Chapter 12
Hours later—
Krista was busy inspecting the Glock 19, checking the slide and magazine when Olivia broke the silence again, her voice thoughtful.
"Maybe it’s not just some random store," Olivia said, her eyes narrowing as if she were piecing together a puzzle. "Maybe there’s some kind of logic behind what you can summon. Like... rules."
Krista frowned, setting the gun down on her lap. "Rules? What, like a Dungeons & Dragons spell list?"
"Not exactly," Olivia replied, her tone growing more insistent. "Think about it. You couldn’t summon the Browning M2 or the Barrett, right? But you could summon a Glock, protein bars, water—all things that are technically legal, right?"
Krista scoffed. "So, what, I’m stuck with Walmart-tier items because some cosmic overlord decided to turn me into a budget Amazon Prime?"
Olivia rolled her eyes, clearly unfazed by Krista’s sarcasm. "No, I think it’s more complicated than that. What if it’s like… I dunno, a magical server database or something? Controlled by some host entity. Maybe whoever transported us here didn’t fully understand the specifics of Earth’s tech, but they followed a general guide—like the ATF regulations, or the California Gun Compliance laws.”
Krista gave her sister a skeptical look. “You seriously think some deity is running background checks on my online shopping spree? That’s insane, Liv.”
“No more insane than being in a world with three moons and demon knights,” Olivia shot back, arms crossed. “Hear me out, okay? What if the power follows a set of rules? Maybe the ‘host’ doesn’t exactly know what’s dangerous to humans like us, but they’re working off some kind of... I don’t know, an existing framework or guidelines from Earth?”
Krista sighed, leaning her head back against the cave wall. “You mean like an IF function in coding?”
Olivia’s eyes lit up. “Yes! Exactly! Like, if ‘Weapon is prohibited by Earth law,’ then it goes into the ‘Prohibited Items’ pool. Maybe that’s why you can’t summon fully automatic weapons, or stuff like the Browning M2—it’s too dangerous according to Earth’s standards.”
Krista shook her head, though she couldn’t help but be intrigued by the idea. “That sounds a little too neat, don’t you think? I mean, sure, the Glock makes sense because it’s a semi-auto with a ten-round mag, so maybe that slips past whatever filter is in place. But it’s not like there’s an invisible terms of service agreement I signed up for when I got dumped into this hellhole.”
Olivia chuckled, but her expression remained serious. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but think about it. You didn’t summon a magical healing potion or an enchanted sword. You summoned stuff you already knew about—things that exist in the real world. What if the host only has access to information that fits within a certain scope?”
Krista stared at the Glock in her lap, her fingers absently running over the grip. The more Olivia talked, the less outlandish the idea seemed. Not because it made perfect sense, but because nothing in this world had made sense since they crashed into it.
“I guess it explains why I can’t summon a .50 cal or a rocket launcher,” Krista muttered.
Olivia nodded, excitement creeping into her voice. “Exactly! Maybe the summoning ability is restricted by whatever magical framework this world runs on, and it’s trying to balance that with Earth’s rules. It’s like the host doesn’t fully get the intricacies of our weapons, so they go off whatever they can find. Like, let’s say it’s based on laws or regulations—California’s gun laws, ATF guidelines, or even some weird international treaty for all we know.”
Krista let out a long breath, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "So you're telling me I’m stuck with summoning California-compliant guns because some otherworldly server admin is scared of high-capacity mags?”
Olivia snorted. "Maybe not scared, but cautious. Think about it, Krista. If this host entity wants to keep control over what you can summon, they’d need to put restrictions in place. And honestly, it sounds more like a system error than anything intentional. Like a badly written code that didn’t account for context."
“Great,” Krista groaned, shaking her head. “So I’m a fucking magic shopkeeper with admin restrictions.”
Olivia grinned, despite the seriousness of their situation. “If you’re a shopkeeper, then I want an employee discount.”
Krista couldn’t help but laugh, the sound dry and bitter. “Sure, Liv. First item’s on the house.”
