Prologue
Dael’ghun the Acute, Junior Archivist of the Collection of Minds, idly reached out for one of the twelve Scribestones trailing by his side with a long, sinuous secondary limb. It was not an action that was strictly necessary – if he so wished, he could activate it with but a melding of his mind with the spirit of the Scribestone, but the mundane nature of the action had long since become part of the procedure he had adopted for his academic pursuits.
“Tenth day of the Onyx month, thirty-two years post-descent into Pellan, ten hours and fifty-two minutes. Following note is taken by Junior Archivist Dael’ghun,” he said, glancing over at the Timekeeper hovering just ahead of him. “Baseline Arcana saturation nought-point-one-three Ferrins per standardised unit volume, corrected for spatial distortions. Calculations and present modelling of reverse-engineered spell of summoning suggest minimal risk of adverse arcane reactions. Following the previous consultation with the Circle of Librarians, we have been granted permission to continue with the intended summoning. Archivists in attendance are –“
“Talk, talk, talk!” Beside him, Coragh the Fervent interrupted him mid-recording of his research notes. “Get on with it! Magic awaits us!”
Annoyed, Dael’ghun glanced at his colleague, clicking his tongue in annoyance. “Archivists in attendance are myself – Junior Archivist Dael’ghun – and Archivist Coragh. The following research is conducted in the Fifth Institute, kindly gifted to us by our collaborators. I shall state for the record that the intended purpose of the present project is to screen for hitherto undiscovered magics to our kind.
“To recap the salient points of log forty-eight, while the spell of summoning originally developed by local inhabitants of Pellan have proved fruitful to our purposes in past decades, our inability to perfectly replicate the spell have thus far resulted in lower than expected Arcana quantity among summoned subjects. This experiment aims to characterise the profiles of research subjects following modifications listed and discussed in log forty-seven, graded according to the Standard Arcane Index. If subjects display any novel magical phenomena, further experiments shall be carried out to investigate the underlying mechanisms.”
With that, he tapped against the side of the Scribestone. Its blue glow dimmed, sealing his recorded words into the very nature of its construction, ready to be called upon for future reference.
“Finally!” Coragh huffed, annoyed. The motion caused his messy face-tentacles to sweep out as a wave. “Must you always record your notes in such infuriating detail, Junior Archivist?”
Once more, Dael’ghun was reminded of why he did not particular like his colleague and senior. His moniker of the Fervent was granted to him as a subtle insult – zealous passion was not an ideal of their kind. Though he had been assigned to the Fifth Institute for only four months thus far in apprenticeship to his senior, he did not agree with many of Coragh’s methods. He was brash, disorganised, and careless with his research subjects, and that did not make for good scientific inquiry.
Despite that, Coragh had brought in plenty of research material to the Collection of Minds since their kind discovered not only that Pellan existed, but that other Planes were likewise connected with it. In pure volume, Coragh’s work exceeded even that of their peers who had arrived before them and struck their present negotiations with their collaborators. There was even talk that he was being considered for promotion into the Senior Council. It was why Dael’ghun had applied for an apprenticeship at the Institute that Coragh headed, against the advice of Archivists far wiser than himself who knew of him by more than reputation alone.
Still, he could not argue with the results. For all his dubious attention to fine detail and poor treatment of research subjects that could interfere with measurements and experimental protocol, Coragh continued to push forth discovery after discovery. It was why Dael’ghun still continued his stint as apprentice, hoping to make a discovery of his own that would advance his position among their kind.
“If you are done with your prattling, Junior Archivist, I will begin the summoning.”
Deciding it was wiser to show deference, Dael’ghun nodded, and moved to stand a fair distance away in the corner of the prepared chamber. On the floor were crushed gemstones and arcane matrices arrayed out as had been described by Senior Archivist Zeronar in his seminal work that changed their kind’s favoured method of inquiry into exotic magics. With his single discovery that successfully reverse-engineered the summoning spell originally used by local inhabitants to pull their so-called Heroes in defence against the Demons – now the Archivists’ collaborators – Archivist Zeronar had been doubly promoted to both Senior Archivist, and to his current position as Head of the Pellan Inquisition.
