I found myself falling backwards and landing hard on my ass. The stone floor beneath me hurt. My right hand instinctively held onto a precious cargo. I looked over and saw I was holding an ice-cold pint of beer in a glass mug. An ancient memory came into my mind.

  It was a long Saturday. I had arrived at the gator hunting spot near Cocoa, Florida at 10 pm and moved out to my usual spot. I was lucky to get gator licenses here three years in a row. Unfortunately, it was a bad year. Gators were generally smart and if you made too many moves, they’d vanish under the water on you. I struggled to get anything that night.

  Around 2 am, I realized I had promised my community I would take care of the hog rutting up people’s yards the same day. I abandoned my hunt and got back in my truck. The problem? I lived in DeLand and it was a long drive.

  I had some good luck when I arrived at the conservation space and found the boar rooting around in the marsh. I was able to drop him with a shot from my crossbow. Unfortunately, it had rained a lot lately and the conservation was wet. That meant wading in and dressing the boar in calf-deep water. At least I had my waders from the failed gator hunt.

  I successfully dressed the boar and loaded it into my truck. My smoker would be happy. I desperately wanted to take a nap, but I had papers to grade. From what I just said, it still surprises me I have a PhD in Physics and teach optics at the university. It’s a big one in Orlando and, for the life of me, I’m struggling to remember its name.

  In any case, the school had a football game that night and I promised my friends I’d join them down at the bar to watch. After grading papers and checking if there were any updates on a research project, I got into my finest attire and went down to the bar. I was too tired to care that night. The team had recently moved into one of the big boy conferences and they were struggling to find their place after being the big fish in a small pond.

  I ordered my usual beer and, when I went to sit down, I saw a brief flash of light. Now I’m planted on the floor on my tuchus in a medieval basement. My refusal to let a good beer go to waste was why I was able to keep it from spilling. It’s nice to know I still have those reflexes.

  I looked around the room from the floor as I held my beer. I was sitting in one of the points of a six-pointed star. In each of the other points were a bunch of young people, all between the ages of 16 and 19. Half of us were men and the other half women. Arranged around the perimeter were people with their hoods pulled up. A short, burly fellow was standing on a raised platform nearby overseeing the event.

  What made the burly fellow strange was he was a wolverine man. As in a proper wolverine in human proportions, not a dude wearing yellow and black spandex. He wore rich purple robes and had a thin platinum crown across his brow. He had a dozen guards in metal plate armor holding halberds surrounding him in a defensive ring.

  The first time around I thought it was a big prank. I was somehow roofied in the bar and taken to a room in the medieval themed dinner theater in Orlando. By the looks of the others here, I had thought it was a fraternity hazing ritual and they screwed up and grabbed a 32-year-old man instead of another teen. Of course, that was silly considering fraternities aren’t mixed gender, but, hey, I had just fallen on my ass in a strange place. I was out of sorts.

  Of course, that was the first time around. I’ve done this now…I really don’t remember. One thousand times? Two thousand? It gets lost in a blur. I feel like I’ve lived in this world for a century, or two, or three, at this point, always in the same three months.

  Time loops are screwy. I really understand the guy in the groundhog movie a lot better.

  I looked up at the wolverine fellow, King Ormond. I knew what he was about to say and muttered it. I only heard it a few thousand times. “I didn’t know that would work.”

  “I didn’t know that would work,” the king said with a start.

  I decided to watch and let things play out this time around. I found out early, at least after I got past my existential dread phase of my predicament, that if I did much here, more guards in the room would come out of the shadows and kill me. Everyone was jumpy right now.

  The kids looked on in confusion. Joining them were the hooded mages, who clearly were surprised their ritual succeeded.

  The king regained his composure. “I see the summoning ritual worked. Welcome, heroes!”

  I knew the man was slinging bullshit. He was not just a career politician, he was born into it. Lying came as easily as breathing to him.

  “We have summoned you six here because we have need of you. Our oracles have divined a great evil will threaten our world. You train and build yourselves into powerful warriors to combat the threat. I promise you will be richly rewarded for your efforts,” the king boomed to the room.

  I took a sip of my beer and watched the body language of the hooded mages. They were clearly confused and I didn’t need to see their faces to know, even if I wasn’t here for the umpteenth time. I took another sip of my beer. It sucks I only ever get a single mug of my favorite brew once every three months.

