{Alex}

“What the hell?” I ask as I looked around the strange room. One moment, I was in my apartment getting ready for some… let’s just say personal time. I still had the bottle of lotion in my hand. Now I was in my pajama bottoms, no shirt standing in a strange temple. A young heavyset girl maybe fourteen with long blonde hair, wearing a frilly pink dress was looking at me. I gave a nervous laugh. “Sorry kid, I prefer women my own age.” She frowned as she looked me over. Someone coughed and I looked over at him. He was tall thin and reminded me of an oily used car dealer.

“Behave yourself or you’ll be killed.” I just nodded and looked around. I was in a medieval looking tower surrounded by strange smelling and looking things. A circle on the ground had shapes that made my head hurt if I looked at them too long or tried to focus on any one of the shapes. Braziers sent up plumes of foul-smelling smoke and I was very grateful that the top of the tower seemed open. The slightly pudgy teen poked my stomach and frowned.

“This one looks okay. let’s hear his skills.” The old man in moldy brown robes approached me and put a claw like hand on my back. I felt a weird tingle run up my spine and a weird picture came to my mind.

RACE: HUMAN

AGE: 26

STRENGTH: 5

INTELLIGENCE: 27

MAGIC: 4

AGILITY: 3

CONSTITUTION: 7

CHARISMA: 12
SKILLS: METAL MAGIC

It felt weird like I had just been stripped naked in front of these two. It wasn’t right. The old man scoffed as he read out the stats. She made an ugly face like she had just sucked on a lemon and puffed out her cheeks. What the hell was going on? She turned and left the room in an angry huff. “Another failure.” The old man looked at me and frowned.

“Follow me.” he said almost bored. I still had the lotion in my hand as we walked down a hallway. Thank God that I wasn’t asked to entertain the young pig girl. The old slimy man led me to an office covered in papers, scrolls and it smelled horrible. From the looks of things this is where he would hide to recover from a hangover. Did this guy ever clean? He sat behind his desk and looked over his fingers at me. “Well long story short, you are fucked.” I just looked at him blankly. “You are another failed summon. She does this at least four times a year. You are number two of this year alone and I swear it isn’t even fourth month. You are understanding me, right?” I just nodded. “Good. Now if you tell anyone, there will be a price on your head, and we will kill you. Just to make things a little more fair, I will give you a bag of coins if you sign this.” He slid a paper to me. I couldn’t read it. “This world has contract magic. If we didn’t have contract magic, slaves would be useless. You do know what magic is?” So, slavery is common here. Good to know. I looked over the page carefully. Nope can’t read this at all.

“I won’t sign anything I can't read.” He frowned and looked blankly at me. For all I knew he was planning on making me a slave.

“What world and time are you from?”

“Earth 2023.” I said with a shrug.

“That narrows it down to five worlds or at least as much as I can tell.” He pulled out a large book and started flipping through it. “Hitler is that a name you know?” I nodded. “That narrows it down to two and both use the same writing.” He started sifting through papers and pulled out a sheet. He looked at it closely and passed it to me.

The signer agrees to a vow of silence in exchange for a pouch containing no more than six gold.

Sign here

I looked at him blankly. “I’m not signing that.” he frowned.

“Why?” he asked looking a bit angry.

“By the wording of that I won’t be able to talk at all.” He looked at me like he had eaten a spicy onion. This had to be the idiot's plan. I had read a number of fantasy books and knew how wishes worked in them. “Will you let me write one up?” He frowned and looked at me.

“Fine, Let’s see what you got.” I pondered over it for a little and quickly wrote something down.

The Signer will be unable to speak about the manor they were brought into this world in exchange for no less than six gold.

Sign Alex Hermon

He looked it over and nodded. I didn’t bother to tell him my last name wasn’t really Hermon. He took it and waved his hand over the paper. A pressure was placed around my neck like a weight. Well shit, I had put the signer so even if I had only put an X on the spot, it would have still worked on me. He smiled and pushed a leather bag to me. “Here is your gold. Now get lost. I suggest you seek out Gerold Helttom. He should be able to put you in your place.” I could see where this was going.

“How do I get back home?” He gave me an evil laugh.

“Not going to happen. It would take no less than sixty large mithril coins. The price of a small country. Face it you are stuck here.” He pulled out a small foul-smelling bag. “I’ll even throw in a bag of clothes so you don’t stand out, because I feel bad for you.” Right, that or he didn’t want to make it obvious that I had just been brought here by his magic. I took the bag and was escorted to an empty room. I changed and came back out to see a guard in shiny silver armor standing by the door. He looked at me sadly.

