Bonded Summoner

Berri’s massive maul slammed into the portcullis, arrows from skeletal archers bouncing off of her ineffectually. She had been hammering blows on it for minutes now, and it was just now beginning to cave in on itself, some magical barrier finally diminished.

The stegosaurus’s tail had also been slamming against it, appearing to be quite effective. Jake, Ophelia, and Fhesiah also tried their best to add some damage to the door, but it was clear the two larger beings were doing the lion’s share of the damage.

Fhesiah occasionally used her draconic might ability to land a few powerful blows, but there didn’t appear to be a need to rush things.

Tanda was taking out skeletal mages on the walls with her bow, mainly just taking shots with auril every once in a while. Jake didn’t want to waste ammunition on fruitless attacks, and had his elite party mainly here to bust down the gate.

Between Jake’s aura, his armor of faith from Berri, the stegosaurus soaking up damage, he had nothing to fear from the skeletal archers on the wall.

Jake was surprised to find that next to the portcullis on the wall, mysterious glyphs appeared that anyone could read– once his people had already arrived there. They weren’t visible until his people neared, which he found frustrating.

They contained the rules for the encounter, the things they had already mostly figured out. That as long as they follow the path ahead and stay out of the [Detection Barrier], the beam tower would not target them.

Bloodberri now switched to the spiked side of the maul, and pierced through a portion of the metal, and wrenched a small gap open in the lower corner. She pried it open further, and Ophelia and Fhesiah flew through. Inside the gate was a long tunnel, but the front had a gatehouse structure.

They went through one side, Bloodberri and Tanda the other, each going through a different side of the inner gatehouse.

They went up some stairs, and were able to use the mechanism to raise the portcullis to a middle point, and lock it into place. The girls then began fighting through the skeletons on the crenelations, the enemies trivial to them. Now that they entered this way, the death beam would not attack them.

While he could have had the beastkin fight against the archers up on the battlements, he felt his elite party were better suited for softening up the entrance to save on their stamina, and even conserve their ammunition.

Jake had grabbed a number of barrels of javelins and arrows from the tribe’s cave to have enchanted, and now stored the results in bracelets. Still, he still thought it was best to play the slow game, as their ammunition was limited.

The keep walls clear and portcullis open, the beastkin now approached. The avian beastkin flew low, and the reptile people ran in loping strides towards the front of the keep. Rookard’s wolf beastkin people charged in with their various armaments, many of them holding shields or bows.

Jake could tell that Rookard’s people had focused on changing their traditions, to be like those at the Hunter’s Terrace. They formed ranks, with shield users protecting the archers, and having javelins. They were like a strange tribal version of a roman legion, the cavalry being closer to the faster wolf beastkin people themselves.

Jake was impressed with the speed of all the beastkin, for being a lower tier than his previous battlegroup, he had more confidence in a number of their abilities. There were around a thousand of them in total, a significant difference between this assault and the last.

The girls returned to Jake’s side and finished wrenching the gate all the way open, and he urged Bill through the tunnel slowly as the beastkin started arriving. He noticed there was more of a keep door at the other end of this gate tunnel. He looked around, noticing that there were hopefully no traps inside.

Fhesiah said in his mind, [I’ve scanned the inside the walls with my divine sense, there does not appear to be any traps above or below the tunnel, but I’ll keep an eye on below. I do notice that there are some underground waterways, or rivers flowing beneath the city.]

This was just a time-consuming portion of their assault, having to travel over a hundred meters through a stone tunnel on Jake’s ponderous creature. The rest of the wall was only a half a dozen meters or so thick, so this entrance was really designed as a strange entryway that sloped downwards before sloping back up.

Tanda arrived next to Bill and said to Jake, “This enemy is really vicious. To think they can counter our people so easily, and fight us in a way we are not well-suited to face. Some tyrants had tried building cities of stone in the distant past, and it was a completely futile effort.”

He nodded at her from atop Bill, and said, “I can see that stone walls would likely only be effective against protecting against some of these auril beasts, rather than your people. Still, I didn’t see any of that on the conquest map.”

