Throwing his arms in the air in triumph, “IT WORKED!” yelled Jimoel at the top of his lungs.
With wide eyes and a massive grin, Loa grabbed his hands and jumped in excitement. In the center of the circle was a lump of dull metal.
Getting up with the help of his sister, Jimoel jumped around the circle with her. “I’m a mage!” he said excitedly, not quite yelling.
The sound of a stomach growling was the only thing that stopped the revelry. Realizing how hungry he was, they stopped their dancing and grabbed a bowl of stew. Eating was difficult as neither could stop smiling.
---
Several hours past midday, as the sun started to approach the horizon, their father came back carrying the meat and skin of a deer. Sitting beside an almost foot tall pile of pure iron chunks, Jimoel motioned for his father to come over.
“Whats all this?” His father asks, glancing at the large pile of metal.
“It’s my success at casting transmutation,” Jimoel said with a massive grin, still quite proud of his accomplishment.
Looking between the pile and his son, Jimoel’s father’s eyes slowly grew wide.
With a half smile, “You got the hang of that pretty fast, were there any more explosions?” his father asked.
“Nope! No explosions this time!” His sister said, beaming as she was returning from cleaning their bowls at the stream.
“No explosions, just turning rocks into iron” Jimoel added, quite self-satisfied.
“Hey, ya think there might be more spells in that cave?” Loa asked, jumping up and down.
“That’s a good idea! There are a few more I can get. I’ll be back in a bit,” Jimoel said before dashing inside to his room.
Grabbing his heavier coat, a flint and nail, his bow, and a bag for extra books, he saw the book on imps under his bed. Prolly won’t get a chance to learn this here, he thought, slipping the book in his jacket’s pocket.
Now back outside, he pocketed the knife he had been using.
“I’m off, I’ll prolly be back after dark,” he said to his father before running off into the woods.
---
Narrowly avoiding catching his foot on a large root, Jimoel kept reading as he walked. He had nearly finished learning how to summon imps by the time he could see the cave.
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Pockets crunching as small, coin-sized stones knocked together, he stood before the entrance. Pausing from his walking, he took a few moments to light his torch.
Careful to avoid puddles or dripping water, he neared the man-made passageway.
As he entered the hall, Jimoel checked for footprints in the dusty hall. Other than his own and the buck’s from his last visit, there was nothing. Confirming one last time that this place was absolutely abandoned, he progressed towards the library.
Holding his torch underneath each of the unlit torches hanging from the wall, the room slowly blazed into life. Smiling as he looked around his personal magic library, Jimoel started his search for more dark magic beginner spells.
Grabbing the first six he came to, that was all his pack could fit, he found the books “Magelight”, “Summon undead rodent”, “Conjure food”, “Conjure water”, “Summon lesser skeleton”, and “Spirit summoning”. Placing them in his sack, he pulled out the “Summon imp” spellbook as well as the stones that were filling his pockets.
Placing the stones down in four circles on the floor, one big one, 3 smaller, equally sized ones inside the larger one filling up as much space as possible. One small circle was right in front of Jimoel while the other two were on either side of that one.
Blowing away the dust from the inside of the ritual, he cut his finger with the knife. With his freshly cut finger, wrote the word for bind and the word for serve in blood inside the left and right circle respectively.
Placing his hands in the gaps between the smaller circles and on either side of the circle in front of him, he cycled his mana around the other small circles of stones.
After his mana finished the first cycle, Jimoel felt as though he had fallen asleep. After what felt like hours, he reawoke to find something strange. In the center of the empty circle, strange, ever-shifting characters of molten rock moved about.
Focused on the characters, he didn’t notice his breath was no longer misting in the previously cool cave. The longer he stared at the letters, the more he started to sweat. Slowly, one by one the characters started to solidify in their permanent shape.
By the time the characters were finished forming, the room was dangerously hot. Finally able to take his focus away from the glowing symbols, Jimoel quickly took off his now soaked jacket before it made him pass out from the heat.
Looking back towards the ritual, or rather the glowing characters, he grabbed the book from beside him. Flipping to the back of the book, he started reading aloud.
“Come forth and bind to me,” he said, managing to get that far before going into another bizarre trance-like state. “Come forth and bind as my familiar, Γναβξυψ. Come and bind yourself. I shall grant you a body so that you may serve. Come Γναβξυψ!”
Jimoel placed his hands on the words he wrote in his blood. Not even noticing the blistering of his hands from the new heat of the cave floor, he channeled mana from each word to the glowing symbols. Adding more and more mana, he cycled it around and around, from the words bind and serve to the molten name and back.
Slowly, the mana started to move on its own. It started tracing the outer circle as Jimoel leaned back and out of the circle. As the energy spun, so too did space and time.
Gradually coming out of his trance, Jimoel was stunned by the swirl of complete darkness being generated a foot above the ritual. Over time the vortex seemed to suck all of the light from the room as it expanded to the size of the cyclone of mana.
When churning whirlpool of darkness touched the twisting mana, all at once it collapsed, leaving in its wake a 10 inch tall gangly green creature long claws and seemingly vestigial wings in the center of the large stone circle. After stretching for a moment and surveying the situation quickly, the small creature stared at Jimoel.
“You must be a newbie. Great. Well, whatever. I’m Gnabxups, your new imp familiar” it said with an unusually deep voice, a contemptuous look, and an exaggerated bow.