POV Aron Brightcloud

On the next day, a knock woke me up. A man in his forties stood close to my bed before I found my bearing, my defenses not working properly yet. Confronted with an unknown person, my subroutines flared to life. Still half asleep, I went through half a dozen plans on how to kill him before I realized where I was. Medical wing, no threats in the vicinity, I relaxed.

“Good morning young man, I am here to guide you through your familiar ceremony and give you an introduction to the rules of our great academy. First things first, so you don’t get any misconceptions. Here your rank as a noble has no power. Every staff-member or magician is superior or at least at the same hierarchy level as you. This means you can’t order anybody around, is that clear?”

“Yes, I have understood. How may I address you?”

Respect never hurt.

“You can call me assistant Miles, prepare yourself. I will wait outside.”

He stepped out of my room to give me some space. I followed his order and dressed myself.

He lead me through the corridors until we had left the medical wing. The academy truly lived up to its name, similar to the earth, its size enormous.

The ornaments on the wall slowly changed, we had reached another area.

“These are the rooms prepared for summoning. Here you can summon your familiars or practice the rare art of battle summoning.”

He led me through the rooms until we had reached a round hall made of stone. Four rooms connected to it, each one hidden behind a sturdy door. The earth element clearly present in them.

“You can go into the left one, a spiritual connection formation is set up to help you connect to the familiar planes.”

I nodded and proceeded inside. Already knowing what would happen, I kneeled down and awaited the spinning up of the formation.

‘Ready for our familiar?’ I asked in my mind.

.

The answer came instantly and full of anticipation.

‘Yes! We will find the best partner ever!’

I grinned, his pure joy infecting my otherwise sombre self.

A familiar suction force took hold of us as the glow of the formation got stronger.

Here we go.

An instant later we were back in the void, the spiritual planes in front of us. My arcane core spun up, pushing us forward. The mediocre amount of energy a stark contrast to the immense power the light core once possessed.

It would be enough for the first three planes, anything more would be a fool’s dream.

The first plane closed in, many minds touched my own, trying to connect. As before, they were too weak I would not- A connection request abruptly vanished. Followed by another and another. What was going on? Intrigued, I moved closer to the landmass and scanned it in more detail.

There, I felt it again! Something used the distraction I had inadvertently created to hunt down the other beasts! The hunter in me instantly felt attracted. The hidden beast knew that worthy bonding-partners were not interested in the first plane, so it strategically used us to gain more strength to ascend.

I tracked it down, its defenses not holding up against my focused search. The beast had caught another prey while I threw out a mental bridge towards it. Its sharp mandibles stopped an inch before spearing their way into warm flesh. It quickly changed its tactics.

At last I got a better look at it. Eight bony legs had taken hold of its fallen opponent, wrapping it up tighter and tighter. Its size not much larger than my hand. To my surprise, the spider belonged to the undead variant, consisting only of white-brown bones. Blue soul flames burned in its former eyes and flowed through the entire body. The coldness leaked out between its bones. On the back it had an upside down turned cross, giving it a dreadful appearance.

Its flames vanished, the colors of its bones formed a camouflage muster, and soon it had disappeared from my view. An accomplished predator, patient, silent, deadly.

A tactical and strategical mind accompanied its expert skills. Now I felt even more interested. Normally spiritual beasts needed decades or centuries to grow and develop such thought patterns.

I detected her surprise when she got aware of the mental link, now connected to her clearly feminine mind. A careful question formed in my consciousness.

Different to my little brother, she couldn’t form a sentence. Only her intent traveled through the connection. Yet I understood what she wanted. The spider craved a bond, yet fearful of my rejection. She had gotten more than enough of them in the past. I sympathized with her. Who preferred undead bone spiders over cute little kittens or majestic lizards? The hurt in her thoughts clear to my mind.

‘She is beautiful! I like her! Let’s keep her!’

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Albeit amused by my little brother’s sentiments, I had to agree. She was beautiful in her own way. A tactical part of me wanted to say no, the first strata spiritual beasts too weak to be of help to us. But another part felt a kinship I couldn’t deny. On the positive side, the first strata beasts were known to still grow after bonding, they simply needed a lot of experience and food.

Now that I had only access up to the third strata, the strength difference wasn’t that enormous anymore. I would be able to offset the loss. My little brother was enamored by her, that only further justified my decision.

Well, at least I could sell it like I had found two beasts on the first plane when I summoned my brother and Olivia later. The magicians wouldn’t be too surprised about me summoning more than one familiar, they’d perceive them as weak. I had clearly felt the name she had stated. An undead spider who called herself Olivia, how quaint! Grinning, I approved the initiation of our bond.

My little brother also initiated one.

‘Lets split her between us, she is a mirror bone spider, they are known to mirror traits of their bonding-partners. If we connect us both to her she can decide from whom she will clone traits!’

His knowledge surprised me.

‘How do you know that? Have you remembered something?’

A pause followed before he confusedly replied, ‘I don’t know, I simply know.’