  Though there was that time I intentionally pissed off the king and got killed immediately because I wanted a second drink right away. It’s funny what you’ll do when you’ve died in so many bizarre ways that pain no longer bothers you.

  “All right!” I heard a shout from the star segment directly across from me. It was the Japanese boy, Shimizu Aoto. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He was plucked out of a train station when he was on the way to Shibuya on his day off from school. He was just 16 and loved the isekai genre. He really ate this sort of thing up and was hyped he got summoned.

  Shame he’s a loud idiot and gets himself killed by next week. The kid is the poster child of what really happens when your typical passionate shonen protagonist ends up in a fantasy medieval world. There isn’t a harem here waiting for anyone and the power of friendship won’t keep you from getting snacked on a giant ladybug monster.

  The other four were less than enthused.

  Aurelie bitched about “typical Americans” since she assumed this was some stunt. Apparently, whatever magic translated the language of this world made it sound like it was in a Midwest American accent. To Aurelie, the king was speaking like an American proficient in French. The slur annoyed me the first few times around. Now? I just let it slide. It’s not a big deal, especially given what we’re going to see in a moment.

  The only exception to the Midwest accent was the other summoned humans. To my ear, they all had an accent strong enough to signify where they were from but not so thick I couldn’t understand them.

  Damu was perplexed in his white button-down shirt and nice slacks. He was summoned out of his 18th birthday party at a club in Nairobi. Disha was lying on the stone floor, dazed and in her sleepwear since it was the middle of the night in India. Carolina was the most coherent of the group since it was still in the afternoon in Peru.

  “I see you’re in disbelief. I will show you proof,” the king ordered the room. His eyes then landed on me. “I also see we summoned you at an inopportune time. We can provide you replacement clothing.”

  I looked down at myself. I was wearing my rubber clog shoes with the strap in sport mode. My bare legs protruded out of my denim booty shorts. I was wearing an unbuttoned red and white plaid shirt with my hairy chest showing. My arms showed from where I tore the sleeves away. I took another sip of my beer. “It’s all good, your majesty. I normally dress this way.”

  Disha groggily stood up and looked around, leaving me the sole individual remaining seated. The king stared at me again. “Do you not feel well, hero?”

  “You can call me Oliver,” I replied. I had stopped using the Doctor prefix for my PhD a long while back. It felt pretentious and everyone here kept asking me for medical advice. “Oliver Stewart.”

  “Ah, a nobleman. I apologize for the abrupt summons, Oliver of the House Stewart,” the king said, not really apologetic at all.

  “Nah, we all have family names where we come from,” I replied. The last time I went with the nobleman routine, it was exposed by Aoto trying to brownnose the king. I ended up on a chopping block for impersonating the peerage.

  “I see. Why is that?” the king asked, confused why I had a family name.

  “No real reason. It’s just how we do things,” I said. I didn’t want to inform him it was done to improve tax collection. When I let that slip in a previous run, the king sent people out to start forcing everyone to take on family names. It’s amazing how many people either named themselves “Street” based on what they saw when the guy showed up or made-up joke names. “Hairyass” was a common last name during that run.

  The king hummed. “No matter. Please stand.”

  I set my beer aside and put up my finger. “Apologies, your majesty. Give me a few moments longer to catch my bearings.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  I knew what was coming. I never got the timing just right, conversations were subtly different each time. Then the other five started to gasp in surprise. In the top left of my vision, a horizontal red bar appeared. The world magic was integrating us and now I had my health bar. Next, the green stamina bar came into view just beneath the red one. It was already partially grey-green. I was exhausted since my body was at the point in time where it had just been awake for 36 hours. And had a few beers.

  I lay down and prepare for what was coming. As the third bar appeared in my vision, my body seized up in terrible agony. It was a pain I had not gotten used to. The pain extended far beyond my physical being and down into my spiritual. It felt like I was being inflated from the inside and ready to burst.

  The pain subsided. It only lasted a second or two but felt like an hour. In my vision under the health and stamina bars was a solid black bar with only the smallest blue sliver visible at the left. That was my mana bar.

