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Token - Writing Prompt
Writing Prompt: From writing prompts on tumblr.
You were summoned to a fantasy world. As you are eager to begin your new life as the hero, the summoner explains: "Actually, our party already has one. In fact, you're only here because we need a human member in order for us to be officially recognized as a hero's party."
All his life he'd felt utterly useless. He’d lost more jobs than he could count, all because of his health. He’d never had a decent relationship, never achieved anything great. Then he felt warmth and light envelop him. He felt himself falling and flying through the space between the worlds. Like being gently led through a waterfall. Then there was the circle, glowing in every color he could imagine. Standing around the circle were a group of fantastical beings.
There was the bird creature with feathers like a peacock’s. He wore shimmering iridescent robes and held an open book in one hand (Yeah we’re gonna go with hand) glowing the same colors as the circle. To his left was a slender man with a stylized fox mask and nine flaming tails cascading out behind him. On a second glance, Max couldn’t quite tell if what he was seeing really was a mask or not. Then there was a very large man, standing taller than anyone Max had ever seen. His skin was grey and covered in runic scars and tattoos. His eyes glowed a faint blue as he studied Max.
To the bird’s right was a creature that looked almost human. If not for his long black fingers and too wide smile. He sported an ample belly and stark white hair. Finally the fifth member of their group wore blinding golden armor and stood only a little shorter than the grey man. His skin, what little showed, was covered in deep purple scales. A long reptilian tail swayed back and forth behind him. It only barely disturbed the crimson cape that hung mostly from his left pauldron. He wore no helmet, so his draconic face and ocher eyes were on full display. As was his beaming smile of dangerously sharp fangs.
“This is really happening…” Max muttered as his bare feet touched the cold stone beneath him. “I’m gonna be a hero!” That’s when the smiles faded and the awkward glances and whistling had started. Then the bird broke the news. They stood in their semi circle around the spot Max had been summoned, and Max stood in his summoning spot, swaying ever so slightly. “What…?” Max whimpered. He hadn’t realized how broken he would sound. But the way they winced told him everything. The bird tried to perform damage control.
“Well, you see.” He began, fiddling with his book as he spoke, “On this continent every adventuring party has to have at least one human. Usually it’s pretty easy to do that, but our hero is a draconian, and no human from this world would even entertain the idea.” He took a breath, his rambling cut sort by the clawed man.
“It ain’t too big a deal, an we asked bird brain to find someone who would have a halfway decent ability.” He shrugged with a smile that Max thought was supposed to be comforting. Max was dumbstruck. He felt himself plop onto the ground as his knees gave out, too numb to care. They were arguing with each other, he could hear it. He didn’t look up from the runes to see. There wasn’t really a point. He could faintly feel his body protesting at his treatment of it, which wasn't that just another joy. So caught up in jubilation, he’d forgotten for a moment why he’d been in bed in the first place. Even being summoned to another world wouldn't help that it seemed.
What would this party do when they realized he was useless? Would they just toss him aside and find some new human to fulfil whatever asinine rule this was? How was he going to survive here on his own? He’d watched enough anime to know how this works. There was no going back for him, he was stuck here. How long would it take these bonafide adventurers to realize that he was just going to slow them down? One of them was even an actual hero, which apparently was just a thing you could be here. Would they just kill him? What about… and what if.. And when the.. And.. but…
“Breathe.” A rumbling voice broke through the static. It reverberated through his mind and loosened the chokehold his panic had gained on his lungs. “In” the voice commanded, and Max complied, letting freezing cold air into his lungs. It smelled stale, but the scent of spices hung in the air around him too. He held it, waiting. “Out.” The figure beside him said. He let a shaky breath out. Feeling settled back into his limbs slowly. There was an arm at his back, a hand on his shoulder and another on his chest. “In” the figure said, and Max breathed in. “out” and he complied.
He wasn’t sure how long that went on. They’d stopped arguing. Max beaked through his tangled mess of hair to see four out of five of the group looking at him anxiously. He turned his head slightly only to find the dragon man ( the draconian… the hero) carefully supporting him. His cape was getting dirty.
