"...uh, hello?" says Cam. "Summoner?"

The only reply is eerie silence, not even the howling of wind or the buzzing of insects. Perfect stillness.

Cam squints at the circle, and then shrugs and walks out of it. "Hello? Can I help somebody here?"

Cam looks for the source of the beep.

There appears to be no possible source other than the circle itself, unless it's embedded in the ground (floor?) or something.

Cam starts tapping the floor to see if he can determine if it's hollow or anything.

As far as he can tell, it's perfectly uniform to the core of the planet.

As he's barely gotten of the ground, something can indeed be spotted approaching VERY rapidly. Based on the fact it's keeping to the rails, and is somewhat tall, it's probably some kind of rail cart with something on top of it.

Cam doesn't think he wants it to run him over. He circles above it, watching it.

It's moving way too fast to circle, but slows down and stops as it approaches. It appears to be some kind of high tech rail-mounted robotic arm - no, make that golem arm, based on being made from the same material as the ground and the glowing runes covering it - and tries to grab him!

"Whoa, hey," says Cam, getting more altitude. "None of that, thanks."

There is a loud pang like a gunshot, and the hand is replaced by some arcane contraption of crystals and antennas, presumably by teleport. Shortly, Cam is caught in an overpowered force field bubble and reeled in, while a small and hitherto unnoticed secondary arm scans the circle with the flag.

Well. That's... new. "Excuse me. Did I entrap you in a bubble?"

Nothing in particular happens.

Cam thinks for a minute, then says, "You have until I finish my sandwich to say hello, before I start trying exotic acids and work my way up to black holes," and sits on the floor and makes himself a large sandwich and bites it.

Half a second after it appears, the sandwich disappears with another painfully loud PANG, even taking with it a painful millimeter of the fingers holding it to add injury to insult.

"Ow," says Cam. He starts trying all the other languages he knows. "Can I just talk to somebody? Or go home, that would also be fine?" Repeat repeat repeat until he's out of languages. He didn't get any new ones with this summon, but who knows.

Cam's hand is better by now. He thinks for a moment, then conjures up a copy of his computer from home, but under every layer of encryption he's ever heard of in case it's stolen away again because they don't want him to cheat on his prime numbers test or something.

It takes them about 0.2 seconds to do that.

The wall starts slowly scrolling to the side as more is added, it seems like they're trying to establish more and more abstract concepts in this weird notation while giving the occasional comprehension test before continuing.

"Can you hear me if I supply names for things?" he inquires. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten?" He points at the relevant dot clusters as he speaks.

Some things previously associated with the numbers flash, while recordings of him saying it play. That seems to have worked.

"Okay, swell, maybe if I ramble enough you'll acquire English and I can ask to speak to your manager." He names more numbers and concepts - "atoms", "hydrogen", "prime", whatever else it throws at him that he can point at and label. There is intermittent irritated commentary but he's careful not to point at anything while he mutters.

They quickly start to associate sounds and concepts, but they only play them back exactly and in his own voice, he can't seem to get grammar to work, and worse, they are unreliable at best at recognizing the same word pronounced slightly differently.

"Privilege. Can I have my computer?"

The first computer appears in the opposite corner of the room. A holographic bar seems to be counting down about 40 seconds.

"That's one. One is half of my computers."

"Half. Half. Future. Past. Trade."

"Both or nothing."

"You said twenty. Don't lie or I won't trade with you."

"For what?"

The room starts shrinking.

The room stops shrinking and the light and holograms go out.

It does turn out that way. He wakes up an undeterminable amount of time later from the lights turning on and both computers returned. They have clearly been tampered with.

Cam inspects one to see if he can get into it and, if he can, to check to see if the data's been broken into.

It seems they've not managed to get at anything, and they still work fine.

Nothing happens. They don't disappear.

"Those twenty are for you," he says. "To trade."

"Yes!"

They promptly disappear. A minute later the voice speaks again: "About Cam?"

"What about me?"

"Learn."

"Well, I'm a demon and somehow your robot thing summoned me and now I'm kind of annoyed because you've been keeping me in a box and stealing my stuff, but you seem to be friendlier today."

"Sorry automatic rude. Learn demon me?"

"Demons are a kind of daeva. We look about like humans but with wings, usually, and I have a tail too, some demons have those, some add other things. We make stuff."

"Make demon, make human demonstrate?"

"Can't make people. Or very good animals. I can do a plant if you want."

"Yes. Demonstrate."

Cam makes a potted live spider plant.

"I don't know why that circle worked. And it didn't make me, it brought me here from where I live. It doesn't look like summoning circles usually look. If it worked once, it might work if you drew it again, but I don't think you should do it a second time. I'm very nice, but if I wasn't very nice, when you brought me here and were very rude I could have made a black hole. You shouldn't be rude to loose daeva."

"Black hole?"

"Many many atoms very very close together pulling more atoms in."

"Orbit demonstrate small?"

"I would need to be in a vacuum and have a lot more space to safely make a black hole, even a little one."

Gravity seems to slightly increase, and pressure starts dropping.

"The box would need to be gone," Cam clarifies. "Also, I'm not sure I want to make you a black hole."

"Trade?"

"Trade what? And why do you want the black hole?"

"Demonstrate."

"Why do you need the demonstration?"

"Systematic learn. Make make?"

"I can't get rid of it after I've made it. I don't think I'll make one just to show you that I can. They're dangerous."

"Orbit, small?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Light equals mass times fast times fast."

"...Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. What about it?"

"Black hole mass. Make minus mass mass?"

"...you want me to make antimatter?"

"Yes! Lots! Energy! People make work live ever!"

"Okay, I don't actually know if I can make antimatter, but I don't want to try it without figuring out how to contain it, because I have to be near what I'm making or at least part of it."

"...what's this about evolution?"

"Make many Cam! Egg! Make limit all daeva Cam!"

"...I'm the only Cam. There are lots of demons but I'm the only one who's like me."

"Demons not evolution? How occur? What want?"

"Most demons just start existing in our home world and then continue to exist forever."

"What do you want? We make egg VERY important, please life. Please ever. Cry!"

"...are there no living things around here? No humans? Who made all the stuff, where did it come from?"

"Far away. Radio, 3.4 seconds light fast. Anomalies dangerous, make here."

"Anomalies?"

"Cam. Other circles. New magic."

"So this is an automated magic-testing facility almost three and a half light-seconds from the nearest living creatures besides my spider plant and me."

"Yes!"

"And what are you talking about when you say 'egg'?"

"Not human human new life IMPORTANT!"

"You want to find... non-human people?"

"Find anomaly, make industry make light longer 10^14 year EVER egg survive all times! Life ever!"

"You're afraid the universe will run down and you're looking for magic to fix it?" asks Cam.

"Yes! Egg IMPORTANT!"

"Why are you calling it an egg? Are they - asleep? Dormant? Frozen?"

This thread will continue on my forum here because Dreamwidth's forbiddance of editing of upstream comments is displeasing.