Magic is Programming

Chapter 1: Confusion

Carlos wasn't particularly surprised or confused to be opening his eyes, alive again. The surprise factor in that had already come and gone, with the being who'd sent him here explicitly telling him he would get a new life in a new world. He wished he could have asked a few more questions first, though. The god, or angel, or whatever it was, had spouted some jargon about his soul, and some kind of core and shell, or something?

No, the confusing part was the nonsensical babbling he was hearing, as he blinked to clear his eyes and waved off the person who was shaking him awake.

"Bar! Te dok le abdurish tar deng? Ti deter ye osheng ar te..."

Carlos blinked a few more times, and carefully sat up from the rather uncomfortable stone floor he'd apparently been lying on. He stared at the young man who'd just babbled at him, and the three other people looking on.

The whole group looked rather young, late teens at the oldest, though they were wearing leather that looked like it was probably armor, and carried several weapons that any youth back home might be arrested for having. Even as he glanced around, noticing all the weapons among their gear, the boy in front slowly pulled out a sword, a good three feet long and still in its scabbard, and extended the hilt towards Carlos.

"Bel, te dux orlen tar. Ti drin tarnil."

Cautiously, Carlos stood up and reached out to accept the offered sword, drawing it and attaching the scabbard to his waist. All he knew about sword fighting was to stick the pointy end in the enemy, but at least that was better than going unarmed in an area where the natives evidently expected to face enemies. He swung it well away from anyone a couple times to get a feel for the weight, then shrugged uncertainly. He didn't see anything threatening around, but if these people were handing out weapons so quickly it probably wasn't a good time to focus on the language issue.

"Deter trel len, det te? Hulangus. Vara shu."

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The boy, who seemed to be the leader of the group, shrugged, waved at the others for them to follow, and walked into a hallway with little apparent concern. Carlos stared for a moment as the others followed, then rushed to keep up. They kept glancing around in all directions, and held weapons ready, but walked at a fast pace. Was this familiar territory for them, or were these youngsters being rashly incautious?

Carlos had barely started speculating about their reasons for not taking it slow when the floor suddenly collapsed under the leader's feet, and there was a sickening crunch as the boy hit the bottom of a deep pit. He immediately slowed down and started paying a lot more attention to his footing, but the other three just walked right up to the edge of the pit to take a look. Then one of them jumped across, found the rock on the other side solid, took two more steps, and fell into another pit.

Another sickening crunch made it clear enough the second boy hadn't fared any better than the first. Carlos struggled to hold back his nausea. His second life had apparently started in an incredibly lethal death trap, and his heart was hammering in fear.

The remaining two people in the group, one boy and one girl, however were... laughing? Carlos stared open mouthed as the girl said something he was pretty sure was a joke, jumped the first pit, jumped the second pit, and somewhat cautiously stomped the floor ahead of herself, eventually revealing a third pit trap that she managed to avoid falling into. Did they just not care about each other at all? Were they casual acquaintances, just traveling together, or something?

Carlos swallowed determinedly. Whatever their reasons for their attitude, his life was at stake, and he needed to keep it together. He carefully jumped across each of the pits, and continued following them.

The hallway turned a corner with no more pit traps sprung, and Carlos was just starting to feel his nerves easing a tiny bit, when the girl walked right into a tripwire and a volley of viciously sharp bladed darts ripped into her. One dart cut a deep gash right across her throat, and she collapsed to the floor, coughing blood. The boy right behind her looked concerned for a moment, but then just sighed and shook his head.

"Hulangus. Doka star tren shulen patresh va to."

Having said whatever that meant, the boy actually put his sword away and just walked down the hall, without the slightest care. He just jerked a bit when he reached another tripwire and more darts shot out to cut into him, and then he closed his eyes and dropped to the floor.

Just like that, Carlos was alone, and he suspected his last erstwhile companion had actually given up and intentionally committed suicide for some reason. The only thing giving him any hope was that all four of them had died in easily avoidable ways. If these traps were the trickiest dangers he had to face, then actually being cautious might get him out ok.

Carefully, Carlos ran the tip of his sword along the floor in front of him as he walked, or rather stomped forward, wary of pit traps as well. Sure enough, after only another ten feet or so, his sword hit another tripwire, and another volley of bladed darts shot out from hidden holes in the walls. This time, though, the darts hit nothing but the opposite wall.

Right after the third dart trap, the hallway turned again, and Carlos cautiously peered around the corner before slowly stomping his way forward again. His continued caution soon revealed yet another pit trap, and he paused to stare suspiciously at the ground on the far side of the pit. This place hadn't shown a great variety of dangers, but the ones it did have were lethal and used repeatedly, and if he were in charge of making a maximally dangerous hallway with just these kinds of traps he would put a tripwire for a dart trap right where someone jumping a pit would land.

He thought for a moment, and reluctantly turned around to go back to the last boy's corpse. He really didn't want to have anything to do with a dead body, but it was the only thing he could think of that was big enough and heavy enough to be sure of triggering any dart trap waiting for him without jumping the pit himself. Trying not to think too much about what he was holding, Carlos clumsily heaved the boy's body across the pit. He winced as the boy's head hit the ground with a nasty sounding crack, but sighed in relief when darts flew across the hall just as he'd half expected.

With the tripwire disarmed, Carlos jumped the pit and resumed his cautious advance. He was so focused on testing for tripwires and pits that he almost walked out of the hallway entirely before he even noticed that another room was in sight.

He flinched, afraid for a moment of encountering another deadly surprise, but nothing happened. The room was circular, about ten feet across, with a small pedestal in the center, above which floated a small glowing crystal, about an inch tall and half an inch wide.

Carlos tilted his head while staring at the crystal. Given what he'd just been through, that setup positively screamed "TRAP!" at him. ...Or, wait. People don't generally put deadly traps in random places just to kill people for giggles. Or maybe they do in this world, but Carlos would just have to make do with knowledge of how his own world works. He shook his head. The point was that traps like that suggested that there was something in the area valuable enough to be worth guarding. Maybe this floating glowing crystal was it?

Even if that was right, there could still be a final last resort trap of some kind. Maybe even a new variety, different from the pit traps and dart traps he'd already seen. He paused, and sighed, then went back to get his improvised trap springer, reluctantly pushing the corpse along the ground ahead of him. He hoped the boy's family would forgive him for abusing his dead body like this.

Carlos pushed the boy's corpse into the room, then slowly followed when nothing happened. He held up his sword, warily looking in all directions, hoping to spot any danger in time to dodge. A small flare of light caught his attention from the corner of his eye, and he turned, and saw that the glowing crystal had suddenly gotten a lot brighter. It flashed, brilliant purple, almost blinding him. Wait, had it actually blinded him? He couldn't even make out the vague outline of the room anymore.

Well, shit.