“There we go,” his voice reverberated through Max’s body “you’re alright.” He reached into a small pouch on his hip and produced a piece of jerky, offering it to Max. He took it with shaky hands and tried to nibble on one corner. “Let’s go somewhere a little more cheery, then we can try this again.” He said, shooting the last part to the rest of his party who flinched as a group.
Max barely paid attention as he was helped to his feet and let somewhere brighter. It took him far too long to realize that they were outside. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and there were two suns in the sky. He was sat on a long, with a blanket thrown over it. The fox-man drew a sigil in the air and created a bonfire from nothing. The grey skinned man was sharpening an impossibly large blade while the clawed man prepared some sort of stew. The rest of the party settled themselves as what seemed to be lunch cooked. The hero sat down on the ground right in front of the log he’d sat Max down on.
“Alright, now how about we introduce ourselves without sending anyone into a panic attack.” He said pointedly. He turned to Max, looking up at the human with a kind smile. “My name is Ardent, I’m a draconian and my class is Hero.” He turned to fox-mask and motioned for him to speak.
“My common name is Shi.” He said, his mask moving like it was part of his face. “I am from the elf kingdom, and I have trained in the art of pyromancy.”
“Yo!” the man still carefully preparing stew called out. His grin was filled with oversized sharp teeth. “Name’s Marrow. Ah’m a shade assassin!” He loudly slurped from a small bowl before tossing a handful of herbs into the pot. The grey man grunted as he continued to sharpen his blade. Glancing to Marrow expectantly. The shade happily slurped from his bowl again, sighing contentedly before responding. “That’s Rodus, he’s still learnin’ common. He’s a giant barbarian.” He said, passing a large wooden bowl over to Max. Max sipped it tentatively, before gulping half of it down. The flavors were intense and wonderful, like nothing he’d ever tasted before. After he’d collected himself, he looked to the last member of the group. The peacock was studying his leather-bound tome with laser focus.
“Hey, your highness!” Ardent called, tossing a bread roll at him. The bird squealed in surprise, flailing all six of his limbs as he tried and failed to catch it. Max couldn’t help snorting in surprise as the peacock’s feathers puffed up in indignation.
“Would you stop that!” He cried, brandishing the book, “I’m trying to figure out how we can test the cu.. I mean, the human’s, skills!” His feathers puffed up again as he spoke, clearly frazzled. Ardent snickered as the bread roll bounced off his shoulder where the bird had thrown it. He turned to look at Max, still stifling his laughter.
“That’s our resident magician, Rahdur…”
“Prince…” Rahdur interrupted in a distracted tone as he read.
“Right, right, Prince Rahdur of the Eastern Aarakocra.” Ardent amended, “don’t worry too much about that part, he only makes me use his proper title because I dyed his feathers yellow during a ball a few years ago.” The draconian whispered conspiratorially.
“I still think you should have gone with red.” Shi said as he sipped his stew, “We could have matched.” The elf caught the bread roll that Rahdur hurled at him with grace and dipped it into his bowl of stew. Seeing them all interacting like this, Max felt himself becoming calmer and calmer. Ardent glanced at him and gave him the same beaming smile he’d had at the summoning.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better. Those thoughts you were having were dangerously dark.” He said. Max’s eyes widened in surprise, but before he could speak Ardent held up a clawed hand. “Don’t worry, I can’t read your mind. My skill is called Empath, it lets me sense the type of thoughts someone is having, and their emotions when I focus.”
“So this really is like an anime,” Max said, mostly to himself, “everyone has a skill of some kind?”
“Indeed,” Shi said, “Usually it is reliant on species or class in some cases, but summons are always a bit of a wild card.”
“But don worry little guy, Rahdur made sure to do some specific summoning to bring you here. Whatever your skill is, it’ll be perfect for us.” Marrow chortled. Max looked down at his still bare feet, now stained and muddied by the ground. Ardent’s clawed hand moved to his shoulder again, his ochre eyes shining in the sunlight, but looking unbelievably sad.
