Chapter 2: Summoned: Book 1 – An Accidental Adventure Prologue ii

Authors Notes -

Nope. This chapter doesn't take place in the gnarly realm with that Old Man. Here are some more character introductions.

I'm trying for a once a week chapter. Usually friday or saturday, but who knows what life brings. I've got this story pretty much finished and transcribing, but I'm not gonna post it all at once as it is still in very (very very) rough format. Gots lots of stuffs to do in it before I'm completely happy!

Don't forget to like the story and go to my patreon link at the end to get access to new chapters and also to exclusive artwork and previews before I post here and other places on the interwebs!

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“Hey Nick! What demented asinine brain jerky inspired dungeon crawl do you have planned for us this weekend?” Chris Hodges asked his gamer geek friend and sometimes co-worker Nicholas Anderson. Chris himself was a self styled average guy. Around six feet tall, around a hundred and eighty pounds. Average cut brown hair and average brown eyes that set in a reasonably average Caucasian frame. In fact Chris went to some lengths to stay that way. None of his friends, both geek and chic, understood why. Especially since his personality and presence made him stand out in almost every crowd. As well as his constantly being in the middle of most anything going on. Luckily for them he was also a very likable individual not to mention pretty handy in a crunch.

Currently he and his friend Nick worked at the local Best Buy consumer electronics store. Which was great for both of them as they were able to get first pick of great items that came through the damaged or clearance bins. After all, neither of them truly cared if an Xbox came back with a damaged disc reader. Both could repair simple electronics at need.

Nicholas was a bit shorter and definitely the more flamboyant of the pair. He was just as, if not more, energetic than Chris. Though where Chris enjoyed being in the center of any goings on, Nick was more of a prankster and joker than the more serious mind Chris.

“You have the manners of a baboon with a serious sinus infection.” Nick said with a pompous sniff. “Seriously, ‘assinine brain jerky?’ I will have you know that I am serving our dungeon from a nicely chilled platter of Posterially Challenged Salad. Fresh and Crispy with critters and a potential side of Obtuse Opossum for good measure.”

Chris pinched the brow of his nose as he groaned with his eyes screwed shut. “Oh good lord. Not the Morks again. Seriously who let you watch that Futurama movie?”

The shorter of the two responded with a chuckle as he shook his head. “No, not the Morks this time my good friend. But you gotta admit, they were funny.”

“No they weren’t Nick. They Just.. Would… Not… Shut…Up! If I hear one more MindyMindyMindyMindyMindy or Nanu Nanu it’ll be too soon.” He turned away from his friend to do some straitening on the shelves. “And did you honestly have to set up a Sound Board for that session? I mean… Really?”

Nicholas’s reaction was a silent and rather self gratified grin. Which only caused Chris to groan once again. The two of them had to cease their conversation then as a customer came within the range where they could not professionally ignore her. As Nick went off to great the woman Chris contemplated their friendship. No matter how much he and the others may bemoan some of the poor taste of Nicks jokes or puns they still did enjoy their gatherings and games.

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Across the town in one of the many grocery store chains another member of their small yet dedicated group was plying his way through the aisleways in search of various foodstuffs. Sometimes muttering to himself and at others actively seeming to be talking to himself. At least until an observer saw the tiny Bluetooth earbud in one ear.

“No. Yes, yes. They’re out right now. Got it. What? Of Course. No, I’ve got that too.” Was his portion of the conversation that was in response to a list of goods being inquired of. “Look Mom, I have the list you texted me. I can’t figure out what you want that’s not on the list nearly as easily on the phone. Why don’t you just text me an updated list?”

He stopped moving as he paused to listen to her. “Yes, I know you like to hear my voice and want to talk. But I need to keep to my schedule as well."

James Wethers was an orderly man. The grocery cart in front of him was a testament to this in the way every item was neatly arranged and set up. Heavy canned goods stacked on the bottom near the back of the cart, other higher weight items that had a resistance to crushing to the front. On top of those in the next layer was any boxed goods. Perishables above those and all of the frozen goods pulled together to maintain their temperature. The largest item was a heavy fifty pound bag of rice underneath the cart.

His appearance looked quite in line with the way he set his cart.

Tall and heavyset, more stocky than fat. Not too much muscle definition but moving with a sort of grace that only a landslide could show. Only the beginnings of a belly starting to show in his otherwise large frame. James did not quite yet have a second chin, but the makings for one could already be seen under his strong jawline. He was sharply dressed and very well groomed. Though he would never be considered a very good looking man, James felt it important to never be accused of being unkempt. At twenty two years old he had a lot of career options once he finished his collage and vocational training in his home town of San Diego. This in conjunction with his constantly being at his mothers beck and call made for a bit of a dearth of dating material. The upside was in the savings tha the found and extra free time to pursue his schooling and hobbies.

