We see Kurama headfirst in snow at the base of a snowy mountain with a figure making its way to him.
Kurama hears footsteps get closer and closer as he thinks, ‘As soon as I get here someone is going on the offense already.’
As slowly as possible, Kurama grabs a handful of snow as he waits for the steps to stop.
As soon as the footsteps stop Kurama jumps up, throws the snow, and turns to run. In a blink of an eye Kurama is grabbed by the throat and slammed into the snow. He looks up to see a gaping mouth with a small orange flame growing into a bigger and bigger fireball with the heat radiating like opening an oven.
Kurama feels a rough hand around his throat almost like scales, he also notices how sharp the teeth are in the mouth.
‘This person is definitely not human and there are so many dragonkin in the game, but I’m going have to bet on this’ Kurama asks hesitantly, ‘Ventus, is that you?’
The fireball stops growing and goes out akin to someone blowing out a candle. The mouth closes exposing a dragonkin with all black scales, they are riddled with scars but most notably they have to ‘X’ shaped scars over their golden eyes. They are wearing worn out leather armor and carrying a silver spear.
‘Did you say Ventus?’ The dragonkin’s grip tightens around Kurama’s throat, ‘Do you know him?’ His voice is low and raspy which combined with his looks made him seem like a seasoned veteran.
Kurama starts struggling to breathe, ‘I might know him more if I wasn’t being choked.’
‘Don’t play with me!’ His grip gets tighter.
Kurama gathers all his strength and swings delivering a kick straight to the dragonkin’s stomach.
He doesn’t move an inch.
He drops Kurama, ‘The fact that you know his name means you met him, maybe you’re even in the same party.’
‘Why does that matter to you?’ Kurama coughs while holding his throat.
‘I am his…. mentor. He ran away from home to go do this crazy event and his parents are very concerned, so they asked me to come get him.’
‘I don’t really care about this guy, but if I lie to him than I’ll have to worry about him attacking me.’ Kurama thinks to himself.
Kurama explains how the Dragon Gauntlet works and how he met Ventus while in the waiting room and other than some conversation they barely knew each other.
‘Hm’, The Dragonkin nods, ‘I’m very aware how this event works, I hired some people to be my party in order to get here. I know Ventus will pass this round no problem but, he’ll never talked to me, so I need you to help me talk to him. All you need you to do is get him to listen to me, he’s not friendly to just anyone.’
Kurama starts talking, ‘I don’t know if that…’
The words ‘Don’t think like Zen’ bounce inside Kurama’s head.
‘F..F..Fine.’, Kurama stutters, ‘All I have to do is survive which I was going to do anyways so I’ll talk to him.’
The dragonkin’s eyes widen, ‘Really?’
Kurama nods, ‘I’ll just move to City and meet up with my party. I have my pin so I’m good to go.’ Kurama pats his pin but….
There’s nothing there.
He starts panicking looking all over his clothes for the pin with no luck. Kurama then thinks back when he first teleported and fell down the mountain, ‘I must’ve lost it then.’
Kurama starts digging through the snow looking for his pin shivering more and more as he digs more.
‘You don’t have the pin? Are you serious?!?’ smoke starts seeping out of the dragonkin’s mouth.
The smoke starts to dissipate as the dragonkin takes deep breaths, ‘It’s fine, it’s fine. Everything is good.’
The dragonkin looks at Kurama with his eyes showing nothing but anger, ‘I was teleported to the Beach area and just knocked out everyone until I made it here. I broke all the pins so I can’t just give you one. But there’s this one person I’ve been avoiding because he’s too strong for me to fight by myself. With your help we might be able to get his pin.’
‘If he’s too strong for you, there’s no way I can help I can’t even push you back with a kick.’ Kurama looks confused.
The dragonkin shakes his head, ‘The person is weak, but he’s a summoner that has many snow golems exploring the area and defending him. I can’t get close to him without getting attacked by all his little minions.
He then looks at Kurama’s foot, ‘You were also able to kick me, and your foot isn’t broken so you’re strong enough to act as bait.’
‘Bait? I’m not going to just throw myself into a pile of golems, I can help attack the summoner. Speaking of what kind of summoner was he?’
In the game of Legacy, summoners are not a specific class, but a subclass that any magic user can learn to do. Summoners use magic to create creatures to help in battle or any situation that need it. There are two main ways players can summon commonly known as True Summoning and Infusion Summoning.