“Hey,” he soothed, “no more bad thoughts. We summoned you, you’re part of the party now. You can talk to us.” For some reason, despite his thoughts and history of self perceived failure, Max believed him. He looked to Rahdur hesitantly, taking in the arakocra’s concerned expression.
“I think… your spell went wrong.” Max said haltingly. “I know you just need a human, but you probably couldn’t have picked a worse one.” Max rubbed his aching arms, glancing down at his scrawny form hidden under baggy clothes. “I’m… not well. I’d understand if you just wanted to try the summoning spell again.” He finished with a smile that refused to reach his eyes. They exchanged distraught glances with each other before Rodus rose suddenly. He buried his gargantuan blade into the soil and strode over in two wide steps. The giant knelt and took Max’s face in two of his fingers to look into the human’s eyes.
“We know.” He rumbled in a voice that Max could have sworn shook the ground. Max was… more than confused. There really wasn’t a word for it. Confusion was simply the closest thing he could think of. Ardent, like the hero he was, came to his rescue. Sitting beside Max and upping an arm around his shoulders. Wordlessly, Rodus moved away and back to his spot, glancing back as he did.
“We don’t want to overwhelm you, but we knew who we were summoning.” Ardent said. “Getting you here was really killing two… no maybe closer to five birds with one stone. “ Another indignant squawk from Rahdur was ignored as Ardent continued. “Some of it isn’t really our place to say, but just know that we summoned you knowing that you aren’t fully abled. We have a spot ready for you in the caravan, and we aren’t going to abandon you.” Max was crying, he knew he was. But he couldn’t stop.
“I’m… You wanted… me?” He hiccupped. He looked around the campsite only to be met with genuine smiles and nods of approval. Maybe. Just maybe, this could be home.
If you're a big fan of my art, you can support me by donating to my patreon! Or you can send me a ko-fi! https://patreon.com/A_M_W_Harris?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
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Also, other socials.
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You were summoned to a fantasy world. As you are eager to begin your new life as the hero, the summoner explains: "Actually, our party already has one. In fact, you're only here because we need a human member in order for us to be officially recognized as a hero's party."
All his life he'd felt utterly useless. He’d lost more jobs than he could count, all because of his health. He’d never had a decent relationship, never achieved anything great. Then he felt warmth and light envelop him. He felt himself falling and flying through the space between the worlds. Like being gently led through a waterfall. Then there was the circle, glowing in every color he could imagine. Standing around the circle were a group of fantastical beings.
There was the bird creature with feathers like a peacock’s. He wore shimmering iridescent robes and held an open book in one hand (Yeah we’re gonna go with hand) glowing the same colors as the circle. To his left was a slender man with a stylized fox mask and nine flaming tails cascading out behind him. On a second glance, Max couldn’t quite tell if what he was seeing really was a mask or not. Then there was a very large man, standing taller than anyone Max had ever seen. His skin was grey and covered in runic scars and tattoos. His eyes glowed a faint blue as he studied Max.
To the bird’s right was a creature that looked almost human. If not for his long black fingers and too wide smile. He sported an ample belly and stark white hair. Finally the fifth member of their group wore blinding golden armor and stood only a little shorter than the grey man. His skin, what little showed, was covered in deep purple scales. A long reptilian tail swayed back and forth behind him. It only barely disturbed the crimson cape that hung mostly from his left pauldron. He wore no helmet, so his draconic face and ocher eyes were on full display. As was his beaming smile of dangerously sharp fangs.
“This is really happening…” Max muttered as his bare feet touched the cold stone beneath him. “I’m gonna be a hero!” That’s when the smiles faded and the awkward glances and whistling had started. Then the bird broke the news. They stood in their semi circle around the spot Max had been summoned, and Max stood in his summoning spot, swaying ever so slightly. “What…?” Max whimpered. He hadn’t realized how broken he would sound. But the way they winced told him everything. The bird tried to perform damage control.