‘It’s okay, let’s hope that your memory recovers with time.’

The bonds slipped in place. Olivia’s soul connected to both of ours. I felt her elation.

Assuring her I would soon summon the eight-egged hunter, I forced myself out of the spiritual void. Opening my eyes, I had arrived back in the summoning room.

The formation powered down. The magician must have realized I had found my familiar.

Leaving the chamber, Miles stood waiting for me.

“Very well. Now that you have bound your protector it is time to summon it. Use the second room. Stand in the designated area and call for your bond. The formation will take care of the required energy and supply the matter to create its actual body.”

I nodded and followed his command. The second room appeared to be similar to the first one, the only difference lay in the pentagram that occupied most of the room. It had an eerie resemblance with the one the archmage had summoned me to this world. At least I would do the summoning today.

Standing in place, I called through our bond to Olivia. The pentagram glowed. intensified It didn’t take long for the little spider to materialize in front of me. The whole procedure went without a hitch. Olivia made a little happy dance. She really must have wanted to leave the spiritual planes!

Finished with dancing, she made her way to me. Without hesitation, she climbed my clothes until she had found a cozy place. Olivia draped herself over my left shoulder and activated her camouflage. The spider vanished, replaced by an eight-egged silhouette on my clothes. No presence emanated from her. Nice.

Now came the big moment. At last I would find out who my little brother was.

‘Ready to be summoned, champ?’

‘Yes, Boss! You will be awed by my glory! Be humbled in my magnificent presence!’

Laughing, I focused on my boasting companion. Let’s see how much of that was true. k

The pentagram activated. This time its glow grew stronger and stronger. Then the room shook What the heck?! A crack formed in the middle of the summoning platform and elongated, it didn’t stop until it had split the entire floor. Freezing air gushed out of the dark crack. Eating up the light in the chamber.

A sombre premonition suddenly filled my mind. Something incredibly dangerous was about to break through here.

Then everything vanished, the darkness disappeared, the crack sealed itself and warmth filled the room. What?

“Tada! Tremble in front of my presence!”

Hearing my little brother’s exaggerated theatrical voice for the first time in reality, I confusedly scanned the room.

“Where are you?”

“Here, In front of you! Don’t you see my mightiness?!” The euphoria leaving him by the second.

“No, I see nothing. Try to move, maybe I will see you then.”

“Okay.” His words now only a shell of their former self.

“No, I still don’t see you. Can you try to materialize more?”

Instead of an answer, I heard sounds that one only should be heard in the bathroom. What was he doing?!

Then a slight outline appeared. Directly in front of me floated a see-through blanket in the air.

Concentrating on not giving anything away, I held my expression neutral. A blanket! After such en intro he could have been a wraith or a lich at least!

“I see you now.”

“Great, and how do I look? Evil, right?”

“A bit. I mean, the folds in your form do have a certain menacing sheen to them.Yet, there is still space for improvement.”

Hearing my words, the towel got droopy edges. Great, I had hurt my partner before we even had our first man to man conversation.

“Don’t be sad, everyone starts small. Soon you will be an evil blanket of hell, mark my words!”

On the inside, I kept an incoming headache at bay. Even though I had said otherwise, a small part still had a certain hope for my little brother. That had been crushed to nothingness now. I knew Olivia was going to need some time to pull her own weight. That was okay. First strata beasts were not strong at the start. For my little brother, I had hoped for more. Although he had a childish mind, he still could have had a powerful body. I did get him from a dark prison of nothingness after all.

Stepping out of the room, a perplexed Miles. greeted me

“What have you done in there?! The mana batteries and matter converters which powered the formation were completely dried up during your summoning!”

Okay, I didn’t see that one coming.

“Ah, I did summon two familiars, albeit weak ones.”

With that, I ordered my two new partners to show themselves.

“A ghost and a spider?! These are first strata beasts! they shouldn’t have depleted that much energy! Yet it is impressive that you were able to bind two at the same time.”

“Maybe the formation was faulty? The array lines appeared to be old and have faded.” I helpfully replied. Happy to divert his attention.

Interesting, so something strange had been going on during the summoning. I would have to keep that in mind while testing my two new buddies.

“Now that you have summoned your familiars from the spiritual planes, you can either leave them outside or put them in a prepared storage container. As they get stronger and grow, it gets increasingly difficult to leave them outside or in closed spaces.”

I felt the immediate dislike from Olivia at hearing the word storage container. Now that she had successfully escaped the spiritual planes she loathed the thought of being forced back into another alternated realm. Storage containers were in their essence tiny closed of spaces built with magic to accommodate familiars.

I reassured her through our bond; she didn’t need to go back into one if she didn’t want to. The spider quickly crawled closer to my neck and cuddled up to it, sending me appreciative thoughts.

My little brother didn’t need to go into the container as he was practically in his own plane already. Only being able to materialize partially into this reality.

Miles didn’t need to know that. I took it from his outstretched hand. The container appeared to be an old iron ring. I went through the motion and bound it to my soul, slipping it on my left little finger to end the process.