Secondary appendages stretched out from Coragh’s back, reaching out and adjusting the necessary reagents into their intended positions. His two main arms glowed with silver light, faint streams connecting them to the Keystone vertices of the ritual’s matrix. They were placed in two rows of three, that would be the sites where their research subjects would be summoned and caged into.
He had to give the locals credit – for creatures with such a primitive understanding of magic, they had devised a singularly complex masterpiece of spatial magic that still eluded their brightest minds. Though this was now the third summoning he witnessed, Dael’ghun couldn’t help but be impressed at the sheer brilliance of it all. Hovering in the air beside him, kept aloft by both his own spellwork and their innate power, arcanometers, leygauges, spatial crystals and other assorted equipment were taking active measurements as the magic of the spell saturated the air.
The light that marked the spell reached its zenith, and Coragh visibly strained from the weight of the spell crushing upon mind and body, his retracted secondary limbs pulsating involuntarily. Then, with a final flash of light, alongside a resounding boom that sent Dael’ghun’s instruments into a frenzy, the spell reached its completion.
When the light faded, sitting at each of the six core vertices of the spell’s matrix were now their newest research subjects. Disoriented, they did not immediately react to their new circumstances as force-cages sprang to life around them.
He took stock of their latest haul, and couldn’t help but be disappointed. Five of the subjects were humans – Pala renari, as their taxonomical name went. The reverse-engineered spell was imperfect, and backfired more often than the variant employed by the locals. In the previous summoning he had been witness to, all six of the summoned subjects had been humans pulled from all corners of Pellan with only the slightest magical ability, and discarded as subjects of interest into the labour for continued running of Fifth Institute.
Still, the last one might be of some academic curiosity, seeing as he appeared to be a Krynian. They were a race previously summoned to Pellan by the humans eons ago that had since settled into their courts, but their magics were still poorly understood by Archivists. Unfortunately, given by the widening of the greedy smile on Coragh’s face that exposed his secondary teeth – an unseemly sight for an Archivist – it was unlikely that Dael’ghun would be given the privilege of investigating the Krynian’s magic himself.
By now, the humans were quickly recovering, and orienting themselves to their plight. One of their number blanched almost immediately upon seeing Coragh towering at the boundary of the force-cages holding them in, and another was banging against the walls of the invisible construct of force. A third was whimpering pitifully, his body hunched over as he pled to his Gods for aid.
“No… No! Divines protect me, Alaron save me, Braetor grant me strength…”
Their kind had earned a poor reputation among the local denizens, ever since the locals discovered just what had been transpiring since their arrival into Pellan after the raid on the Third Institute. It did not take long to connect the dots between the disappearances occurring all across Pellan, to the accounts of survivors recovered from Third Institute that fleeing Archivists had not been able to take with them in their haste to evacuate.
Though Coragh would have been perfectly content with basking in the terror of their newest subjects, Dael’ghun shared no such interest. Heightening feelings of dread tended to affect experimental consistency, and that did not make for good arcane inquiry. Besides, he did not want to waste more time than he already had. With one snaking tendril reaching out from his back, he activated his Scribestone once more, the others placing his array of measuring instruments at the ready.
“Tenth day of the Onyx month, thirty-two years post-descent into Pellan, ten hours and fifty-nine minutes.” The moment Dael’ghun spoke, the man ceased his frantic prayers, looking over at Dael’ghun with wild eyes, likely having not noticed him observing from the corner of the room. “Modified summoning successfully performed. Six subjects recovered. On initial examination, five are noted to be of the species Pala renari, and one Krynia cestora. Continuing from existing index of subjects, they shall henceforth be assigned as Subjects 103 to 108 on Fifth Institute’s roster. I will now begin recording the necessary arcane parameters for calculation of the Standard Index.”
With that, he approached the first of the cages. At the other end of the room, Coragh had already started poking and prodding at the Krynian long before Dael’ghun finished amending his research log, taking all manner of measurements with no regard for the subject’s well-being.