“Well, you see.” He began, fiddling with his book as he spoke, “On this continent every adventuring party has to have at least one human. Usually it’s pretty easy to do that, but our hero is a draconian, and no human from this world would even entertain the idea.” He took a breath, his rambling cut sort by the clawed man.
“It ain’t too big a deal, an we asked bird brain to find someone who would have a halfway decent ability.” He shrugged with a smile that Max thought was supposed to be comforting. Max was dumbstruck. He felt himself plop onto the ground as his knees gave out, too numb to care. They were arguing with each other, he could hear it. He didn’t look up from the runes to see. There wasn’t really a point. He could faintly feel his body protesting at his treatment of it, which wasn't that just another joy. So caught up in jubilation, he’d forgotten for a moment why he’d been in bed in the first place. Even being summoned to another world wouldn't help that it seemed.
What would this party do when they realized he was useless? Would they just toss him aside and find some new human to fulfil whatever asinine rule this was? How was he going to survive here on his own? He’d watched enough anime to know how this works. There was no going back for him, he was stuck here. How long would it take these bonafide adventurers to realize that he was just going to slow them down? One of them was even an actual hero, which apparently was just a thing you could be here. Would they just kill him? What about… and what if.. And when the.. And.. but…
“Breathe.” A rumbling voice broke through the static. It reverberated through his mind and loosened the chokehold his panic had gained on his lungs. “In” the voice commanded, and Max complied, letting freezing cold air into his lungs. It smelled stale, but the scent of spices hung in the air around him too. He held it, waiting. “Out.” The figure beside him said. He let a shaky breath out. Feeling settled back into his limbs slowly. There was an arm at his back, a hand on his shoulder and another on his chest. “In” the figure said, and Max breathed in. “out” and he complied.
He wasn’t sure how long that went on. They’d stopped arguing. Max beaked through his tangled mess of hair to see four out of five of the group looking at him anxiously. He turned his head slightly only to find the dragon man ( the draconian… the hero) carefully supporting him. His cape was getting dirty.
“There we go,” his voice reverberated through Max’s body “you’re alright.” He reached into a small pouch on his hip and produced a piece of jerky, offering it to Max. He took it with shaky hands and tried to nibble on one corner. “Let’s go somewhere a little more cheery, then we can try this again.” He said, shooting the last part to the rest of his party who flinched as a group.
Max barely paid attention as he was helped to his feet and let somewhere brighter. It took him far too long to realize that they were outside. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and there were two suns in the sky. He was sat on a long, with a blanket thrown over it. The fox-man drew a sigil in the air and created a bonfire from nothing. The grey skinned man was sharpening an impossibly large blade while the clawed man prepared some sort of stew. The rest of the party settled themselves as what seemed to be lunch cooked. The hero sat down on the ground right in front of the log he’d sat Max down on.
“Alright, now how about we introduce ourselves without sending anyone into a panic attack.” He said pointedly. He turned to Max, looking up at the human with a kind smile. “My name is Ardent, I’m a draconian and my class is Hero.” He turned to fox-mask and motioned for him to speak.
“My common name is Shi.” He said, his mask moving like it was part of his face. “I am from the elf kingdom, and I have trained in the art of pyromancy.”
“Yo!” the man still carefully preparing stew called out. His grin was filled with oversized sharp teeth. “Name’s Marrow. Ah’m a shade assassin!” He loudly slurped from a small bowl before tossing a handful of herbs into the pot. The grey man grunted as he continued to sharpen his blade. Glancing to Marrow expectantly. The shade happily slurped from his bowl again, sighing contentedly before responding. “That’s Rodus, he’s still learnin’ common. He’s a giant barbarian.” He said, passing a large wooden bowl over to Max. Max sipped it tentatively, before gulping half of it down. The flavors were intense and wonderful, like nothing he’d ever tasted before. After he’d collected himself, he looked to the last member of the group. The peacock was studying his leather-bound tome with laser focus.
“Hey, your highness!” Ardent called, tossing a bread roll at him. The bird squealed in surprise, flailing all six of his limbs as he tried and failed to catch it. Max couldn’t help snorting in surprise as the peacock’s feathers puffed up in indignation.