But her laughter faded quickly as reality set back in. Despite Olivia’s theories, despite the humor, the fact remained—they were still stranded, still hunted. And Krista’s newfound power, as convenient as it seemed, came with limitations she couldn’t afford to ignore.
“What do we do, then?” Olivia asked, her tone more serious now.
Krista stared into the dim shining down on them through the thick branches and leaves of the trees, her mind racing.
A half hour had passed since the two sisters had stopped their back-and-forth about Krista's strange summoning powers. Krista had spent the past dozens or so minutes in silence, occasionally sipping water and running her thumb over the grip of the Glock, deep in thought.
Olivia, however, was never the type to let silence sit for too long. She was pacing—or, as best as she could with her condition, rocking in place as she brainstormed, her eyes dancing with an idea that was clearly still in development.
“Krista,” Olivia said, finally breaking the quiet. “I’ve got an idea. It’s a bad one, but... it might just work.”
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Krista looked up, cocking an eyebrow. “Oh God, here we go.”
“No, seriously, hear me out,” Olivia said, her hands moving animatedly as she spoke. “What if we built our own online shop?”
Krista blinked. “Our own shop?” She let out a sharp laugh. “Are you high? We’re in a medieval demon-riddled hellscape, Liv, not Silicon Valley.”
“Okay, yeah, it sounds crazy,” Olivia admitted, her grin not fading one bit. “But think about it! If your summoning power really is some weird blend of magic and programming, maybe we can screw with the system. Work around the restrictions.”
Krista leaned back, skeptical. “And how exactly are we supposed to do that?”
Olivia’s eyes lit up, her enthusiasm infectious despite the absurdity of what she was suggesting. “In programming, right, any code that’s detailed enough can override an entire system if it’s done the right way. If the system is part magic and part programming, like we’re thinking, we could exploit that. Maybe your summoning power works like Amazon—pulling in items listed for sale from actual online shops. If that’s true, then every item must have its own parameters, right? Strings of numbers, codes, descriptions—all that technical stuff.”
Krista raised her brow, mildly intrigued but still skeptical. “And?”
“And—” Olivia continued, “—those items probably have secondary or even tertiary checklists that determine what’s restricted. Things like high-capacity magazines, fully automatic fire, dangerous chemicals—whatever. It’s all coded into the parameters. And if this deity or whoever sets the rules for your summoning power based on those parameters, then maybe we can fool the system.”
Krista leaned forward, her interest piqued. “How do you figure we fool it?”
“Simple.” Olivia grinned. “We build our own fake shop. Populate it with completely bogus listings—like, say, we list an M249 SAW, but instead of calling it an M249, we name it something harmless like Garden Defender. We edit the description, scrub out anything that would trigger the prohibited items check, and—bam—we’ve tricked the system into thinking it’s something benign.”
Krista snorted, shaking her head. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Is it?” Olivia shot back, her tone growing more insistent. “If your summoning power really is connected to some magic server or database, it could be pulling from anything with a valid purchase function. And if the items only need a specified set of details and parameters, then there’s nothing stopping us from creating fake listings. We can tweak the descriptions, hide the fact that it’s a machine gun, and the system wouldn’t know the difference.”
Krista mulled it over, rubbing the back of her neck. “You really think we can trick the host—or whatever’s running this—into pulling data from a fake shop we set up?”
Olivia nodded vigorously. “Hell yeah. In theory, we’d just be providing it with input that it recognizes as legitimate, even if it’s not. It wouldn’t know we’re lying.”
Krista leaned back again, staring at the cave ceiling. “Okay, say you’re right. There are a few problems with your genius plan. One, we’d have to actually build the website. Two, I’m pretty sure the minute we go online, the FBI or some other agency is gonna track us down—remember, we’re fugitives. And three…” She paused, running her hand through her hair. “Even if we somehow pull this off, we’d need some way to hide our tracks. Wait a minute… do we even have an internet connection in here—”
Olivia smirked and cut her off. “That’s the easy part. I’ve been studying computers for years now. I could put up a basic, half-functional shopping website in a week, tops.”