“Our land changes significantly over longer periods, those cities have long-since crumbled. They would be replaced by a new mountain or plateau, growing where what was once a valley. There was even a tyrant destroyed, perhaps it was Cernunnos’ daughter taking his castle out. It’s yet another reason why we choose to live on plateaus, they are much less likely to have that sort of activity.”

Once again, Jake found himself surprised at this. He looked over to Vesuvius, who had now joined.

He said, “What does that kind of activity look like underground? How do your people avoid being crushed?”

“My people are sensitive to the vibrations, using clicking sounds and thumps of our tails to communicate over large distances. We auril heroes can also feel the surging of auril in the area and know to avoid it. There is a fair amount of warning before it comes. What is most surprising is that often while a new mountain may rise up, new caverns appear, providing alternate paths. Sometimes our section of the underground will be completely closed off from the rest, but it’s rare. For those situations, we often have no problem tunneling through.”

Jake’s eyebrows rose in surprise. This had strange implications, surely a completely random occurrence such as seismic activity would not result in a pattern such as that. He supposed the heart was Cernunnos’ daughter, and even chose how to grow her world.

Tanda beamed with pride. “My people had many reasons for believing this world is alive, even before we learned this detail. We’ve long since believed the will of the world was very real, and it was maintaining the balance in all things, working together with us.”

They arrived at the end of the tunnel, and Jake started drinking some mana water to recover, as he tried to recharge the duration on Bill and his kobold acolyte. He found that his old [Mana Transfer] ability was able to accomplish this.

So now, he really just needed to capture a proper flying creature suited for being a mount of some kind, and he could have his own mount permanently. Berri wrung her hands in worry at this thought.

Jake smiled at Tanda. “I have no problem believing that, I was still surprised that such activity was done as if planned, is all. It sounds a lot like some books I read, though the idea that it’s an entire world instead of a dungeon core is surprising. It’d be nice if we could talk to her.”

Tanda was surprised, “I think we can, but why would you want to do that?”

Jake shrugged. “Well, I would want to try to help her. Maybe we can help her grow, or maybe we could find out if she wants something. I think it would be cool to be friends with a whole world, wouldn’t you?”

Berri exclaimed, “Oh! That would be pretty neat! Maybe she could build us a cool house?”

Ophelia laughed, and Tanda frowned at Berri.

Tanda asked, “You would have the world do a weird chore like build something?”

Blood shrugged, and said, “Why not? We can do something for her, and she could do something for us. I thought friends don’t keep score, and if they are truly friends, they would not see it as stooping low to do something beneath them.”

Jake laughed. “By the way, has anyone seen Dave?”

Jake heard a voice come from right next to him. “It’s Davonius! And I’ve been here the whole time!”

Jake nearly fell off the stegosaurus, surprised. Dave was not far behind Fhesiah who was next to Jake, and he hadn’t noticed Dave’s presence over what he was calling his ‘battlegroup sense.’ Jake tried to feel him with his mana, and Dave shivered.

“What was that? Something passed over me.”

Fhesiah chuckled. “How interesting, Dave. You have some strong senses to be able to feel that without mana control of your own. Still, husband: you should be a little more vigilant. You can trust Ira and me to watch over you to some extent, but it would be a failure of yours to not try to improve your own senses. There is a lot to be learned from trying to sense Dave here.”

“T-Thank you, your eminence. I live to serve.”

Vesuvius snorted. “You better watch out for him, Goddess Fhesiah. This one told me he snuck into the woman’s bath–”

Dave interrupted in a rage, “That was just one time! I was just a youngling then, not yet an adult. And I told you that in confidence!”

He appeared and looked at Fhesiah pleadingly. “Your eminence, I would never!”

Fhesiah narrowed her eyes at Dave. “Never better be right. The Framework might protect your life, but I will make sure to find a way that you beg me for death.”

Dave shivered, and then Fhesiah smiled with pride. “Still, your eminence, huh? A little formal, but I can’t say I don’t like it.”

