Bonded Summoner

“Yay! This is so much fun. Get ‘em, Bulldozer!”

The large insectoid chirped, emboldened by Berri’s order. Blood’s Hearthian Presence combined with Jake’s State of the Monarch and her new skill, Twilight Monarch, washed over Bulldozer and the many allied undead beetle people as they crashed into the enemies.

Bulldozer was the largest sandreaver, its pincers large and wide. It pushed and shoved right through enemy lines, very much like a… bulldozer. The Twilight Monarch aura, enhanced by Jake’s state and his own Aura, caused enemies to explode and energy to be drained into their allies.

Jake and Bloodberri just let their army do the work, and Berri ordered them around for fun.

Berri cheered as the bugs fought the other bugs, converting some of them to their cause with the help of Jake’s summons. Ava and Valora knocked the sturdy beetle people around as well, while Tanda fired her bow into the backlines to cover them in vines. Ophelia’s Vajrafire Hearth Guardians roamed throughout the battlefield, knocking them away with their shields and disarming them with their weapons.

The Battlegroup was fighting toward a large pyramid in the distance, the third one since arriving on the world of Ankhmar. A green beam of light illuminated the desert sky from the pyramid, an ominous green glow washing over the sandreavers. It appeared this was the method of controlling the undead creatures, and Jake thought his forces were getting close to reaching the mastermind in charge.

In truth, if Fhesiah were here, they probably would have found the mastermind when they assaulted the second pyramid. Jake and his other wives just couldn’t match her sensory capabilities, and Ira was still in its stasis.

He thought this might be the main hideout from triangulating the energies given off by the odd control beacon, but it wasn’t his specialty. The signal from this direction was the strongest, and it was confirmed with his summons, the veridriths.

If nothing else, they would obtain new allies and end the attacks against the locals. It appeared these beetles were both eating and capturing them, and converting them into more beetles.

Jake had summoned a few veridriths both times, the odd locust mentalist creatures that matched the enemy Champion of Greed. They had pointed in several directions as there were dozens of pyramids scattered across the world where these creatures were gathering, but this was the direction that matched his own triangulation.

Nevertheless, the Hart family had hit the previous two locations hard and fast, much to the satisfaction of the pharaoh and his people. The pharaoh even rode an odd sand barge as he followed Jake’s party, monitoring and somewhat participating in the battles with their sand magic.

A wind mage would control and blow wind into the sails, and some form of sand magic reduced the friction on the boat as oars magically propelled the large boat forward. It moved a bit faster than a horse-drawn carriage on average, but for how many mages were required to move it forward, Jake’s airships were a bit more effective.

Many people were saved from their two assaults. When they destroyed the beacon, they also found that not only did the control over the creatures fade, but the creatures themselves were happy for their liberation and joined in on the next assaults to free their brethren.

Several of the beetle people even joined the Framework, like Bulldozer.

Thankfully, the Framework and Jake’s Aura combined seemed to protect them from being controlled once more. The unliving beetles fought through their former brethren, and focused on disabling rather than killing. Being unliving, it required a bit of overkill to completely kill them for good.

The enemy swarm of beetles was difficult to pierce, preventing Jake’s party from attacking from the sky. It was much easier to work through the swarm slowly and safely on the ground, rather than burning through the vast quantities of enemies in a singular attack–killing them permanently.

Berri hummed. “Hmm… I think the only thing that would make this trip even better is if we weren’t fighting undead bug people, and they were edible.”

Ophelia chuckled. “Why’s that matter? Jake can always cook amazing meals for you.”

Berri pursed her lips, and shook her head. “You just don’t get it. It’s way better when you eat the bad guys. What do you think, Tanda? Am I right?”

Tanda relaxed her bow, and nodded. “There is certainly something special when it comes to eating the prey you hunted, the berries you foraged for. The taste of an earned success–the taste of victory.”

Berri beamed. “Yes! That’s it. You’re such a good girl, Tanda!”

Tanda laughed and smiled, her tail wagging as she focused on her power as an auril sovereign. Seeds sprouted various desert plants, bringing green to the desert wasteland. The cacti created a defensive barrier, their large and powerful thorns a deterrent to enemy approach.

Her spriggon summons from Verdant Rebirth aided in their growth, the plants corralling their enemies in the distance.

As they passed the downed enemies, Jake, Berri and Ophelia would focus their purifying flames on them. They pushed out the enemy’s influence, and then, another one of Jake’s summoned templates would stride forward: an Emberborn Priestess.

Knowing they were facing undead, Jake had quickly met with a priestess and gathered her template before they left for Ankhmar. While most were up North in the frozen tundra of Highlands preparing their new home, some remained in Life’s Haven to continue their research and magical practice in the guild facilities.

The priestess would assert control, protecting the undead scarab people from the enemy’s influence for the remainder of the battle. While they could force the sandreavers to fight, they hardly needed to. The insectoid embodiments of death were quick to join their brethren in the fight to liberate the enemy, Jake and Bloodberri’s auras protecting their march.

