Duncan was not where he was supposed to be.
Just a few minutes ago, he had been on the Realm Shift platform on Earth. Headmaster Walter Mayfield had given his speech and presented Duncan with the primo pin that was now stuck on his uniform—the pin he had worked for years to earn as the top of that year’s shift class.
He had been standing beside Mikael at the front of the platform, with a clear view of his family in the stands. All four of them looked proud, though Marie and Wayne had clearly been crying. The reality of Duncan’s imminent departure hit them hard that morning, and they both clung to him until he had to leave for the ceremony.
Then it was time to go. They initiated the shift; the feeling of mana filled the air, and everything went dark. He felt the presence of those around him but could see nothing. Other than the feeling of crowded darkness, he could only sense what he thought was a destination in the distance. It felt like a string connecting him to what he could only guess was the other side of the Realm Shift platform.
Then, a sudden pain had him reaching for his chest, or at least trying to. His body wouldn’t respond. He was trapped, motionless, while moving an unknowable distance without seeming to move at all. The pain soon changed from a growing burn to a steady feeling of power just out of his reach. The change made it clear it wasn’t actually in his chest but on it. A sudden force took hold of Duncan’s paralyzed body and started to change… something. It felt like a lasso of power was wrapped around his body, forcing him off course. Duncan didn’t think cosmic cowboys were a thing, but the realms were vast and numerous, as they say.
Something else in the power changed, and he could no longer sense anyone around him. Each moment that passed, a new connection to someplace different grew. Soon, it had total control. He felt it pulling him further and further off course, but he still couldn’t move or see anything but black. He had no choice but to accept that the power would continue to reel him in like a fish on the line.
Then, he was here. Absolute darkness gave way to a starlit night, and his feet were on new ground. The power that had seemed to take over from his chest was gone, and he looked down to where he had felt it moments before. The Primo pin sat there on the lapel of his uniform.
What was going on?
Duncan soon forgot the pin as he took in his surroundings. He was alone in a large courtyard surrounded by various wooden structures. It reminded him of some traditional Japanese architecture from Earth, just on a larger scale and not quite the same style. The courtyard was flat and open, with no decoration or landscaping to break up the space. Duncan knew what it was almost instantly: a training ground.
The overwhelming feeling of mana in the air quickly confirmed he was no longer on Earth. He had felt mana plenty of times from enchantments and abilities used by Subject holders who had returned to Earth. The ever-present mana he felt now was something he had been told of, but it was incredible to experience it himself.
“Where am I?” He could see the words in the brisk air. His gaze moved upwards, and he saw two moons side by side in the night sky. One was smaller and quite similar to Earth’s moon. The other was almost three times as large and gave off a dim blue glow—Dintarnum’s sister moons. He had at least made it to the correct realm.
Duncan could identify two main problems with his limited information. First, he was alone. No other Earth shifters were with him, and no one was waiting for him after the shift. Second, it was nighttime and cold. It should be late morning and the middle of summer in the Corvelin capital.
He was definitely not where he was supposed to be.
He had no time to wonder about and of the numerous whys he could come up with at the moment. This wasn’t an exercise at the Academy where the worst that could happen was a failing score. He was in Dintarnum, a realm with monsters and magic. And people who could use magic.
A sense of calm took over his body as his years of training took over. He stood completely still, only letting his gaze wander as he took in more information—more data—more variables. The more he knew, the better decision he could make.
The light of the two moons above gave him an easier time seeing than even a full moon would have on a cloudless Earth night. Unfortunately, that also meant he was clearly visible to others in the middle of a courtyard. And if the shouts he now heard from some of the structures around him were any indication, his entrance into the realm wasn’t entirely unnoticed.
The creaking sound of wood moving against wood alerted Duncan to doors opening around the courtyard. It only took seconds before it was filled with people. Looking around, he could tell these were likely some type of guards. Each of them wore some variety of armor, and many had visible weapons at the ready. They all wore a purple band with an unknown symbol somewhere on their bodies.
What drew Duncan’s attention most of all was the feeling of power swelling in the air. He had felt it before when one of the professors back on Earth was about to use one of their Subject granted abilities.
The calm he had gained only seconds before fled his body. He had all the data he needed. There was no better decision. There were only worse decisions.
As the mana in the air continued to swell and the guards around him continued to close on him, Duncan noticed that most of them were not humans. Corvelin was an almost entirely human nation.
He was definitely not where he was supposed to be.
Stolen story; please report.
***
Duncan didn’t have to spend too long after waking up in prison to find out where he was.
Corvelin, where he was supposed to be, was in Dintarnum’s eastern hemisphere. Corvelin was the name of both the continent and the nation that completely controlled the land mass. The vast majority of the population was human, as they were the first to settle the continent when Dintarnum was discovered and settled by people from who knows what other realms.
The western hemisphere of the realm was largely covered by Drawzen. No single entity ruled the giant continent. It was almost double the size of Corvelin but a lot less unified. Multiple smaller nations and city-states of varying races and cultures vied for control of what lands they could seize. However, one thing they mostly had in common was a dislike of Corvelin. Duncan’s history teacher at the academy failed to adequately explain why that was, but he supposed when some Corvelin noble had to sign off on all the Academy’s curriculum, some things were bound to be… left out.
In the northern hemisphere, almost exactly between Corvelin and Drawzen, was the island nation of Kuno. All Duncan really knew about the place was that they were most famous for their mercenary companies.
This is where he was. Kuno. How did he know this less than five minutes after regaining consciousness?