Jake just shook his head at the exchange, and Fhesiah continued, “Oh, come on, Jake. I know your people like your women to be seen so highly in public. How did that one song go? A lady in the street, and a freak in the sheets, or something? Why, I’m like the personification of that.”

Berri giggled. “No way. You’re more like the dirty old man in the streets. I’m much more like the girl in the song, right, Jake?”

Jake wanted no part in this conversation, as there was no winning for him. Fhesiah snorted and was about to make a biting comment about her being childlike instead, he guessed, but Blood narrowed her eyes at Fhesiah, which the demoness noticed.

She laughed nervously. “Ah, you’re right, sister. You truly have a ladylike demeanor.”

Ophelia laughed, enjoying the exchange where Fhesiah took a loss, and Tanda looked on in question.

Tanda asked Ophelia, “Is being a freak somehow good?” Ophelia then whispered to her, and Jake saw she blushed in response.

Now that Jake was rested, they started beating the secondary gate in earnest. The beastkin had gathered in ranks behind them, following Vesuvius and Tanda.

Fhesiah gave some information to Jake about what was through the gate, and so Jake enhanced his voice using runic magic for his army of beastkin to hear.

“When the gate opens, it appears attacks will rain down upon us. There are enemies up on some buildings to our right and left, filled with archers, like they were on the city walls. Then, catapults beyond a building ahead, trained on our location. It will not be easy to get across to our target. It should be safe to fly, but do not fly above the height of the buildings. We can sense the barrier begins there.”

Ophelia’s and Jake’s minds worked furiously, trying to come up with a potential solution to all the catapults, now that they had all the details. Most likely, they would even be protected by the beam tower.

Even if Jake could sort of fire a flaming ball matching the trajectory of the catapults, the odd field they were in might change it. That was on top of the beam itself, if it didn’t somehow stop the partially-physical attack.

There were some behind the buildings that would launch those rocks over them and difficult if not impossible to be targeted in different sections of the city. Then, there were additional ones mounted on the top of larger buildings like towers that Fhesiah or Bloodberri could take out.

Ophelia looked over at Dave. “Maybe we can have Dave sneak through? Fhesiah can give him some alchemical fire to destroy them?”

“M-me? What if that… thing can somehow see me?” Dave asked worriedly.

Ophelia smiled at the strange chameleon man. “Only one way to find out! I will protect you. Hop on the shield.”

Dave looked at Fhesiah for help, but she only gave him a proud smile.

“Look at you, Dave, so quickly, performing meritorious service for your goddess. I am a benevolent goddess, know that your service will be rewarded handsomely. Here are some alchemical fire potions. Merely throw these at the catapults, and fire should spread and melt even metal once it’s fueled by the wood without a problem. Just call for help on the headset if you run into trouble, and the battle angel will come flying to your rescue, we promise.”

Jake chuckled. One of his many preparation ideas he had Fhesiah make, this one made even before the Fortress Assault, was finally going to see usage. The alchemical fire wasn’t overly strong against living targets, but would work excellent against something like the wood of the catapults.

Ophelia’s plan appeared to be to fly Dave near enough to where he could sneak past the buildings before bringing the shield back to herself. She would then fly around, staying nearby, avoiding the enemy army that would no doubt target her.

Dave looked both fearful and proud as he climbed into the inside of the shield, forcing himself to move. Jake saw his oddly split hands finding purchase on the rim and the arm brace.

Once again, he became invisible, the several handfuls of potions in his pouches on his tribal hide armor. Jake hoped this worked, otherwise they would have to constantly be shielding themselves against the odd sludge catapults, potentially for a long time.

Either that, or Ophelia would have to expend a ton of mana to protect Fhesiah or herself while they took them out.

The gates burst open, and Jake willed the stegosaurus forward, shielding the battlegroup as various projectiles began raining down on them once again.

“Wait. Chameleons are not meant to fly! They don’t even jump, really!” Dave screamed in fear, his voice fading away near the end as he sailed past Jake, as Ophelia’s shield flew forward like a rocket, the Hearth of Hestia causing it to grow magical wings. Ophelia was flying behind it.

