Vol. 1 Chapter 1: The Summoning

Kevin Mercer finished the update at 2:37 in the morning.

Across the fire, Alexander Bennett watched Kevin close the laptop.

“You brought work with you on a camping trip.”

Kevin reached for the beer beside his chair as he turned off his phone’s mobile hotspot. “Perks of working from home.”

“It’s two AM on a Sunday.”

Kevin drank without answering.

He reached for the half-finished sandwich on the folding table beside him. A couple of tiny black ants were already crawling along the edge of the bread. Kevin brushed one away with his thumb, checked the other side, then took another bite.

“You know,” Alec continued, “most people go camping to get away from work.”

The campfire cracked in front of them, low and orange, consuming what remained of the dry wood Alec had brought over an hour earlier. Insects screamed from the surrounding forest. The air smelled of ash, damp soil, cheap beer, and the clean green dampness of the rainforest.

Kevin swallowed the last bite of the sandwich.

“Most people don’t have half the board preparing to yell at their department every Monday.”

Alec eyed him for another second, then took a drink. “So you pushed to production on a Sunday.”

“It was a minor AWS config update.”

Alec snorted. “That is how the postmortem starts.”

“It was tested.”

“By whom?”

“Me.”

Alec glanced at him with a hint of disbelief.

Kevin leaned back in his folding chair and looked at the fire.

“How about you?” Kevin asked.

“What about me?”

“How’s the promotion to Associate treating you? Still grinding through one-hundred-hour workweeks?”

Alec chuckled under his breath.

He wore a hoodie, cargo shorts, and the relaxed expression of someone who had decided not to think about work. His beer was half-empty. Kevin’s beer was barely touched.

Nobody had called him Alexander in years. Over twelve years earlier, Kevin had childishly decided that Alexander took too long to say and that Alex sounded gay. Alec had objected to both the reasoning and the alternative. Everyone else adopted the nickname anyway.

The fire sank lower.

Kevin placed the laptop inside its bag, stood, and crossed toward the small pile of wood beside Alec’s chair. He picked out two pieces, crouched near the fire, and pushed one carefully into the glowing center.

His hoodie pulled above his waistband.

Alec looked at the concealed pistol holstered against Kevin’s right hip.

Then he looked at Kevin.

“You’re still carrying that?”

Kevin glanced over his shoulder. “Yes.”

“We’re sitting around a campfire.”

Kevin added the second piece of wood.

“Dangerous place.”

“Kevin Wick.”

Kevin looked back at him. “You brought yours too.”

“Mine is inside a case in Nicole’s tent.”

“So you brought a gun on a camping trip and put it away.”

“I’m not walking around the campsite expecting to shoot squirrels in self-defense.”

Kevin adjusted the wood until the flames began curling around the new pieces.

“I’m sure the bear will wait for you to get your gun before ripping us to shreds.”

Alec looked into the surrounding darkness.

“There’s no bear around here.”

“We’re in a forest.”

“You do know that 9mm will probably only make a bear angrier.”

“I don’t need to kill it. I just need it to believe you’re the less dangerous food than me.”

“...Asshole.”

Kevin sat back down.

In front of them, four tents stood in a loose semicircle around the fire.

Nicole was asleep in hers. Alec had spent most of the evening there before returning to the fire with Kevin, although he continued insisting that he had his own tent and could use it whenever he wanted.

Liza had disappeared into hers after announcing that anyone who woke her before breakfast would be met with violence.

Robert had not reached his tent at all.

He lay several feet beside Kevin in an open sleeping bag, one arm hanging across the grass. Earlier, he had loudly announced that nature was healing his soul. Then he had fallen asleep outside midway through explaining how becoming a lawyer and an accountant while spending the weekends in clubs is the best career combo ever.

Alec leaned back and looked through the trees.

The forest’s canopy concealed most of the sky, but stars showed through the gaps. Their phones barely had any signal this far into the forest.

That had been the point, according to Nicole.