“Subject 103 is a male member of the Pala renari species, age estimated to be in the early twenties of his kind.” He glanced at the arcanometer, and nearly sighed in annoyance and disappointment. “Arcana quantity of… three point two Ferrins.”
Low, even for a member of their species, similar to what an early adolescent might possess. Still, Dael’ghun would keep to protocol, and work his way down his list of measurements before moving on to the next captured subject. Such was the rigour demanded of any who pursued Magic, the greatest of the sciences.
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Chapter 1: Of Mice and Men
“... and therefore, these creatures that call themselves Archivists must be seen as a threat equal to that of the Demons.”
-x-x-x-
One moment, I was at my bench reluctantly putting down my phone, grumbling as I slipped on my lab coat. My lab timer had beeped, indicating that the incubation period for staining my cells for flow cytometry was finished.
The next, I felt myself being squeezed through a narrow tube, my world spinning in all manner of incomprehensible ways as I was simultaneously stretched and compressed. Colours danced in my vision, and in that moment, it took all that I had to keep myself from regurgitating the contents of my lunch.
That odd sensation settled down quickly enough, to the mild discomfort akin to that of a bumpy train ride. I tried to pinch myself, as cliché as it sounded, to wake myself up from what was starting to look like a nasty nightmare or a horrible hallucination, never mind the fact that I had never experienced those before. Unfortunately for me, whatever it was that was happening to me also prevented me from exercising any conscious control over my body.
In that time, as I drifted – well, drifted was probably the wrong word to describe this strange sensation of not-travel, but I had no better alternative – my mind began to wander. If this was no dream or hallucination, then what was it?
As improbable – no, as impossible as it sounded, I thought back to just what I’d been watching on my phone in the comfortable thirty-minute incubation period that fit perfectly well with a single episode of an anime series. If anyone ever doubted the existence of a God, surely such a coincidence was proof that one watched over us.
Yes, I was an isekai fan.
Though the vast overwhelming majority of them followed the exact same plot beats, the genre had fully captured my imagination. The ideas of escapism and of living a life in a different world with drastically different cultures, beliefs, rules, and inhabitants appealed to me. No more would I be slave to the woes of tissue culture! Gone shall be the days of fearing contamination of my samples at every step! In an isekai world, I would not need to chase that elusive Cell, Nature, or Science publication! My nightmares would no longer be filled with the fears of forgetting to close the minus eighty freezer and losing all the lab’s stored samples!
If this were an isekai, even if Truck-kun wasn’t the one to transport me, or if I didn’t step through a doorway to Narnia, or Dorothy’s tornado hadn’t swept me to the Land of Oz, where would I end up? I could already imagine it – standing in front of an ornate golden throne, looking around with mock confusion as a king’s court petitioned for my aid in ridding their lands of evil. Perhaps it would be the other variant of the genre, where I would find myself some manner of benevolent monster, blessed with overpowered skills that would let me stand firm against antagonistic humans. Either way, such a power fantasy turned real would be a welcome change from the monotony that was my life.
I could hear them already. ‘We plead for your aid, O’ Hero!’ I smiled in anticipation –
And then promptly fell into a heap, as my world spun and lurched violently, and I collided painfully against what must have been a brick wall. My vision was filled with an intense light, as though staring into the sun itself, and a resounding boom deafened my ears. Stunned, I didn’t even swear as I might have done in any other situation, trying to make sense of just what was going on while my eyes adjusted to a sudden flare of brightness. Most of the isekai or portal fantasy series that I’d watched or read never mentioned how horrible the transition to another world felt.
Assuming this was still an isekai, of course. I was starting to lean closer toward horrible lab work-fuelled nightmare caused by lack of sleep, since rather than an overwhelming sense of power that a protagonist might be conferred, I just felt entirely like shit.
It was only when my vision cleared, and the ringing sound in my ears died down, that I finally regained my wits to take in my current situation. “Damn,” I cursed silently, glancing around. “What – “
The words died on my lips almost instantly, as I looked to see just what wall I’d collided against. It was, in fact, not a wall the likes of any I knew. Instead, just in front of me was a thin, translucent sheen of blue, that looked like a force-field from any one of a number of sci-fi universes. Star Wars, Star Trek; take your pick.