  Black meant severe exhaustion or trauma. If the black bar showed up in your health, it meant something bad happened like a broken bone or a major laceration. It was the part of you that wouldn’t regenerate during the day or, if the grey bar, vanish with a good night’s sleep. You needed medical attention for that. Or, in the case of mana trauma, a long time for it to heal on its own.

  I stood up and looked around. The other five were fine. What I had gone through was a result of the fact I was 32 years old. From what little I could surmise from all my time loops was our mana circuits were empty voids when we arrived. The fact we had a mana circuit at all was interesting since it implied Earth used to have magic.

  When young, the mana circuits are still pliable. When we came in here, the pressure of the system starting up our mana circuits ended up filling a sort of vacuum. The initial pressure rushing in is tremendous, like pricking a pinhole in a box at the bottom of the Mariana trench. When the teens summoned, their mana pools bulged like a balloon. They stretched to accommodate the extra pressure without trouble.

  When the pressure subsided, their internal storage pool compressed back down. As part of the process, their pools ended up stretched out larger than before. Their mana pools are roughly twice as large than the average. While this doesn’t sound impressive at first, a person’s mana pool, which reaches its maximum size at puberty, dictates the pace of advancement. The bigger, the better. The greatest hero born in this world, Dane, the wolf-clan man featured on Victory Fountain, was born with a 10% larger mana pool. That goes to show the potential of the kids summoned.

  Me? I’m much older and my mana circuit is dried out from atrophy. When my circuits started to fill and the pressure blasted into my being, my mana pool lacked the elasticity to push back. It ended up blowing out my pool to an immense size and nearly ruptured it in the process. As a result, I have a mana pool that is positively gigantic.

  So why am I seen as absurdly weak? That little visible sliver of blue is smaller than a child’s mana capacity. When your mana bar is in a state of severe exhaustion, you can’t grow. A fully healthy mana pool is necessary for advancement in the world. Given the trauma I just experienced and the sheer size of my mana pool, it’ll take years for this whole thing to heal. In the three months between now and the apocalypse, I couldn’t tell if I healed any at all.

  “Is something amiss, hero?” I heard the mage standing near me at the end point of the star drawn on the floor.

  “I’m just a bit tired,” I replied as I grabbed my beer and stood. “And had a few too many of these.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t finish it,” he replied.

  “Nah,” I said as I took another sip. “It’ll go bad soon and, by the looks of it, there aren’t any more to be had.”

  “We have beer in our world,” the hooded figure responded.

  “I bet it isn’t as good as one brewed in the Rockies by a Canadian company pretending to be American,” I retorted. In reality, the beer I had was mass produced swill. Everything in this world blew it out of the proverbial water. I liked it because it was cheap and easy to get drunk on.

  The hooded head cocked in confusion from the barrage of unknown terms I slung his direction. I knew the mage under there was from the raccoon-clan. He really wasn’t a raccoon. He was close enough that the world magic translating their language for me came back as raccoon.

  “Come, let me show you,” King Ormond announced. He turned and began walking behind the raised platform to where the exit was situated. Aurelie, Damu, Carolina and Disha were shuffling behind the column. Only Carolina was aware enough to look terrified. The other three were tired from either being up late or, in Disha’s case, woken up and couldn’t process what was happening. Disha was waving her hand in the air as she tried to wipe away the status bar in her vision.

  Aoto had a giant smile on his face as he looked around the room. He was taking in the rather dull sight of the basement ritual room. It was just a wooden vaulted ceiling with a six-pointed star painted on the floor. Other than magical lighting to illuminate the space, it was unadorned.

  I also watched Aoto whip his arms through the air and making various weird hand signs like he was some mystical ninja in an attempt to open the non-existent character menu. He was also muttering words like “menu” or “status”. He was going to be slightly disappointed tomorrow.

  I calmly strolled at the rear of the procession and followed it up a long spiral staircase. I watched my stamina bar plummet as we went. I was terribly out of shape. Just because I spent a lot of time outdoors didn’t mean I was in good condition. Sitting in a boat with a beer and a fishing rod wasn’t exactly exercise.

  “You seem to be taking this remarkably well,” I heard to my side. I turned and saw the mage who stood behind me at the summoning. His hood was down now, showing off his raccoon face.