Between the scholarships, grants, and collage savings from his parents James did not to put out a dime for higher education. His entire course was set for a PhD in Space Robotics and Electronics specializing in automated control systems. One of the few conditions that assisted in this so has to help defray costs and gain more financial support was to live at home with his mother and share vehicles.
His father had been a ships design engineer for the US Navy before passing to cancer a few years ago. James felt the pull to follow in his fathers footsteps. Though it was to design for space rather than nautical designs. Everything he did reflected the very orderly house he was raised in. Where he had doubled down as the man of the house as his fathers health had faded rather than follow the more classic rebellion against their parents upbringing and wishes.

The one social weakness that James had in his own eyes was his inability to stop gaming with his childhood friend Nick. The two of them had been as unlikely a pair as any. Especially as Nick was spontaneous, disorganized, impertinent, and drifted life with nary a care to his own future. His spur of the moment methodology often caused distress to James’s comfortable routines. To make matters worse was that Nick seemed to have an intuitive ability to be where things would benefit him. Sort of a Homer Simpson grade of luck. Where James had needed to work hard in school to get a good test score Nick would game late the night before and show up exhausted to still ace the tests. James needed to share his ride with his mother, Nick on the other hand managed to sneak in and grab a decent car for next to nothing as it needed some simple electrical work done. They really were almost complete antithesis of each other. Yet even if they did often gripe and bicker like a pair of grumpy old men they were still great friends who managed to spend a lot of their free time together.

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In one of the many outdoor park style campus study areas at the San Diego State University sat a pair of smaller guys. In front of them on the park bench table was an eclectic selection of books stacked or placed rather haphazardly. The material varied from advanced chemistry to aerospace engineering principles to composite compression analysis and even a couple books on medieval weapons crafting. There was even a book on Bushido, the ancient ways of the Samurai from Japan.

“And I’m telling you Malachai, you CAN bring a sword to a gunfight and win. There are many plausible scenarios.” Felix stated with an air of both slight exasperation and overconfident braggery.

The young man was small and wiry. Possessing a compact frame that seemed to be bursting with energy. His darker olive skin spoke to his Mediterranean ancestry while his nearly black curly hair begged to be tasseled by any passerby or close friend. Internally he didn’t even mind that he was often mistaken for any of the eastern Mediterranean countries or even those of full Middle East heritage. The reality for him was that Felix was a Euro-mutt with no way to know the full set at all. Instead what he cared about was having his facts straight and winning confrontations in the most unconventional or bizarre ways possible. As such he frequently studied just about every conventional or standard way to tackle challenges. Be they in real life or in some made up fantasy realm. In that way the little gamer munchkin found ways to frustrate whatever simple minded plebian who had been unfortunate enough to challenge his intellect.

What else could anyone expect from a youth by the name of Felix Tuttle after all? Which was also part of the whole classic geek slash nerd discussion of the Sword in a Gunfight Scenario that he currently found himself engrossed in.

Opposite of the intrepid gamer nerd sat a rather contrasting individual. Where Felix was energetically leaned forward and used his hands very emphatically to emphasize each and every point his friend Malachai sat nearly ramrod straight showing a complete physical reserve. From looks, attitude, and even accent one could mistake the two as having absolutely no common ground. Yet that was not accurate in the slightest. Malachai was a foreign exchange student from Romania to the East of Hungary and south of Ukraine. Pale olive tinged skin with light brown hair and sky blue eyes, he was also very fit. Athletic build of a runner or track star and looked equally as academically inclined. He was already far ahead of his current course curriculum. Normally full time collage students only took four, maybe five courses at a time. Malachai was currently holding his own at eight courses. Even with that huge burden on his life he still found enough time to spend on interesting side projects like Felix’s current conundrum of the real life potentials of bladed weapons versus projectiles.

The reason that this odd companionships with one of the Campus’s poster boys of darkness instead of hanging around with any of the ‘In Crowd’ was because the youth had finally found proper mental stimulation there. He still maintained his physical fitness regimes that his parents had drilled into him many years ago which had centered on Gymnastics geared towards the Olympian standards. In fact it was that very sports program which allowed him his current schooling and life at the Collage. His specialty was the parallel bars, and though Malachai was very good he felt that he was only at state and national levels rather than the Olympic level his Ma and Pa had wished him to attain. That was only a matter of time according to his trainer however. Besides for Malachai at least he felt that the majority of the Olympian spotlight was currently on barely pubescent girls. A specific item that he thought was ridiculous as Gymnastics was not nearly much of a challenge for a person at that level of physical development and thus not a true competition. Sort of like a boxer fighting opponents under his weight class.

With that last thought in mind young Malachai often spent his free time in cerebral and often pointless debates with Felix rather than focusing on obtaining full Olympian status. Their usual discussions around the most recent Hollywood bullshit special effects fight that was pedaled to the general populous. So like some of their favorite shows like Mythbusters they would figure out realistic scenarios and equipment to se if there was an actual chance of victory. Such as archaic weapons versus modern firearms.

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“Yes sir, I understand.” Nick stated in a respectful tone.

“Make sure that you do Mr Anderson.” His manager responded in a rather authoritarian tone. One that always caused Nick to have to hide a laugh given his love of classic science fiction characters. “We here at Best Buy are dedicated to our customers satisfaction.”

