Bonded Summoner

Amara and Jake were alone in the small room together. Amara sounded equal parts excited and worried, “Thank you for coming, Chief Jake. My people are definitely interested in preventing this…corruption of the spirit. What did you come up with for what you would enchant to their spirit?”

Jake had spent a lot of time thinking about this. “My plan was to enchant two demonic runes, Luminous and Spirit, and some supporting formations to add integrity to it.”

Amara’s aquamarine fiery eyes flickered and narrowed. “Why not use Immutability, or something like this?”

Jake sighed. “There are two problems with that. Immutability is a high-Tiered concept. While I can understand it on a fundamental level, few things other than abstract concepts can truly be immutable, short of the Divine themselves. The second, is that I am thinking more long term. It would be a sad thing for the Eternum as a people to be unchanging–unable to learn and grow, being immutable. Something like this applied to their very soul would surely influence their personality in some way.”

Amara bobbed in the air. “I understand. Is there nothing else we can try?”

Jake nodded. “Another idea I had was reinforcing the personality. Each Eternum would get their own enchantment, like your husband would be the virtuous scholar. That might allow him to remain as such despite his spirit being corrupted.”

“You approached this from reinforcing the spirit, it appears. How about filtering what comes in? Or both?”

“That is a good idea, if it works. I was concerned about such a thing. For example, if I use purifying conduit, will the soul actually become one? For an active effect like that, it cannot be free–the enchantment will eventually unravel, otherwise. Will the Eternum be able to activate the enchantment and fuel it somehow? I may be able to make an advanced formation, but it would take a lot of space on their soul.”

Jake knew that he couldn’t just tattoo their Hearths up with limitless runes. At some point, their souls would be suffused with too much mana, and it would be harmful–similar to how Jake would get sick from drinking excessive mana water, and more.

Only, it would be on their soul, and it would eventually destroy them.

Amara and Jake went back and forth for a while, but eventually decided to make a two part enchantment. The body would contain one half of the purifying conduit, the active component in which the Eternum would need to infuse. It would connect to the Hearth enchantment, where he would reinforce it.

Jake asked, “But wait, can we enchant your bodies?”

Amara’s voice sounded a little mischievous, “Why don’t you try? We’ll start with the body, and if it works, we’ll do the Hearth enchantment.”

Jake raised his brow. He supposed that if it didn’t work, it would just be like a wasted tattoo.

The enchantment on the body would be using scripts. It was far from what Jake was familiar with, but the beauty of scripts was that it was a lot less complicated–he only needed to follow Amara’s guidance as she had already learned the proper order and way of using them.

Valtor brought in something Jake was surprised to see: a large double-bladed axe. It had a skull engraved where the two blades met the haft, its eyes lit aflame.

Jake could tell that it was sturdy, the strange energies of the Eternum flowing through it and enhancing the metal of its construction.

As Jake was looking at it, it tried to wrench itself from Valtor’s strong grip and attack, shocking Jake.

“Let me at ‘em! I’ll cut ‘em in half!”

Valtor sighed, as he held the axe in a tight grip. “I told you, Falcor. This is Jake. He’s here to help.”

“O-Oh. When’s dinner? I’m hungry.”

Amara said, “You shouldn’t be. You’ve even grown.”

The fiery eyes on the skull flickered. “You’re right. But I still feel like I’m missing something.”

Valtor shook his armored head. “You’re going to need to hold still, my friend.”

It was explained to Jake that Falcor had a form of dementia. The corruption of his soul led him not only to forget people and things from time to time, but his ability to think properly was hampered.

This was only after killing three intelligent enemies. The reason Amara had chosen him was because he had the highest likelihood of success, having minor corruption levels. It would only take one or two more before he would become a near unthinking monster, chasing his bestial whims.

Even if the luminous spirit worked, Jake would still want the conduit to purify what came in. There was no telling what limit the enchantment could have, and enough corruption might overpower it. By limiting what came in, Jake would feel a lot better about it.

Jake readied his Hearth flames. Like creating the binding ritual with Tanda, Jake could enchant effectively using them. “I’ll start with luminous spirit.”

Watching with his Arcane Eye, his ball of Hearth flames neared the flickering flames of the Eternum. For a moment, he thought the Framework might stop him. Normally, an undead would already be alight with flames.

However, Falcor was not Jake’s enemy. His Divine Hearth flames were like that of the Goddess’, able to harm enemies and ignore allies. Jake began carving luminous spirit onto Falcor’s inner flame.

Jake chose these words intentionally. The word pure had too many connotations and meanings associated with one’s personality, especially with how Jake understood it. A person who was pure was without ill intentions, or naive, for example. Then, words like sacred were associated with the holy, and he was enchanting an unliving flame.