And there, on the other side of the barrier, was another man, curled up into a foetal position, muttering frantically under his breath.
“… Divines protect me, Alaron save me, Braetor grant me strength…”
What?
Behind him, I saw yet another person within a force-field enclosure, banging his fists against the wall. Though his body was wrecked by exertion, yelling and screaming, the barrier hardly caved. He charged against the barrier – a foolhardy attempt at escape – and was flung back against the opposite end, falling to the ground in a heap. At the other end of the room were three more of each enclosures, each with one individual in them.
As I turned, I didn’t know what shocked me more – the lithe, pointy-eared male that looked like a stereotypical depiction of a Tolkien-esque elf, or the honest-to-God Lovecraftian Cthulu-born Mind Flayer-like horror looming menacingly before his cage, tentacles sweeping out in a wild mess from the corners of his face, alongside what looked like dozens of smaller tentacles stemming out from his back?
And cage was the right word to use, as realisation dawned that this was indeed an isekai, but not the likes that I so enjoyed spending my time on. This was more akin to the beginnings of Baldur’s Gate II, or, heck, even Skyrim. What kind of shitty isekai was this?
And as my throbbing in my head both physical and mental told me, my present predicament was very, very real.
“Tenth day of the Onyx month, thirty-two years post-descent into Pellan, ten hours and fifty-nine minutes.”
Immediately, I whirled around, facing the other Lovecraftian horror that I hadn’t noticed in the corner of the room, as caught up as I had been by the many other oddities and threats to my immediate well-being. This eldritch terror, unlike the first, projected a refined air – well, as much as one could expect from a creature conjured of the worst of nightmares. In place of a finely trimmed beard, a few tentacles lung loosely, but didn’t dangle as a wild mane as the other one did. Even the long, snaking tendrils coming from its back that wrapped around all manner of paraphernalia inspired less of an ‘I’m-gonna-gut-and-eat-you’ feeling and more of a ‘Hmm, I wonder how long a human brain can survive without blood?’ impression.
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A stone that glowed a soft blue hovered in mid-air, trailing by my captor’s side as it – he? – advanced closer. He continued speaking, his tone rich and smooth, and yet paradoxically mixed with a grating harshness and deepness between words.
“Modified summoning successfully performed. Six subjects recovered. On initial examination, five are noted to be of the species Pala renari, and one Krynia cestora. Continuing from existing index of subjects, they shall henceforth be assigned as Subjects 103 to 108 on Fifth Institute’s roster. I will now begin recording the necessary arcane parameters for calculation of the Standard Index.”
I did not know the meaning of some of those words, or the context they were spoken in, but I got the gist of it. The manner of his speech, and the tone of his voice told me volumes.
Sometimes, in my head, when I got really bored with my experiments, I took on the same tone. I was not the type to document all my protocols and results in a physical lab book, or to list every observation in excruciating detail, but I recognised that same morbid curiosity all the same.
This nightmare fuel was a bloody scientist, and I was a mouse in its cage. Worse, if I understood him correctly, ‘arcane parameters’ could only mean one thing. This creature researched magic.
If the stone was hovering in the air, without any visible mechanism keeping it aloft, surely that was proof that magic existed? It wouldn’t be out of place, if I had truly been transported to another world.
While the thought sounded preposterous in my head, the reality of my situation told me otherwise. In the other cage, the elf-like man yelped in pain, as the other captor jammed what looked like an oversized hand-mirror against his chest with one long tendril.
I didn’t have time to pay any more attention to him, though, because I was at the mercy of the other horror in the room. “Subject 103 is a male member of the Pala renari species, age estimated to be in the early twenties of his kind.”
A tendril stretched past the force-field, seamlessly moving through it without resistance. It was wrapped around something I couldn’t even begin to describe – a square object, that glowed a faint yellow? Strange symbols and sigils dancing in the air beside it? It hovered just an inch from my chest, and as its face loomed closer – tentacles and all – I froze up. The thought of resistance died as soon as it formed.
