“Blasphemer!” One of the training cultists shouted as he stretched his arm out to point at my junk. “He dares show off that in front of the house of our God?”
The courtyard exploded into jeers and insults as I stood, opened robed, before them. I glanced around, I needed to do something and fast.
My original plan had revolved mostly around stealth but that wasn’t an option now. I’d have to think on my feet.
I took off running towards the right-hand side of the courtyard. That part of the plan hadn’t changed. Facing three guards would be easier than facing ten, it was basic maths.
The difficulty now was that I was on a timer. The guys on the left would reach me in less than a minute once they realised what I was doing. I needed to be quick.
I rushed down the stairs to the right. The door had been situated on a platform that stood about six feet higher than the courtyard itself. It had a small stone railing separating it from the courtyard proper but it was only waist height and it was easy to see through.
There were steps to the left and right which swung around in a half circle and were symmetrical to each other. The whole area kind of reminded me of a drug lord’s compound in the tropics.
I rushed down the stairs to the jeers of the cultists as they stood throwing insults at me. I reached the first cultist who dropped his box to the ground as a semi-naked man wearing a cock sock rushed towards him brandishing a dagger.
That would be the last thing he saw as I slashed at his throat, tearing out his jugular. Gristle and blood sprayed out of the man’s throat, showering me in his blood. I must have made for a terrifying sight after that.
He dropped to the floor as I waved away the notification that popped up. I didn’t stop moving, dashing for the next box carrier.
He had enough time to react to me, seeing his friend get slaughtered first. He threw his box at me and I turned to the side to doge it. I was too slow and it grazed my shoulder, knocking me slightly off balance as I continued towards the man.
As I arrive within striking distance he squatted down slightly and dived towards me in a tackle. The two of us crashed to the ground, his arms wrapped around my waist as he held me down.
He was on top of me, but I had a weapon and he was unarmed. Without thinking I slammed the dagger into the top of his skull with all my strength. His body went limp and I rolled him off me. I went to pull the dagger out but it was stuck.
I placed my feet on his shoulders, still laying on the ground and heaved. The dagger resisted at first and then slipped free, sending me tumbling back as yet more blood sprayed onto me.
Gasping, I sat up and shook my head. The dagger had a chunk of brain stuck to it but I didn’t have time to pull it off. I needed to get up.
As I pulled myself shakily from the ground I heard shouting and looked over my shoulder.
To my horror the ten men who had been training with weapons were running towards me at full pelt. The fastest had already reached the fountain. They’d be here in seconds.
Before I could make my next move I felt a rush of wind as another box sailed past me, missing my head by inches. I turned to see the third and final box carrier glaring at me and shouting.
I couldn’t make out what he was saying above the shouting from the armed cultists behind me, but he was red in the face and he looked pretty angry. I summoned my dagger back into my inventory and replaced it with my bow and a hair.
I raised the bow at the shouting man who went wide eyed for a moment before charging at me. He wasn’t fast enough. I pulled the string back and released a hair which hit him the eye. I didn’t get a notification so he wasn’t dead yet.
He screamed and clutched at his bleeding eye with both hands as he doubled up. I took the opportunity to fire another hair which hit him in the head. He dropped to the floor and the notification came.
It wasn’t lost on me that my newfound accuracy was entirely due to the Novice Bowman skill I’d picked up earlier. The last time I’d used a bow I struggled to hit anything I actually aimed for, but this time it was as if my body moved on its own.
I also seemed to shoot faster than before. Not inhumanly fast or anything, but I felt like a trained, medieval archer and that was no small feat. Especially considering the ability came from a single, seemingly lacklustre skill.
As the third man dropped I turned back towards the charging cultists. They were scarily close. I did the only thing I could think of and began firing Loconut’s hairs at them. I hit a few of them but received no new notifications. I missed a few shots as well as I was firing as rapidly as I could.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Kaleb!” Panda shouted.
I hadn’t thought about him once since the fight started. I hadn’t seen him following me so I didn’t actually know where he was. I looked around and he shouted my name again. He was standing next to the truck and waving.
The truck! Of course! I thought, like it was a sudden lightbulb moment.
I put my bow back in my inventory, turned and sprinted towards the truck. When Panda saw that I was heading towards him he jumped up and grabbed the door with his paw, wrenching it open.
I reached him and threw him inside as I dived through the open door, reaching back to slam it shut. I was in the driver’s side, apparently the driver sat on the left of the truck in this world.
That was a little off putting as we sat on the right side of the vehicle back in England. Not that it really mattered right now.
I began fumbling around for a stop/start button or a key ignition but I couldn’t find one.
“What are you doing! Get us out of here.” Panda yelled as he stood on the passenger seat next to me.