Assaulting the two previous enemy holdings certainly wasn’t a waste. After the battles were completed and the beacons destroyed, many of the insectoids joined them. Their minds were a bit different, but capable of forming a will and having coherent thoughts.

Their clicks and thumps of their feet were like an interpretive dance and song, and Berri and Blood somehow were able to converse with them with a dance and their own speech. The undead beetle people even saw her as a goddess or special being, desiring to serve her and right the wrongs of the tainted one, as they called the evil influence.

Jake’s undead army was reaching a critical mass, where their number of allies was about to exceed the number of enemies on the field. With the special auras Jake and Bloodberri provided, this battle was about to become a cakewalk.

Which was why it wasn’t a surprise when there was an explosion of stone and rubble from the pyramid. A giant scorpion crawled out, and gave off a malevolent aura. A black smoky haze drifted off the immense creature, and the monster began barreling toward their position.

Behind it, another creature rose into the air: A creature of bone, emanating a similar, yet more familiar aura. Upon reaching the second Tier, Jake thought he had a much better handle on feeling and understanding divine energy, his own divine energy manipulation skill skyrocketing compared to before. In just the past three weeks, he had already passed level 3, and thought he was close to the fourth level.

Ophelia frowned. “Is that… it feels almost like a champion, but not. Something like the beast avatars?”

Jake agreed at that assessment and gave his orders. “Ava and Valora, you take on the scorpion with Lia’s protection, Bloodberri and I will take on the necromancer, and Tanda will support both parties.”

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He summoned five more of the priestesses of Arawn, the emberborn drawing in death energy and controlling it. Using his invested mana, they sent out a large deathly green haze–a wave of miasma, meant to protect their control over their undead allies.

“C’mon, Jake! Let’s do the thing!”

Jake couldn’t help but laugh, knowing exactly what she meant. It wasn’t a bad idea at all. He sent his affirmative over their bond, and both his Divine weapon and her chimeral axe began to morph as the two both gathered their runes.

Blood began gathering her runes for another purpose, and Tanda drew upon her cyclical avenging flames as well as Ophelia and Ava charged toward the incoming giant scorpion.

Jake and Berri’s runes coalesced onto his staff, which had morphed into a giant ball of divine flames. She coiled her tail as she positioned herself, holding her transformed mythic baseball bat.

“Now, for my secret move–Berri’s Grand slam of Hestia-Echidna-Jake!”

Black and white coalesced across her body, and she used the previous version of Maul of Hestia-Echidna against the large ball of flames. An explosion of light and dark sent the ball of divine flames at their target: the powerful necromancer.

Jake and Berri’s coordinated attack did not take long at all to power up and prepare, and the necromancer had very little time to get ready for the oncoming ball of flames. It hastily erected a black barrier around itself, and the beacon of green light shuddered ominously as the green energy joined with it.

But Jake was well aware of these necromancer’s moves. The runes on the ball of divine flames activated, creating a spear of flames in front of it. The barrier was pierced by the sheer force and power of their combined attack, the black-and-green magical shield shattering like glass in the air.

The ball of flames continued unimpeded, crashing into the necromancer and exploding in a wave of divine flames. The necromancer was flung back through the air, and Jake retracted his weapon with his will.

If this was one of the necromancers they were used to facing, this would have been enough to kill it. The monster was filled with malevolent energy however, and while much of its bones were crushed and burned away by the holy flames, it began reconstructing itself and pulling deathly energy from the sandreavers.

Tanda’s powerful shot containing the energies of life struck the necromancer next, seeds being released from her Verdant Barrage. The deathbloom flowers rapidly grew from the death energy, sapping the energy it was using to heal as it was wrapped in vines.

Jake and Bloodberri were about to approach to try to finish off the necromancer, but Avalara sent the scorpion flying through the air with her giant club. Then Ophelia lanced it riding on Valora, sending a powerful condensed burst of vajrafire flames through the scorpion and into the necromancer. Her Vajrafire Guardian turned into yet another blast of fiery lightning, striking both enemies.

Blood then released her Tier 2 spell, a smite using the twin’s twilight energy against the necromancer. It was like a hammer of white light struck the monster powerfully, the holy energy invading deep into the necromancer’s body. It began to crumble, and a tiny spark of evil divinity exited it and shot at Ophelia, who was the closest at that moment.

The scorpion tumbled to the ground from Avalara and Ophelia’s combined attack, and the power animating it was dispelled. The scorpion returned to being a lifeless corpse, and the beacon in the background stopped sending out its green light.

Ophelia closed her eyes as Valora came to a stop, trying to focus her senses on the energy that just entered her, and so did Jake–the energy had rushed into all of them, from her. In all, it was like they received a small amount of divine energy added to their total pool.

He had mostly been unable to sense the difference before, but now he could definitely feel even this minute amount. Most likely, they had received larger increases each time they defeated a Champion in the past. Jake wasn’t precisely sure about the amount, but killing the Enforcer was easy to feel–this was like a hundredth or less of the amount.

Ophelia stated, “That was a bit anticlimactic. The necromancer was early in the second Tier like us, but that definitely wasn’t at the level of a Champion against all of us. We were a bit overkill.”