On the other end of the room, the other horror somehow levitated all three of his cages, levitating a full metre above ground as they entered another room, screams and shouts following in their wake.
Oh, God. How was this even happening? Why was it even happening? Why me?
This was not how travel to another world was supposed to be like!
Then, a jolt of something passed through me; an indescribable sensation. Put to words, the best I could do was to imagine a sting of electricity through my chest, except it didn’t feel physical, which made no sense at all. The inability to accurately describe and quantise it did not sit right with me. On the device that reached toward me, the needle that wouldn’t look out of place on the face of a bathroom scale moved a pathetic distance.
“Arcana quantity of… three point two Ferrins.” The creature sounded almost disappointed at that. That sounded painfully low, and one traitorous part of my mind that somehow saw humour in the middle of my growing hysteria protested at the lack of any special gifted ability. “I note for the record that Subject 103 is alert and responsive to light and sound. He does not appear to recognise the arcanometer, but displays piloerection and pupil dilatation in agreement with an acute stress response for the Pala renari species.”
The hell?
Why was he speaking like I couldn’t hear and understand every word he said?
“A- Arcanometer?”
“Subject 103 has repeated the term ‘arcanometer’,” my captor continued on smoothly, retreating said object back to his side. Another long extension whipped out, wrapped against yet another unfamiliar instrument. This time, it was cubic in shape, disassembling into smaller cubes that rotated of their own accord. “I will now begin Leygauge recordings of Planar Connection. Leygauge reading shows…“
The cubes circled around me, spinning in a tightening orbit. They cycled through a dozen colours, then abruptly, took on a pitch-black shade.
Where my captor had previously been methodical – if bored, going through standard protocol for its own sake – he suddenly hissed, the separated parts of the disassembled cube falling lifelessly to the ground with a series clatter. He leaned in closer, face hanging just past the boundary of the force-field, but there was a gleam of something in his blackened eyes devoid of white sclera.
“…Leygauge reading shows that Subject 103 does not originate from Pellan. Plane of origin is undefined, with no known Type-1 Connection detectable by instrument’s calibrations.” Two tendrils reached over from his back, holding yet more instruments that studied magic, of all things. “I will now –“
“H-hold up!” I finally blurted out. “Who are you? What is this? And what –“ I inhaled deeply, staring at my captor in his face, trying to muster up all the confusion, frustration, and false bravado I could, but that did nothing to mask the overwhelming terror beginning to build up. “Just what is all this? Why am I here?”
In the cage beside mine, the cowering human looked over for an instant, eyes wide. The other human in the cage adjacent to his was still unconscious, after having headbutted an invisible force-field as though doing so might have prevailed where fists hadn’t. My captor paused, and seemed to be surprised – if a sudden flaring of its face-tentacles conveyed that emotion. “You… understand me, human?”
What sort of game was he playing at? “Of course I understand English,” I said, annoyance fighting against fear. “Arcanometer? Leygauge? You’re – what, a scientist? Researching the nature of magic? Magic is real?” And boy, did I never think I would ever say that out loud. “And what even is a Ferrin? What is Pellan? The hell is a Pala renari?”
And then, as an afterthought amidst the string of unfamiliar topics that I had since been privy to in the last minute or so, I said, “And, uh, my name’s Theodore, not Subject 103.”
“Y-you understand it?” the captive man in the adjacent cage spoke, pressing his face against the barrier. His eyes darted toward the tentacle horror for a moment, before glancing at me almost in the same action. “How?! What does it want? Please! Let me go home! I… I’ve got a family! Tell them to have mercy!”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, confused and annoyed more than immediately fearful. “You’re also speaking English!”
“Quite the contrary, actually.” Back at the front of my cage – not that an enclosure bounded by a featureless force-field even had distinguishable sides – my captor spoke, a tinge of curiosity in his deep voice. “You are both speaking Pellanian Standard. Curious, then, Subject 103, that you can understand the Scribe’s Tongue, even if you seem unable to speak it.”