Krista raised an eyebrow, amused. “When did you get so tech-savvy? Weren’t you just a Twitch streamer?”
Olivia rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. “What, you think streaming is all I do? I’ve been more than just talking to chat. I’ve been poking around in the code of AI like Neuro-sama. Vedal even let me take a peek at some of the backend once or twice. It’s Python-based, so yeah, it’s confusing as hell, but I’ve learned a lot.”
Krista chuckled. “Still. Building a website? Hiding it from the FBI? You’d need to host it on the deep web or something.”
Olivia shrugged. “I could. If we can get the right hardware, I can run the site off a rented server on Earth. But if I use your credit card, it’ll get flagged the second I make the payment.”
“Which brings us back to the original problem,” Krista said, folding her arms. “We’d need parts. Lots of them. And they’d have to be good enough to run a virtual machine without drawing attention. How the hell are we supposed to do that?”
Olivia grinned mischievously. “That’s where you come in, sis. Since you can still summon commercially available products, how about you summon something powerful, like… I dunno, eight ROG Zephyrus G16 laptops? I could disassemble them, hook them together, and build a Frankenstein-like server from the parts. No need to order individual components.”
Krista blinked, her mouth half-open in disbelief. “You want me to summon gaming laptops to build a server?”
“Why not?” Olivia shrugged. “I’ve been sponsored by ASUS before. The ROG Zephyrus G16 is one of the best laptops on the market in late 2024. Summoning each part separately would take way too long—hard drives, GPUs, motherboards, CPUs. If we can get our hands on a few Zephyrus units, I can just hotwire them together. Disassembling laptops is way easier than starting from scratch, trust me. I’ve seen Linus do it.”
Krista rubbed her face with her hands. “You think you can make it?”
Olivia hesitated, then gave a nervous smile. “Well, yeah… kinda. There might be a few things I have to improvise. I may have forgotten a thing or two Jayztwocents said in his video.”
Krista groaned, but she was already warming up to the idea. “Okay. Let’s say we manage to cobble together this Franken-server. How are we going to power it? We don’t exactly have a working generator.”
“That’s where you come in, again,” Olivia said, grinning. “You’re the one with the engineering skills. You could rig something up with truck batteries, right? Maybe some cabling, a few adaptors. We’d be stuck here for a while, but I think we could make it work.”
Krista crossed her arms, thinking. “We’d need to be stuck here for nine to eleven days if your theory about the ten-item limit is right. It’s risky.”
“No shit,” Olivia said, chuckling darkly. “But it’s better than dying out here with just a Glock and a shotgun to protect us.”
Krista sighed, already seeing where this was headed. “Fine. But we’ll need more than just laptops. We’ll need tents, truck batteries, electrical wires, motion sensors, and CCTV for surveillance. If more of those ‘fucktard’ demons come sniffing around again, I’d rather see them coming.”
Olivia smirked. “And after we’re done with all that, maybe you could summon us an electric car, huh? Drive us outta here in style.”
Krista shot her a withering look. “You watch too much Linus Tech Tips.”
Olivia scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Come on, Krista. Have you seen the weird shit people in China can buy online? I bet you could summon an unlicensed car if you tried.”
Krista shook her head, laughing despite herself. “You’re fucking impossible, you know that?”
Olivia grinned wide, mischief in her eyes. “That’s why you love me.”
Krista sighed, rubbing her temples. “Alright, alright. I’ll start with the laptops tomorrow. But I swear to God, if this plan blows up in our faces…”
Olivia raised her hands defensively. “Hey, it’s not like we have better options.”
The two sisters shared a look—one of tired determination. Krista knew this plan was far-fetched, borderline suicidal. But it was better than sitting around waiting to die. If Olivia was right, if they could exploit the system running her summoning power, they might just stand a chance.