No work. No doomscrolling. No excuses.

Kevin had agreed.

Then he had brought a laptop and a foldable three hundred watt solar panel with him.

Alec took another drink.

“You know what I think you need?”

“A raise.”

“A girlfriend.”

Kevin snorted. “Lol. No thanks.”

Alec chuckled at the instant rejection.

“You didn’t even consider it.”

“I’ve considered it.”

“And?”

Kevin watched the new wood catch for a few seconds.

“Not for me.”

Alec turned the beer can slowly between his fingers, pretending to read the label.

“Still because of Emily?”

Kevin’s expression did not change.

“Not everything is because of Emily,” Kevin said.

“I didn’t say everything.”

“It was implied.”

“No. You assumed it was.”

“You work in finance. Everything is implied.”

Alec sat straighter.

“Finance, marketing, project management, and sales. Respect the entire portfolio.”

“I respect your ability to make a quarterly report with negative revenue sound like an investment opportunity.”

“Thank you.”

They sat in silence for a while.

The fire strengthened around the new wood. Sparks rose between them and disappeared into the dark.

Kevin turned the can between his hands.

He gave a small sigh. “I just don’t have the patience for emotional nonsense anymore, I guess.”

Alec tilted his head.

Kevin stared at the fire as he spoke.

“People expect things they don’t say. Or they say things they don’t mean. Then somehow I’m supposed to identify the hidden requirement, say the correct response, maintain the entire system, and act grateful for the privilege of losing sleep over it.”

Alec laughed quietly.

“You make romance sound like technical support.”

“Technical support has documentation.”

“Not good documentation.”

“Still more than most relationships.”

Alec could not argue with that without becoming a hypocrite.

Kevin leaned back.

“Honestly, though, I’m amazed you and Nicole have lasted nine years.”

Alec smiled.

“Ten soon.”

“...Still not married though.”

“We’re discussing it.”

“You have been discussing it for years.”

“When the final date is approved, I’ll let you know.”

Kevin looked toward Nicole’s tent.

“Don’t make it sound like you’re proposing an acquisition.”

“Marriages sound like one if you read the contract.”

Kevin laughed under his breath.

The fire shifted around the fresh wood.

Silence settled again.

This one lasted longer.

Kevin leaned forward and nudged one of the logs with a stick. Sparks climbed into the darkness.

“Thinking about it,” he said, “it’s been eight years since, huh.”

Alec did not answer immediately.

He knew exactly what Kevin meant.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “Yes, it has.”

Kevin glanced sideways.

“That sounded judgmental.”

“It was.”

Kevin opened his mouth to answer.

Then stopped.

The insects had suddenly gone silent.

Alec lowered his beer.

The sound of the wind disappeared as well.

Kevin looked down.

His phone screen had turned white.

Across the campsite, every device illuminated at once.

The phones inside the tents.

The portable lantern.

The laptop inside its closed bag.

Even the tiny charge indicators on the power banks shone through the plastic container.

Alec stood slowly.

“Kev.”

“I see it.”

The ground beneath them began to glow.

At first, it was only a narrow line of pale gold beneath the grass and ash. It crossed under Kevin’s chair, continued beneath Alec’s boots, then curved around the fire.

The line expanded steadily.

It passed beneath the cooler.

Around the tents.

Around Rob’s sleeping bag.

It did not burn the grass or disturb the soil. It simply appeared upon the ground, as though something beneath the campsite were drawing through it.

Kevin stood too quickly and nearly kicked over the laptop bag.

His hand moved instinctively toward the pistol beneath his shirt.

Then stopped.

There was nothing to shoot.

From Nicole’s tent came a tired voice.

“Alec?”

“Stay inside,” Alec said automatically.

Kevin glanced at him.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Nicole opened the tent before either of them could improve the instruction.

She stepped outside barefoot, hair loose around her face, one hand gripping the small flashlight she kept beside her sleeping bag.

Her gaze moved from Alec to Kevin, then to the glowing line surrounding the campsite.

