What should one do when suddenly finding oneself in the middle of what that looks like a demonic summoning circle, surrounded by unconscious robed cultist-looking people?

Correct answers might include: running away, searching the room for clues, or just getting out of the circle. Leo chose a different option: sitting down in the middle of the circle, and spacing out while he tried to figure out what had just happened.

His last memory, according to the timeline his brain provided, was reading that strange book in the university library. It had been like he couldn't stop reading, but he also hadn't wanted to. What was that the book had said? "If you were chosen, it was for good reason"?

Leo had often felt trapped. He worked two jobs to cover the bills and college. His mother recently passed away, and none of his childhood friends lived near school. No girlfriend, except for an abortive three week fling. His few moments of respite were in the fantasy worlds of games and books. The rest was all work, no fun.

So he certainly would have chosen to escape that life if possible.

But had that life really been his? He had another memory, equal in force to the memory of his life but separate, as if his mind were split into two. He remembered being lost in the dark, for an eternity. It was like remembering being in a coma, or being dead. That memory ended with spending his own energies to approach the bright door, then the voice in the darkness.

He could still feel the strange energy of that dark place, and it was a feeling he'd never had in the other world. The "real" world. Now, he'd gained a sixth sense that applied only to something inside of himself. Or maybe not only inside, since there seemed to be something strange about the air here. He explored that sense, trying to figure it out. Was it more like physical feel? Like sight, or sound? Or none of the above?

One of the figures on the floor chose that moment to groan, snapping Leo out of his introspection. He also suddenly realized that he was entirely naked, and cold. Particularly where his bare skin met the floor.

He hastily got to his feet, unconsciously covering his exposed privates with his hands. Some things had to be hidden, in any world. Nether parts shielded, he quietly stepped over to examine the person who had made a noise.

The man seemed to still be out of it, his eyelids closed, but his muscles were tensed, as if he were about to wake up. He was wearing a heavy, deep green garment that was open in the front. A cloak? A robe? Beneath it was dark leather, and a belt carrying a variety of implements. He looked middle-aged but still in his prime, with a full head of thick hair and a tidy goatee.

A goatee. That was the facial hair of villains. The man also had deep weathering lines on his face, including the downward marks of a habitual scowl around his mouth.

Leo looked at the others around the circle to see if they matched that assessment. They were attired similarly to the older man, but most were his own age or younger. He didn't feel any danger from them. They looked normal, like anyone he'd see at school. Well, the two girls were prettier than average. But that was an improper thought to have while naked, cold and cupping his genitals, he decided.

He noticed something bright in his peripheral vision, and whipped his head around. It was just a bluish orb of light. Except it was hanging in the air with no support, moving in an agitated figure eight motion, and he could also "see" it with his new sixth sense.

Once he noticed the orb, it changed its pattern. First, it drifted closer to him, then it shot back toward the door. It then made a circling motion around the doorknob.

"Okay, pretty obvious," muttered Leo.

The intimidating man on the floor shifted with a groan. Leo suddenly felt like following the orb. It seemed likely that the man was part of this school the book had talked about, but the fringe possibility of becoming a sacrificial victim of a cult or a soul slave or some such motivated him to leave.

Before leaving, though, he needed... clothes. He stood in indecision for a moment. Should he strip down one of the young men? That would be pretty rude, if they were in fact innocent. Then he spotted the pile of packs and bags in one corner of the room. Theft. Still rude, but not so much as stripping an unconscious person for their clothes.

He grabbed a pack by its straps and hauled it up -- it was surprisingly heavy. Also, wearing a backpack while naked was even stranger than just being naked in a room full of strangers. He hastily opened the door, and slipped out into the hallway beyond.

It was empty, dark, and had a dry, musty smell. The door clicked shut behind him, and a moment later, the light emerged through it, throwing everything into sharp relief. He'd forgotten to let it out, but apparently that didn't matter. After moving back and forth in front of him to make sure it had his attention, the orb drifted off. Feeling alone, Leo hurried after it.

Ancient carpets ran down part of the hallway, thick with dust that puffed up with each step he took. Everything else was grey stone, except for the occasional empty, ramshackle display case or closed doorway. The orb took went around a corner, then another, and before long Leo lost all sense of direction.

Eventually, the hallway spilled out into a grand space. A enormous, corroded chandelier presided over a sweeping spiralled staircase that went both up and down from the level Leo was on. The orb curved down, almost seeming to slide along the bannister.