“I can’t get it to start.” I yelled back.
“It’s a magic transport, you need to inject your mana into it. Theres an interface above you, grab it and put it on your arm.”
I looked up and saw a device that reminded me of a blood pressure machine. It was a piece of rubber that looked just big enough to squeeze my arm through and it was attached to a long, see through pipe that disappeared into the dashboard.
“I don’t have any mana!” I yelled back.
“What do you mean you don’t have any mana?” Panda shouted back in a horrified voice, his eyes widening as he looked out of the driver side window to the side of me.
I followed his gaze just as the first cultist got into striking distance. He shoved his sword through the window as glass shattered and fell all around me. I moved backwards just in time and his blade missed me by a hair.
That was close, I thought as I grabbed the hilt of the blade and tried to wrestle it out his hands.
He was stronger than me so it didn’t work, but it stopped him from trying to stab me for a second.
With me free hand I reached up and grabbed the magic blood pressure machine and threw it at Panda.
“You use it and I’ll drive.” I said through gritted teeth as I continued to struggle against the strength of the cultist.
Without a word Panda slipped the armband on and it shrank down to fit snuggly around his arm. White energy began flowing through the tube and into the dashboard and I heard a familiar rumble as the engine roared into life.
Still holding onto the hilt of the sword, I pressed the accelerator pedal with my foot and set off, ripping the sword from the confused cultist’s hands.
I cheered and dropped the sword onto my lap as I grabbed the wheel and turned it violently towards the gate.
“How do you know how to drive this thing if you can’t use mana?” Panda shouted from beside me.
“I used to drive for living. Just call me truck-kun cause I’m about to send these fuckers to another world!” I said as I aimed the front of the truck squarely at the armoured cultist blocking the gate.
The armoured cultist looked at me wide eyed as he steadied his spear. There was no way it was going to save him and we both knew it. I swear I saw him mouth the words “oh shit” as I ploughed straight through him.
I felt a slight bump as the vehicle ran over him, first with the front tyres, then the back and I received multiple notifications though I waved them away before I could see what they were.
I drove straight into the iron gate and with a god-awful creak, followed by a crash, it gave way. I continued driving at full speed down the dirt road in front of me.
The road’s surface offered no traction and we slid more than we drove, but I needed to put some distance between us and the cultists that were chasing after us in the wing mirrors.
They’d never catch up to a moving vehicle back on earth, but we weren’t on earth and I didn’t want to take that chance. My HP had taken quite a beating in the fight, dropping down to 28/36. It wasn’t dire, but considering I’d only really been tackled and hit with a box it meant that the cultists were strong.
As we drove, Panda seemed to calm down, though he panted like he’d just run a marathon.
“Are you ok?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the twisting dirt road.
“I’m good but my mana’s running low. Should be able to last another ten minutes or so though and that should give us the distance we need to make sure we’ve lost them.” He replied through laboured breaths.
“Thanks Panda, you really saved my ass back there.”
“Yeah well, if you die, I go back to the waiting room and its boring as fuck in there.” He shot me a grin which I just caught out of the corner of my eye.
“What’s the waiting room?” I asked, mostly trying to keep his mind off the mana-sucker 3000 he had attached to his arm.
“It’s a kind of purgatory where familiars sit around waiting for a summoner to materialise them into reality. It’s a boring place, like waiting for a doctor’s appointment, but for hundreds of years.”
“So like waiting for a doctor’s appointment.” I replied dryly.
It sounded awful. I almost felt bad for the little guy if that was what his life had been before I summoned him.
“Also, I’ve been thinking.” He continued, still sounding worse for wear. “I get why you summoned me now. I thought it was strange for someone so weak to be able to summon a daemon but it makes sense if you have no mana.”
“I just figured that summoning circle was supposed to summon you.” I replied absently as I kept my concentration on the road.
“That wasn’t a summoning circle, it was a geometric focuser. You can use them to amplify whatever you want to really. Alchemists use them as a place to brew their potions and stuff because it makes the results more powerful.
“Thing is, because you have no mana, when you stepped into it you became a catalyst, setting it off. Nonmagical items are used in geometric focusers to, well, focus them. So it focused on the only thing a guy with no magic could do. Summon a non-combatant familiar.
“You’re lucky really, if you’d have had mana you probably would have ended up with a Loconut for your summon. Either that or it would have exploded. You’re a lucky guy, you know that?” He laughed, though it sounded more like a chesty cough.
“My juice is running dry kid. See if you can clear the treeline before we have to stop.”
I did as he said and as the truck slowed down to a trundling halt, we cleared the last line of palm trees and I got my first glimpse of a city in another world.