“What happened?”

Kevin looked upward through the trees.

“Aliens?”

Liza shoved open her own tent behind them.

“Not funny.”

She stared at the ground.

Sleep disappeared from her face in less than a second.

“Why is there a summoning circle around the campsite?”

Rob lifted his head from the grass.

His eyes moved toward the glowing symbols.

He blinked twice.

Then he began pulling the sleeping bag over his face.

Nicole turned toward him.

“Rob.”

“I saw nothing.”

“Get up.”

“I’m refusing the summons.”

Liza crossed the campsite, grabbed the back of his shirt, and hauled him halfway upright.

Rob emerged tangled in the sleeping bag, wearing one sock, his thin blanket wrapped around him.

The golden line completed its path.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then symbols appeared along the edge.

Kevin did not recognize the script.

The characters moved around the circle, folding into one another and separating again.

Liza crouched near the boundary.

Nicole immediately pointed at her.

“Don’t touch it.”

“I wasn’t going to touch it.”

“You were going to touch it.”

“I was trying to take a closer look.”

Kevin picked up an empty beer can.

Alec saw him.

“What are you doing?”

“Testing.”

Kevin threw the can beyond the golden line.

It struck something invisible and bounced back.

The can landed beside Rob’s bare foot.

Rob looked down at it.

Then toward the circle.

“Okay,” he said. “... That’s magic.”

“No,” Liza said.

The symbols continued moving.

She reconsidered.

“Maybe.”

Alec approached the boundary without touching it.

Beyond the circle, the trees remained visible. Nothing appeared different except for the glowing circle they were now standing in.

Inside the circle, however, the light no longer made sense.

It was still night.

The canopy remained dark.

Yet every object inside the boundary was visible, illuminated by a pale light that seemed to come from nowhere.

Kevin felt pressure build against his ears.

He swallowed.

Alec instinctively moved closer to Nicole.

Nicole was already looking over everyone, checking for blood, burns, breathing problems, or anything else she could identify and treat.

“Anyone hurt?”

“No,” Alec said.

“Not yet,” Kevin added.

Nicole glared at him.

“What?”

Liza looked around the glowing campsite.

“So,” she said, “which one of us is secretly unemployed?”

Everyone turned toward her.

Alec frowned.

“What?”

“Isekai rules. Someone here is supposed to be unemployed, socially incompetent, and emotionally prepared for a power fantasy.”

Rob raised one hand from inside the sleeping bag.

“I’m a pre-law accountant. That should count.”

Nicole pushed his hand down.

Liza pointed at Alec.

“You work in finance. Suspicious.”

“I have a job.”

“A morally questionable one.”

“You’re an engineer.”

“That is neutral until management gets involved.”

Nicole rubbed her forehead.

“Liza.”

“What? We should identify the protagonist before the plot assigns the rest of us bad dialogue.”

Liza glanced at Kevin’s laptop bag. Then at Kevin.

“You brought a gaming laptop into the forest.”

“For work.”

“You stay at home all day.”

“I work from home.”

The symbols accelerated.

Alec flinched and grabbed his left forearm.

Gold lines appeared beneath his skin.

Nicole moved immediately.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

She caught his wrist and pulled his sleeve back.

Thin golden lines spread along the inside of Alec’s forearm, extending from the wrist toward the elbow. They joined into a clean emblem resembling a sunburst crossed with the edge of a blade.

The mark glowed faintly beneath his skin.

Nicole pressed two fingers against his pulse.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Burning?”

“No.”

“Numbness?”

“No.”

Before she could ask anything else, green light appeared beneath the skin of her own arm.

Nicole inhaled sharply.

Alec caught her wrist in return.

The green lines branched outward like roots or veins, curving around one another before meeting in a small leaf-shaped pattern near the center.

Liza looked down.

Blue-white lines were forming across her forearm.

Unlike Nicole’s organic pattern, hers appeared sharply geometric: nested circles, straight lines, and angled shapes arranged with unnatural precision.