"Are we going to stop somewhere?" called out Leo, as he hurried after. The orb bobbed once, as if it had heard him.

At the bottom of the staircase, rubble from a smashed statue spilled out across the floor, and there was a distinct smell of something burnt. Leo also noticed a torn strip of distinctively green cloth among the rubble.

"Was there a fight? With those people? Between them and... who?"

But he had he had to focus on walking without getting rock splinters in his bare feet, while his teeth chattered from the cold. The other statues looming around the open space also creeped him out.

The orb went behind the staircase, to yet another hallway, this one with no windows and a bare stone floor. After that, Leo walked for a long time through a variety of passageways, wider halls, open chambers and rooms, none of which the orb gave him any time to examine.

Finally, the orb suddenly shifted to the right and disappeared through a closed door. That plunged the hall into nearly pitch blackness.

Leo stumbled to a halt, putting out a hand to make sure the wall was still there. Suddenly freed from following the orb, all his thoughts suddenly came crashing back into his head. What was he doing!? Had he gone insane? Where the hell was he? Were those people really dangerous? Was he--

The orb floated back through the door, bathing the area in a dim light again. It bobbed up and down impatiently. Leo sighed, moving forward to open the door.

-

Leo was still new to the idea of magic. He didn't know what he should expect from it, or what it could do.

But he hadn't expected it to break the physical laws of space. The chamber on the other side of the door seemed only notionally connected to the gloomy halls he'd been walking moments before.

Its walls were high and curved into a circle, with a domed ceiling hanging over it all, like a planetarium or church. No grim grey stone here; the walls gleamed dully, made of some pale material he didn't recognize.

But what caught his eyes were the evenly spaced windows around the entire expanse of the chamber, including one on either side of the door he'd just walked through. And on the other side of those windows--

There was no building. He'd turned to stare through one of those windows. The building he was in was perched atop a rocky, bare hillside. Other hills rose around it, and mountains in the distance. And above it all, the sky was a moody purple, unlike anything Leo had ever seen, except perhaps during a particularly vivid sunset.

Despite the windows being apparently open, the air in the chamber felt dead and stale, like the rest of the school. Leo raised his hand hesitantly, thinking of reaching out of the window. Was there an invisible barrier?

The orb bobbed impatiently, off to his side. He turned, looking into the rest of chamber. There were large seats like thrones, some metal construction --

But it occurred to him that he had a more pressing worry than any of his surroundings. "You'll have to wait," he told the orb.

Ignoring the light's bobbing motion, he dropped his pack on the floor, opened it, and began digging through its contents.

Leather water flasks, leaf-wrapped rations, a belt, a cloak. Leo almost put that on right away, but realized it had clasps that were supposed to attach to clothing. A dagger in a belt sheath. A long, thin rod that he wanted to think was a wand, but that split into two on its lower half. A rather unexceptional, grayish rock; he couldn't guess why that was there. Leaves in a brown leather pouch. A journal with some sort of pen held to its spine by a strip of leather, which he flipped open to reveal rough-hewn pages covered in writing he could understand. He read a few lines, but didn't comprehend what it was talking about. There wasn't time to really study it, so he set it aside with the rest.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

At the bottom of the bag, he hit the jackpot: a pile of clothing.

Which, it turned out, was made for someone smaller than himself, and very likely female. He realized that as he was hopping on one foot, shoving his foot into the leg of a pair of pants. In the end, he managed to get them on, albeit with the top unbuttoned. Only once he'd struggled into them did he realize there was also a pair of underwear. Thankfully, nothing skimpy, like the women's underwear he'd seen before. It looked a bit like primitive boxer shorts.

The orb was making back and forth motions between Leo and the center of the room, but he ignored it long enough to take off the pants, put on the underwear, and put the pants back on. Then the shirt, which was a voluminous, poofy-sleeved affair made out of something scratchy and rough. He covered the gap at the top of the pants by buckling the belt on and strapping the dagger to it, then figured out how to attach the cloak, threading a rope through a set of loops on the shirt.

In the end, he looked utterly ridiculous, but the added warmth was worth it. He stuffed everything back into the pack, then left it where it lay to follow the orb.

