Chapter 1: A light that warmed the darkness WIP
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Work in progress draft of Summoners Fallacy by Leimrat. Originally posted on Leimrat.blogspot.com. Please do not repost.
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Rushing through the dark narrow streets with expertise only a street urchin could have was Dreamer, a small nameless child of the slums the rich liked to call the gutters.
As Dreamer twisted and turned, dodging gangs, guards and all kids of hidden signals only gutter-folk would recognize, uncharacteristically, their excitement grew not because of the hidden dangers but because of their destination.
“Tonight’s the night! I can feel it! The guys are gonna be so jealous once they see me summoning all over the place!
Ha ha! I can’t wait to see Whisper’s face!”
Reaching the edge of the gutters, Dreamer leapt off a roof and hurdled over a metal wall, they crawled down a small incline and dashed to the ruins.
Not even gutter-folk came to the ruins, only those desperate enough to risk getting ambushed by bandits and wilders, rouge summoned beast that went out of control.
*Clang*
From the distant inner ruins, the wind alerted Dreamer of a fight, luckily they’d reached the place just in time.
“Ah, crap!” Panting, they collapsed leant up against a damp wall, feeling their heart beating out their chest.
“Once I’m a real summoner there’ll be no more damn hiding for me, it’ll be my turn to do the hunting! “ Dreamer grinned.
The memories of gangs, bandits and supposedly helpful guards that all used and abused the local orphans flashed through their mind, the grin morphed into a menacing one.
“Obviously I’ll just hunt down the bad guys, I’ll be like the heroes from that drunkards tales from the bar!”
Glee and hope threatened to replace the fear that came with existence here in the gutters.
“Finally.
It’ll our turn.”
Jumping to their feet they almost skipped through the burnt remains of a living room and descended the creepy, creaking stairs to the dark, silent basement hidden out of sight beneath a heavy rug that Dreamer could barely move.
Down in the damp basement, a lamp suddenly lit the walls, an almost dizzying amount of old maths, diagrams and instructions carved into them.
*Sigh* dreamer set down the lamp and clapped their hands, then grabbed the old tome and chalk, drawn on the dusty tome was a simplistic kids drawing of a summoning circle, reminiscent of what was scrawled across the walls.
It was a pentagram with curved lines arching to each point that touched a thick circle, outside that were a dozen half moons facing each other surrounding small plus signs, then outlined again by another even thicker circle.
Studying the drawing Dreamer grumbled in confusion “Ok, attempt number 126, I almost wish the book didn’t make me number these things, it’s been a depressingly long time since attempt number 1.” Dreamer glanced over to a corner filled with scorched books and rubble from a partially collapsed wall.
For the rest of the night Dreamer sat in the basement frantically drawing in the floor, reviewing and correcting the summoning circle with increased focus and excitement.
“Ok, that should do it! This is it!”
…
“I hope it doesn’t blow up again.”
Dreamer stood in the middle of the summoning circle placing their hand on the center, dragging their finger counterclockwise, careful not to smudge anything. After a ten full rotations they grabbed at the air in-front of them with both hands and pulled upwards as hard as they could.
…
Nothing.
Then, the summoning circle began to glow!
The basement shook! The old stone brick walls started to crumble and fall at an alarming pace! The wooden beams on the ceiling above Dreamer cracked and groaned under the pressure of the forces in play!
Stalwart and unmoving Dreamer urged success. “C’mon!” They shouted with gritted teeth, arms straining under the pressure, face red and sweating!
The wood beams groaned loudly.
“I can feel it, the thread! Just like the book said! But I can’t hold out much longer!”
The cracking, rumbling, and screaming grew louder and louder!
Until…
*CRACK!!*
Like pulling a weed out of dry soil, the stone floor ruptured upwards, Dreamer fell back!
A barely visible thread arched out of the ground, it looked like heat rippling on the horizon but condensed into a tightly woven string, all that tightly packed energy struck Dreamer square in the chest!
“Ugh!” Launched up off their feet they coughed up blood and dust with the force of the blow knocking the wind out of them.
As they lay there, coughing, and aching, muscles spasming, there it was! A white marble ball covered in feint golden brown veins across segments of what looked like armor, like the plate armor Dreamer saw the bandits wearing now and then, but much prettier.
Sitting up, Dreamer crawled over to get a better look, as they brushed their fingers over the thing it shivered and started changing shape!
The thing unfurled Into an entirely white marble like armadillo the size of a fat cat with a long thick tail.
“I did it… OH MY GOD! I DID IT! YEEEEES!!”
They picked it up despite its incredible weight and tried to twirl it around, its glistening needle like claws dangling in the momentum of the swing. It’s entirely black beast eyes staring into nothingness like this was fine, or maybe it was terrified.
They stopped spinning and inspected their prize, their first summon!
Knocking on its plating you could hear the familiar clang of metal.
“Wait, metal?”
They tapped its belly and heard a similar denser sound.
“This things entirely made of metal!”
The summon raised its head and stared at the ceiling, prompting Dreamer to do the same.
*Thud*
Over head, loud sounds came from upstairs “crap, the bandits!” Dreamer cursed, grabbing the essentials from the tables and bolting for the stairs.
‘It’s too late’, Dreamer thought but climbed up anyway, there was no other way out.
Halfway up, the basement door opened, stood there was a big, gruff guy with cold, dangerous eyes staring down, glistening with surprise and violence.
“Get ‘em!” Dreamer yelled and through the poor confused armadillo crashing into the face of the bandit. It was a long shot, but this is what summoned beast did right?
“AAAHHHHGH-“
Right on cue, Dreamer shot past the suddenly dead bandit, shocked at the ferocity of the little metal guy that just ripped the throat out of an armored combatant without hesitation.
