As Alex scrambles down the dock he looks back as the conjured boat freezes in time just like everything else in the world around the two men and his chicken familiar. Based on the architecture and the stench, they had fallen in some small town in France. Alex had heard that France stinks but had assumed it was an expression. Apparently, they were quite literal.
"Based on what you have in that little diagram book you have you should be able to figure out the other beginner rituals. Try some as we walk so I don't have to entertain you, I'll be watching." Lanetli says, looking off into the distance ponderously as if he saw something suspicious before he grunts and looks off to something else.
"Before I focus on that, you said you knew what that one guy was. The guy that killed that one demon. You said you would tell me after the story was over." Alex says as he pulls one of the books from within his coat where he had stored both ritual books for safekeeping. He opens the book and looks to Lanetli expectantly.
"I don't necessarily know. I have an idea, but nothing concrete. I looked and looked for answers in my years, and eventually stumbled across a legend. The concept was that something had decided that it should rule all worlds. So it found a way to jump worlds without summoning and started attacking worlds. Then a small group tasked themselves with the protection of those worlds. They fought him off, and now I believe that they are a sort of guild in one of the worlds, working to protect the worlds from things that might break them, like the rift in the sky. That must have been the leader, due to his immense power. They must be spread thin too, there could be as many as ten worlds, each as complicated and interesting as this one. They truly must only accept the best of the best." Lanetli explains. His knowledge is clearly mostly guesswork. It's not hard to think of the concept of ten universes, but the idea that they are all different? Each more complicated and intricate than the last? Absurd. Alex doesn't believe that there are ten worlds, maybe as many as three, but not ten.
"Interesting. Are you sure? That seems a little bit. . . Crazy. Even considering what you've told me so far it's a bit far-fetched." Alex responds, opening the book to the correct pages and memorizing the symbols, breaking down the required syntax for the ritual in his mind.
"I'm guessing. It's an educated guess, but a guess all the same. I don't know much more than the legend old as this world. Everything else is just what I'm guessing based on that." he says, looking around at the stones around them, none more interesting than another to Alex's eyes.
Alex shrugs and focuses wholly on the rituals. After learning what he did about rituals he tried several rituals, successfully creating evocations, abjurations, transmutations, illusions, and even enchantments and divination, charming Lanetli and then defining what words were true in a sentence. The problems came with summoning. Alex ran the magic along the ritual as he had with every ritual before, but it used the magic and nothing happened, simply petering out to nothing, no violent explosion, no effect at all.
Alex focused on where the magic went after flowing through the ritual, seeming to disappear into the world as it left. . . Or, no, it didn't. It gathered and then poked a hole in the world around them, flowing into that other world.
Alex is vaguely aware of Lanetli saying something but he is too focused to pay attention to what he actually says. He follows the magic with his mind, running his perception through that single strand of magic and into whatever world it went to.
Alex opens his eyes. But. . . He had never closed them. In fact, he still can't see, there is only darkness around, floating in nothing. Alex is still aware of his body elsewhere, still feeding ambient magic into the ritual so that he still has a way back.
"It has been long since this magic was used. I haven't seen one from your world in Millennia. . . And I've never seen one without a connection to one of your. . . What do you call them there? Ah! It was icons, wasn't it?" says a voice disconnected from anybody. The voice is feminine and like an old friend that hadn't been born yet. The concept of soul and connection. Alex is too shocked to say anything during the pauses in her lilting voice. This voice didn't feel powerful, it felt. . . It felt understanding as odd as that was.
"I-I wanted to summon something. I'm told that I can only summon chickens, and I just wanted to prove that I-" Alex started before being cut off by the strongly feminine voice.
"I control no mere summoning, child. No one controls a mere summoning. Such simple magic can work on its own. But to become one with a familiar? That is something that needs the touch of one such as myself." says the voice, leaving Alex floating in the vast nothing with more questions than answers.
"I don't have a familiar, this was just supposed to be a summoning ritual!" says Alex, panicking slightly.
"That soon-to-be incarnation has never heard of this ritual, and he knows not what it does. You cannot perform this ritual if you already have a familiar, child. That bond is shallow, it doesn't make you one being like I do. I can always send you back, but you may never get this chance again. I will not always be as willing to bind souls of those too cowardly to seek the power they desire."
"I don't seek power! I just want to help a guy who's needed it for a very long time." Alex says. Then he thinks about what happens after. What does Alex do after Lanetli ascends? Does he try to follow? Bring in a new age of magic and technology? Alex makes a decision then, to go as far as he can, bringing a select few with him. Hopefully his future wife and children, all trained in magic to become gods together. "I do want power. Give me my familiar." Alex demands after a moment, resolution hardening inside him.
"You have the resolution, and so suddenly. I can see why your insanity icon has already tied itself to you so strongly. The chaos in your mind is a wonderful delight." laughs the thing inhabiting the nothing. "Your familiar will be unlike any creature you've seen before, understand. Your soul cries for a creature that can be the madness you love in your life."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
"I understand. Whatever it takes to get as strong as I need to be." Alex says, feeling his body surge with magic as more is directed in. Alex wasn't sure what Lanetli was doing, but Alex is glad he hadn't cut the ritual to pieces yet.
