Chapter 130 – A visitor [Tuesday 1/7]
John woke up, stretched, sat up and looked around. Gnome was lying at his side, or had been as she was hugging his arm so tightly that she sat up with him. “Noooo, no more cake,” she mumbled in a voice that sounded like she REALLY wanted more cake, “I caaan’t.”
“You can…!” Sylph mumbled, as if in response, sleeping on top of her sister’s head, “You will eat all of those muffins or the gummibear king will have our heads…”
John giggled, they were apparently easily influenced by things that happened outside their dreams and now shared some kind of sleep talking experience. Either that or the mental bond they shared had synced up their dreams. Either way it was funny. Undine was present as the blueish mass sticking out from his pillow.
‘That exins why it felt so weird,’ John thought, ‘not bad. Actually, the opposite of bad.’ Undine had hidden inside his pillow as a very dense slime, making it like he slept on some kind of memory foam. It had been rather pleasant. The two girls missing from his bed were Aclysia and Smander, the former was no wonder, Aclysia didn’t need to sleep in the first ce and just rested her mind while snuggling up to John. Smander, however, usually could be found lying on Gnome or the windowsill. The former had been more cuddlyst night than ever before, so he had expected the fire spirit to take up thetter. She was nowhere to be seen though.
John carefully wiggled himself out of Gnome’s grasp. She made a very displeased noise and her arms desperately grasped for something. Picking up the Undine pillow, John ced it in the brte''s arms before getting out of bed. He got his clothes and equipment on and checked the clock. Tuesday had begun about thirty real minutes ago, so he had slept roughly eight hours. That was a bit longer than he had wanted but he felt well rested.
‘This day is going to be good!’ he decided and searched for Smander. He had a mental glimpse of the outside in, so he left the house.
He found Smander looking up at what little there was to see of the stars between the midnight clouds. She was just lying in the air like other people on a couch, burning like a little red star herself.
“You like looking at the sky?” John asked as he stepped closer.
“Nah, it’s just something to do,” Smander said without turning to him. “So, how do you feel now, John?”
“What do you mean?”
“Now that you deepened your contract with Gnome, how do you feel?”
“Oh, I don’t know? More in sync with everything? Collected?” John could still not urately describe his newfound earthen connection.
“I see,” Smander just said before changing the topic, “Following that list of yours I am next to ‘evolve’ am I not?”
John double-checked his skills. Smander with her 74 levels was indeed the highest Skill of the elementals. “It will take a bit of time though,” he confirmed.
Smander sighed, “Well, maybe I have some time to get my lesson into that skull of yours then.”
“Your lesson?” John only half hoped for an answer.
“I won’t tell you, that’d defeat the point.” She shot him a broad grin. “It’s elemental tradition, or so my inherited knowledge tells me. Can’t have summoners who don’t have the right intuitions.”
Well, that made sense in some way. If he had needed to understand patience and the earth, then there had to be something that was required for him to bond with fire too.
John remembered with terror the visions he had seen before the contract. Smander was unique amongst his elementals in regards to that. Gnome had shown him the life of earth itself, Undine had been a vision of a drop of water that traversed from the oceans to the cloud only to fall as rain and begin the cycle anew elsewhere, while Sylph’s contract had shown him how the wind endlessly yed around the world. They had been broad visions of the elements in their natural cycle. Smander had been none of that, what he had gotten from her was specific, manmade destruction. From the first cannonball to the only nukes ever used to kill, he had seen war. Whatever could the lesson of hers be?
Smander knew what he was thinking. “Are you afraid of me?” she asked. There was no anger or fear in her voice, it was like she was asking if he wanted another cup of coffee.
“A bit,” John answered truthfully. “What you have shown me, or what your ne showed me, the way you fight, your destruction and passion. I am not sure whatever that lesson of yours is but I am unsure whether or not I want to learn it.”
Smander slowly nodded, “You will understand the necessity. You will witness truth. Whatever though, this whole serious stuff is not up my alley. I wanna burn some shit. I miss your girlfriend, dude, she was always ready to get into action, you are all cautious and stuff.”