“Would you stop that!” He cried, brandishing the book, “I’m trying to figure out how we can test the cu.. I mean, the human’s, skills!” His feathers puffed up again as he spoke, clearly frazzled. Ardent snickered as the bread roll bounced off his shoulder where the bird had thrown it. He turned to look at Max, still stifling his laughter.
“That’s our resident magician, Rahdur…”
“Prince…” Rahdur interrupted in a distracted tone as he read.
“Right, right, Prince Rahdur of the Eastern Aarakocra.” Ardent amended, “don’t worry too much about that part, he only makes me use his proper title because I dyed his feathers yellow during a ball a few years ago.” The draconian whispered conspiratorially.
“I still think you should have gone with red.” Shi said as he sipped his stew, “We could have matched.” The elf caught the bread roll that Rahdur hurled at him with grace and dipped it into his bowl of stew. Seeing them all interacting like this, Max felt himself becoming calmer and calmer. Ardent glanced at him and gave him the same beaming smile he’d had at the summoning.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better. Those thoughts you were having were dangerously dark.” He said. Max’s eyes widened in surprise, but before he could speak Ardent held up a clawed hand. “Don’t worry, I can’t read your mind. My skill is called Empath, it lets me sense the type of thoughts someone is having, and their emotions when I focus.”
“So this really is like an anime,” Max said, mostly to himself, “everyone has a skill of some kind?”
“Indeed,” Shi said, “Usually it is reliant on species or class in some cases, but summons are always a bit of a wild card.”
“But don worry little guy, Rahdur made sure to do some specific summoning to bring you here. Whatever your skill is, it’ll be perfect for us.” Marrow chortled. Max looked down at his still bare feet, now stained and muddied by the ground. Ardent’s clawed hand moved to his shoulder again, his ochre eyes shining in the sunlight, but looking unbelievably sad.
“Hey,” he soothed, “no more bad thoughts. We summoned you, you’re part of the party now. You can talk to us.” For some reason, despite his thoughts and history of self perceived failure, Max believed him. He looked to Rahdur hesitantly, taking in the arakocra’s concerned expression.
“I think… your spell went wrong.” Max said haltingly. “I know you just need a human, but you probably couldn’t have picked a worse one.” Max rubbed his aching arms, glancing down at his scrawny form hidden under baggy clothes. “I’m… not well. I’d understand if you just wanted to try the summoning spell again.” He finished with a smile that refused to reach his eyes. They exchanged distraught glances with each other before Rodus rose suddenly. He buried his gargantuan blade into the soil and strode over in two wide steps. The giant knelt and took Max’s face in two of his fingers to look into the human’s eyes.
“We know.” He rumbled in a voice that Max could have sworn shook the ground. Max was… more than confused. There really wasn’t a word for it. Confusion was simply the closest thing he could think of. Ardent, like the hero he was, came to his rescue. Sitting beside Max and upping an arm around his shoulders. Wordlessly, Rodus moved away and back to his spot, glancing back as he did.
“We don’t want to overwhelm you, but we knew who we were summoning.” Ardent said. “Getting you here was really killing two… no maybe closer to five birds with one stone. “ Another indignant squawk from Rahdur was ignored as Ardent continued. “Some of it isn’t really our place to say, but just know that we summoned you knowing that you aren’t fully abled. We have a spot ready for you in the caravan, and we aren’t going to abandon you.” Max was crying, he knew he was. But he couldn’t stop.
“I’m… You wanted… me?” He hiccupped. He looked around the campsite only to be met with genuine smiles and nods of approval. Maybe. Just maybe, this could be home.
If you're a big fan of my art, you can support me by donating to my patreon! Or you can send me a ko-fi! https://patreon.com/A_M_W_Harris?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
https://ko-fi.com/amwharris
Also, other socials.
Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/amwharris13.bsky.social
Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/artiegamer13
Ao3: archiveofourown.org/users/FledgeDragonFox
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/fledgedragonfox
Category Story / Fantasy
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 120 x 107px
File Size 13.8 kB
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