Light which was luminous was pure and bright, and would stand against the darkness. Even if it might be from an unliving flame.

Then, he was enchanting a Hearth, which was connected to the soul. However, he wanted to influence and protect the mind, as well. The spirit has connotations of being connected to a person’s character, even if also related to the soul.

A luminous spirit would stand against the corruption, remaining forever pure and bright. It would continue to shine even in terrible darkness, burning the evil and corruption away.

As Jake etched the characters on Falcor’s flame, Jake pushed his intentions and his will for that very meaning.

The runes coalesced, and began suffusing his hearth with Jake’s divine mana, altering his spirit forever.

Falcor gasped–causing both Valtor and Amara to do the same. The axe’s flames brightened, and he gave out a wordless shout. “Ooooh!”

The three coherent ones watched on with interest, as the axe’s flaming eyes darted around the room. From what Jake could tell, the creature didn’t appear to be harmed. The worst-case scenario didn’t happen.

“Where are we? Valtor? Amara?”

Despite only having flickering flames for eyes, Amara and Valtor looked ecstatic, their fiery eyes growing big.

“Yes! It worked!” Amara’s pages flipped, her runes lighting up.

Valtor pumped his fist. “Falcor! You’re alright?”

“Y-Yeah. I guess? You didn’t answer my question.”

Jake watched as the three of them caught up, and if the strange beings could cry tears of happiness, perhaps they would be. Amara filled Falcor in on what happened to him, and how Jake had helped him.

Falcor thanked Jake profusely, Jake letting him know that he was thankful as well–practicing on him would help him protect his own loved ones.

Eventually, Amara moved on to allow Jake to finish the experiments.

Following Amara’s managram, Jake engraved the scripts around the skull of the axe. A ring of the mysterious writing was completed, the mana suffusing into Falcor’s weapon body.

At Jake’s success, he frowned. “Why don’t you guys have any enchantments on your bodies?”

Amara’s voice was filled with mirth. “We can’t! Our bodies have arcane energies running through them. It destabilizes the mana and the enchantment can’t hold. Since it’s you, I figured it was worth a try. If you can enchant our very soul, why not our bodies? The worst that would have happened was Falcor here would have gotten a meaningless marking.”

The axe was not happy about this. “H-Hey! My glorious visage would have been tainted for nothing?”

Amara scoffed. “Not for nothing. For science!”

Valtor nodded sagely. “The one held above all else. No other can compare to its greatness, its importance. And so it shall be, forever.”

Jake frowned in confusion. “There’s a god named Science?”

The two of them laughed, but Falcor seemed a little lost. Whatever was funny to them, he wasn’t a part of.

Amara’s scripts lit up and her pages flipped. “Of course not! It was just a fun joke. We’re in such a good mood! This changes everything, for us. Let’s finish the Hearth enchantment? Does Falcor have enough space?”

Jake just wryly smiled at the two odd creatures. The two were often dutiful and serious. Should he be worried now? He imagined the now happy unliving creatures playing pranks like a bunch of mimics; hiding in plain sight, to spring their silly traps.

Looking at Falcor’s flame, Jake could see that it changed as the enchantment had been applied. It had suffused his spirit, enhancing it. If Jake had to guess, he was at about a fourth or fifth of his limit. Falcor was level 13.contemporary romance

To be safe, Jake would do at most three enchantments. The purifying conduit was likely a simple connection to the body, so Jake had one more enchantment he wanted to add, that he thought all Eternum would appreciate.

First, Jake enchanted the purifying conduit onto Falcor’s Hearth. Once the runes coalesced within the creature’s unliving fire, the scripts on his body lit up, and Jake was happy for the connection.

This unlocked countless possibilities for him and his girls. Most likely, he could do a form of tattoos on their skin.

He confirmed he was right, in that he would have plenty of room for at least one more. Choosing the demonic runes of steadfast pyre, Jake reinforced their unliving flame’s loyalty.

One of the Eternum’s greatest fears was being controlled by a necromancer, that they would be used to attack their friends. Of course, they also worried about going crazy as a result, but many of the current Eternum were definitely those that were against fighting on a fundamental level.

Most Eternum would only fight in defense of themselves or others. Many of them did seem to resonate with Hestia quite well, deeply caring and valuing family above all else. Only their pursuit of knowledge shined nearly as brightly.

Jake’s enchantment finished, Falcor laughed uproariously. “Bwahaha! I can feel the power!”

