Terry still found himself debating about exactly how much to tell them, but they were right. They did need to know and there probably wasn’t a safer group to which he could reveal his true origins. So, he took a deep breath and started with what was probably the most relevant piece of information.

“I don’t come from this world. I was summoned here,” he said in a rush.

Then, he waited for some kind of outburst or shock or something. Instead, the three just looked at him. He frowned at them.

“None of you seem surprised by that.”

“Why would we be?” asked Haresh.

This was not what Terry had expected. Not at all. He’d spent so much time being worried about how people would react and that he’d be hunted for being an outsider. Bland indifference hadn’t even made his top hundred probable responses.

“Well, if someone claimed to be from another planet or universe on my world, it wouldn’t go well for them. Minimally, it would be assumed they had some manner of mental disorder. If someone believed, they’d likely wind up in some government facility being interrogated and or dissected.”

“What?” asked Ekori. “Why would that happen?”

“Because people don’t randomly appear on my world from other universes.”

“Sounds boring,” observed Jaban.

“Or rural,” said Ekori. “Is your world in some cosmic hinterland?”

“How would I even know about that?” asked Terry. “We don’t have magic on my world. If we have gods, they don’t show themselves. We’re a technological society. Only an exceedingly few people have ever traveled beyond the atmosphere of our world, and only under very tightly controlled conditions.”

“Definitely the hinterlands,” said Ekori.

Terry shot her a look, but he could amusement in her eyes.

“How is none of this a bigger deal to all of you?” he demanded.

“People get summoned here from other worlds all the time. At least, you’re human,” said Haresh. “Didn’t the people who summoned you explain anything?”

“No! All they told me was that I was some prophesied hero and that they wanted me to go fight a war against an army of evil. At that point, I got the fuck away from them as fast as I could. Wait. Are you saying that non-human people get summoned here?”

“Oh yeah,” said Haresh. “All kinds of weird people. I met one who was some kind of blob of translucent goo.”

Terry tried to picture that briefly before shaking it off.

“Why would anyone summon something like that?”

“I don’t know exactly how people are summoned, but I’m given to understand that there’s an element of randomness involved.”

“So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. People on this world make a habit of summoning people from other worlds, but they don’t know what they’re going to get when they do it?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” agreed Jaban.

“Does that sound even remotely reasonable to any of you?”

Ekori, Jaban, and Haresh traded glances and shrugs.

“Well,” said Haresh, “I wouldn’t call it reasonable, but it’s not like we’re personally summoning people.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Nice dodge,” said Terry giving the other man a hard look.

“It might be a dodge, but it is still true.”

“Maybe, but it’s still a dodge,” said Terry when something occurred to him. “Wait, if it’s random, how could the stupidly pretty people know that I was their prophesied savior.”

“Oh, they definitely didn’t know that,” said Ekori.

“And they were going to send me to fight anyway because I might be the right guy?”

“Probably,” said Ekori.

“I hate this place so much,” grumbled Terry.

“It’s not completely random, as I understand it,” said Haresh. “Rather, it’s that the person who shows up loosely fits within a range of expected qualities. Such as bravery, talent, and capacity for magic. Just look at you.”

“What about me?” asked a wary Terry.

“You’ve been here less than two months and look at how strong you are. I don’t know how much magic you have at your disposal, but your physical power is extraordinary. You wouldn’t be enjoying that kind of strength if you didn’t have the potential to be the cultivator’s prophesied savior.”

“I never said they were cultivators.”

“You said stupidly pretty people,” offered Ekori. “That generally means cultivators.”

“You’re stupidly pretty, too. Are you a cultivator?”

“I am not,” she admitted even if she looked a little too pleased with herself. “But if you’re identifying an entire group that way—”

“Yeah, fine. I meant the cultivators,” said Terry. “But seriously, this is all even more fucked up than I thought it was, and I thought this was all monumentally fucked. Do none of you see that?”

“It’s just how things are,” said Haresh with a bit of sympathy in his tone. “I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s also something that no one can stop. The methods and rituals are known.”

“So, the genie’s out of the bottle.”

“Genie?” asked Jaban.

“It’s a legend on my world. Magical beings who grant wishes, except you’d have to be a moron to go in for it. The wishes never, ever, ever work out for the person making them. Genies are trapped in bottles or maybe live in them. I’m a bit hazy on how that part works.”

“I think I see your meaning,” said Ekori.

“I don’t,” complained Jaban.

“He’s saying that as long as the genie stays in the bottle, the evil stays in the bottle. If the genie gets out, the evil gets out. The rituals are the evil, and they’re already in the world. There’s no containing them.”

“Well, not without a lot of bloodshed,” said Haresh.

That drew looks from everyone. The older adventurer shifted uncomfortably.

“What?” he asked. “I didn’t say anyone should go out and try to repress the knowledge. I just said it would take a lot of bloodshed.”

“And it wouldn’t work anyway,” said Terry.

“Why not?” asked Jaban.

“Because there’s always a lost library or a secret sage or a hidden master that still possesses the knowledge. And if there isn’t, this stupid place would probably make it happen. The summonings might slow down for a while, but then the knowledge would get out again. We’d be right back to square one, except we’d have a lot of blood on our hands for nothing.”

“Well, that was cheerful,” said Ekori.

“Alright. We’ve established that people here are terrible—”

“We have?” asked Haresh.

“You summon people here against their will and send them off to die,” answered Terry.

“It does sound bad when you say it like that.”

“It doesn’t just sound bad, Haresh. So, people here are terrible, but there is a much more important issue that I want to deal with. How do I go home?”

A silence that Terry immediately recognized as both uncomfortable and significant descended over the group. It was so abrupt and profound that Dusk crawled out of Terry’s robes and looked around at everyone. He liked to imagine that she was giving them a dour look, although he suspected she was just curious about what had changed. For that matter, he was rather curious about what had changed, even though he was about ninety-nine point nine percent sure he knew what was coming. And he did not like it. He gave the other three increasingly impatient looks as they hemmed, hawed, and refused to make eye contact with him, which only served to reinforce his suspicion. When it got to the point that he was ready to start yelling at people, Ekori found her spine.

“You can’t,” she said.

“I can’t, or you don’t know how to send me home?” asked Terry in a frost-rimed tone.

“Can’t. I’ve always been told that the transportation process is one way. To my knowledge, no one has ever returned to their home world after being summoned here.”

Terry closed his eyes and made himself take deep breaths. What she’d told him wasn’t absolute. She had used phrases like to my knowledge and I’ve always been told. Still, if returning people to their homes was as common as summoning them, he suspected they would know about it.

“But you said you come from a world without magic. Why would you want to go back?” asked Jaban.

The question wasn’t a jibe. The young man was clearly baffled. Even so, it set Terry’s teeth on edge.

“Do you know how many times I had to fight for my life on my world?” demanded Terry before carrying on. “Zero. Zero goddamn times. Would I trade magic for that kind of safety? You bet your ass I would. But since that is apparently impossible, I’m back to Plan A. Go south.”

“You know the Church has a presence in the south, right?” asked Haresh.

“Well, thank you for that, Captain Good News.”