Given that the perfunctory voice, rote answer, and standardized responses were a given for almost all employee problems Nicholas understood quite well. It was a classic case of Tow the Line or get out that all retail establishments used now a days.

“Yes, I will do my best to be more dedicated to our customers needs in the future.” He said to his manager not quite looking at the older man, making sure that he was using the correct pitch of apologetic and earnest that was required.

The other man quirked an eyebrow in a very space elf sort of way. “Even when you are ignoring one customer for another?”

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That particular comment caused Nick to flinch just a little. “You saw that?” He blurted out before thinking. Just as quickly he realized what he had said just barely suppressed saying a classic ‘Doh!’

“Yes.” The one-word answer from his boss was a bit less by rote and much darker in tone. “Mr. Anderson… Nick. I’m going to be honest. If you weren’t so good at the upsell I would have let you go your first week. I don’t like your attitude, and you spend far too much time talking non work-related topics. With both your customers and your co-workers. How you manage to upsell most customers you help is beyond me, but if you continue to go against my policies then I don’t care if you sell good. I will let you go.”

His boss, Dave Russel, was a classic case of career retail manager. He ate, breathed, and slept for big corporate retail climbing. To the point that the man was huge on policy and procedure and much less on moral and well being. Nick felt that Dave was so disconnected from the real customer needs of retail reality that the man truly did not understand that it was exactly that extra time that was spent socializing that earned the sale. If the customer felt that they were being dealt with by a drone then they would just grab their item and go. By chatting with them about their jobs and entertainments Nick was able to steer the customers to other wants and needs they didn’t know they had. So what if it took ten to fifteen more minutes per sale. He needed several thousand in sales under his belt a week above the next best floor sales person. Which not incidentally was Chris who Nick often handed customers off to after he reached the weeks quotas.

“Is there anything else sir?” He asked. He really just wanted to get out from under the man’s disapproving gaze as fast as possible.

“Not at this moment.” Dave gave him a dismissive wave.

Grateful for finally being given permission to leave Nick hightailed it out of the office being careful not to slam the door. After all it wouldn’t be nearly as pleasant if he was called back in immediately.

In the back stock room outside of the Managers office one of Nick’s co-workers, Janelle, was leaning against the wall. The rather rat faced woman was posed in what Nick was sure that she believed would be considered casual. Of course he recognized it for what it really was.

Gloating.

“So, gotta turn your blue in finally?” She asked in her nasally and, at least to Nicks ears, whiny tone.

He took great pleasure in his response. “Nope! In fact Dave admitted I was the best salesman on the floor.”

“Person.” She corrected as she pushed off the wall to follow him into the breakroom where he was heading.

“What?”

“Salesperson.” Her voice was, as always, grating on Nicks nerves. “Salesman denotes that Women can not be in Sales.”

The old line she was spouting off was another thing that bugged Nick. He didn’t like gendertyping people either, but a slip of the tongue was just that. Besides he hated the way she used her politically correct agenda against every man that she could.

“Not this again Janelle.”

“It is attitudes like that that cause women to make less money an hour than you over privileged Men.” She almost bit out at him.

To say she was something of a feminist was similar to saying the sky was a little blue or the ocean was a little wet.

Nicholas resisted the urge to pinch the brow of his nose as he felt a familiar headache coming on. “You make more an hour than I do Janelle. And you haven’t worked hear as long.”

“That’s because I had to work so hard at it! Because as a woman I have to work more than twice as hard as you do for the same benefits!”

Another thing that Nick and most everyone he knew could say about Janelle’s vitriolic rhetoric was that she was a bit brain washed by the party line.

Finally Nick had enough and turned to her just as he entered the break area. “If you worked half as hard on customer service as you do on reminding us how hard you have to work compared to a man then you’d probably give me some actual competition as best seller.” He baited her with the statement.

Normally he didn’t like to deal with this type of unfounded and regurgitated bigotry. Especially as her opinion was firmly fixed in her mind. She also happened to be one of those pleasant people that mistook her opinions for facts.

Janelle spluttered a little as her brain attempted to formulate a comeback that fit within her personal worldview. While she made a good impression of a fish out of water Nick made his way over to his lunch that had been left untended when it was interrupted by the dressing down he had received. Much to his dismay as he sat down he saw Janelle had followed him in. Technically she wasn’t even supposed to be in there as it wasn’t her scheduled break and she was on the clock. Yet she was also Dave’s favorite. Probably in large part because she was a good little bureaucratic kiss ass. So she was able to get away with things that would get Nick and most other employees a write up or even fired. As he didn’t have another job lined up yet and rent was always coming around the corner he couldn’t afford another bad note on his file.

“Janelle. As much as I would love to play point and counterpoint with you I really should clock back in and hit the sales floor.”

She turned with a huff and stalked out of the room.

“Great… I’m sure that’s gonna come back and bite me in the ass!” Nick quietly exclaimed to himself as he looked down to his half eaten
burger realizing he had lost his appetite.

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End Prologue ii

Post Notes -

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