His first awakening thought was that the shelter was sliding down the hill. Then that the walls must have crumbled and there was a fire. It wasn't the case. He wasn't in his mattress anymore. Not even at the shelter.

People.

He blinks.

Or not? It can't be?

The light are not bright, but he still blinks and waits for his vision to adjust. Then he blinks a few more times and waits for his vision to adjust some more.

They give him the summoned man a few moments to adjust.

He is in a room with a very tall ceiling, archways of blue-green stone looming above.

Also, looming: several humanoid beings with very non-human heights. Averaging on eleven feet tall, one of them is a blond man wearing a dark-blue tunic draped over his body. He is the most human-looking one.

Another is just as tall with wings.

Yet another is tall with four arms.

The fourth tall person is... she has breasts, covered by a glorious golden beard that even from a distance looks very silky and soft. The fabric only starts right below the rib cage, forming a skirt covering going down her ankles.

And those are the most human-looking, there are twelve other beings in the room, three of them are outright animals. One has the body of a horse from the waist down.

Seeing all of that and the goddamn unicorn does not inspire any sense of clarity or enlightenment.

The memory of the last time he saw this many people is not helping.

"Greetings. We are terribly sorry for the disruption-" The four-armed eleven feet tall man starts saying.

Vitek crumbles to the ground. He... was planning to raise his fists and put up a fight.

But words, non-recorded words from another person. And his vision is going blurry. Damn it, he probably has no self-control around people anymore. And why he cares? They are probably still going to try to rob him.

No one is aware of that internal monologue, but they probably would have Opinions if they were.

"I am sorry." Pherikles says slowly. "Is there anything urgent where we took you from?" He asks to get out of the way.

"No." Vitek croaks.

He probably should try to rescue some dignity. His mind is a bit off-center at the moment.

He tries to stand up. "Where am I?" He blurts out. It took him this long to realize this is something he should be asking.

"Trying to explain that," next time he will aim for a less interruptable tone of voice, "we took you from your world. Ours recently underwent a disastrous event that left it largely inhospitable and thus we are currently searching for a new world to put our refugees in. Our currently plan to find such world is to summon inhabitants and interview them about the state of the world and possibility of taking people in."

"None."

(Through the doors, barely visible and certainly not in the Vitek's line of sight there is someone squinting at him.)

"Oh."

"None? Do you mind to elaborate?"

"There was a war when I was little. With bombs that made mushroom clouds. It poisons everything for a long time."

His vision blurs, is that tears? Huh, oddly enough the answer is "no", but his heart is beating really fast and that is the longest sentence he uttered in the past forever.

None of this makes dealing with this any at easy.

"We can try somewhere else in your world? We can even relocate you and some other people to safety."

"I have not seen another person in... at least thirteen winters." His head thrums. "And everywhere is poisoned. I live- I live in a place that filters the poison, but it's faulty and I don't think there are other places like it."

"Oh, do you want to stay?" the giant asks.

"We can't keep another mouth to feed," someone else protests.

"His world might not be as bad as he says," yet a third points.

"You can just check?" blinking heavily.

"We can non-trivially check. It may take an hour or so."

"Should we send him back then?"

"Up to him. I think."

"What will happen to me?"

"We can't keep another mouth to feed." Protests the same person.

"We can keep him for a few days. We should, if only to investigate his world."