In the capital - present day, present time

Wow. What a nice place.

The whole city was burning down.

I didn't care too much about it.

Why would I?

I mean, I would have cared if I knew what city was that or why I was there.

No such information was given to me.

They just teleported me here, didn't they?

It shouldn't have happened, how can you quick travel to a city you've never been to?

It's like breaking the first rule of common sense regarding fantasy settings, it's like eating a fruit before picking it from the tree!

Bad example- Bad example-

If you're crazy enough you can do it, maybe I was in a cutscene or something?

Well anyway, the dynamics of my "magical summoning” are not that important right now.

I was just there suddenly. In front of me just a smoky, perhaps burning, city.

Behind me? Let’s see… Oh yes, the palace, how could I forget!

A bunch of strange looking cosplayer was standing beside an equally as unusual big fat tentacle lady, in a way similar to that one antagonist from The Little Mermaid, wouldn’t recommend this predicament to anyone if you’re asking.

I’m not sure what kind of establishment this is or how I got here but shouldn’t I just run away as soon as possible?

Not yet. Not even my choice to tell the truth.

An annoying mosquito just kept saying stuff like “Help them”, “They’re in danger”, “You are our only hope” then I caved in, I’m a magnanimous person after all.

I wasn’t sure about what was going on between the two party so I asked nicely if they needed help but the only reply I got was some sort of tentacle in the face, not very nice of the monstrous woman to be so unladylike. Guess it’s a feature for the antagonist to be rude.

Fortunately, it was a secondary arm of sort, not very significant in volume nor in weight, it left a suction cup mark though.

I could last for a while if I opened a tentacle-based restaurant using this “thing” as supply.

The little group of poser was talking the whole time in some godforsaken language not even worthy of my acknowledge at the time. Later I found out it is some sort of common tounge spoken in that continent, a sort of Lingua Franca not too different from the vulgar latin that later became the basis of the Romance family of languages. I wonder if they also had a similar historical development or they just decided to wing it after an hefty amount of diplomatic tragedies.

«No hablo your lingo» I shouted to them.

Then they looked confused for a while and proceeded to ignore me.

Wait a minute… They thought I was some crazy dude trying to unalive himself! Those bastard.

Yes, indeed. I was wearing exotic clothes for the setting, I did run into danger myself (although provoked by some voice in my head, which sounds even worse), I shouted at them in some foreign idiom. I really am the strange guy in this situation, am I not?

How cute, that girl even have the little pointy ear prosthesis.

They continued fighting for a couple minutes, just enough for me to feel ignored and out of place; being ignored isn’t fun, being ignored can be an emotional abuse in itself, not that they were trying to go for it.

They’re having fun, huh?

They were, indeed, not having fun.

The band of misfits only lasted 5 minute tops, which isn’t too bad considered that the bloody monster was 5 meters tall, she was quite powerful too, although I had no way of measuring power levels at the time, take this as speculation.

The magical octopus had now no opponent. Do I have to explain how this is dangerous?

Stranger Danger!

My mind was doing whatever it could to think about a solution or a way to escape or simple non-suspicious surrendering methods.

Where is the French flag when you need one?!

I was the next target. That’s the current undeniable truth. Not all was lost though. There is some movements near the now corpses of the weird bunch.

Pointy ear lady!

That little gandalf cosplayer had some tricks left in her sleeves and it’s not some old Ace of Spades or collectible monster card, it’s magic, a powerful one at that.

She took her giganormous staff (compared to her size) and then casted something from the gem on the top. Some tender blue string came out in my direction, I drop to the ground feeling dizzy.

WHYYY! THE TOP HAS TO BE POINTY! ROUND IS NOT SCARY! POINTY IS SCARY!

Priorities, am I right?

Inside the whole blue time-space tunnel, the panorama was quite nice, I would have enjoyed if I wasn’t puking my soul whole during the 1-star review taxi ordeal. To be honest, I was not really sure what I was watching, just a bunch of unknown (at least to me) places.

****************************************************************

The sun.

Very nice.

But why?

Where am I again?

A fountain, a river running inside the city, a fence, a palace, old buildings? Same place but different times? I was sure it was night. Maybe it was just the smoke? Why does everything feel half-way medieval half-way victorian? Am I in a game? Am I in a manga? I hope I’m not in a novel. No matter how I think about it, my head is empty.

Spoiler: I was in the past.

Of course, nobody would think otherwise once having used even a minimal part on neurons a normal human has. You have to understand that I was not in my best condition, the situation was bizzare, I’m quite dumb dumb, etc.

Also, everybody was wearing, like, stereotypical european medieval clothes with not very bright colours. The guard of the palace had nice looking blue and white uniforms, brighter than anything else in the vicinity, excluding the whites of the fountain or the casual details here and there, a palace has to be pleasant to the eye at the end of the day.

I have to say, the cobblestone road was quite nice, the greenery was quite nice, the drunkard at the side of the road is not the worst thing I’ve ever seen and it does not smell of piss. Honestly better than any modern day big city.

«Hey buddy, mind if I take 5 minutes of your time?» says a voice from behind me.

I turn around and see a little hooded fellow with a full black coat…