Picture Story: Summoned!

Markéta gasped as a bright flash of light blinded her, accompanied by a sudden sensation of vertigo.

She blinked away the spots in front of her eyes and looked around in surprise. Where in the world was she? A moment ago, she was in her bedroom in the city, getting ready for a night on the town. Now she was in a clearing in the middle of a forest, kilometers away from civilization. At least, that was what Markéta assumed. She could not see the any buildings over the tree tops. 

The only signs of human presence in the vicinity were statues scattered around the clearing. Why would anyone place statues in the middle of nowhere? Markéta hesitantly approached one of the statues for a closer look. It had been sculpted from gray stone, and the workmanship was very good. The expression on the statue's face was a mixture of surprise and fear, as if the figure was staring at something that terrified her. 

Markéta looked around again. 

The other statues in the clearing had similar expressions. A shiver ran down Markéta's spine. There was something very disturbing about these statues. Why would someone make such scary figures? It was almost as if someone wanted to capture the subject in a moment of terror. Of course, pondering the statues did not help Markéta figure out where she was or how she came to be here. She needed to find a trail or a road, and make her way back to civilization. 

Markéta heard a rustling sound in the grass behind her, and turned to look...

* * *

Azzie was having a blast with her new toy! She didn't know a lot about magic, but she figured the thingamajig was some kind of summoning tool. 

She had taken it from a strangely-dressed human who had appeared in her clearing in a flash of light a couple of days ago. It was a silver cylinder with little studs on it, and had a retractable panel. When the panel was extended, it lit up, showing strange words and symbols. Touching the little studs on the cylinder caused the symbols to change, and if Azzie kept pushing the studs, eventually a sort of moving picture of a human would appear on the panel.

Through trial and error, Azzie had figured out that pushing the studs in the right sequence would cause the person pictured to appear in a flash of light.

Since then, Azzie had summoned, oh, maybe a dozen girls to add to her collection. She could just cycle through the people pictured on the panel, and select only the prettiest girls for delivery right to her clearing. It was a lot of fun!