Beside me, the man cowered to the furthest end of his cage, as though our captor had declared that he would eat his brain and turn him into a lifeless thrall that would murder his own family. There was an inconsistency there that didn’t quite click.
“The Scribe’s Tongue?”
“The language of the Archivists,” he continued, then glanced at the glowing stone hovering by his side. “Let it state for the record that this conversation is being held between myself – Archivist Dael’ghun – and Subject 103, who assigns ‘Theodore’ as his chosen nomenclature of self-reference.” He looked back at me, taking another step forward that elicited a whimper from the man in the adjacent cage. “But do you still understand me now, human?”
The man beside me gasped. “By the Gods…”
I nodded slowly, starting to piece together what was happening from the many contextual clues. It must have switched languages to English – Pellanian Standard, he called it – if the other human could understand it, but I registered no such change at all.
“Intriguing,” he muttered. “I note for this research log that Subject 103 has nodded, an action that has previously been documented as conveying assent. And to confirm, Subject 103, you have perceived all communications thus far as being carried out in your native language you call ‘English’?”
This was my special isekai power? Being able to understand the language of my captor as he comments on all sorts of morbid experiments that he might want to perform on me? Was the only consolation that I didn’t subject myself to whatever its actual language sounded like, that was sending the man beside me into a bawling mess?
How was this fair?
“I have asked you a question, Subject 103.”
Startled, I nodded quickly.
“Subject 103 has once more nodded. At present, I am uncertain as to how he understands the Scribe’s Tongue despite visibly appearing as a member of the Pala renari. Given that the leygauge readings suggest his origin to be a realm separate from Pellan, I theorise that the spell of summoning has artificially bridged a secondary Type-2 Connection to all immediately present at the site of Experiment 11a upon forced interplanar transit, a possibility discussed in Archivist Zeronar’s original scribework, section 4c, and expanded upon by Archivist Jonari’s later review on the subject. Am I to understand that you, indeed, do not originate from the realm of Pellan?”
Again, I nodded. My captor – an Archivist by the name of Dael’ghun, as I understood it – stretched his tendrils out, rearranging the array of equipment that he had by his side. They had magic down to a science; taxonomy, units of measurement, models and theories had all come up in just a matter of the past few minutes.
“A Type-2 Connection?” I asked, once he finally finished what I now knew as an audio log, stored in the stone floating beside him… somehow.
“I ask the questions here, Subject 103. You will do well to remember that,” the Archivist reprimanded, and there was no mistaking the cold hint of warning to his tone. “Curiosity is an admirable quality, however. To address your question –“
“Please!” There was a loud bang of fist against formless energy, as the man beside me pelted against the incorporeal barrier. “PLEASE! Let me go! I – I’m just a nobody, I don’t have any fancy magic… please let me go! I – I have a family! D – don’t –”
“Subject 104.” Before I could even register the action, one of its tendrils from its back shot out, glowing an eerie purple. It pierced through the force-field, and wrapped around one of the man’s wrists, dangling him up in the air with a force that looked physically impossible for an appendage that thin. “You will speak only when spoken to.”
He hung him in the air for a moment, before tossing him against a corner of his cage. Disregarding him entirely, the Archivist returned his attention back to me. “As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted, a Type-2 Connection is classified as a Connection between the Arcana of two sentient, living beings. A Type-1 Connection, in contrast, refers to the Connection between the Arcana of a sentient being with Planar Arcana. Humour me, human. What do you posit to explain your ability to understand the Scribe’s Tongue?”
What kind of a question was that?
Still, if this Mind Flayer lookalike was amiable enough to ask a question rather than devour my brains or whatever it was Archivists did to study magic, I’d rather stay on his good side. It was probably best for my immediate wellbeing that I think through his question seriously.
Planar Arcana. Planar Connection. I’d already heard that earlier, back when he was fiddling with the device he called a leyguage. I glanced over at what remained of it, shattered and useless inside my cage, where it had been discarded moments ago. With what information I already knew, and what the Archivist had voluntarily offered, I had a theory of my own.
