Unruly Summon Prologue (Patreon)

The second of today's chapters. See the note at the start of Unprepared Castaway for why there are two.

A group of people sat around an ornate table, each occupying a richly decorated wooden chair. The same level of opulence was on display around the full room, from the colourful tapestries that adorned the walls to the plush carpet that covered the floor. Even the enchanted orbs that filled the room with light were held in a jewelled chandelier. Nevertheless, despite the riches that surrounded them, none of the room's occupants looked happy.

"Screw the dwarves," spat one. "The damn traitors."

"I wouldn't go quite that far," responded another. "They've taken a neutral stance, no different from the elves."

"They outright accused us of being at fault!"

"Pah. What difference does phrasing make? In the end, whether it's 'we elves are a peaceful race, and have no great warriors who can aid you', or 'you bloody idiots brought this on yourselves, and we're not risking the lives of good dwarves to bail you out', they both mean the same thing in the end. It's not as if the elves couldn't have helped in other ways; it was just an excuse."

"Enough," spoke up a third voice, this one coming from the most embellished seat in the room. Not that the seat was needed for an outside observer to establish his position over the others; the crown he wore was sufficient for that. "We've been abandoned by those we considered our allies. The pain of their betrayal burns me as strongly as it does any of you, yet for now, there's nothing we can do about it. We must focus on our immediate problems. Without allies coming to our aid, what other options remain?"

The others in the room looked at each other, each hoping another would come out with some ingenious plan. None did.

"Anyone?" asked the king.

"As far as I can see, we have two options," spoke up Dennis, one of the king's advisors. "First, surrender."

The room immediately erupted, every occupant other than the speaker and the king clamouring at once. However, an outside listener would note that although they reacted with horror and disgust at the mere suggestion, their reactions contained nothing of substance. Guttural, offended noises without words. Merely empty outrage at the suggestion.

"Enough," demanded the king. "If any of you have a better suggestion, speak up now, otherwise hold your tongues."

The room fell into an uncomfortable silence.

"It seems that you do not. Very well. Dennis, you mentioned a second option? Continue."

"The second option is... to conduct a hero summoning ritual."

This time, there was no expression of outrage, but nevertheless, an expression of deep discomfort spread from face to face like some sort of contagion.

"That would be... risky," carefully stated Serge, another advisor. "There's a reason that ritual is... discouraged."

"As risky as doing nothing? Fort Greystone has fallen. Fort Mertti will fall within days. We're already cut off from the northern reaches, and all the farms of the Chiral Plains. Food prices have tripled in the past month."

"None of us need you to restate our current position in the war," sighed the king. "But Serge is correct: there is a reason that ritual has gone unused. People are rarely cooperative after being kidnapped from their life and their home, and when such people are bestowed with boundless magic and strength, things have historically not ended well for the kidnappers. Even if we're lucky and the summoned hero is initially cooperative, would they remain so when we ask them to fight a war that has nothing to do with them? To protect a civilization that is not their own?"

"It's true that simply summoning someone and pointing them at the demons is more likely to backfire than to help, but I've been reading up on the historical accounts of the ritual, and I believe that, with sufficient care, there is a good chance a hero could be steered to our ends."

"Bah," spat Serge. "If you've read anything, you know a summoned hero cannot be controlled. It's the whole point of them. The same divine blessing that gives them their strength renders them immune to any magic that corrupts the mind. Being complete outsiders, they have no family or loved ones to take hostage, or leverage for coercion. Just what exactly are you planning? Do you want to break them with torture? There's no time! Threaten them? What with? And how would you stop them betraying us the first chance they get?"

"I didn't say I thought they could be 'controlled'. I said 'steered'. My suggestion is that we do not force them to do anything. Instead, we would carefully curate what they see and hear, such that they do what we want of their own accord."

The king peered at each of his advisors in turn, noting their expressions. None looked happy—not even the one who suggested the plan—yet it remained true that none were coming out with other options. It was obvious that conventional military strength wasn't going to win the fight. Truthfully, the king wasn't even certain the fight could be won with the aid of the dwarves and elves. The demons' declaration of war had come as a surprise, but not as large a one as the competency with which they'd waged it. There was a widespread assumption that they'd been preparing for a long time, and had simply jumped at the first available excuse; a convenient assumption indeed, since it absolved the Ricousian Kingdom of blame.

"Then exactly how do you propose we 'steer' this hero?" he asked.

Dennis took a deep breath. "Firstly, we need to give a sense of desperation."

"That's easy," came an immediate interruption. "We are desperate, or we wouldn't even be considering this!"

