It wasn't virtual reality, but it was the closest you could get on a gamers budget. Through the monitor, he peered out of a bush, up and down a dirt track winding it's way through a forest. Through his headphones, he could hear the ambient noise of it – the hum of insects, the occasional call of a bird, as well as the more distant roar of what must be a waterfall. No sound yet of motorised transport, or the tramp of shoes, but he was still keeping his ear out. His fingers rested lightly on the keyboard and mouse, allowing him as much control over the game's avatar as his own body. The setup may not have been what people believed virtual reality would be in the late '80s, but it was still incredibly immersive.

One thing it didn't have was any way of sensing pain. Which was fortunate, because the figure that had been steadily crawling through the undergrowth behind him for the last five minutes was finally close enough to spot him. Three muffled coughs from the figures silenced submachinegun, and the newly made corpse collapsed.

Brent swore, as the 'YOU DIED' floated over the corpse on-screen. He hadn't even had a suspicion someone was behind him. When had they picked up his trail, anyway? When he had crossed the field to get into the forest? Just to add insult to injury, the low rumble of a diesel filled his ears, and the troop transport he had planned on ambushing rumbled into view.

Brent took a short break as the respawn counter counted down, returning with a beer. Wherever his new location was, there seemed to be a lot of fog – except for the patch of grass at his feet, everything was white. As the fog slowly cleared, he absently wondered when the particle effects on the smoke had been improved. When the silhouettes of multiple figures appeared in the thinning fog, Brent's expression turned sour. Bloody spawn campers… How had they even managed to do that, anyway? Wasn't the spawn locations in this game supposed to be randomly located every time?

The respawn clock hit zero, and the smoke finished clearing.

Wait, those weren't other players…

20 MINUTES LATER

The girl led him through the castle. Brent absently following behind – trying to work out what was going on.

Brent would have thought this was someone's idea of a joke, if it wasn't so impossible. The graphics of the place – if they were graphics, were well beyond the capabilities of his machine. The rendering of the scene could be done remotely, but that would mean his keyboard and mouse input would need to be sent to the remote machine, the scene rendered, and the results piped back. That would result in some serious latency, and no matter how fast he moved the view around, he couldn't detect any lag at all.

Perhaps it was live-action, with actors? They could have overlaid his weapons load out over the direct output of live-streaming video. But no, even if they set up a camera to move with his mouse-movements, there's no way it'd be able to spin as fast as he could in-game. And there was also the issue of how they'd manage to hack into the middle of his game in the first place.

For now, he'd just accept it as real, play along, and keep an eye out for how it was being done.

They seemed to be coming to their destination.

The… well, it had to be a barn, didn't it? The barn was a stone building, set against the outer wall of the castle. It had its doors open, and a number of the other young mages were leading an assortment of creatures straight out of a fantasy novel into it. It was quite a large building for a fantasy setting – almost a small warehouse. But then, it'd have to be, to house what looked like that baby dragon that was being led into it.

The girl led him to a stall roughly human sized. The floor was of stone, with a wooden wall separating it from its neighbors. There was a trough full of water, and a large pile of hay in one corner. Was the hay supposed to be his food? Or his bed?

He looked back at the girl… who was looking at him expectantly. The girl gestured inside, still visibly nervous of him, but attempting to cover it.

She noticed he still had no idea what she wanted. 'Inside', she ordered, trying and failing to hide her nervousness. 'This is where you'll be sleeping now.'

A single blast on a trumpet made the already nervous girl jump. [SPAWN POINT SET] floated across his vision.

'What was that?' The girl was now quite a few steps further away than she had been. 'Spawn-point... What is…' she seemed to collect herself. 'You can talk? Is this how you speak?'

Brent sat, bemused. A NPC who reacted to in-game text? But then, he had decided to treat this as real, hadn't he? His keys flew across the keyboard.

[Ub3rL33t1: testing…]

Her eyes shot to just above his head. To where his text would appear, if she was another player. Alright, then.

[Ub3rL33t1: I guess that's a yes, then. Do you mind telling me what's going on?']

The girl explained.

[Ub3rL33t1: 'You're my familiar' doesn't really tell me anything. How about how this happened? What is this place? And how did you do that to my computer?]

The girl explained again.

[Ub3rL33t1: Are you sure you're not an NPC? I don't know what the summoning circle is, I don't know what the summoning ceremony is, I don't know what the Tristanian Academy of Magic is, or for that matter, what 'Tristania' is. And how can you not know what a computer is? You're running in one.]

The girl… Well, from looking at her, she certainly seemed to be explaining. Her arms were gesturing wildly, and from the volume of her voice, she was certainly attempting to get him to understand him. However what she was actually attempting to explain had little to do with what he had asked, and had more to do with the level of intelligence needed to not know about Tristania, its magic academy, and the tradition of the summoning ceremony.

Given the large amount of energy put into her explanation, it was something of a shame that halfway through it, Brent muted his speakers. He watched the girl in front of him continue her pantomime of a temper tantrum – gestures, stamping of the foot, the lot. It was starting to get annoying rather than amusing though, so…

As the girl wound towards the end of her 'explanation', his fingers flew across the keyboard.

[Ub3rL33t1: Nevermind. Don't care. Bye.]

He just had time to take in her shocked comprehension, when he disconnected. He considered reloading the game – but it was already midnight, and he had a lecture at 9am. He powered down his machine, and headed for bed.

Back in the Tristanian Academy of Magic, Louise stood, fury rooting to the spot. How… How Dare He! She'd kill him! She'd…

She looked around. At the completely missing familiar. And the completely empty stall. Well, she'd kill him. If he came back.

As Louise stamped out of the stables and towards the student dorm rooms, her anger was slowly replaced by worry. It was true that she'd successfully summoned a familiar… but he hadn't stayed summoned, had he?

He'd better come back.

AUTHORS NOTES:

First – Thanks for the reviews. Yes, I will be continuing this, I'm having way too much fun with it not to.