It rolled into a ball and followed its master leaving a trail of blood and guts.
Jumping out a window Dreamer almost landed on top of another masked bandit that swiftly caught them mid-air.
“Caught her, him, uh-“ before he could finish his thought his head caved in from the weight of a dense metal ball that shot out from the same window.
“God you’re good at this!”Dreamer didn’t know wheather to be ecstatic or terrified at the efficiency that the little summon managed to eliminate some of the most dangerous people they’d ever heard of.
The horror stories you’d hear of what bandits would do to wandering gutter-folk was enough to lose a week of sleep! And now two of them were dead in seconds!
A raspy woman’s voice echoed bringing Dreamer back down to earth “Flank left, Flayer just got got! Be on guard!”
Dreamer snapped out of it and looked down at her only hope, chomping down on Flayers armor like it was paper.
“Noted, it eats metal” dreamer grabbed the little guy and stumbled at the weight of the thing as a chunk of armor came with them ,ripped clean off, dangling in the glistening jaws of her summon.
Dashing left behind another row of ruined houses, they fled towards where a dry riverbed used to be, a thick bolt of steel pinged of the armadillos eyeball.
“It’s to tough!” A deep muffled voice echoed from way across the empty river hundreds of meters away.
Dreamer gasped and skidded, kicking up dust and launched themselves in the opposite direction, head first into the window of a building.
*SMASH*
“Aim for the kid! That things worth a fortune!” The raspy woman’s voice echoed from a completely different position than it had before, she was closer, much closer!
“Ok buddy now what?” Dreamer whispered, curled up inside a kitchen cupboard, catching their breath.
The white ball blinked and licked its bloody claws with a completely black tongue, wait, had it finished eating all that metal already?
Dreamer felt the sparks of an idea in their mind as a smirk graced their malnourished lips.
“This has to work” they shouted bursting out the cupboard barley dodging the heavy sword swing from a well built, masked woman with an eyepatch.
“Found ya!” Said the raspy voiced woman, she yanked the sword from the ground and shifted her hips and therefore her body weight, swinging the sword lighting fast, faster than Dreamer could-
*CLANG*
A rounded white marble sheet of metal the thickness of a pencil ricochet off the sword and flung the bandit leader off her feet in the opposite direction.
Dreamer finally reacted to the swing and dashed through the house and out a side street, head on a swivel looking for something.
“Get ‘em you useless bastards! It’s just a kid!” The bandit leader yelled from what sounded like just a few feet behind.
‘There!’ Dreamer thought, vaulting over a Woden fence and rolling through the muck of an old outhouse, darting behind another building.
*step, step, step* the woman wasn’t far behind.
*Clang*
Another sheet of metal ejected itself from the armadillos back, barely missing Dreamers head, looking over their shoulder they saw the glint of a sword that was definitely about to behead them if not for the interception.
“Aaaak!!” The bandit woman screamed furious at yet another failed attempt.
‘Almost there, don’t look back. Almost there, don’t look back…’ dreamer chanted in their head, trying their upmost to ignore the swelling fear as adrenaline pumped through their veins making all these miracles possible.
“EUGH!” Darting straight past an old farmhouse just at the edge of the outer ruins, a steel bolt shot Dreamer just beneath the shoulder blade in the back, adding to their momentum and thus sending Dreamer rocketing forward, crashing into the metal grate of the gutters’ sewage drains.
Gasping for air and salvation, Dreamer begged for another miracle. “Buddy, quick! Please!” Dreamer squealed, tears stinging, shocks of jet black hair clinging to their pale face pleading with the created in front of her.
The armadillo had spun and rolled out of their hands while Dreamer was tumbling and had already started chomping on the lower bar of the sewer grate like a moth to a flame, biting through like it was a tasty loaf of yesterday’s stale bread.
*stomp, stomp, stomp!*
Multiple sets of hastened footsteps echoed throughout the ruins, from the left burst a tall lanky fellow with a crossbow, from the right burst the bandit leader woman, mask torn, red curly hair wrapping around her face covering the eyepatch, the woman looked absolutely feral as her teeth gnashed, begging for blood.
*Thwp*
“Ahng!” A sharp inhale left their mouth as another crossbow bolt struck Dreamer in the chest, blood pooling beneath them from the front and the back. Looking down at the bolt proved difficult through the years, the headache and the scorching pain.
Sobbing and terrified, dreamer shook, wishing nothing more than for a world where bandits didn’t exist, violence didn’t exist, a world where no one had to be this scared, a world where kids from the gutters got to grow up to be teenagers and not die horrific deaths.
Dreamer sniffled and wept.
“Deaths like mine” Dreamer sobbed weekly, life fading from their body, they’d given their all already, they knew the dangers of coming here, but it was worth it, right? they’d succeed with the summoning, after half a year of solitary effort, self study and torturous journeys back and forth, was it really ending here? Just after the beginning?
‘Huh?’ Dreamer saw the world fade into the distance and turn black, the sight of metal bars and damp tunnel walls replacing the life changing memory Dreamer would never forget. .
‘Is- is this death, am I dead?’ Dreamer rolled back their head, on the absolute brink of passing out, they saw a white armadillo running with the end of Dreamers hand in its mouth, they could barely even feel it.
In the darkest moment of Dreamers life so far, a warmth they’d never felt before filled their heart. Just before their eyes fully rolled into the back of their head, they managed to put it all into a single thought.
‘Hope, I finally have hope’
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Work in progress draft of Summoners Fallacy by Leimrat. Originally posted on Leimrat.blogspot.com. Please do not repost.
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