“You’re saying that the leygauge couldn’t measure this Type-1 Connection because it is outside of calibration… meaning that what I have is either undefined by its standard, or that I completely lack this Planar Connection?” I hazarded a guess, cheating by mulling over what he had already mentioned in his own research logs. “So… because I lack a Type-1 Connection, this spell, uh, thing, that brought me here created a Type-2 Connection to fill the gaps, so to speak? To create, uh, an artificial pseudo-Type-1 Connection where that void is?”
Magic was nuts. I wished that this was all just some terrible dream, but I couldn’t deny that there was a morbid fascination in what I was being told, if only I wasn’t being subjected to a nightmarish tentacle-filled face.
“A pseudo-Type-1 Connection, you say?” the Archivist mused. “An interesting way to put it, and not strictly in adherence to established nomenclature in the field, but yes, the underlying idea is certainly a possibility, if unorthodox. Any more theories, Subject 103?”
More theories? I was already stretching it with the last one! As I stared into the face of horrors before me, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my many meetings with my doctoral supervisor, who tended to open each discussion of my project with that same question alongside with possible avenues of investigation until he was satisfied. Funny, that I was supposed to have been preparing for one after I ran my flow cytometry samples.
“Uh…”
I thought hard, mind racing. What did I even know so far? Two classifications of Connection – whatever Connection even was in the context of literal magic. It sounded important, though, and from the formal reverence he imparted into his words, I could practically hear the capital C in its name. There was an arcanometer, that measured Arcana, quantified in units of Ferrins. There was Pellan, that from context sounded like the name of this shitty isekai universe I ended up in.
Travel between realities or worlds had to involve massive expenditures of energy, magic or not. They tore a literal portal through space, time, and what other higher dimensions there were, and stretched, compressed, and performed various other transformations I wasn’t certain had even been described in mathematical terms that I’d been personally subject to. I remembered the loud boom, and the bright flash of light I had seen upon exiting from that endless tunnel.
And yes, now that I thought about it, I vaguely thought I saw the needle of the arcanometer swinging wildly on its scale, even disoriented as I had been.
Screw it, if he wanted theories, I would give him the wildest hypotheses I had, using what few buzzwords had already been thrown out.
“If Connection is critical for the usage of magic, is it possible that the Arcana left behind during the summoning procedure might, uhh, supercharge the environment here? And if my own Arcana quantity is that low… could it flow down a differential gradient somehow into me? Transform from a Type-1 Connection into a Type-2 one while inside me somehow, and latch onto everyone in its immediate vicinity?” Forget the fact that I knew nothing about the subject, and was completely talking out of my ass. “Or… could it use its own Type-1 Connection to everyone present here, and that then acted as a bridge resulting in the formation of a Type-2 Connection between myself and everyone else in this room?”
And did this connection work both ways? Was it directional, like a vector quantity? What even was Connection?
The Archivist had no brows, but the prominent supraorbital ridge on his face was raised nonetheless, an astonishingly (and frighteningly) human behaviour. “Linking with charged atmospheric Arcana in ambient air is classified as a Type-3 Connection; sentient-to-non-sentient linkage. Still, your proposed theory is astoundingly close to Archivist’s Zeronar’s proposal of Type 3-to-2 Connectional Transition in the absence of significant established Type-2 Connection according to the Empty Vessel Hypothesis, even if yours lacks substantial grounding and support with adequate rigour and calculation.”
Great. Now there was Connectional Transition too. Sure. Why not? I didn’t know what was worse – the fact that I was starting to accept and take note of these new terms as they cropped up, or that my first thought had drifted to epidermal-to-mesenchymal transition, tried to find any common ground in what I knew of biology, and came up with absolutely nothing.
The Archivist fixed me with an intent stare. “What is your background in the greatest of the sciences, Subject 103?”
I could have laughed. From the way he voiced the question, and the topic of our discussion thus far, I highly doubted he was talking about biology.