The battlegroup proceeded through the killing field, much of the focus of the ranged attacks and skeletons charging at Jake’s pet. But Bloodberri blitzed forward, her armor and tail zigzagging through the crowd, causing a symphony of chaos, scattering bone everywhere.

Fire and ice started raining down on them, and the acolyte shielded the reptile beastkin. The avian beastkin took to the sky, throwing javelins and firing their bows at their attackers.

Fhesiah picked the building full of mages, and began dancing, charging up a massive attack. She fanned flames into the air, them swirling around her and merging together, with each wave of her fan. Her torch supplied more and more, until eventually, she had a massive orb of flames.

Some sludge-like rocks sailed toward the battlegroup, and Jake blocked them with a large runic barrier. The barrier held, but sludge remained, dripping down the barrier. It released a noxious looking gas, melting through the ground.

Jake thought it looked quite acidic, besides. He cast a quick runic spell to blow away the gas, and release a wave of water to cover and dilute it. As far as he could tell, this worked. He found himself repeating this several times over a short period, from several directions.

Jake eventually heard Dave’s voice whispering into his headset, “It looks like… I’m fine? I’m approaching the catapults now. There sure are a lot of them.”

Jake knew that Ophelia had dropped him off near the edge of one of the buildings, where the barrier sort of began, preventing them from entering without being attacked by the tower. She protected herself from the various skeletal archers and mages, her being the only target in the area. Her rapid movement made her difficult to hit, as her ability to dodge was extreme.

Fhesiah raised herself, along with her orb of flames, and sent it at a building that Jake thought had maybe thirty or forty mages on it. They formed a barrier in response, but her flames carried the might of dragons, her attack having been charged for nearly thirty seconds.

It shattered the barrier, and exploded just above all the mages in the center. A wave of flames spread out for dozens of meters, destroying all the skeletal mages as they were engulfed in flames.

Overall, the attack took much longer than the spell Jake, Ophelia and Fhesiah released combined, but the power nearly matched. Once again, Jake was impressed at her capability. The way she had charged the ability allowed her to expend little of her resources.

Her flames were fueled by the small amounts of auril in the air, as well as gathering mana and other energies drawn in by her hearth over time.

If she wanted, she could make that attack in a mere moment. But it was not one she could use many times in a row without recharging her resources. There were nearly a dozen buildings filled with mages ahead, and if she didn’t charge up her attack each time, she’d be dead on her feet by they reached the first challenge.

Bloodberri now floated her now cannonball sized balls, and smacked them with her maul at the catapults in view of the battlegroup. There were two within her range, and she powerfully swung and hit two balls in a row.

Each sailed at a catapult, smashing into them like they were shot out of a cannon. The catapults shattered into pieces, being destroyed with ease.

She repeated this for some archers along the walls. The avian beastkin began flying through the air, throwing javelins and shooting arrows back at the various enemy archers and mages across the battlefield. The reptile beastkin too threw javelins on the move, keeping in pace with Bill.

Rookard’s wolves built their formation around Bill, fighting through the skeleton warriors on the ground. They met the skeletons with their shields, the back lines having longer polearms to reach over or between the shields and attack their enemies.

Jake said, “Try to pace yourself, Berri. I know you enjoy hitting them, but we really only have a couple storage bracelets full.”

There were hundreds of skeletons up on the buildings in range at nearly all times, and they rained down attacks. Jake’s aura of heavenly flames protected many, and the awakened warriors protected themselves with their auril, for any attacks that made it through.

The reptile people were hearty, despite being much lower level than their attackers. The avian beastkin were fast, avoiding many of the attacks. With his aura, little harm came to them. For those struck, their auril helped heal them, allowing Jake to expend little effort aiding them.

Tanda’s flock and some reptile beastkin had healers, and they were put in charge of triaging most minor damage. This allowed Jake to focus on shielding and protecting against the catapults with his [Aegis] state.

Another wave of sludge rocks filled the sky, and Jake once again blocked them with a runic barrier, and cleaned up the mess when they were done.