"Very well. You will feel your familiar become part of your being, then you will see her physical form. You must name her to complete the bond, and she will name you likewise." says the thing performing the ritual. Alex does feel a tug, a pulling deep down inside his soul. Then it gets painful, Alex feels himself being ripped apart and crudely sewn back together over and over until the pain slowly fades, letting his perception back into the nothing. He feels another presence enter his soul. No, not his soul. Their soul. They are one now, one soul in two bodies. The new soul is very similar to his own, or as some may see it, in perfect opposite to his own. She is insane, pulling and forcing insanity on all who dare come in contact with her, a driving, unrepentant force. A force that Alex finds incredibly comforting, as the madness seeps in and flows throughout his being, changing nothing. Once again, Alex looks insanity in the eye and smiles.
The presence feels less and less like a presence and more and more like a part of him with every passing second, and he feels as if part of him is brought over to a different body. Out of the nothing, a dog starts stalking toward me, dead eyes gazing as the choppy movements drag what seems like a walking corpse over to me, its tail nowhere near wagging, even though she was beyond happy to see my person. The dog is wrapped in vines in places, and in other places, the vines rip directly through the skin which had mushrooms growing along nearly the whole surface, or they jut from orifices', her mouth especially had a number of vines and mushrooms poking out and wrapping around the rest of the body.
Then the body started deteriorating rapidly, leaving a cloud of spores floating in that space, using the body as fuel to reach this perfection of her form. She condenses into the outline of a person, or many people, somehow all people at once, yet never more than one, a cloud of green, black, and yellow spores. The thing that both is his soul and is love. She is wonderful. A name, perfect for the occasion fills his mind, and Alex knows it doesn't come from some other being. This is his soul making a perfect name for a perfect form.
"You are Uhlanya, and as such I name you." the sentence seems to construct itself regardless of Alex's involvement, simply putting the name in where it needed to be. The shape bubbled up, clearly overjoyed with the name.
Uhlanya started buzzing, the spores moving around swiftly through the air to make a monotone drone before the pattern in the spores started changing and forcing the sound through different shapes. "NnnnandyouarePenjaga, nnnnandassuchInameyou." The words don't seem any less constructed, but they were still forced out through Uhlanya and her imperfect speech methods. The buzzing was hard to listen to, but Alex has a feeling that they could communicate just fine without words.
"Very good names children. It may have been an accident that you have ended up here, but it was very good luck. Your icons do not grant powers to bodies, they grant powers to souls. You are one soul, not merely an extension of magic as many other familiars are. A dead body can also be easily revived, the only permanent death left to you is when both of you are destroyed in entirety. Good luck in your exploits, Uhlanya and Penjaga. I wish you well." The voice says before the child and his new soul mate allow their perceptions to drift out of the nothing.
Returning to his body, Alex finds opens his eyes to see Lanetli holding a glowing green constellation leaking dark smoke, his blade Sonzus Kiyamet, The Final Moment. Alex sees that he is still funneling magic into the ritual, most likely attempting to manifest Uhlanya's body.
"What happened? I felt your perception dive into the ritual, so I couldn't stop it or I'd kill you, what's taking so long? What is this ritual? ALEX!" Lanetli screams over the sound of magic rushing into the ritual as spores start floating out and clinging to Penjaga's skin.
"I have a familiar now! Don't hurt her or I will find a way to kill you!" Penjaga shouts back. The spores start coming with greater frequency, swirling around Penjaga. The last of the spores exit the circle and Penjaga cuts off the supply, letting the magic in the area settle. Uhlanya seeps into her master's skin, and vines start growing, aided by their bond and the ambient magic, harming nothing enhancing his body. His muscles are pointless, the heavy lifting can be done by vines powered by magic. She can cut off blood to any area. And most of all, they are two bodies in one.
"What are you, and how did my apprentice summon you?" Lanetli asks, never letting his blade fall.
"Lanetli, this is Uhlanya, the being I share my soul with. We are one." Penjaga tells him.
"And master Penjaga is the greatest of masters, we will protect one another with our very existences," says Uhlanya.
"Why are you going by different names? And familiars don't share souls, they connect to them. It's basic magic theory." Lanetli says.
"You clearly don't know much about the true limits of magic without an icon." it's unclear who says this, but it comes from the mouth of the shared body. "We can continue walking and talking, I still never technically summoned something so I don't think my icon sees me as good enough yet."
"You keep surprising me kid, but you do seem to be able to back up your bullshit a little now. Always a good improvement." Lanetli says before continuing his path.
While walking the two share their experience with Lanetli, trailing off a bit at the conversations happening in their head as they talk. Eventually, all of Lanetli's questions have been answered and there is little else to talk about. Suddenly Lanetli does a double take of a rock. Not unlike any of the millions of rocks they had passed over the course of this odd trip, Lanetli seems very excited.
"Some. . . Historian in charge of popularizing my myth and writing it out found that chickens are not a symbol of peace, but of aggression, so he rewrote them to reindeer. This guy was worthless, but this rock was his paperweight, and it holds the answer." Lanetli sighs, looking down and shaking his head slightly. "One person can change the course of history, and all it takes is a single bias. The truth is always stronger, but I guess we can see what stuck around, so what do I know?" Lanetli says.
"That's it. Some whole trip for about a paragraph response?"
"Yep. That's what happens when you have all the Time in the world."
"Alright, fine. Let's head back so I can get my icon in a suitably dramatic place. Preferably where this whole story began." Penjaga says. Uhlanya communicates that she wants to see the world for herself. She wiggles out of her master's pores and becomes a spore cloud around her master, the main concentration just above his right shoulder. The vines stay within his skin, although they are no longer directly controlled by Uhlanya, but by the host. She had connected the vines to her master before leaving his body, never leaving him weaker, only stronger.
"Sounds good kid, sounds good," Lanetli says before making the trek back to the dock.