“Follow me.” He sighed and took me through passages until we came out into a brightly lit world. The sun was high, and the guard looked at me sadly. “You are free to go.” I smiled at him.

“How much is a loaf of bread worth?” He looked at me puzzled.

“Three copper.” I smiled.

“How many copper are in a gold?” He smiled and put his spear inside.

“You are going to bite that old goat in the ass.” He laughed. “Come with me and we’ll have a drink.” I clapped him on the shoulder, and he led me through town. I stopped when I felt the ground shake beneath my feet. He looked back and then slapped his forehead. “You don’t have Knights in your world.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me through the town. “You are going to drop when you see this.” He pulled me to a street that seemed a bit too large. The shaking was matched by a light rumble. He beamed as I saw something far too large move into view and then move past. I looked after it to see a knight in armor walk down the road. To say this was a knight was to call an elephant a dog. The shape was the same, but the thirty-foot humanoid shape that shook the land with every step was huge. I inwardly started humming the Pacific Rim theme song. It was a fucking Mech. I had a huge childish grin on my face as I started to drool. I loved Gundam, the shows and kits. I was now in a magic world with my own magic with FUCKING MECHS. Ho this world was going to be my bitch. I clapped my guide on the shoulder and smiled at him.

“How the hell do I get somewhere where I can make those?” I didn’t want to pilot them. That sounded like a good way to end up in a shallow grave. Building them though, it would be like a kid with his first Lego set. I wanted my Lego set, and I wanted it now. He gave me a weird look and smiled.

“Buy me that drink and I’ll tell you.” He led me to a bar, and we went inside. Over that night he informed me that one hundred silver made up one gold and so on for silver and copper. Same for small mithril and large mithril. So, I was paid enough for a small family to live on for three years. It only cost me fifty copper to get this information. I drank sparingly and let him have his fill as I milked him for every bit of common information I could get. The best way to keep my neck free and get my way was to learn about this world. At the end of the night, I had him introduce me to a captain of a caravan that had Mechs going to a valley in the middle of nowhere. This is what I needed. Step one get to somewhere where I can be forgotten. If I’m forgotten, I can’t be hunted. Maybe I was overthinking things but living longer seemed like a good thing to do. Captain Von Gon Halthos, leader of the Halthos Caravan seemed happy to meet me and happier for the one gold to take me to Happy Valley. A peacefully village in the middle of most routs that had a Knight repair shop that was run by a ball breaker who would happily put me through a wall as much as help me.

We'll have to start somewhere. Just what I needed. Halthos turned out to be a slightly heavy-set man in his late thirties with an expansive gut, over the top attitude and happy to use others. So, step one was taken care of. Step two learn to use my magic. I was leaving people behind in my old world but living seemed like the best way to get back to them. Two of the gold coins were rocks. Once I found that out the pressure on my neck lifted. I figured that the magic keeping me quiet was no longer working. Even though I could now talk freely, best not to do so here.

{Kavos Rift Walker}

The scroll that held Alex’s contract started fading to dust in a drawer of the arch mage Kavos’ study. He didn’t notice as he was gambling that two gold away in a dark room across town. The new fool would be long dead or even better a slave before he noticed the missing gold. He frowned at his losing cards in his hands. Maybe one day he would realize how easy he was to read or how little others actually trusted him. The contract was broken by him, and he had been paying the price in bad luck.

{Alex}

With a shrug, I tossed the two stones aside and smiled at the rest of the coins in my pouch I had to my name. I hoped a house there wouldn’t cost too much. We would be leaving out in the morning, so I went to my room at the inn. I let my new life sink in. I would never see my family. Never see my home. Why was she summoning people only to kick them out? Why not just outright kill them when they failed to meet whatever standard she wanted? There had to be a reason. What was she looking for? I pushed the table under the window blocking it slightly and the chair under the doorknob. Best not to be caught off guard. I sat on the straw bed and frowned. I missed my memory foam. I missed my phone. I would miss my parents, my siblings. The only real upside is I didn’t leave any pets behind. Well maybe my digital cat on my phone will die, but my soul could handle that death. I blew out the candle and lay down. I would need to sleep if I was going to live and I WAS going to live.