He drank more mana infused water, as he maintained his mana on top of Bill. He watched over the battlefield with his [Arcane Eye], watching the progress of the battlegroup. Many of the javelins missed their original targets, but with so many enemies, they usually hit something.

Jake heard Dave’s voice on the headset. “I… I did it! The catapults are now aflame! Ah, crud!”

He heard and saw several blasts of the death beam strike down from the tower, and Jake was starting to get a little worried for the strange guy.

“I got ‘em, Jake. They had some casters protecting the catapults, but I was able to get him out on my shield before they could effectively retaliate; shooting flames and ice shards in a wide area. The beam only managed to shoot a few times as I got him out.”

“Great work, you two. Now, this should be mostly manageable.”

The battlegroup slowly worked through the path, killing the skeletal warriors on the ground, archers, and mages on the top of buildings. Jake saw that there were even spawning points for the creatures that looked like portals, that would replace those killed.

The battlegroup could attack the portals and close them, but Jake saw that on further buildings more would respawn to replace those lost. Skeletons would cross over walkways between the buildings, and even re-open lost portals. If the battlegroup didn’t continue making forward progress, they would eventually lose the ground they conquered.

Fhesiah went over to Tanda, “This is the first time I’ve been around beastkin actively fighting and gaining experience, well, when I wasn’t overly busy, I suppose. Do you mind if I scan you as you kill some of these creatures?”

Tanda smiled, her tail wagging at being able to help her learn more about her people. “Sure!”

They continued to kill the skeletons, and Fhesiah watched Tanda with rapt attention as she shot her bow and killed skeletons. Tanda returned after some time of this.

Tanda asked, “So, did you learn anything? Um, doing whatever it was you were doing?”

Fhesiah smiled. “I think I understand, mostly confirming my theories. Your Auril is a combination of both life force, but also your will, your spirit. The Framework is granting your heart a portion of the latent will of the creatures you kill, after filtering it into you, but none or very little of the life force. Your heart then takes that and combines it with any abundance of life force in your body, adding to the auril in your heart and soul, thus increasing your level. Those that leveled directly from combat have had an abundance of life force from consuming auril beast meat, but not the will portion of your energy; the meat being full of life energy.”

Tanda nodded with a smile. “It’s good that you confirmed it.”

Fhesiah smiled at Tanda. “And I think for you, even your little seed is getting some of that will, how interesting. Perhaps it will be alive in some way?”

Tanda looked at her chest with wonder. “Brigid must have given me something really special! It’s a little weird to have something else living next to my heart, but I’m sure we’ll find harmony together!”

They finally arrived at the destination building, the path continuing to their right, curving around other buildings. The door of the building had a red portal instead of a door, but the building was massive, like the size of a large Coliseum or Arena. Jake guessed this would allow them to enter a challenge. When the army got near, they received a notification.

[Challenge Balanced on party of 10. Defeat challenge to raise height of projectile and detection barrier on all quadrants.]

Ophelia noted, “The buildings seem to get a little higher as we get closer to the center. While this might provide some advantage in defeating, it’s almost as if this is required to maintain the current difficulty. It would only get harder to land our attacks on the skeletons on the buildings if we did not defeat the challenge, I’d imagine.”

So, the challenge wasn’t required to be completed in order to successfully capture the city. If uninitiated were assaulting, they would still have to fight through all the skeletons, dealing with all the defenses as the city became even more difficult to fight through.

In a way, this was a deadly trap. While the first quadrant wasn’t overly challenging, if they did not defeat this first challenge, they would find the next quadrant even harder. They would suffer heavy losses, and be forced to retreat: only for the city to be refilled with skeletons over time.

Jake looked over the battlegroup. Jake’s party was five. The reptile beastkin had 4 Auril Heroes, and Rookard, making 10. Rookard nodded when asked to come along.

Jake asked Vesuvius and Tanda, “I’m assuming you’d want to bring your 3 Auril heroes with you? Either of you have anyone else in mind?”

Vesuvius and Tanda looked over their subordinates.

