The Summoner
#2 of The Summoner and The Summoned
The Summoner and The Summoned is a long-form fantasy story in the context of a D&D styled world following the travels of a rather monstrous party of 'adventurers' and some of their more traditional counterparts.
In Chapter 1, The Summoned, you were introduced to Marak and Matala. The brother and sister are two of wolven villagers celebrating Matala successfully completing her training to become a shamaness, before Matala vanishes into thin air right in the middle of her own party.
The dwarf let out a huge belch, patting his stomach in appreciation of a meal (or three) well eaten as he leaned back and propped his feet up on the table. Hardin Stonebrow was not a man of inaction, and if he was going to be stuck waiting for a week at an inn on the ass-crack of nowhere? At least he was going to enjoy the experience. Beer, beef, and breasts - as long as they kept flowing, he'd wait, as much as his axe-swinging muscles might protest. Number one and two were currently well handled, although he was getting a bit anxious since the third was lacking, despite the occasional grope of the innkeeper's daughter. She was on the young side, but a dwarf had his needs and the only other set in the place would burn him to a crisp if he copped a feel.
He glanced over to the middle of the inn's common room and observed the aforementioned short-tempered woman, who was also the cause of the party's current delay. Taern wasn't bad looking, for an elf. Tall, perky tits, porcelain skin, long red hair. Could use a bit more mass on her frame and at least a goatee, but who was a dwarf to judge the taste of other races? The group's resident wizard had been hard at work for the last week on some kind of ritual, and claiming she'd need a lot of space, had booked out the entire rural inn. She had (with a bit of help from the more muscle-endowed members of the party) shoved most of the furniture to the side of the room, and was currently on her hands and knees in the middle of the floor with chalk and candles drawing up some kind of rune circle, dressed down into a simple shift to keep her purple silk robes from getting dirty on the rough-hewn planks.
The dwarf pulled a can out of a pouch at his waist and set to a proper session of beard grooming, carefully applying the wax to be sure his long brown chin of hair was kept protected from the elements. The elf would get ticked if he stared too long, and the runes were all gibberish to him. Hardin didn't know a damned thing about magic, except that if one wanted to live a long and happy life in this profession, the dress wearer with the twiddly fingers died first. Also wanted to protect your own spell slinger... but patience in the heat of battle wasn't really his thing. They had a couple other members of the party to whom he left that sort of thing, but they were off and up to who knows what at the moment.
Taern finally stood, turning in circles a couple of times as she checked her work. She nodded to no one in particular and then stepped out of the intricate circle, stepping delicately between runes and reaching for her spell book.
"Ye finally 'bout ready, princess?"
"Shut it, Hardin. I'll be ready when I'm damn well ready, and this will be worth the wait. And for the record, yes, it is ready, so you'd best be [i]silent[/i] or I'll have the cost of the wasted reagents out of your hide."
The dwarf smirked but did as she asked, watching to see what was 'worth the wait'. Some sort of spell of her own design, but she hadn't been particularly forthcoming about exactly what it did. He didn't see that much use so far, since you couldn't exactly get a dragon to sit still for a week while you drew a chalk circle around it, but he did have to admit that she typically got results, so he'd hold judgement until she was done.
Spell book in one hand, she stood just outside of the circle and started reading. This one was unusually elaborate - she spent several minutes of rhythmic chanting, going through several pages of the book. The chalk runes first started glowing, then burst into flame, charring the pattern into the floor. Good thing the inn was coming out of her cut. With a crescendo, she seemed to be reaching the end of the incantation; the candles burst into flame and a column of light closed around the circle. A ghostly human figure appeared inside the column, then started solidifying... no, not human, it has ears and a tail. A gnoll, or... no, one of those wolves, whatever they called themselves.
With a crash of thunder the spell completed, the figure coming completely into view. Yep, female wolf, and pretty well dressed by lupine standards. Most of them just wore hides, but this one bothered to color the hides a nice red. She was even a pretty little thing if you didn't mind the fur. Taern sank backwards, the spell obviously having taken some toll; she didn't seem to think there was any risk from this creature, and it looked like she was correct - after a few seconds of glancing around in shock, it had tried to step forward toward the spellcaster, only to be driven back by the binding circle. It seemed to be trying to talk, but the magic of the circle seemed to muffle it.
Turning to the elf, Hardin couldn't help throwing in a quip. "'gratulations, ye caught a puppy. This is s'posed te be makin up for a week of profits how, exactly?"
With a deep breath, Taern pulls herself back up straight, glaring at the cocky dwarf. "It's a special kind of summoning spell - one that can repeatedly summon a particular intelligent creature, instead of just random animals. Once I finish the binding, I can bring it back at any time with a much simpler spell, and it will be forced to follow my commands. I was... not exactly expecting one of the wolven; most of them are dumb brutes, and the initial summoning was meant to seek out a creature of some power. Maybe it can do something special? I suppose we'll see in a moment once I complete it."
Turning a page in her spell book, the elf resumes chanting. Runes start glowing, but instead of the floor, they start glowing on the skin of the wolf, following patterns that seem to have been painted on. The party watches the wolf let out a silent scream as these runes also burst into flame, embedding the pattern into the wolf's skin. She collapses to the floor in pain just as the cylinder of light marking the binding circle collapses with another crash, releasing the smell of singed fur and flesh into the rest of the room.
Taern steps forward, and with a commanding voice, speaks to the gnoll. "Stand up, pet, and let me look at you." The wolf is muttering something, although it's in their weird growly-barky language; standing, it levels a withering glare at the mage, meeting her eyes as if to stare her down. "Well, it at least has some courag..."
Unexpectedly, the wolf closes the distance with the mage, striking her with a clawed hand and leaving a pair of deep gashes as the elf is thrown back to the floor. "Stop! Stand down!" With a howl, the wolf starts moving her hands in a rhythmic pattern, a green glow enveloping them as she gathers the energy to perform more primal magic, the wood of the inn's floor springing to life with shoots and leaves which quickly grow to capture the mage's arms and legs, rendering her immobile.
"No, you are bound to me, obey your master!"
The wolf did not seem to agree on the master part. She stalked forward, the plant growth parting around her feet as she snarled some lupine threat and approached the mage. Hardin just sighed and grabbed the weapon he'd propped beside his bench, an immense bearded axe, before stepping up behind the wolf; the vines tried to catch at him, but the burly dwarf just pulled them loose as though they were little more than errant twigs. The dwarf swings his axe just as the wolf is tensing to pounce, the blow landing square in the center of her back and smashing her to the ground. She lets out the start of a strangled yelp but the sound is cut off as her form fades away, spell of summoning terminated by the death of its target.
Taern looks at the dwarf wide-eyed as the aggressive vines drop limp to the floor, cut off from their source of energy. The dwarf, not particularly bothered by this turn of events, just smiles at her. "Looks like yer spell is kinda useful. 'Bout time I got to kill somethin."