"But the summoned hero won't know that," Dennis smoothly continued. "They will see strong castle walls and ornate decorations. An active city. There aren't yet demons in our street, slaughtering the populace. We can't tell them we're desperate. We need them to come to the conclusion themselves. We need to show them. Remove the decorations from the western wing of the castle. Make sure everyone in that area of the castle is dressed in dirty clothes. Perform the summoning in an upper-floor room with a good view of the south-western horizon."

"Why south-west? That's the opposite direction to the demon armies, and it's not like you can see them from here, anyway."

"Exactly. If we could see them from here, we wouldn't need to fake it."

"Fake it? What do you mean?"

"I mean set a few fields on fire! Make some smoke! No-one mention it to the hero, just make sure they see it."

"That's..." started Serge, looking for the words but failing to find them.

"... Devious," filled in the king. "But what do you do later on, when the hero realises there couldn't possibly have been fighting in that direction? No, of course; why does there need to be fighting? We can just blame it on demon infiltrators and saboteurs. Please continue."

"You're getting the idea. So, second, we need to pander to their egos. Give them the impression that we idolise their every word. Heroes have historically always made the assumption that their home culture is 'better' than ours. Their food is tastier than ours. Their games are more fun. Their morality is somehow objectively 'correct', while we're uncultured backwater barbarians. That sort of thing. If the hero tries to 'invent' a new board game, shower them with praise. Tell them you're sure it would take the country by storm, if only there wasn't a damn war on and all our craftsmen were too busy with arms manufacture to think about pleasure. Same with food; if they randomly come out with 'new' recipes, marvel at how no-one has ever thought if it before. The best example is soy sauce. A perennial favourite of heroes. Let them 'accidentally' discover some soybeans and boastfully tell us that it's possible to make a tasty sauce from them."

"Is it? Wait, how do you already know that?"

"Like I said, it's perennial. Six previous summoned heroes have all insisted on making the bloody stuff. By all accounts, it tastes utterly gross to anyone from this world, dwarves included, which is why it's never caught on. That suits us fine; there's no risk of the hero discovering that it's already been introduced."

"Unfortunate for whoever has to taste it, though," snorted another advisor.

"The recipe involves grains. We simply claim that they're too important to spare on experimentation, given that we've been cut off from the farmland up north, but that we're looking forward to trying it after the war. But that does bring us on to the third point; companions for the hero. I... have some names in mind."

"Why do I get the feeling I'm going to like this even less than the rest of the idea," sighed the king, cradling his forehead. "Keep going. Get it over with."

"Christine Standler. Wendy Windchild. Stephanie Ricousian. Mary."

The first name was enough to raise eyebrows. The second caused some amount of consternation. The third very nearly caused another explosive vocal outburst from the assembled group, and it was only the fourth that silenced them, as the faces of all except the king went blank.

"Who the heck is Mary?" asked one.

"Never mind that," snapped the king, Edward Ricousian, who was still hung up on the third name. "My daughter? You want to make my daughter a part of this? Whatever are you thinking this time?"

"Yeah. What sort of team is that? Many knights are more accomplished than Christine, and many mages are more... more... grounded than Wendy. And who the heck is Mary?"

"It's a harem," stated Serge flatly. "You're not assembling a party for a hero to fight alongside. You're assembling a harem."

King Edward's face took on an impressive red glow at the suggestion of placing his daughter in a harem, his features twisting in a way that would be alarming enough on anyone, but on a king forecast a high probability of a beheading in the immediate future.

"Yes, it is," admitted Dennis, which did nothing to improve King Edward's mood. "Again, referring to history, heroes generally end up assembling their own, albeit often accidentally. Since heroes are so strong that a traditional party soon becomes more of a hindrance than a help, we might as well take the initiative to assemble a group of people who will work in our interests. Christine is still too young to have gathered much experience, so she isn't among the strongest of our knights, but she's fiercely loyal to the kingdom. She'll keep our secrets, and she's a good trainer. Wendy is so devoted to her research that it's quite possible she hasn't even noticed there is a war, never mind having a good idea of what caused it. Stephanie is a talented politician, but that's not as important as the fact that she's a princess. Heroes like their princesses; there's nothing quite like a princess in the party to stoke their egos. And, of course, Stephanie has a vested interest in ensuring the royal family survives."

"You're forgetting one," pointed out Serge, who still had no idea who Mary was.

"Mary's no-one. Just a slave I happen to own. But she's been fully trained, she's every bit as young and pretty as the other three, and she's the daughter of two healers and so has some skills in that area. And, importantly, she was undergoing her training during the outbreak of war, so she won't be able to spill anything inconvenient either, even if the hero orders her to."