He lifted from the table, floating into the air. He then…swung himself, as if being held by an invisible warrior several times, his axe body lighting up with a blue ethereal light. The energy was interesting to Jake, as he understood it being some form of Arcane Energy.

The Arcane was similar to mana, but it was not. It contained something primordial, something that was the basis for all magic. Jake was interested in the energy, but like many things, he had enough on his plate already.

“Nothing will stop the great Falcor now! I will cut the enemy to shreds!”

Falcor flew into the door, bouncing off of it. He tried again, the door not budging. His haft tried to turn the door handle, but just slid off the rounded implement.

The axe turned to Valtor. “Little help here? This…door stopped me.”

Amara used a spell form, to twist the door handle open. “You’ll either need to travel with someone else, or you’ll need to spend some time with me to learn some spell forms. It wouldn’t hurt for you to learn some magic. Jake here has taught us some powerful enhancement magics–imagine how sharp your blade would be with them?”

Valtor added, “You could team up with someone from Hearthtribe. I’m sure many of them would value a powerful weapon on their fighting teams.”

Jake had no room for Falcor in his party. Being a sentient weapon and a complete entity when considered by the Framework, he would take up a party slot.

There could be classes out there that could bypass this or at least minimize this somewhat like Jake with his summons, like the Garuda, but he hadn’t heard of one for someone like Falcor.

Inspecting Falcor, Jake realized the sentient unliving axe would be quite powerful. As an arcane-infused weapon, he would be nearly impervious to physical damage. His biggest challenge would be getting stuck or trapped.

Otherwise, only magic could harm him, targeting his unliving flame. Jake had faced some acolytes and similar that might have smite spells; they just never used them against Jake’s party, as they were next to useless.

Jake noted, “If you learned some magic, few would be your match, Falcor. Teaming up with a beastkin until you do would work well.”

Falcor scoffed, raising his skull chin up as if to look down on Jake. “Nobody wields Falcor.”

Jake shrugged. “I didn’t say they needed to, just that you should team up. Partners. You should test the purifying conduit, after all. Having a friend there to take you out if you feel something is wrong should help.”

Amara hummed. “That’s true. Brock and Oman’s parties are about to take on their Trials and much of Hearthtribe are getting close as well. We’ll soon have more Auril Heroes than we can keep up with. Perhaps Seamus or Rookard may find use for you? Otherwise, many Satyrs, Fauns, and Dryads over level ten just joined. You would be an excellent addition to their parties.”

Falcor went to attack the training dummies after Valtor gave him a list of parties to contact.

Amara was beaming. “This was excellent news! We’ll try the purifying conduit, and if one of Morwen’s priestesses is able, we’ll have them test against Falcor. A few have fallen and should be respawning here, based on her last report.”

Jake nodded. “If it works, I have a lot of work ahead of me with enchanting all your brethren.”

Valtor’s voice was filled with reverence. “It gives us a path forward. Thank you for empowering my people, Chief Jake. You have our aid, no matter what happens–even without the servant contract.”

“Of course, Valtor. I appreciate all your help as well. Your people’s efforts have made our fight much smoother, and our Guild should rise up even further. Thanks to you, I can be confident that even once this battle is won, our people will be successful all over the Sector.”

Jake was happy for the success, and his Hearth Enchantment had finally hit level 4. He was finally getting near the peak of his Tier in that regard, and now, he would be able to enchant himself and his wives.

Amara eye’s flickered. “We are proud to be of service, Lord Jake. We know the Elysian races are happy to be here as well.”

Valtor added, “One more thing, Jake. The rearranging of the world made it much more possible to cross Highlands on the ground to the coasts. We’re trying to get enough dinosaur mounts, but it’s been a real challenge.”

“How about the airship design? The blimps are still good, but having some forces a little more mobile might pay dividends. Even if not on this world, on others.”

Amara sighed. “The best we’ve been able to do is make auril or mana users able to more easily increase the speed for a time. An auril hero like Seamus can increase the speed by nearly fifty percent. A whole party of them, and they may be really able to zoom around.”

It turned out that with the right enchantments, some sort of flapping wings powered by cranks could be infused with auril, increasing their effect. Almost like oars on a boat, the wings would propel the airship forward.

For Jake, that was more than good enough. Within a week, Hearthtribe should be getting over a dozen Auril Heroes. In two, potentially hundreds.

Stopping to visit Bloodberri on his way out, he was impressed she was still practicing. The two were working hard to practice their [Runic Group Casting], their hopes of having more spells to cast with Jake, Ophelia, or Fhesiah at the top of their thoughts.

Exiting the training area, Jake was startled by Fhesiah’s message.

[Husband, don’t you think it’s time we leveled up together?]

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