  “I’m not sure who you’re talking to, Willem” I huffed as I continued to climb the long spiral upward. “This climb is murder on my glutes. You also really need to think about installing a handrail here, too.”

  I said the last part because I recalled one of my trips where I took a step wrong, stumbled backwards and found myself back at the start of the time loop.

  Willem’s face scrunched up in confusion. “I don’t recall telling you my name.”

  I had made this mistake before. There was something I had in my pocket for just such an occasion. “Oh, I overheard two of your buddies mention it’s your birthday today. Happy birthday! Unfortunately, I don’t have a gift, considering I just got here.”

  Willem gave a bashful smile. “Thank you. I’m surprised you’re giving me birthday wishes when we ripped you out of your world without warning.”

  “I’m a Florida Man. We’re used to weird stuff happing,” I lied with a wave of my hand. I was as dazed and confused as the others the first time around. “Around my parts, we have a saying. The only unusual day is one where nothing unusual happens.”

  Willem made a thoughtful expression like I said something profound and not pulled that rope right out of my backside. “You have an interesting outlook on life, one I see is not shared by your compatriots. Other than the boy up there. He seems excited to be here.”

  I couldn’t give away too much about my past knowledge. I have a hard time convincing people of the time loop and it usually is a waste of effort since the big squid inevitably sends me back again. I have enough knowledge saved up to make the job easy for when I find a way to resolve the problem and use my loop to set myself on the best path. “Who knows. My world has a lot of different cultures.”

  My stamina always barely holds out by the time we reach the landing at the top. I’m sweating buckets and sipping more beer to attempt to quench my thirst. I know beer is a bad way to rehydrate, but it’s what I have and it tastes good.

  Reality started to sink in with the kids not named Aoto when we exited into a large hall. More vaulted ceilings held up a tall wall of stained-glass windows showing various mythical events. The opposite wall, where the door we exited from was, had long banners folding down from the ceiling with ornate decorations. Various doors led into other rooms, halls or stairwells.

  We followed the hall before entered a main entry hall lined with decorative suits of wooden armor designed for an array of different beast people. The four with the sensible reaction to being summoned to an alternate reality grew more afraid as we went. It was becoming apparent from the castle servants gawking at us, who were all beast people, we were the only humans around.

  Our procession rose up a main central stairway higher into the castle. At the top, King Ormond signaled to a servant then whispered something into his ear. The servant crisply bowed and ran off.

  We followed the King up another set of stairs where led us out to a balcony.

  I always enjoyed this part no matter how many times I saw it. Two guards threw open the large doorways and we walked out onto the balcony. It gave us a great view of Leoren, the capital city of the Kingdom of Vialina.

  Below us, a wide grey cobblestone road leading to a huge gate set in a tight living wood-grown wall surrounding the castle. Inside the grounds was a large training field, stables and a garden. Beyond the walls, a wide boulevard stretched into the distance. Buildings dotted the landscape, each grown from a tree and topped with a green canopy of leaves for a roof. You could tell the wealth of the building by the condition of the canopy. Manors belonging to the nobility had colorful flowers growing this time of year while the slums had lost their leaves and presented bare branches to the sky.

  The capital had a population close to 1 million. From the balcony vantage, I could see people moving about on the streets and carriages traveling here and there. I turned up to the sky. I always enjoyed it when the flying carriage drawn by a pair of black Pegasi flew by.

  By now, the other kids finally got it. They weren’t in Kansas anymore, not that any of them ever visited Kansas.

  Aoto was leaning over the railing with a big grin on his face as he looked out over the city lit by the afternoon sun. Aurelie was looking angry while Carolina and Disha were completely shell shocked. Damu stared out over the landscape with a blank look on his face. I never did figure out what he was thinking.

  “Come,” the king said. “I know you’re shocked right now. I have prepared a meal and rooms for you to rest.”

  I leaned against the railing and took another draw of my beer. I looked into the glass and realized I had run out. It was a shame I drank it too fast this time, I needed a few more sips for effect for what was coming next.

  Aurelie turned and her eyes raged. “Shocked? You kidnapped us from our homes and you think we’re only shocked? This is outrageous! Send us home immediately!”