Her fear briefly gave way to fascination.

“Oh.”

Rob looked at his arm.

Red lines surfaced beneath his skin, brighter and warmer than the others. They then formed the unmistakable outline of a spear and a rounded shield.

He stared at it.

Then looked upward.

“No.”

Nobody answered.

“I do taxes,” Rob told the sky. “I don’t want to be the spear hero.”

Kevin looked at his own arm.

Nothing.

Then he looked at the rest of his friends’.

Alec’s mark shone gold.

Nicole’s remained green.

Liza’s blue-white geometry pulsed faintly.

Rob’s burned red beneath his skin.

Kevin turned his wrist.

Still nothing.

For one stupid second, he felt left out.

Then a dark line appeared beneath his skin.

It did not glow.

It simply darkened, black against the inside of his forearm.

More lines followed, joining into a symbol roughly the same size as the others.

Kevin stared at it.

He could not tell what it represented.

At first, it resembled a crescent surrounding an eye.

Then the lines appeared to intersect differently, suggesting a gate or an opening.

When he shifted his wrist, the pattern seemed subtly misaligned, as though part of it had been printed over itself.

Liza stepped closer.

“What is that?”

Kevin rotated his arm.

“No idea.”

She leaned in and narrowed her eyes.

The mark was not moving.

Kevin was almost certain of that.

But every time he tried to follow one line into another, he lost where it connected. The design remained visible while refusing to become understandable.

Liza changed position and looked again.

Her expression became less enthusiastic.

“Oh.”

“What?” Nicole asked.

Liza pointed at Kevin’s arm.

“That one can’t be good.”

Kevin looked at her blue-white mark.

“Yours looks like Geometry Dash.”

“Yes, but it is recognizable.”

Nicole reached carefully for Kevin’s wrist.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Cold?”

“A little.”

She touched the skin beside the mark.

Nothing happened.

The black lines remained where they were, distorted but still.

The golden symbols around the campsite aligned.

The circle completed whatever it was supposed to be doing.

The campfire looked like it froze in time.

Orange tongues of fire remained curled around the fresh wood Kevin had added minutes earlier. Sparks hung above them without rising. A ribbon of smoke stood motionless in the air.

Kevin stared at it.

“Alec.”

“I see it.”

The pressure against Kevin’s ears deepened.

The air seemed to contract around the campsite.

Nicole released Kevin’s wrist.

Liza took one step toward the center.

Rob’s sleeping bag lifted slightly in a wind none of them could feel, then remained suspended.

The ground dropped out from beneath Kevin.

His stomach lurched with the same violent sensation as an elevator falling before the cables caught.

The trees stretched upward.

The sky folded.

The circle pulled inward around them, taking the tents, chairs, cooler, bags, food, sleeping gear, power banks, solar panel, medical supplies, beer cans, and the frozen campfire with it.

Kevin grabbed the laptop bag.

Alec caught Nicole around the waist.

Liza swore.

Rob disappeared beneath his sleeping bag.

For one impossible moment, there was nothing except white.

Then the world returned.

Kevin’s laptop bag remained clutched in one hand.

The campfire burned several feet away, its flames moving normally again.

The insects were gone.

So were the trees.

Kevin blinked a few times, trying to get a grasp of the situation.

They now stood in the middle of a vast circular chamber open to the night sky.

Pillars rose around them. At the far end stood a raised platform and an ancient blackened structure surrounded by robed figures, armed guards, lantern-bearing attendants, and several people Kevin could only assume were mages.

At least twenty polearms turned toward them.

Alec was already standing in front.

One arm extended protectively in front of Nicole.

Nicole remained barefoot, staring at the armed strangers.

Liza looked around in pure amazement.

Rob sat on the stone floor beside the cooler, wrapped in his sleeping bag, one sock missing.

Kevin looked at the guards.

Then at the chamber.

Then at the two moons hanging above the open roof.