You are Summoned

“Mr. Kline, you didn’t need to disrobe, this isn’t that kind of examination,”

My mind reeled as I tried to focus on where I was. Then it hit me, I was in the exam room, and the doctor had just walked in to speak with me.

“I’ll step out for a minute and let you get dressed,” the doctor said, trying in that ‘I’m a doctor’ way to make me not feel embarrassed at sitting there on the exam table buck naked when I didn’t need to.

“Uh, thanks, sorry about that,” I muttered as he closed the door. Getting dressed quickly was becoming a thing for me, but I stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed the time.

It was 4:23 pm, and the timer on my phone showed that just over a minute had passed since I’d been summoned. Was this proof that this whole thing was in my head, or was it proof that what was happening to me was real? Whoever had the power to snatch me up and transport me instantly to another world and send back rewards would have the power to return me to the same time and place, wouldn’t they?

“Now, Mr. Kline, what seems to be the trouble today?” The doctor asked.

“Well, I’ve been having really bad headaches for the last day or so, and they seem to be causing other problems,” I said, trying to avoid telling the doctor that I’d been seeing things, but knowing it probably had to happen.

“Let me look at a few things. You can place your stuff on the chair in the corner.”

“Yeah, no problem,” I replied. It made sense that a doctor didn’t want you messing with your phone while he was examining you. I got up to drop my phone on the chair and only then noticed that there was another leather pouch right next to where I had been sitting on the exam table.

This pouch was bigger than the other two that I had found clenched in my fist after returning home. Maybe the system that ran things only placed stuff in your hand when it was a small reward, and otherwise dropped it next to you. Did this mean the whole summoning thing was real?

The muted rattle of coins was heard as I set the pouch next to my phone on the chair. As much as I wanted to dig into it and see what was inside, I forced myself to concentrate on the exam. The doctor ran through the normal stuff like blood pressure, shining lights in your eyes, and asking a million questions.

“There’s nothing I’m seeing from the exam. Your blood pressure is a little high, but that’s not uncommon for someone that’s in pain. Given that these headaches are a new occurrence for you and there’s no history of migraines, I’d like you to have a specialist to run a few scans,” the doctor advised.

“Is there anything I can do in the meantime?” I asked.

“Just keep an eye on how many over the counter meds you’re taking. Don’t exceed the recommended dose. As far as anything stronger, that’s not something I typically prescribe in situations like this,” the doctor answered. Great, now the doctor thought I was some kind of druggie trying to score meds.

“I understand more tests, but what do you think this could be?” I asked, hoping against hope that there was a logical explanation for everything that was happening to me. The leather pouch sitting on the chair next to my phone seemed like strong confirmation that what was happening was real.

“It could be a number of things, and I don’t want to scare you with all the possibilities before we have more information. Let’s get those tests scheduled and we can narrow down what’s causing the headaches. Let me get a few things for you to review at home.” the doctor said as he opened a cabinet in the exam room and started grabbing handouts. After giving me a stack of paperwork, the doctor ushered me out of the exam room.

Sadly, the doctor wasn’t much help. All he did was recommend a specialist to run more tests on me, tests that my insurance wouldn’t cover once it ran out. He also gave me a food journal to check for allergies, and a few other papers about headaches that I would probably never read. As I was about to leave the clinic, I thought of something that might help to confirm what was happening.

“Excuse me,” I asked the nurse at the front desk who had just finished up a phone call.

“Yes?” The nurse asked, a bit annoyed that I wasn’t just leaving like most patients did when they were through.

“Do you think I could get a copy of the picture you took earlier? It’ll prove that I was here and didn’t just print up some fake documents to get out of work early,” I asked. The story sounded weak to me, but the nurse just nodded and asked my phone number to send over the picture.

I couldn’t wait and found a relatively vacant space in the store to get a good look at the picture. There I was, with a goofy, fake smile on my face. The picture had most of my upper torso in it, and I could see the three chairs in the small waiting area behind me.

In one hand was my phone, and there was nothing in the other. I couldn’t see anything on the chairs, and that was about the only other place I could have stashed a large pouch full of coins. The pouch of coins didn’t exist until I came back from the summoning. That settled it in my mind, I finally had to face that this was real, and I wasn’t having a mental breakdown. I was really being transported to these other worlds.

It was both a relief and terrifying in equal measure. I was happy that I wasn’t nuts, but something horrible was happening to me, something nobody would believe if I told them. I walked home on autopilot, not sure how to react or what I should do. At any time, I could be transported to another world, a stupid summoned being like something from a video game. I wasn’t even some cool hero; I was just a disposable minion. The people summoning me cared nothing about the pain I would endure, or the disruption to my normal life. To them, I was just an expendable tool for them to use.

Finally reaching my apartment, I wasn’t sure what to do next. I lost myself in tasks around the house, letting my mind process everything while I did laundry, dishes, and took stock of what was left in the fridge. A food run would need to be made in the near future; I was almost out of everything.

My shopping trip would have to be to the discount grocery since I was out of work. They had weird off brands, and a few recognizable brands that were near the end of their shelf life. It wasn’t somewhere I liked to shop, but I had to come to grips with the fact that I was poor now and needed to shop at the cheapest place I could.

After doing some chores and calming down a bit, I felt the overwhelming need to see my most recent reward. The bag was double the size of the tiny ones I’d gotten so far, and I had bigger hopes on this one. Dumping it out on the coffee table, a small pile of copper coins poured out, but there was something new, a pair of silver coins and a small red gem. I didn’t know how much silver was worth, but it was sure going to be more than the useless copper coins.

A quick check on my phone showed that silver was around twenty bucks an ounce. Not what I was hoping for, but if I got enough of these coins, I could sell them to one of those “we buy gold” places or a pawn shop. The little red gem could be a ruby, or cut glass, I had no idea which. There was a pawn shop around the corner I would have to check out tomorrow. It was early evening, and while my neighborhood wasn’t that bad, the pawn shop attracted a pretty sketchy crowd after dark.

All told, I had sixty-two copper coins, two silver ones, three leather bags, and a small, unknown gem. Not exactly fair compensation for being chopped in half by an orc, nearly eaten by a dog, and battling giant spiders. Tonight, I’d have to go online and start looking for work. What kind of job could I get if I randomly disappeared and then came back naked over and over again?

It was starting to get dark, and I was trying to decide between the blue box mac and cheese or a frozen pizza for dinner when the headache returned. Great, now I would have to do the whole summoned thing again. Some time passed and the headache didn’t get any worse.

That brought up another question for me; would I still get normal headaches? How could I tell if I just had a headache or was about to be sucked into battle on another world? A growling stomach overruled worrying about the headaches for now. Deciding on the pizza, I started to preheat the oven when the pain suddenly spiked.

“You are Summoned!”