True Summoning is the most popular form of summoning and is recommended that at least one player in a party should know this form. True Summoning requires the player to kill or tame a creature and perform a special ritual which marks that specific creature. After that ritual the player creates a summoning circle made from magic and summons the creature in its prime. The creature can be summoned and unsummoned at will as long as the player has enough magic however if the creature is killed while it is summoned the player can no longer summon that specific creature ever again unless they go through the whole ritual process again with a new creature.
Infusion Summoning is a very simple form of summoning that requires significantly less magic compared to True Summoning. In Infusion Summoning the player takes their magic and infuses it into nonliving items which grants it life and acts on behalf of the player. For example, a player can send their magic into a rock and create a rock minion. Players can create as many summons this way if the materials are around to do so.
True Summoning requires the most amount of magic because the player has to magically create the summoning circle every time they summon a creature. This form of summoning allows players to summon a variety of creatures that can be used in creative ways and allows the players and creatures to bond. While Infusion Summoning is good to use to keep players busy, but these minions move more robotically and have a one-track mind.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Kurama briefly explains the two types of summoners.
The dragonkin scratches his head, ‘I don’t know what school you attended, but I never went to any magic academy so I’m not exactly sure which summoner he is.’
Kurama looks surprised, ‘Is my knowledge from being a player a scarcity here?’
‘He’s probably using Infusion Summoning with all this snow being around.’ Kurama starts to wonder, ‘If there are so many snow creatures around that means he was here for awhile or knew that he would be here and started almost immediately.’
‘You’re more of a thinker than you look, most dwarves I know are more about action than thinking.’
Kurama laughs sadly, ‘I’m just short. I’m not a dwarf.’
‘Are you serious?’, he starts to chuckle.
‘ANYWAYS!’, Kurama interrupts the dragonkin’s laughing, ‘How close can you get me to him without attracting his attention I have a plan.’
We change to see Paan kicking sand and stomping his way through the Desert area.
‘This is the worst, am I even going the right way?’ Paan mumbles to himself shading his eyes from the sun.
*Chhhh*
Paan hears the sand shift behind him. He jumps back and holds his hand up as a golden ring appears along with four Adapt-o-Rabbits by his side.
‘Finally, a figh….’ Paan looks around but sees nobody around him.
The sound of moving sand gets quieter but doesn’t go away completely. Paan walks around slowly listening for anything that will help him.
The sound gets louder as if someone is running, he looks back to his Adapt-o-Rabbits to see all four of them have been slain.
In the distance Paan sees a man wielding a sword running away.
Paan starts to run after the man but is hit in the back of the head and falls to the ground.
He turns to see a woman standing over him with a lute in her hand, the instrument had metal plating around the edges.
‘Paan the Summoner, isn’t this your millionth time doing the Gauntlet? Maybe it’s your time old man.’ The woman plucks a string on her instrument, ‘Sound of Cloaking.’
The lady starts to fade away turning completely invisible.
Paan pushes himself off the ground just to be met with a sword slashing at him.
He ducks just in time with some hair getting cut but with no serious injury.
The man with the sword scoffs, ‘We’re not going to let you get a chance to attack.’ The man keeps swinging his sword with Paan barely dodging the attacks.
Paan clenches his fist and swings at the swordsman face, the swordsman tanks the hit, ‘You’re not nearly as strong as I thought.’ and swings his sword down across Paan’s chest as it starts bleeding.
He flinches in pain as he holds his chest, his breathing starts to get heavy with each breath makes his cut ache even more.
‘Music Magic: Flat Note.’
The woman with the instrument reappears, about fifteen feet away, strumming her lute, a big white music note appears next to her and floats over to Paan.
Confused Paan bats at it with his hand, as soon as the note makes contact with his hand his whole body feels heavy, and he is thrown to the ground due to the immense pressure.
‘It’s over.’ The swordsman swings down at Paan’s back and
*PLOPPP*
The sword is met with a blue orb that intercepted the attack right on Paan’s back.
‘A slime?’ The swordsman struggles to get his sword back, ‘How did he get summoned there’s no summoning circle?’
Paan pushes himself so now he’s on is back and is facing upwards, ‘You don’t know how much magic it takes to make a such a big summoning circle.’
We get an overhead look to see a giant golden circle that is at least fifty feet wide that encompasses all three people.
The golden circle disappears, ‘Now that I know it’s just you two, I’m going to show you true strength.’
A golden circle appears above Paan’s chest, and a bright orange bird appears and lands on him.
*CHIIIRP*
A large stroke of lightning charges straight down onto Paan.
*KRACKABOOOM*
The lightning strikes and with a loud boom and a big wind pushes back the swordsman and the woman. Paan stands up with the large cut on his chest cauterized because of the heat from the lightning strike.