The chairs he'd noticed were indeed like thrones, rising directly out of the floor. There were eight, arrayed in a semicircle around the dully glittering sculpture of metal and crystal in the middle of the room.

As he got closer, he stared through the loops and bars of metal. And saw a person.

Or something that looked vaguely human, anyway. The hairless, grey-skinned thing was sitting in a chair inside the metal construction, as if it had never moved from that spot. Its face lacked ears, had slight indentations where eyes would normally be, and a pair of holes rather than a complete nose.

Leo hesitated outside of the outer loops of metal, peering through them. The glowing orb simply floated over to the creature, positioning itself above it before sinking down into the top of its head.

"So... that's you?" asked Leo. There was no response.

He'd already made his call to follow the light instead of staying with the unconscious people, he reflected. Ducking down, he made his way into the metal enclosure.

Once he was inside, the atmosphere changed subtly. After a moment, he realized that he could no longer see the room outside of the metal. It was as if they were inside a dark room, rather than one with windows and natural light.

The creature in its chair also looked subtly different. Closer up, the texture of its skin looked similar to stone. And it was very obviously not breathing.

Then the eye on its forehead opened.

Welcome to the testing chamber.

The voice resounded in his head.

Leo nearly fell over. He gripped the strip of metal behind himself, torn between whether to reply or run. After a moment, he realized that nothing unexpected had happened, besides the sort of magical weirdness that he should really be expecting. He just couldn't calm down fully, with adrenaline flooding his system and his heart trying to pound its way out of his chest.

Instead of replying immediately, he studied the creature. The eye looked painted onto the forehead, and hadn't opened so much as appeared. The voice in his head had also seemed oddly familiar, similar to the voice that had spoken to him in the darkness.

Was the creature even capable of moving? He fervently hoped not. He wasn't sure he could handle it if the thing suddenly got up.

He took a few more breaths to compose himself, straightening and letting go of the enclosure, before replying.

"Um, thanks."

The creature didn't reply.

"Nice to meet you?"

...

"Are you the orb? The light I've been following, I mean?"

Still nothing. The eye wasn't moving. It looked like it had always been there, in fact. Just part of a statue.

A testing chamber, it had said. Leo looked around. The inside of the metal structure was spherical -- in fact, he could see where the metal continued down into a slit in the floor. He'd mistakenly thought the interior surface of the metal was shiny, but on closer examination, he could see that it was coated in varying thicknesses of crystalline material. Tiny reflections of himself shone back from a hundred angles. Overall, the structure didn't remind him of much, except perhaps some medieval astrologer's tool.

He had no idea what to do. Which seemed like a reasonable thing to admit, actually.

"What does the chamber test for?"

The reply was immediate.

This is the testing chamber. You will be tested for basic magical aptitude. This is a standard test given to all new students at the School. There is nothing to fear.

For the first time, he realized that the thing was more or less speaking English, although it seemed to have an accent of sorts. Was that because it was 'speaking' directly into his brain? Or would the people he'd seen also speak English? And if so, why?

"How do you do the test?"

I will begin the test when you or your instructor state that you are ready. During the test, you will receive additional instructions.

Vague, but helpful enough. He still felt nervous, though.

"Who are you? Or, er, what are you?"

I am a golem of the School. There are many such as myself.

He'd heard of golems, of course. Usually from video games or novels. In older sources, it was an animated servant, usually made by Jewish rabbis and powered by a holy name written somewhere on its body. He dimly recalled a story about one called the Golem of Prague, that supposedly killed a Nazi.

It also reminded him of the robots you could talk to online, that seemed intelligent only as long as you said the right things. Scripted, basically.

Of course, the entire world seemed like some kind of weird simulation. Had he somehow ended up in a game world? Was he just a lab rat in some impossibly advanced virtual reality?

On the other hand, was he accomplishing something useful by getting introspective, or was he just wasting time and avoiding starting? Those people might be looking for him.

"Okay, I'm ready," he said.

The golem didn't reply, but there was a deep click heard from underneath the orb. The metal strips began to move, rotating around an invisible hub. Several screeches rang out, like squeeky car brakes, before the sound of the machine moving settled to a loud hum.

He watched, not sure what was going on. His reflection danced across the crystaline interior of the strips of metal. As the machine sped up, the atmosphere suddenly shifted. Sound and light both seemed to change subtly. The closest sensation he could think of was being underwater.

You will now channel mana.

