The room went deadly quiet. The scraping of forks and knives on plates stilled. Even the quiet murmuring of the group ended as they digested what had been said. Everyone in their age group had watched fantasy movies and tv shows, some depicting similar situations to what they were currently going through.
But in reality, how were they supposed to achieve it? None of them felt ridiculously powerful. In tv shows and books the main characters started off with powerful skills or spent years training to learn abilities to defeat the Devil or Demon king or whatever. None of them had overpowered magic, nor did any of them particularly want to spend years in what could basically be summed up as a training montage.
"How?" One of the boys spoke out standing up. James Gordon, one of the more popular kids and definitely the most athletic.
"How are we supposed to beat them? On our world even getting in a fight is a rare thing. How are we supposed to defeat your Demon's if you can't?"
Kevin was nodding in the background to the question, concern still etched in his features. Summoning people from another world, while incredibly invasive and immoral, was one thing. Summoning CHILDREN in order to throw them at their enemies like human shields, was another.
"You should all have been given Gifts from the Gods" Aedir interrupted quietly, his voice carrying throughout the room.
"Gifts that will allow you to surpass the people of this world and allow you to stand on equal footing with our enemies. Make no mistake, none of us wishes for this. Had the option been available to us, none of you would have been Summoned, you could have continued on with your lives in peace. But these are dark times. With every victory and every defeat, the Demon's seem to exert their presence further. Like the tide, they ebb for a moment, then flow over us with forces beyond anything we can imagine each time"
"Are you talking about our status things? Like in video games? Are we supposed to conquer dungeons or something too?" James replied, his face confused as he appeared to be looking at something in the air that only he could see.
Aedir and Allaan gave each other a confused look, video games weren't a concept they understood. The fact these Champions seemed to simultaneously know nothing about their world and yet also know more than they should was also stunning. But when it comes to dungeons…
"Whatever your Gift is, it will be instrumental in you defeating the Demons. For tonight you will rest. In the morning we will take you to begin training with weapons with Lord Boriq. Once he believes you ready, he will take you to the nearby forests filled with game and the occasional monster. Perhaps once he believes your skills to have reached a sufficient level of skill he will take you to one of our countries weaker dungeons. BUT! None of you are to step foot in one until he deems you ready. Are we clear?" Allaan explained firmly.
Giving them experience in battle was one thing. But losing new Champions so early in their lives would bring shame on this country and could possibly doom their world. Unfortunately, unlike this world, most adults on Earth knew that the more you forbid something to young people. The more likely they were to try it anyway.
.....................................
They were all assigned rooms, not far from each other, yet their teacher corralled them into his larger room to talk before allowing them to go to bed for the night.
"So, what do you all think? This has become something a lot crazier than I think any of us expected. Is everyone doing, ok?"
An instant hubbub of voices chimed up as everyone spoke at once.
"When can we go home?"
"Screw that, this is awesome!"
"I wonder if we'll get to learn magic!"
"Or use swords and stuff that'd be sick!"
"What class is everyone? I'm a cleric which is a healer I think?"
"Shut up, not everyone is adopted and wants to spend their lives in a fantasy universe. Some of us actually have families to go home to"
"Literally no one asked you Sandy, Magic, swords and demons? It sounds like most of us are pretty excited. And don't be jealous just because my adopted parents love me more than your 'real' ones…"
"What the hell did you just say?"
The ruckus grew louder and louder until eventually Mr McGilvray raised his hands and yelled out.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!"
Seeing the group quieten down quickly, he continued in a more moderate tone.
"I can understand some of you are wanting to go home. And some are excited. What we must remember is that all we have right now is each other. This is a strange world, and we will all need to work together to get home. Does everyone understand?"
Looking around, while making sure to make eye contact with everyone individually, he waited until he got a nod in response to his question.
"Now. Does anyone have anything CONSTRUCTIVE to add?" he said, heavily emphasizing the word to be sure they got the point.
A quiet spread for a moment before James stood up.
"I think it'd be great if we all shared our classes and abilities now so we can form a plan going forward"
"Yeah, good idea"
"For sure!"
Aaron and Jarred glanced at each other before Aaron raised his hand.
"Yes?"
"So… what if there are people listening in on us right now?"
The room froze. While in a normal situation most would have laughed off his comment as ridiculous, right now in this foreign place it wasn't impossible to consider.
"Like I don't know if the Demon's could, hopefully they wouldn't be able to use spells to hear inside the King's castle or mansion or whatever this is otherwise their war would be over VERY quickly, but I'd imagine at the very least they'd have spies in the city. Not to mention there's probably a 90% chance that old guy with the staff is listening in on us right now"
.....................................
"Well at least they're intelligent" Allaan said out loud, hearing the voices of those in the room thanks to Aedir's magic.
"If you can call it that. Anyone with half a brain would come to that assumption, especially after showing the Hush spell while you and their teacher came to an agreement. It's common sense that we would keep an eye on them"
"Yes, but also expecting spies in the capital? We had concerns but no solid proof until the failure at the Summoning ritual. Knowing they have spies among us is disconcerting at the least so with 0 knowledge of that or the circumstances surrounding the ritual and making a guess…"
"A guess is all it is. They know nothing of our world yet. Boriq may whip them into shape, but it'll be a long time before this group of children will be ready to face a flea, let alone the full Demon Host" Aedir's comments were exceedingly bitter, yet they were the genuine concerns of an inhabitant of this world.
These were not the might Champions they had expected.