The woman yells, ‘Kane, he is using a lot of magic creating the circles and summoning he should be running out of magic soon.’
Paan holds up his hand with a golden circle around it, ‘Summoning Spell: Stolen Technique Thunderbird.’
A bolt of lightning identical to the previous one shoots from his hand and strikes Kane the swordsman right in the chest as his body tenses up and he falls to the sand.
‘He can copy techniques that his summons can do?’ The woman looks concerned.
Another golden circle and out comes a giant black wolf with sharp teeth and drool dropping from its mouth.
‘Dire wolf attack.’ Paan points to the woman.
The wolf howls and charges right at the woman getting faster and faster as it gets closer. The wolf jumps and lunges at her and is inches away from her.
‘Music Magic: Song of Dissonance’
She strums her lute, and the wolf disappears in a flash, the bird near Paan also disappears.
‘How did you unsummon my creatures?’ Paan sounds both impressed and angry.
Golden circle appears and a familiar creature appears, the raccoon looking creature, The Stealer.
He picks up The Stealer and whispers to it, ‘Steal her magic.’
The instant he puts down The Stealer he starts running to the lady and summons another blue orb that the Kane called a slime. He throws it at her trying to obstruct her view of The Stealer.
The woman plays her lute again and sings, ‘Music Magic: Song of….’
Paan unsummons the slime and goes in for a punch right at her face.
‘….Protection’
A light blue aura layers over her skin as Paan punches it which causes her no apparent pain.
The lady smirks, ‘I guess that’s why people call you strong and not smart. Do you think that I wouldn’t see that plan coming? A slime can absorb one hit and it disappears why would you just throw it at me?’
‘You talk way too much.’ Paan rolls his eyes.
Behind the woman there is a giant gorilla with blue fur and a white streak on the top of his head. The gorilla makes a fist and swings right at the back of her head.
The Stealer scurries to the side of her about two feet away ready to pounce.
‘Music Magic: Song of Dissonance.’
Both the gorilla and The Stealer disappear leaving Paan alone.
The woman swings her lute hitting him right in the arm pushing him back slightly, ‘Just destroy your pin. I know you’re running low on magic, and this is getting boring now.’
Paan’s eyes get filled with rage, ‘I will f*cking kill you.’ He rips off the top half of his robe exposing blue tattoos all over his body with similar inscriptions on the golden circles he uses.
‘I didn’t want to reveal this until the final round, but I want to show you our true difference.’
The tattoos start glowing and two snakes slither out of two tattoos on his shoulders and makes its way to the woman.
With their speed they lunge and bite both of her arms before she should react.
‘He’s using the tattoos as conduits for summoning instead of creating the circle. He still uses magic but not as much as he usually would, those tattoos must’ve been painful enough to kill him ten times over though.’ The woman’s mind races with these thoughts, ‘Get it together Lin I have to focus, I can’t lose here.’
Lin mutters out, ‘Music Magic: Song of Dissonance.’
But the snacks don’t disappear as the slither around her arms making it harder for her to move. Lin looks over to see Paan standing in what seems like black fog.
With a closer look it is apparent that the ‘fog’ is thousands of ant-like insects swarming around him making a loud hissing sound.
‘You know it’s a hassle to tame all these bugs, but did you know that a queen Swart…’ He holds up one of the ant-like bugs but this one is the size of a small dog, ‘.. has the ability to summon all the soldier swarts?
He walks towards Lin with the swarts following him, ‘Your spell is amazing, it cuts off the connection between the spell and the person casting it. But, if the caster can’t hear it, it’s pointless. I just happened to summon the Queen Swart to have them burrow and attack but I’m glad I found this out. Well, I doubt you can hear me either, but I’ll just ramble on like you do. I don’t have enough magic to fully summon a creature even with my tattoos, but I can partially summon them.’
Paan has black bat like wings from his back as he flies up in the sky, he opens his mouth as a tattoo on his tongue glows and sparks start emitting as a giant flame is shot from his mouth.
‘With the wings of the Shadow Bat and the flames of a fire salamander I will burn you.’
Lin tries to move out the way, but her body refuses to move, ‘Is this because of the snake bite?’
As the fire gets closer the snakes disappears and then Lin is engulfed in flames she screams, ‘Great summoner my ass, he’s the king of beasts!’.
Paan’s wings disappear as he falls to the ground, he struggles to get up brushing sand off him.
He goes up to the body that is burnt to a crisp, ‘Being smart can’t get you these results.’
Paan looks over the body, ‘I did like that spell you used though.’
Paan vs Lin vs Kane
Paan wins