I considered my situation, and came up with three possible outcomes for myself in the near future. The first: somehow, I would be seen as an interesting research subject despite not knowing a lick about magic, and might be kept alive for the amusement alone. Second: whether through scientific mercy on his part or because I pissed him off enough, he saw fit to at least make my suffering minimal. Third: he dragged out my death slowly, with torture and/or continued suffering being set in my immediate future.
I was determined to stick to the first option, with the second being an alternative. I had to avoid the third as far as possible. How, then, to be interesting enough to be kept alive?
“If you’re talking about magic, none,” I said. “There is no such thing as magic on Earth.”
“Truly?” The Archivist poked and prodded me with more instruments. “For the record: spatial crystal reading is in agreement with leygauge measurements; Subject 103 originates from an undefined location across Herzanian magico-temporal space. Vector readings on synnometer record no measurable Type-3 Connections formed from Subject 103, or Type-4 Connections created by the Subject, although there is a nascent Type-1 Connection to Pellanian Planar Space being formed, despite earlier leygauge readings pointing to the contrary.”
Type-4 Connection as well. By extension of the classification for Type-2 and Type-3, that was probably a Connection between two non-sentient, magically charged objects.
How, then, did magic functionally fit into this framework? As far as I knew, I didn’t feel any different, and I had gained no sudden knowledge of how to fling fireballs or hurl lightning bolts.
“You are an oddity, Subject 103. Neither I, nor my betters in the Collection of Minds, have heard of a realm called Earth – or, indeed, of any realm with inhabitants ignorant of magic, and lacking Type-1 Connection entirely. Curious.”
Stepping back, apparently content with its measurements so far, Dael’ghun the Archivist appraised me with a critical eye that was dark as night. “While you are painfully devoid of any magic of interest at present, your circumstances as an Outsider to Pellan, your ability to understand the Scribe’s Tongue, and the uniqueness of your lack of magic mark you as a research subject of tentative interest. Be thankful to any Gods you worship that you were not among the lot Coragh took, for he would doubtlessly have culled you in your cage after a single quantification of your Arcana.”
Yup. I knew that feeling. I had engaged in it myself, culling mice to keep my colony numbers manageable – only now, I was experiencing first-hand just what it was like on the other end of the cage. Whatever I did next, I had to continue appealing to Dael’ghun’s interest.
“Remain in your cage, Subject 103. I shall ask further questions of you later, away from prying ears. Let it be stated on the record that Standard Index measurements of Subject 103 have concluded, and I am now continuing on to Subject 104.”
The man whimpered pitifully, having remained still and quiet after the Archivist’s warning. Finally, finally, I had time to sit down in my little cage, and think about how my entire love for the isekai genre had evaporated in a matter of minutes.
“Subject 104. Male member of the species Pala renari, Standard Taxonomical Index. Arcanometer reading of… nine-point-three Ferrins, average for an adult male of the species. Leygauge shows Type-1 Connection to Pellanian Planar Space, indicating that he is a local inhabitant of Pellan. Synnometer…”
9.3 Ferrins, compared to my 3.2. I had no idea if the chosen unit of measurement of Arcana followed a linear, logarithmic, curvilinear, biexponential, or some other bizarre scale. Dael’ghun continued recording his thoughts in his floating voice recorder in the form of a stone, while I paid half-hearted attention to his words and the context in which they were said.
I had no idea just how I’d been so handily scammed by all the isekai works I’d read, that my immediate association with travel to another world had been ‘power fantasy’ rather than the more likely ‘powerless fantasy’ I was currently facing. One thing for sure, though, was that if I wanted to survive here, I would need to quickly get a grasp on just what magic was, find a niche that fit well with my limited knowledge base as a graduate student in biology, a video game enthusiast, and general no-life otaku, and hope that I remained alive long enough to even begin to consider what my next steps were.
Sadly, biology had never once cropped up in our little discussion, I highly doubted Lovecraftian tentacle-filled Archivists wanted to discuss the finer points of video games, no magical floating blue boxes or menus appeared in my sight, and anime had all just been a giant lie that never prepared me for a scenario like this.
Yep. I was doomed.