"We will do everything in our power to help raise them. Our most pressing concerns however is fulfilling our side of the bargain and finding the two children who are still lost!"
.....................................
"If you don't want to share out loud you don't have to" James replied seeing the concern spreading on everyone's faces.
"Look at your status page, there's a section for group messages so we can just text everything instead"
Everyone including their teacher immediately opened up their status pages, seeing a series of icons advising of different pages to open. One of which was a message screen, where they could message each other individually or as a group. While only appearing to work for those who had been summoned as they couldn't message anyone else, it was still a pretty cool feature.
A few took the time to write up quick messages to each other, before someone pointed out.
Melissa: Hey, Jas and Victor aren't on here. Their names are on my list but they're both greyed out like they are inactive or blocked.
James: Yeah, they've been missing since we arrived. Hopefully they're safe.
James: So, are we all comfortable uploading our information on here?
Jarred: I mean if someone has got Jasmine and Victor, they technically could use them to see this information and share it with anyone so in a way this is actually worse.
Amanda: FINE! We all privately message each other our classes, nothing else. That way it's guaranteed to be secret and then we can discuss less confidential things in person.
Aaron: Agreed
Ben: Sounds good
Sophie: OK
After a few minutes with everyone texting their classes to each other this is how it looked.
Aaron Drage (???)
Jarred Campbell (Swordsman)
Scylla Telling (Apprentice)
Victor Romanovich (Missing)
Jasmine Lively (Missing)
Tyler Griffin (Apprentice)
Mellissa Joy (Cleric)
Amanda Sterling (Archer)
Ben Tones (Spearman)
Jennifer Cleary (Rogue)
Kristofer Kay (Rogue)
Jett Lachman (Fighter)
Noah Lowe (Brawler)
Harley James (Spearman)
James Gordon (Hero)
Hannah Weaver (Cleric)
Sophie Johnston (Bard)
Aaliyah Harman (Druid)
Charli Ronin (Swordswoman)
Sandy Eaton (Apprentice)
Teacher: Kevin McGilvray (Apprentice)
Hannah: Aaron why does yours say ???, I know you don't want to let people know but don't be ridiculous.
Aaron: That's literally what it says.
Jarred: It really does.
James: How would you know Jarred? It's not like we can take screenshots.
Jarred: Because we've been talking about this all day. Dick.
Jarred had obviously seen his friend's class with his Inspect skill but since none of them were disclosing their skills he decided not to either.
Kevin: Hey guys let's all keep things friendly. Aaron, please tell us what your ACTUAL class is.
Aaron: Already have. Apparently, I don't have one. Also, why are there 4 apprentices? Did everyone want to play a magic class?
Tyler: Obviously none of us chose our class. But hey if I can learn those sick teleporting spells, I'm fine with this.
Ben: Yeah, that would be awesome I'm super jealous.
Kristopher: Or cool fire magic or something. Surely there's lots of different kinds of magic spells.
Sophie: Time for a training montage :p also who gets creepy vibes from the old guy with the king? $10 says he's secretly the bad guy.
Aaron: Nah the King and the old guy seem ok. My money is on some snotty noble or Archbishop of whatever the local religion is. Bet they try to mutiny and overturn the kingdom in exchange for something with the Demons help.
James: Nah gotta be the King, he's secretly batting for the other team. Gonna do a big reveal afterwards that he was on the Demon's side all along.
"Alright I think we're getting off track" Mr McGilvray interrupted out loud.
"Why don't we all get some sleep and discuss this in the morning. At least now we have a message system we can use to communicate without anyone overhearing. We will use it FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY!" He said emphatically.
"I don't want to be getting pings in my head in the middle of the night! Now everyone get to bed and we'll discuss things further. Goodnight everyone, sleep well"
Yes sir, echoed around the room as chairs rattled and scraped against the floors. The group got together at the door before scattering to their assigned rooms nearby.
Kevin had briefly been considering asking them to call him by his first name in light of everything that was happening. But without that token respect, eventually they would begin to realize he no longer had any authority over them and once that happened… The tenuous control he had to ensure their well-being and safety was already hanging by a thread. He didn't want to imagine what would happen when it snapped.
Lying back on his bed nearby, he closed his eyes. He hoped this King pulled through, he'd be ashamed to face the parents of the missing children if he didn't get them home safe and sound. Hopefully they were found soon and escorted back to the palace to join the rest of them.
.....................................
At the same moment, two heavy hessian sacks were being carried by a pair of chunky thralls. With dark earthy skin and bulging muscles, the pair of enthralled creatures seemed to barely notice the burden they had been carrying at a full run for the past several hours. They had grey atrophied wings, no use for anything more than decoration, and thick white fangs jutting out of their upper lips.
They had avoided main roads, first going through the nearby forest. Most of the local fauna, including monsters, shrunk away once they noticed the thick demonic aura leaking from the pair. As such they were able to continue on to their destination, unmolested.
It took several more hours before they reached their destination on the far side of the forest. A dark cave, sinister and gloomy as if it had been hewn from the bedrock of hell. The sun was just beginning to dawn as the pair hurried into the cave's depths. Their vision unimpeded by the murkiness as they continued ever downward at the same hurried pace.
Eventually they reached their destination and dumped their prizes unceremoniously on the ground. The hessian sacks began to move and whimper slowly as the two inside slowly struggled free. As one after the other finally pulled their heads free of their confines, they were met with a pitch blackness. Illuminated only by a shining white mask of a woman with tears running down her cheeks.
"Hello there, dear ones"