Pilo silently made plans for his new future. There was a lot to think about.

Foremost was how he was going to convince the powers that be to let him keep his summons. He wasn’t really kidding when he told Merd that he should have gotten the senior to send the imp back to his own plane. It’s just… there were soo many opportunities. He knew the first hurdle, as with any summoning, you needed to get your summons to consent to be the subordinate. In the case of a powerful summons you wanted it’s complete compliance. Even if Merd didn’t understand what he was agreeing to, which Pilo was pretty sure the imp was clueless to the rules of summoning, the binding was unconditional. Only Pilo could lessen Merd’s leash. Considering Merd was an imp, that was never going to happen.

Next he needed to convince the seniors that he was capable of controlling and had enough willpower that he would not give in to the imp's coercions that were of course going to happen. Though Pilo was pretty sure his imp was a little slow in the mental department. And he wasn’t talking about someone taking their time to think. But that didn’t matter. The imp could just be a conduit to power and have no real freedoms. As long as he was within a mile of Merd he will be able collect power from the imp’s home plane.

Then he needed to learn to control this new incoming power. It still felt as if his soul was being scoured by hot or sharp winds. Though he had acclimated at least a small amount. He hoped there was precedence for his summons. Going into this blind would not be easy. He had heard a few stories from the seniors about some hardship’s summoners had when they had acquired a rare summons. There were even cases where the incompatibility was so bad it lead to comas or death.

Pilo shivered at that thought.

Next, he needed to find housing or a place to keep the imp. The seniors would never let it roam free. Or even be allowed out in public.

Ugh, Pilo was feeling a headache coming on. Not just a metaphorical one either. The stress from summoning the imp, and everything racing though his mind, all his new troubles, was almost too much.

Maybe he should just get the senior to send it back.

Pilo sighed and leaned his back against the wall and sat down. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. So many problems were coming his way. No point not resting. He had the room for the day. After all it could take hours to make contact and work out an agreement. Especially with intelligent creatures. Heck, there was even a chance the summoned creature could leave back to its own plane, refusing to enter into a contract.

Pilo slumped, his body going boneless. His chin drooped against his chest.

The wisps coming from Merd started to swirl slowly above his seal. As the smoke continued to rise the cloud that spun above the imp’s body grew denser. The smoke began to take on a distinct red hue, then drifted toward Pilo. As Pilo breathed, the mist slowly began to work its way into his body. The more smoke that entered Pilo, the smaller the mark on Merd’s chest became, until finally, the mark was consumed and the smoke had been completely inhaled by Pilo.

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Merd’s body shuddered, and he jerked awake. Then he grabbed his chest where the mark used to be.

“Bloody bathing imps! That hurt. What did you do to me!” Merd yelled out then looked over at Pilo’s unconscious form.

“Hey I’m speaking to you human!” Merd called out. “Wake up!”

Not seeing any change, Merd rolled over to Pilo and poked his foot with the tip of his claw.

“Hey!” He yelled and poked him again.

“Huh.”

Merd rolled fully onto his back and started at the roof of the room. Then he began to hickup.

“Ugh” *hick* Merd sighed. He hated the hiccups. *hick*

Merd began trying to get rid of his hiccups while waiting to the dumb human to wake up. He rolled around, banged his head against the floor… But only three times. It hurt after all.

“Just *hick* stop alre*hick*dy. Gah.”

Finally, after bouncing around, holding his breath, and even eating some of his nose treasures, the hiccups finally ceased.

Looking at the tip of his finger he shrugged. No point wasting good snot. Nom.

Merd was getting bored already. The human was still sleeping, or whatever. He had no way to leave the room, there was no door after all.

“Wait, how did you get in here then.” Merd finally realised his predicament.

“Get up!” Mered pushed Pilo over, but Pilo still remained unconscious.

“Ugh!” Merd gasped in exasperation. Then started to kick the human’s foot. Trying to wake him up. At one point he even tried farting on the human’s head. Then with a little remorse he also shoved a bit of his nose treasure into the sleeping human’s mouth, hoping that would cure his weird sleep. After all, when things ended up in his mouth when he was sleeping, it always woke him up.

“Stupid spiders.” He mumbled, remembering the many times bugs crawled into his mouth when he slept. A rock even rolled in once... somehow.

Merd finally decided if the human was going to sleep forever, Merd was going to hide invisibly in the room to get back at him. So Merd willed himself invisible and waited.

“Stupid human.” He cursed one last time as he faded away.