Vesuvius spoke first. “No. I think we should leave Darris and Roxo to protect the battlegroup while we’re gone– He’s the only one more sturdy than I, and Roxo has excellent widespread attacks. We should certainly bring Vexana and her… mate, Jarrix, with us.”

Jake looked at Darris, realizing that the man almost looked like a smaller version of his Asmodeon Wartortle. He was wearing armor made of bone and a shield and axe made of the same.

Looking at him with his arcane eye, Jake was impressed. Jake looked at the turtle man with a bit of longing. If there was one beastkin he wanted to capture their template, it was him! Just one would be fine, right?

Jake lamented that his [Capture Template] required the target to die, or he would have the perfect summon for many fights lined up.

Roxo was some kind of sleeker lizard man, reminding him a little of the raptors that carried bone swords. From their initial planning meeting, he was told Roxo had some almost area of effect blade attacks, a ferocious red auril.

Tanda added, “I’ll leave Avina with him, she’s one of the few avian beastkin that are healers. She should be able to keep him fighting long enough for us to finish our challenge should something happen while we’re in it.”

Jake nodded, thinking the woman looked like her parentage was a snow owl. Jake looked over at Dave. “How about you, Dave?”

Dave’s eyes were moving all over the place, almost as if he was looking for a good excuse not to go.

“I think it’s best I remain on the lookout here, you know. I have some more of that alchemical fire, I can put it to good use if it comes down to it. I’m not much able to help in fighting.”

Tanda offered, “This is one of my strongest, Rikka. She is fast, and her spear and talons are fierce. We only have one spot, or I’d say to take her husband, Lamone, as well.”

If Jake had to guess, the two were both falcon beastkin. The woman, Rikka, appeared to be a bit bigger than Lamone. They almost looked like brother and sister, but judging by her necklace and an adornment Lamone wore on his bracer being quite similar, he guessed they were a pair.

Jake said, “Sounds like we have our party of 10. Let’s rest another few minutes and head in.”

Fhesiah was the one needing to recover the most, having taken out another building full of mages. Jake and Ophelia had taken out two others, and Bloodberri was sad, as she had spent many ‘baseballs’ already.

Jake admonished her, “Berri, I told you to pace yourself.”

She laughed awkwardly. “I’m sorry, Jake. It’s just, I was having so much fun…”

Ophelia chuckled. “She didn’t even have to aim at the skeletons, her hits just smashed through the building crenelations, sending stone shrapnel everywhere, destroying them instead. It was like she had fired a cannon.”

Berri said, “Maybe I can throw those little toothpicks now? We have plenty of those, right?”

Jake sighed. “Yes, we have plenty of those ‘toothpicks’ for now.”

Blood had also cast some runic balls of her dark flames, but their effectiveness was not overly helpful. Jake felt it was better to save her mana in case a difficult enemy appeared or for heals, the two girls almost sharing their overall mana capacity to an extent.

“I’m sorry, Milord, I’m still not quite good enough at runic magic, let alone the Nordic runes to help yet. The elvish runes just aren’t that effective.”

“It’s ok, Blood. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Really, my best area of effect attacks just take too much mana against these types of creatures, only truly being worth it if they are densely packed. You are catching up to us. That you are eliminating or working on minimizing your weakness is wonderful. You have progressed quickly in such a short time, and you should be proud.”

She seemed to enjoy his praise, but he wondered where this lack of confidence was coming from.

Blood laughed a little awkwardly. “I don’t know. Berri is all doom and gloom over here, maybe it’s rubbing off?”

Jake scoffed at Berri. “Berri, could you cut it out? I am not replacing you as my mount, alright? We’ve talked about this. I don’t know how I can be more clear here, I’m mostly just riding Bill to stay in the center of the army, allowing you to have more freedom to do what you like. It would have been harder for you to hit your baseballs with me on your back too, don’t you think?”

“It’s just…you’ve never ridden me during serious combat, and then Bill shows up, and it’s like all you want to do!” She huffed and puffed her cheeks out cutely, folded her arms and looked away.

Jake was stricken, he couldn’t believe it. His girls had shown almost zero jealousy up to this point, but this one was seriously jealous of him using another mount?