  A pair of armored guards stepped in front of the king and four more leveled their halberds at Aurelie. The king raised his hand. “Stand down.” His eyes turned sad, which was all part of his act. “I understand the predicament you are in. Sadly, we cannot send you back. The ritual only works to summon. I wish we didn’t have to resort to this. Conflicts in our world have always been handled by our own. Unfortunately, the oracles divined a threat so great it meant the end of our world. We are desperate. Please, help us. I can promise to make your life as comfortable and fulfilled as possible after the threat has passed.”

  Here is where I wanted my next sip. Instead, I held my empty glass in both hands and watched.

  Aoto puffed his thin chest out and said, “Great lord. I will accept your call.”

  The other four still looked out of it. They peered at each other then their eyes landed on me. Instinct drew their eyes to the adult human in the vicinity.

  “What do you think?” Damu said. I could see his eyes were moistening like he wanted to cry.

  I sighed. “The way I see it, a TGV inOui isn’t going to pull up in front of the castle and take us to Paris anytime soon.”

  Aurelie gave me a look of surprise. I did enjoy making subtle digs at her assumption Americans were a bunch of ignorant rubes.

  I continued speaking. “Best we can do is see where this goes. You all see those weird bars up in our vision. This is real and his majesty is clearly desperate for our help. I say we give it a chance. What else can we do?”

  Even though I knew I was playing into the king’s bullshit, this really was the best course of action. It was one of the few things I generally did every time the loop reset itself. It didn’t help to have those kids feeling too terrified. The king did treat them well after this, even though it was to avoid having six dangerous heroes pissed at him for lying.

  Still, they were cautious. Aurelie’s rage subsided some and Damu stopped looking like he was ready to have a mental break. Carolina seemed placated for the moment while Disha gave a big yawn. Aoto was nodding along with the speech, agreeing with every word.

  “The Kingdom of Vialina thanks you,” King Ormond said as he gestured back toward the castle interior. “For now, let us enjoy some food before we escort you to your suites.”

  As the others filed into the building, the king held back and observed me. He and his guards approached while I still leaned against the railing.

  “You are not like the others,” the king remarked.

  I shrugged. “Yea, most people where we’re from don’t dress like this.”

  “No,” the king shook his head before waving his hand over me. “I mean, you seem far older than the others. I confess, we know nothing about you so I’m not sure of your station from where I’m from.”

  “That’s fair,” I said in response. This particular path was something I liked doing as well. “They’re just a bunch of teens. From what I see, probably around 16 to 19 years of age. They’re on the cusp of adulthood. I’m 32 and a teacher.”

  The king nodded. “Yes, I see. You confirmed what the ancient records said about the last summoning.”

  I knew the king was verifying their age. The kids were still at an impressionable part of their development and he was hoping to get in their good graces over time. Me being an adult was more troublesome.

  His eyes drifted toward my beer mug. “The craftsmanship on your vessel is quite exquisite. Can I interest you in selling it?”

  I smiled internally. He was trying to scam me with a few coins. The mug in my hand was a cheap, mass-produced thing. Here, where craftsmen didn’t have access to precision machining, it looked like an impossible work of art. The only objects rivaling it were magic-formed trinkets found in dungeons. The real value was my glass was mundane, not mana formed. Mana formed trinkets typically winked out of existence after a few years of use.

  I leaned into subtle theatrics as I moved the mug close to my chest. “I’d have to think about it. You see, your majesty, this mug is a family heirloom. Mugs of this quality are exceedingly rare in my world.”

  His eyes looked skeptical, something I was expecting. “If it is so rare and valuable, why were you drinking out of it?”

  I smiled. “I use it as part of a new year celebration ritual. It signifies long health and good luck in the coming year.” The king didn’t need to know he summoned us in early September.

  The king nodded. “I see. If you reconsider, I am willing to offer you a gold Sovereign for it. My time is, however, limited, so I cannot entertain an offer beyond tomorrow.”

  It was the classic high-pressure tactic. Give an offer and put an arbitrary time limit on the decision. He was banking on my ignorance and disorientation to get a better deal. I already knew a trader out in the city who would give me a platinum Sovereign, which was worth 100 gold Sovereigns. “I appreciate your gracious offer and will consider it.”

  King Ormond beamed. “Excellent. Now, shall we go feast?”