Tanda landed next to Bloodberri, “I like that you added Jake to your secret move’s name, but not even Blood made the cut? Didn’t you use her darkness energy?”

Berri’s expression shifted to indifference, and she began inspecting her gauntleted nails. “She thought the move was lame. Now the energy is both of ours, so it hardly counts as her darkness. She used my light energy for that smite just now and didn’t need to give me credit, so it’s all fair.”

Blood then took over their features, giving a tired look as she groaned. “I didn’t say it was lame, I said the name was too long! You’re so sensitive about your baseball stuff. Your… baseball attack with our Lord is impressive, and I’m not just saying that.”

Berri looked all too pleased with herself, a wide smile taking over her face. “Okay! You’re forgiven. It’s BB’s Grand Slam of Hestia-Echidna-Jake now!”

The sandreavers were now free from the control of the necromancer, and Bulldozer and its many brethren began their dance and buzzing to communicate. Berri and Blood added their own words and swaying movements, and convinced many of them to join the Framework, though whether they could or would join a guild like Hearthtribe was up in the air.

It seemed the creatures had some gratitude and were willing to come to Jake’s aid if he needed it. Being monstrous and without a true language, the Framework still did not provide translation–much like the spriggons. This made it somewhat difficult to coordinate, but Jake’s rank of Baron aided in this. He was able to guide and incentivize them with Quests, thanks to the world’s ownership–even with them outside of his guild.

In the distance, they could see that all the other pyramids had powered down. They had truly defeated this mastermind for now, and now Bulldozer and the many others could go on a recruitment spree.

Eventually, the pharaoh and his barge approached, and the young king and his mother thanked them for their efforts. It had only taken them a few days to handle the difficult task, and without many losses. After gaining some sandreavers as allies, they allowed the pharaoh’s soldiers to protect their holdings instead.

Jake’s party would stay for a few days on the world, allowing Bloodberri to work with the sandreavers and recruit more into the Framework.

For now they returned to their Refuge, where their recent contribution purchase was finally ready.

A Temporal Chamber.

Something available beginning at Tier 2 and requiring a tremendous amount of power, even with their Divine Hearth they would only get an hour of time at most. It was a 1:7 ratio of one hour on the outside would equal seven inside, but he would only be able to at most get 1 hour per week.

In actuality, it was a tremendous waste. While getting an extra seven hours per week sounds great, it was really only useful for getting a little extra training in.

It was not even that useful for that. Due to the nature of the environment, supplying the insides with more energy after it was expended was not currently possible. It appeared that once they used what was inside the chamber, he would not be able to recover rapidly.

Compared to their training rooms where they had nearly limitless mana thanks to their Divine Hearth, it might only be good for something like training their melee or ranged Techniques. Then, only one person could be inside at a time. Many of these features could be upgraded for a cost, but the requirements were well beyond their ability to afford them at the moment.

That meant, at least currently, the chamber only served a singular purpose. They were lounging around in their Refuge’s living room, clean from their recent task.

Ophelia’s feathers ruffled and flittered as she got comfortable next to Jake, and snorted. “I can’t believe you spent so much on a booty call chamber.”

Avalara sat on the other side of Jake, and smiled across him at Ophelia, “Ah, but he’s worried about his mate, is he not? Of course he will do what it takes to protect her.”

Blood hummed. “Hmm, true, but could she really need help? I think the hundred days without the touch of our lord husband is easily the biggest thing he can save her from.”

Tanda grimaced. “Has it been that long for her? Quick, Jake–we better let her know quickly!”

Berri giggled. “I bet she is cranky as can be by now, probably toasting people in frustration! I can’t imagine being without Jake for a week. If the Framework didn’t stop me, I’d probably crush anyone that got in my way.”

Jake chuckled. “Alright, let’s do it. Help me out, Tanda?”

She sat in his lap with a smile, her tail wagging and flapping against his stomach as she faced away from them. Synchronizing their breathing, he did his best to enter the state of the Sage.

He had tried this a few times in the past week, but had been mostly unsuccessful. This time, he added a Tier 2 runic spell of Haste. With his Divine Reinforcement, it did not actually hasten him a ton, but he hoped it would be enough.

Finally, he did his best to convey for her to get to a safe location, and to send him a sort of signal–pulses of feelings when she was ready to meet. He would try to meet her within her spiritual temple.

When she got the message, he felt elation for several minutes, and excitement–and his wives’ premonitions were correct–plenty of lust.

However, it was only an hour later that those feelings had switched to anger and frustration, then calm acceptance. The connection between them only got even worse, though he thought she did her best to signal not to worry about her.

Throughout those days, feelings came even more rapidly, so he guessed that somehow, the temporal difference became even larger somehow, so he opted to wait to use his own chamber and synchronize with her.

Eventually, feelings of relief arrived over their bond, and then those same feelings of elation and lust for several minutes–only for it to switch to despair and anger once more, the signal that she was ready not arriving. Just what was going on in that Battleground?