“Hey! Wake up! How long do you want to continue to sleep?”
An angry voice woke Sarah rudely. Her head felt as if someone pulled her brain out of her skull, put it in a mixer, cooked the result for a few hours on a low flame and then stuffed everything back in. She didn’t even know how she thought of this nonsensical analogy for her headache. But before her sister took any more drastic measures to wake her up, she decided to slowly sit up, though still with mostly closed eyes. “Whad ish sis?”
Through the urging of Sera, Sarah opened her eyes regardless of her head and looked around. Black. After a few moments she started to notice spots similar to stars in the distance all around them. She would normally say those spots were stars, but that wouldn’t make sense… as it didn’t make sense for the two girls to be in the middle of nowhere, sitting and standing on nothing. So, maybe those things were stars? “I’m waiting for some answers…” Before Sarah could try to decode the mysteries of the space they were in, the nagging of her sister brought her back to reality. Whatever that was at the moment. Searching through her memories, which was harder than expected with her still hurting head, she finally remembered what happened before she lost her consciousness.
“Ah. Right! I think we were summoned! Or are still summoned…? Probably…” Becoming quieter against the end of her answer due to her uncertainty, the scientist girl looked around. Something should be here, where they were to be summoned. Magic didn’t happen spontaneously, as far as she knew. Especially not complex spells like cross-world summonings. Well, with potentially different physical laws in other worlds, the possibility shouldn’t be zero… She still hoped that she was in a temporary storage space during the summoning. Otherwise, if they were summoned into a space-like location…
Sera looked at her sister angrily. “… so you managed to snatch a summoning spell. Did you have to do that during the f****** final? Also why the hell did we end up in space?” Getting louder and louder during the last part her sister could only hold her ears to block some of the sound. “Can’t you be a bit more quiet? My head is killing me! Besides it’s not like i had any influence on the timing of the summoning,” was the only answer the scientist could come up with. She herself was still searching for some explanation to the last question.
Not really quieter Sera continued, “You could have just disabled the redirect during the tournament! It was finally an interesting fight!”
“You know the odds! It took over a year for it to trigger once! And statistically speaking, we are probably soon outside of the usual target range for summonings. As if i would risk the chance for some damn tournament! I didn’t even take that thing off during my experiments. Experiments which could change the future of mankind!” internally she also added that, if the summoning had happened during the wrong experiment, it could easily end with the destruction of Yamatai and a few hundred thousand dead people, if not millions.
“We both know that neither of us cares for mankind or the greater g…”
[Welcome to the Realms of Eas]
The scientist disliked arguing with her sister, she was always way too emotional and disregarded sound arguments (just because they were mainly an excuse). Besides what did she want to archive with this discussion in the first place? It’s not like she could change what had happened… Fortunately, the sudden appearance of text in Sarah’s and probably also Sera’s vision silenced her due to the surprise and saved her sister as well as her head from the otherwise lengthy speech. While the scientist was just frozen for a moment and then started to examine the text, now completely ignoring her headache, her sister needed a bit longer, before, now at least quieter, asking the question people with a more normal mind would probably have in such a situation. “Sarah… can you see that too?”
However the girl still sitting was already helplessly absorbed in the weird phenomenon and ignored her sister, after noticing that Sera was also seeing words although probably at a different spot than her, going by the point she was looking at. Unfortunately Sarah didn’t have much time to actually probe it, as the text quickly began to expand.
[Good. Looks like i have your attention.
Well, thanks to a certain someone things are a bit different from usual, though not that it would matter and i guess i can skip the whole ‘you have been summoned’ and magic-talk…
So…
I am Eas, the system governing this world. While you seem to have some knowledge about other worlds, gods and also system-controlled words, as your sources of knowledge are partially contradicting each other and are considered fiction let me clarify a few things.
I am somewhat similar to a role-playing game. That does mean, i stand above gods, similar to how gods in the lore of MMOs stand lower than the software used to run the game. However, i would not hinder anyone who wishes to surpass me.
You are currently in a temporary location, designed after your understanding of an outer-worldly space. Similarly, the method of communication was chosen based on what is the most convenient for all present beings.
The world you are brought to is named Realms of Eas. It is usually shortened to The Realms, but the name is rarely used in general, as normally there is no need to differentiate worlds. It is a world, mostly not that unlike your old one, just with magic.
You may interact with me through thought. You can for example open a help menu, mostly containing system related knowledge, or your status.
Further functions will also be added over time, like the log function containing your personal achievements, as well as important notifications, which you can access once the summoning is completed.
If you want to gain additional information not included in the help menu, consult other lifeforms or clear system-managed dungeons as this will reward you privileges you can trade for information and various other things.
The help menu will answer questions based on your understanding of them.
Similarly different languages will not be an issue, as your understanding of the meaning of transmitted words will be what the other person understands. However, this does not mean that one can not write encrypted messages or intentionally muddle the meaning behind words.
Questions in regard to the summoning, your old world and the meaning behind me can not be answered without privileges.
Finally, please do not use time distortion magic while traversing worlds. While the time spent in between worlds is normally basically none, prolonged residence in between worlds, without prior adjustments, will lead to damage to an unpredictable extent, usually resulting in death or worse. It is surprising that you survived in the first place…
That should answer your most pressing questions.
Now, with the basic information about the Realms out of the way, here is a contract one of you can sign. Normally it would have been one contract per summoned person, however, as due to a certain person there are more people here than expected, only one of you may sign it.]
Just as the text finished to appear a parchment scroll plopped into existence near the two girls. Sarah quickly read over the new info and began to think about the implications of the information she just gained. She also wanted to try out the help menu, but the important questions were, as Eas wrote, already answered or wouldn’t be answered even if she asked them… One question at least remained for the moment. Contracts could have some special powers in magical worlds and she didn’t want any surprises like losing her soul, after she had confirmed that those actually existed.
[What is a contract?]
[Contract, short for system-backed contract, can be gained through privileges and bind a number of beings with the written conditions and orders. The content of the contract will basically become a principle of the world for involved parties and its content can not be changed after the first party signed it. They are enforced by the world.
There also exist personal contracts, created by people themselves and meant to document less important deals. As such enforcement of those contracts can only happen through the people.]
As she suspected, contracts could screw someone over.
Finishing her information gathering – well, not that she had to gathered much herself, as Eas seemed to know exactly what she wanted to ask and already contained it in the information dump – Sarah looked around for the contract, which had ended up in Sera’s hands, after the swordfighter had skimmed over the text in front of her and was searching for something more fun. As it turned out, the contract wasn’t and now she was standing there with the parchment in hand and groaning.
Observing the paper covered in illegible scribbles and runes, Sarah wasn’t quite sure, whether her sister could decipher what was written on it due to the system or if she just tried hard to read something out of the supposed contract. However, after she examined all sides of the unraveled scroll and tried to hold a part of it without any changes she lost her patience and ripped it from the hands of her sister. “Hey!” the victim exclaimed, though the thief was already lost in thoughts and just muttered quietly “Interesting…” while continuing to examine the window which had appeared.
[Summoning Contract
This is a contract between…]