"I'll admit, I've heard about the thing with heroes and harems before," said another of the advisors. "But I've also heard the thing about heroes and slavery. Heroes do not abide slavery."

"Indeed, which is why it's so important to introduce them immediately, on our own terms. Presented with a slave who is happy and eager to serve them, and whose background and reason for enslavement is unimpeachable, they'll have less reason to complain. The alternative is preventing the hero from discovering that slavery is both rampant and officially sanctioned in our kingdom, and I don't fancy our chances of ensuring that long term, given the slave labour in use in our war camps. Or, of course, the safest option would be to simply outlaw slavery before the ritual."

The advisors—none of whom could claim there were no slaves among their household staff—suddenly decided en masse that the carpet was in need of a good staring down.

"Lastly," continued Dennis, "we must give the hero a choice. The moment they are summoned, apologise and offer to send them back. Don't even explain why we summoned them; the distant smoke will be enough of a clue. Heck, let's see if we can modify the ritual to make it less obviously involuntary to start with. Get them here in a way that makes it feel less like a kidnapping, even if it doubles the mana cost, then ask if they want to listen to our story, or if they want to go back immediately. Even if they do show interest, don't start by talking about the war. Demonstrate magic instead; heroes always come from worlds without any, and will be fascinated by it. Only then start talking about the war, and then ask again if they want to go home. Make it clear that they can go back whenever they like, should they ever change their mind. Tell them that staying isn't a commitment, then give them a show that makes it clear that leaving would be a death sentence for humanity. Let them shackle themselves with their own guilt. Convincing someone to stay to listen to a ten-minute story is a lot easier than convincing them to stay to fight an open-ended war, and once they do stay for the ten minutes, it will be them that convinces themselves to stay longer."

"I hate this," declared King Edward after a few moments more silence. "I hate every last bit of this plan. The deception. The baseless flattery. Relying on an outsider we can't even control. The fact you even want to get one of my daughters involved. It is an awful, desperate idea, and the number of ways it can go wrong must number in the hundreds."

He gave a heavy, melodramatic sigh.

"How soon can we begin?"

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This story is (mostly) first person, from the perspective of the summoned hero. There are no evil-for-the-sake-of-evil characters, and very little stupidity. The hero is stuck trying to separate the truth from the lies, but he has a big advantage in that he doesn't behave in the way his summoners predicted, and thus they quite quickly lose control of him. (Most notably, he has no interest whatsoever in harems. Or casual sex. He occasionally, in sufficiently dire situations, can tolerate a hug.)

Here's the story's full synopsis:

The summoning of otherworldly heroes is a dangerous gambit. First, you kidnap someone not just from their home, but their home planet. Then you explain that it's their duty to dig you out of whatever hole the local populace happens to be in, which, if it's the sort of situation that requires a hero, is probably something quite deadly. By this point, the summoned hero already has every excuse to be quite cross.

Oh, did we mention the hero has superpowers? Because the very cross hero has superpowers. Wouldn't be much point in summoning them if they didn't. And they're in the room with you. Have fun with that.

But, assuming that you're still upright and unconcussed, the next thing to deal with is that different planets tend to have quite different societal values. You can't just point at someone with fluffy animal ears, claim they're a 'demon lord' and expect the hero to mindlessly slaughter them. Not unless you're very sure the fluffy-eared target is going to attack first. If they start speaking, there's more chance the hero will end up in bed with them than gloating over their corpse.

But if you do get a cooperative hero, and they agree to help, and don't immediately have some sort of nervous breakdown, (or even a delayed mental breakdown when they kill someone for the first time, because that's always a stressful time in any hero's life,) that's when the real problems begin. Insisting on 'justice' all the time. Complaining that nobles can't just execute commoners for no reason. Smashing down a perfectly legitimate slave market and freeing the slaves, because slavery is somehow 'wrong'. Of course, that's all on top of the way they always assume they know more than you, just because your society relies on magic instead of technology and doesn't have smartphones. And don't even start on the way heroes keep insisting on inventing soy sauce all the time, never stopping to consider that perhaps the locals have taste buds that function slightly differently to their own, and maybe there's a good reason why they aren't already drinking mouldy beans.

To gamble on such low odds, someone would need to be truly desperate. Alas, with demons on the verge of overrunning his starving kingdom, King Edward Ricousian is truly desperate. He willingly chose to roll the dice, and now he's ended up saddled with Thomas.

Despite the best efforts of the king and his advisors, Thomas is going to get rather cross.