“Ya Kunan dogs can’t keep me here!” one of the men in the same communal cell as Duncan shouted at a group of passing prison guards… Again. The old human man had the leathery skin and salty smell of a lifelong sailor. “I ain’t break no rules!”
“Yeah, because every law-abiding trade vessel tries to smuggle a supply of heartfire wood out of the harbor,” a passing guard laughed. He was humanoid, covered in green scales, and had the face of a dragon—a Lizardkin.
Despite the prisoner’s less-than-eloquent enunciation, both men had been speaking the common language used in Dintarnum and many other realms. Duncan had been forced to speak it for most of his early life while training with Rhona. He had been fluent far before the Academy tried to put him through language classes.
“I ain’t be doin that. That be me client, not I! Come back ear!!” The prisoner’s shouts only increased as the guards ignored the man and continued their patrol through the narrow row of cells. “Stupid Kuno. Stupid clients bribing me crew.” He continued to curse under his breath as he finally sat down against the cell bars.
With the spectacle over, or possibly just on pause, Duncan finally took some time to observe the other people in his cell. There were five others besides him and the old sailor for a total of seven prisoners. All were men. At least, he thought they all were.
Two roughish-looking elves with their high pointed ears and almost too perfect looks, one lizardkin and one kind of beastkin that was absolutely ginormous. If Duncan had to guess, it was some type of bear beastkin, but all he had to go by were pictures provided in his textbooks at the Academy. That left Duncan, the loud old sailor, and a dwarven man who was somehow still snoring despite the earlier commotion.
None of the others in his cell paid Duncan any mind. They just kept to themselves and continued to look downcast. He expected that made sense, given their location. Duncan found himself not dwelling on the where of it all but the how. How exactly had he ended up thousands of miles from where he should be?
Duncan briefly thought back to Donna's threats about dumping him in the middle of the ocean. He laughed at the thought of her sneaking around in the night in a clumsy way that she thought was stealthy. He missed her already.
The only information Duncan had to go on was that strange feeling of power during the Realm Shift. He reached his hand up to grab at the primo pin on his lapel but felt nothing. He looked down, and sure enough, no primo pin. A quick inspection of the floor around him revealed no sign of it either.
Did they take it off him when they captured him? Maybe they thought he could use it as a weapon.
Before he could wonder about the pin further, the dwarf beside Duncan stirred from his sleep with all the subtlety of a boulder crashing down a mountain. “UHHHHGG! Who used my head as a drum last night?” Looking around, the dwarf looked at Duncan, the rest of the prisoners, and the cell they were in. “WHAT THE BLAZES HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?” the dwarf roared and surged to his feet. Then promptly fell back down, too dizzy to stay standing.
He was short. Duncan supposed he knew that would be the case, considering everything he had learned about dwarves in his classes. He also knew the dwarf’s relatively short red beard meant he was likely pretty young but still old enough to have unlocked his Subject and advance to tier one. As far as Duncan knew, Dwarven men weren’t supposed to start growing out their beards until they had a Subject.
“Hey, lad. How long have I been here?” It took a few moments of silence for Duncan to look up and realize the dwarf was staring right at him.
“I couldn’t tell you. I woke up not too long ago from a rough night of my own.”
“Ahhhhh. I see.” The grin on his face made Duncan think he had gotten the wrong idea. “I was out drinking last night too. I was celebrating with my brothers. I bonded a new Slip yesterday, you see. This one gave me just the ability I was looking for.” The dwarf continued on for minutes, explaining his life as a mason’s apprentice and how much better his stonework would be with his latest ability.
“Ya see, whenever I worked with multiple blocks of stone, there was a clear divide between each piece. But now, I can fuse them together, so there’s no way of knowing they weren’t just one piece to begin with.” The dwarf was… enthusiastic. Duncan was so caught up in the man’s joy for his work that he almost missed the arrival of a small group outside their cell.
“All right, how many of these are eligible for use in the Choosing?” the leading woman asked. She was tall, almost as tall as Duncan, if he had to guess. The clipboard in her hands and the scholarly-looking robes she wore made her look very out of place in the prison surrounded by prison guards.
“Four of them are already cleared and identified, ma’am: the two elves, the bearkin, and the dwarf.”
Before the lizardkin guard, likely the prison warden, could continue, the dwarf Duncan had been talking with almost exploded with panic.
“What? The Choosing! You can’t make me fight those maniacs. Only serious criminals are forced into the Choosing.”
As soon as the Dwarf began protesting, the scholarly woman started leafing through the papers on her clipboard. “Let’s see here. Here we are. Mister Tork Borell. It says here that you have been brought in three times over the past 45 days for drunken misconduct. In this latest offense, you caused more costly property damages. It seems the frequency of your infractions and the nature of the damages you caused last night escalated your status to… what did you call it? A serious criminal.”
There was no mercy in the woman’s voice. Every word she said saw Tork, apparently that was the dwarf’s name, sinking further and further towards the ground. By the end of her explanation, he was trembling on the floor, completely silent.
“Is that all, warden?” the woman continued.
“No, ma’am. The human boy. Some Towin family guards brought him in late last night, so we still need to complete a compendium scroll identification. He was found sneaking through the Towin estate late last night. As you can see, he’s wearing a military uniform that some of the Towin family’s realm delivers said resembles Corvelin military attire. He’s charged with trespassing and espionage, so he’s eligible for the Choosing as long as nothing weird comes up in the identification.”
‘Uh oh.’ That didn’t sound good.