtily, thinking his god would protect him from whatever this man could throw at him.

Ignoring Erasmus, the man’s face lit up, “Ah, here it is.” Del was in the middle of the circle, hand rubbing over the circle. He raised his fist and punched down breaking apart the stone and revealing a glowing orb surrounded by intricate Mythril wires. "God essence, oh you sons of bitches. Where did you get this?"

“It was a gift from our God,” Erasmus said proudly. Their church is the holder of such an important object.

“Hmmm. Well, I'll need to talk to him. But first...” The man tugged hard on the Mythril wires, pulling them out and destroying the summoning circle completely.

“What have you done?” Erasmus asked in horror.

“Closed your door to other worlds.”

“We’ll just rebuild.” Erasmus priest declared.

Del held up the glowing orb, “Not without this.”

He smirked and casually left the room. After some time, the two priests found that they could move, again

Solonus, still afraid, asked, “Who was that?”

“Someone with power”

——

Somewhere in the world, deep in a dark cave, a place, hidden from all, a man walks into a room. In the room lies a god chained to the ground, betrayed by the people he was trying to protect.

Del’s eyes widened as he noticed the chained god, Tamian. “Wow, they really managed to seal a god.” He said, surprised.

It had been years since Tamian had seen another soul. The priest had long stopped coming, and no one else knew where he was. A bit of excitement filled him when he saw the strange man enter. “Who are you?” He asked in a tired, raspy voice long unused.

Del gave an offended look, “Aw, this makes me sad. You don’t remember me.”

Hearing the man’s response, Tamian expected to see one of the priests that chained him gloating, but the person he saw shocked him, “You!” Tamian thrashed around in his chains seeing the man responsible for delivering his captor. If he had never brought that cursed Hero he would still be free.

Del sniffed, “I warned you not to interfere.” He said angrily.

“You think you know better than me? It was for the world's own good.” Tamian sneered.

“And how did that work out?”

Tamian could feel a simmering rage build within him, and the man saw it, completely unmoved.

“I have a question for you,” Del answered calmly.

The god scoffed at the man’s audacity to question a God.

Pulling out the glowing orb of God's essence he asked, “Did you give this to them of your free will?”

Tamian knew what it was, as the orb called to him, pulled towards it as it desperately wished to become whole again. A whisper, of longing, escaped Tamian, “Return it to me.” His eyes desperately clung to the stolen piece of himself, so long ago. He could barely believe it was so close.

“Answer the question.”

Tamian's eyes snapped away from the orb back up to the man, “Yes, they tricked me.”

Rolling his eyes, Del sarcastically said, “Oh? I bet they even promised to free you, too.”

The Hero he had summoned after being beaten and used for years, had risen up against the world's God and locked him away deep in this cave, as a punishment for all the deity had done to him. The Hero knew that Tamian could not be held forever, thinking this would be the only way to teach it humility. It took years for the priests to find him, but they were unable to break his chains, though they didn’t try too hard, seeing an opportunity. Tricking him and tacking his essence.

Tamian looked reluctantly before admitting, “Yeah.”

Hearing Tamian’s response, Del was in shock. The fact that they had actually tricked him, “That's the oldest trick in the book. And you're smart, how did you fall for it?”

“They did it over years, used a kid to talk to me. And as he grew, he kept wishing he had the power to free me.” Tamian said bitterly.

Del understood, “That would do it. That is a shitty thing they did. Did the kid even know what they were using him for?”

“I don’t believe so. I think he's in a cell somewhere if he’s even still alive. I heard he tried to rebel when he learned what they did.” The god thought to his only friend in the last hundred years, just a small child brought in to take what he had left.

“Shame.” Del held up the orb, “Do you know what they were doing with this?”

“What?”

“Summoning Heroes.”

He stared up at the man in disbelief before a full, guttural laugh expelled from him, shaking the room.

“They're enslaving them.”

The laughter stopped. “We're fucked” Tamian said, seeing his burgeoning hope crumble.

“Did not expect that from you.”

“I learned from my mistakes, I just can't do anything.” Tamian uselessly rattled his chains, emphasizing his point.

“That may change soon.”

Tamian watched in confusion as the delivery man began to walk away, still holding his godly essence, “I have a delivery.”

At first, Tamian, was disheartened when he realized the man had no plans to return his essence, that was until he remember what the man was, and what taking that orb meant, and he smiled.

——

In the back of a truck, Del and Ge stand over two teens, lying unconscious on the hard steel floor.

Feeling nervous for the children, Ge asked, “Are they ready?”

“Almost. Just one more thing.” Del held up a glowing white orb over the teens and shattered it above them. Glowing wisps of power surrounded, and engulf the two in bright white light.

“Will they be alright?” She had never seen Heroes start with nothing like this. They always had some form of guidance, whether from the Gods who summoned them or from the people. These two would be on their own, with the world literally against them.

Tired, Del answered, “Is anyone?”

“I just want them to be ok.” She answered sincerely.

“I also wish the best of them. They just dealt a shit hand.” Del tore his gaze away to ask Ge, “Did you find a place?”

“Yeah. On the beast-men continent, there is a kind of small village that will help them. It’s not too far away from the cities. If I’m right they'll have a few years to grow out there.” She had made sure that they would be able to just wander in and be helped. The village was saved by the Hero, a long time ago and still revered him as a legend. This would be the best place for other worlders to go, at least she hoped.

“Good.” Del opened the back door to his truck and pushed the teens out, unceremoniously, out of the between and into the soft grass below.

Ge took one last look at the two before asking hopefully, “Can’t we lead them there?”

Del shook his head, “No. They need to do this on their own.” The man and woman looked down on the two children, afraid for the challenges they will face the silence growing heavy until broken by Del. “They must struggle to survive. That is the only way for them.”

——

On a grassy hill, deep in the beast continent, on a world strange and new, Warin and Alessia, still wearing damp swimsuits groggily woke.

“Hello children”, The chained god Tamian, appeared, in the teen's minds. Immediately, Warin, and Alessia, felt a connection to the God, feeling his tiredness, fear, hope for the children, and most of all regret. “I'm so sorry for bringing you here. You are the last hope of this world.” Tamian paused to take in another breath, every word appeared to drain him. “So much of my power has been stolen, to kidnap your fellow people, who have become nothing more than slaves. Please use my blessing to grow, live, and save them. Save them all.” The vision began to fade with one last plea, “Please save them.” It was filled with such desperation, neither of the two could refuse, they were just scared

Alessia and Warin were thrust into a strange world, not knowing how or why, but feeling power coursing in their blood. Something deep down told them they were stuck there, as they felt the world itself beg them to save them. The scope of which was nearly paralyzing to two small teenagers. It was the thought of others like themselves captured and enslaved that made Alessia able to move, standing looking down the hill they were on, a road leading deep into the forest, where she could see small pillars of smoke.

Still afraid, she turned to Warin, catching each other’s eyes, causing him to blush nervously. She giggled, at seeing this. They were in a different world and he was still shy, it was the one bit of normalcy she needed to keep from breaking down. She reached down towards Warin, asking, "Can we do this?"

Taking her hand, he stood holding tight to her, "I don't know. But together, we can figure this out."

With that, they began to make their way towards the smoke, and hopefully civilization.