Their conversation was slightly away from everyone else, but her motions certainly could allow someone from far away that there was trouble in paradise. Tanda and Ophelia were conversing with Rookard and talking about Rookard’s incursion experiences, as Fhesiah talked with Dave and Vesuvius about their people.

He sighed. “Alright, Berri. We’ll fight together this time, okay? But then after that, I don’t want to hear about it. I need to fight in whatever way is most advantageous, and me fighting from your back is not always the smartest, okay?”

“Hmph, I’ll show you. Fighting while riding Berri will always be the best! We’ll become one, just like our date!”

Jake stared at her, as she had not agreed to what he had said, avoiding talking about it.

“Oh, alright. Fine, I agree! Just, you’ll see that I’m right!”

Jake sighed. He had never thought that this would happen when he first got into her basket back on Ariminum. It appeared for at least one boss fight, he would need to behave like a mounted caster, while his mount murdered everything.

Jake went and added bolster, along with his advanced stamina regeneration, to the additional members of the battlegroup that were entering alongside them, and even Darris and Roxo. He felt like this was the most he could spare, without being severely limited within the encounter.

The beastkin were perplexed at how much stronger Jake’s buff made them. Vesuvius, Darris, and Jarrix even grew slightly in size upon receiving it. Jake decided to replace Bill with Brigid’s guardian of the forest, the boar.

Jake was surprised to find he couldn’t even summon the boar with his regular mana. He had to push the divine flames of his hearth into the spell, spending as much as he needed for Bill, but with that type of mana.

A large red boar covered in vines and flowers appeared in motes of light, and she was a bit smaller than Bill. Their auril and spirit felt like a warm spring, and Jake thought the flowers growing were similar to their Hearthtree back at home. Jake frowned, as he realized a strange detail.

Tanda realized it too. “Wasn’t the guardian a boy? Why’s this one a girl?”

Jake had the Kobold priest try to climb up the creature, but she shook it off. The priest almost tried again, and the boar looked at it in hatred, so Jake stopped it.

Jake looked the boar in the eye, and she snubbed him by looking away, a look of disdain on her face.

Ophelia said, “Did you think something rude about a god again or something, Jake?”

“I… I don’t think so?”

Jake thought for a moment about a name. He thought it was weird, as a male guardian had sacrificed himself to become his summon, but the creature was now reborn as a girl, and didn’t want his priest to ride her.

“I’ll name her Bree.”

Tanda said, “Oh, I like that!”

Ophelia added, “It means noble, or power, right? Her attitude seems to match that!”

The boar made no shift in her expression, but the flowers turned a little brighter red, almost like the creature was blushing. Jake added [Divine Reinforcement] to Bree, which brightened the flowers even further and enlarged her, and Jake thought he saw that her overall heat increased.

Berri took off her backpack, and took on the profound look of concentration once more. She groaned, as her face scrunched up cutely. Her armor began to morph again, specifically, around her upper body.

Some spikes shrunk a little on her tail, but otherwise the upper body’s fins grew out, and a platform came out around her lower back, for Jake to stand on.

Some handles appeared on her back, the blades that would usually be covered by her backpack. Two fins grew out on both sides where Jake would stand, and he realized these were minor crenelations, or like shields.

Blood said, “During this fight, you can stow away your shield and use our armor. We shall protect you, so you can focus on offense.”

Jake nodded in understanding. He could use [Wrath] to good effect from her platform. He could lean forward on her back while holding onto a handle with one hand, with his spear in the other, like he was a mounted combatant like on a horse.

She was often upright ahead of her snake body, though, so that would be a little odd. Jake stowed his shield and leaped up, grabbing hold. He had just enough room to move one or two paces in each direction, to add his own lower body strength to his attacks.

Then, he could attack alongside Bloodberri’s shielding. Jake would only have to cover the rear, but with how fast Bloodberri moved and swayed, this felt unlikely to him.

They would have to face at least two more challenges similar to this one, the final potentially being different, next to the tower. They finished their preparations and entered. The moment they arrived at the other side of the portal, they were blanketed with several ferocious roars.