"Uh... how?"

You may find it easiest to use your hands. Direct mana into an area between your hands, like an orb.

What he'd meant was, how did one channel or release mana? Apparently it was a skill anyone would know. He stood in uncertainty, wondering what to do.

He thought back again to his memories of the long dark, how he'd released light to approach the doorway. His newfound ability to sense mana was giving him a feeling of pressure in the machine, too. Perhaps the mana was denser in the machine, and that would somehow help him.

The only thing he could do was try. He lifted his hands as if he were holding an invisible bowling ball, narrowing his eyes in concentration.

He imagined light pouring out of his hands. Nothing happened. Instead, he imagined invisible energy pouring out. Perhaps it would come through his chakras? He couldn't quite remember what chakras were, but he tried to imagine something pouring through his body, welling up from his torso.

The golem was silent. He frowned and continued imagining different ways that energy could pour out through his hands.

The air between his hands stayed stubbornly empty. And his arms were getting tired from holding the position.

Please begin to channel mana.

Unhelpful. He looked up to grimace at the thing. As he did, he caught a reflection of himself in one of the strips of metal as it swung by. He was surrounded by reflections, from every angle.

That gave him an idea. Instead of staring into his hands, he lifted his head and let his gaze unfocus. He was surrounded by flickering reflections of himself.

He felt the mana all around him. Now that he was really paying attention, the feeling was unmistakeable. And there was nowhere that it was denser than--

In himself. All he had to do was release it.

It took some time, but eventually, his efforts resulted in a faint glimmer between his cuppped hands. As he'd suspected, he actually saw it happen in the reflections. The crystals allowed him to see, rather than just sense, his mana.

That feedback helped him narrow in on what to do. His mana sense helped him feel the energy coursing through his body. No, not coursing -- it wasn't a raging river. But it was there, and he could direct it.

Like a toddler learning to stand for the first time, his efforts resulted in multiple flickers and flashes between his hands. Finally, he managed to stabilize a weakly pulsating orb of energy. He was straining himself, but it was there!

It is sufficient, if barely.

That almost made him lose control. Did the thing just snark him? Maybe it wasn't entirely like a robot, after all.

Beginning analysis.

The revolving movement of the metal strips began to speed up, and the mana density of the chamber increased. As it did, the strain on Leo eased somewhat. A deep hum of moving machinery and the mana-soaked air lulled him into something like a trance, until he felt like he'd been removed from his own body, and was watching from a viewpoint in the air.

Now the flickering reflections all around him began to diverge. First the difference was only in the color of the orb between his hands. In some reflections, it took on a tint of orange, green, red, purple.

The Leo in the reflections drew his hands apart, and the orb broke up. In each reflection, it became something different. One showed a raging torrent of fire; another, twisting serpents of water. Lightning sizzled and arced around him briefly, then was replaced with a spiderweb of bright strands. These eye-catching phenomena mainly focused on recognizable elements, although a couple were less easily identified, like a thick green ooze and swirling specks of dust.

After a moment of flickering, changing images, the majority of the reflections showed streams of fog, some light and others dark. The fog twisted and writhed, seeming to take on shapes and figures as it passed by. Shapes writhed in several, showing images of animals or objects. Several reflections that whipped by only showed a solid area of blackness, inky and almost solid, while a few others showed strange ripples distorting the air.

"These must be possibilities for my magic," Leo distantly thought. He felt simultaneously aware of what was happening in several hundred reflections all around himself, though many were incomprehensible.

Time stretched on, a thousand flickering simulations taking place, until finally the machine began to slow. The golem sat motionless and silent while the pressure ebbed away, and the reflections converged back to a single image of Leo with his hands held in the air, a misty, barely discernable globe between them.

At some point he came back to normal consciousness, and the awareness that he was dead tired. The orb flickered and disappeared, and he let his hands drop to his sides.

Strengths identified: perceptual and phantasm. Recommending initial path of shadowmage, crystalmancer or illusionist.

Leo stared at the eye on the golem's forehead, his thoughts slowed by fatigue.

"So... what? What does that mean?" he asked.

Proceed to the Chamber of Attunement.

Then, as the machine came to a halt, the eye on the golem's forehead closed. The orb of light he'd followed to the chamber -- which Leo now recognized as an orb of mana, albeit one stronger than he'd produced -- emerged from the golem's head and floated off.