It wasn’t my most heroic performance, but I’d take the very good rating any time the system wanted to dole it out. Despite being chased down and killed by a monster toddler, it wasn’t a horrible summoning, all things considered. There wasn’t anyone in real danger this time, and I was glad to not have to watch innocents be hurt. While I could feel for the couple arguing over their situation with Junior, it wasn’t my problem.
Back in my personal space, I checked on the return gauge before going to look at my latest haul of loot. As I suspected, the gauge was full, and I could head back when I desired. There was no countdown timer for my return, but I knew that if dilly dallied for too long, I’d be punted back. Setting the nearby loot chest to reveal only new rewards, I reviewed my haul.
Rico’s Loot.
New Inventory.
1. Copper coins, 164.
2. Silver coins, 21.
3. Gold coins, 1.
4. Weapon Stone.
Nice, I got another gold coin. I was worried that just a very good performance might not cross the line into getting gold. My other coins were downgraded a bit, and I didn’t get any additional gems from the summoning. One new item was something called a weapon stone.
I selected the weapon stone and pulled it from the chest. It was a small disk of white stone that felt cold to the touch. While it didn’t look all that special, I could feel the slight tingle of mana inside the stone. By concentrating on the weapon stone, the system populated some information on what its purpose was.
Minor Weapon Stone (Frost). A single weapon stone can be added to any melee weapon, adding additional damage of the type indicated. A weapon stone can only interact with a magical weapon, and it cannot contain a damage type opposed to the weapon’s enchanted type. Once affixed, the stone cannot be removed, but it can be replaced by another weapon stone.
As it granted a description of the item, the system also showed me how to use it. I held the stone up against the head of my hammer. Pushing mana into the stone, I could feel a brief resistance before it bonded to the side of the hammer’s head. My hammer was enchanted against the undead, and cold worked just fine with it. If I had a fire enchant on the hammer, the two would have negated each other, preventing the stone from bonding, and perhaps destroying both it and the weapon.
From what I could tell with my limited skill, the weapon stone didn’t affect the weight or balance of my weapon, and when I struck the floor with the hammer, it left a small patch of ice behind. It was something I needed to check out in the Training Center before I had to leave. Mevin was inside, but when I explained the situation, he gladly made way for me to test out my new toy. I summoned a couple of tier zero goblins and went to town with the hammer.
Goblins were easy enough targets for me now, and I was familiar with the hammer’s normal damage. The magical boost it gave made it hit a bit harder and it would do even more against an undead creature. With the frost stone on it, the hammer left a small frozen patch behind with each hit. It wasn’t super powerful, but the target wasn’t going to like it very much. As an added benefit, the frost seemed to magically slow down the target by a small amount.
It was a nice bump to my melee damage. While I didn’t get caught in melee all that often, having some frost damage to slow an enemy down a bit would help when I was in a bad situation. It might allow me to create a gap and summon one of my minions to battle. Creating minions was the true strength of my class, not swinging hammers at things.
I relinquished the training center back to Melvin and made plans for my return home. My consumables were completely expended during my battle with the cultists, and while I wanted to keep some for my next summoning session, my life was more important than a slightly better rating. With me were going the figurines for Verdigrim and the gelatinous cube launcher.
The only other thing I could take back that wouldn’t be ruined was the second MESS key. I had probably only survived my encounter with the cultists because of the MESS, so I felt it was a necessary addition. Since I was only a summoning or two away from getting another visit to Somhagen, I wasn’t too worried. There was a good chance I could stock up on consumables when I visited.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
As for my other loot, I ended up getting distracted as I looked at the reward chest. I had named it Rico’s Loot back when I first got here, but now that I had time to think about it, the name was kind of stupid. By concentrating, the system granted me the ability to rename the chest. It was now a much more generic, but just fine, Reward Chest. Doing the same as I had with the chest, I also renamed Rico’s Place to just Personal Space.
I would personalize the place in the future, but it wasn’t the name that would make it my own, it was what I did with it and who I shared it with. Melvin was a happy addition to the place, and Minerva had hinted that there might be others willing to stay here in the future. It would be nice to see it become a place others could visit while continuing to allow me to grow in power.
With the naming updates taken care of, I tried to decide how many valuables I wanted to bring back. Refuge needed their cut, and with all they’d done for me, I was happy to give it. Frist off, I considered all the gems I’d been hoarding. There was a total of 17 of the small, and I assumed lower value, ones. All of those were added, along with the 4 high quality and 1 fine gem I had in my possession.
Added to that were 500 copper, 50 silver, and 2 gold coins. This was way more than I owed Refuge, but their people would be able to liquidate them for me and convert everything into cash. That should net me more than enough spending money for the foreseeable future, as well as leave me a solid nest egg for when I visited Somhagen.
“Melvin, I’m heading home, keep the place from burning down while I’m gone,” I shouted to my friend. His figurine was still in the process of recharging, so I doubted that I would be summoning him for a visit to Earth this time around. My other class figurines were ready to go, and I’d have to rely on them and the consumables if I ran into trouble.
A last look around confirmed that I hadn’t missed anything, and I informed the system that I was ready to leave. The void waited for me, and I floated comfortably back to reality. I reappeared in my apartment, and despite living here for a few days already, it still felt weird to me. I’m sure it would feel more like home the longer I stayed here, but at least it was comfortable, safe, and as long as I kept paying my Refuge tax, the place was rent free.
The system was nice enough to send another leather bag to store all the loot I returned with. A quick check of my phone revealed that only about twenty minutes had passed on Earth while I had been going through my summoning series. The passage of time was odd, and what I had gleaned from the Refuge database, time passed inconsistently between here and the other worlds.
A few of the summoned beings had returned to the same world only to find that centuries had passed on the summoned world when only a few days had done so on Earth. There was no rhyme or reason to it either. Going to the same world three times could see a century, a second, or a few days pass with each visit.
People had a lot of theories on why this happened, but the most logical to me was that the system operated not only across the universe, but also across different realities. Our realities weren’t synced up neatly and to breach one was to face a randomized passage of time. The only exception to the wacky time differential was linked summonings. Most, but not all the time, a linked summoning mirrored our timeline a bit more closely.
I put thoughts of time aside and plucked the summoning figurines and the MESS key from the loot bag. Those were placed in my pockets, so they’d be ready if I needed them. The rest of the valuables would go to Jeanette, who had contacts that would help to liquidate the treasure.
A final check of the apartment showed that not much had changed since I had left. I made a mental note of the shopping that I’d need to do. Clothes, shoes, and maybe a game console to help pass the time while I was home would be nice. I would also need to try to get to know the people here a bit better. Most weren’t summoned beings, and a surprising number were family members or friends of theirs.
This place must truly be a refuge for those caught up in the life of a summoned being when they had kids or a spouse. I could only imagine how hard those conversations were, having to explain what was happening to you, and at the same time, being forced to remove your family from your previous life or get tracked down by bad people.
It made sense that loved ones would join the summoned beings here. Leaving family at home was an open invitation for groups like the cultists to force people out of hiding. My life might have been a bit lonely, but at least becoming a summoned being hadn’t affected anyone other than myself.
A loud and insistent knock on the door startled me, and I frantically looked around for either my real pistol, or the magic missile version. Marie shouting through the door allayed my fears of a hostile break in, but what she said didn’t exactly end my anxiety.
“Rico, are you awake? We need your help, a summoned being is in trouble,” Marie shouted as I fumbled with the locks. If one of our people was in trouble, I wasn’t going to leave them on their own.