John honestly wasn’t surprised to hear that. Smander hadn’t been fond of him being mindless but she also wasn’t very enthused by hisck of aggressiveness.
“I really wonder sometimes why the Mother of Fire decided to give you a daughter of Krieg.”
“Krieg, what is that in the first ce?” John wondered, the name was in her character sheet but that was about all he knew of that entity.
“He is my dad and a god of war.” Smander shrugged, making theparatively huge breasts on her tiny body bounce. “Don’t know more.”
“That seems to be very little for somebody who is your father,” John wondered.
“Oh shut it, gamer boy, I was born the moment you summoned me. Elemental lineages are weird informal fuckery anyway. Point is, there are way calmer fire elementals with a lot more patience out there. So why me?”
That was indeed a good question, one he had a partial answer for, “I met a dragoness called Nathalia before I made the attempt at summoning you,” he exined, “the Mother of Fire told me you would be a good fit.”
“Well, we will see if she was right. If I get the message into that skull of yours, she was,” Smander dropped the point.
Aclysia chose that moment to open the door and inform John about the fact that breakfast was ready. He went back inside, Smander followed him and flew close by his ear, “Let’s fuck something up today!”
“If that is your version of having fun, sure,” John agreed with the hint of a smile, he was afraid of what she stood for. Smander herself, he found to be enjoyablepany.
After breakfast they did their usual routine. John made sure he had the right items on. He didn’t want to miss any stat bonuses, especially not the one from the Ne of the World Ender. He also looked over Aclysia’s weaponry again. As the fights continued to get more superhuman, at this point they were asionally toppling buildings, the equipment couldn’t keep up. The Sword of Glory needed repairs after every other battle. They were in dire need of some upgrades.
John sighed, “If only we could get you some equipment that is like you,” hemented.
“Like me?” Aclysia asked, her head slightly tilted.
“You know, living material. If I could just get you a sword that grows with stuff we feed it we would have at least some equipment I was sure you could ALWAYS use.”
“Master, I would be morefortable if you made armour for yourself with such a thing,” Aclysia shared her opinion on the matter.
“Would be a waste, I am a backline mage, giving me costly armour is something way down the priority list, while you as our melee damage dealer and main tank really need a good and reliable weapon,” John argued.
“I do not know if I fall under the description of ‘tank’ you categorize me as,” Aclysia said, “I don’t spend a lot of time protecting you.”
“Ah, and that is where you are wrong.” John smiled and she eagerly listened. “Let me exin, while you might not be directly protecting me, you are drawing the attention of people away from me by performing at the front lines. As long as they are concentrating on you I am safe and the few that areing through will then be deflected by…”
“WE KNOW!” Smander interrupted and a tiny fist hit John on the cheek.
3 damage.
“We have been doing this for a week! Aclysia is the main-tank, Gnome and Undine are your protectors, Gnome actually doubling as middle range damage now, while Sylph and I are doing close quarter DPS. We fucking know, we are part of your thoughts!”
“But she asked,” John said, pushing back against the fire spirit’s outrage. What made Smander so pissy today?
“Aclysia just asks because she knows that you like exining stuff and she likes when you like something,” she opened the truth up to him.
“Ehm, really?” John asked Aclysia. No answer, Aclysia just turned the slightest bit red while maintaining a straight face. Well, that was all John needed to feel disheartened, when did she learn that trick? “Now get to it, I wanna fight something.”
Smander flew directly towards and then through the gate, vanishing from sight, while the rest of the group slowly followed her. “She is pissy today, wow, totally uneptable,” said Sylph, “Dump her ass! Make me the new concubine!”
“What is it with you and concubines?” John wanted to know.
“It is just a cool word!”
“You are aware what it means tho?”
“Something something sex, I just want to be called it… not that I’d mind the cost, Johny,” Sylph fly by his face and winked, “So be sure to make me bigger soon, so I get that title, Jonathan Money. That aside tell me what irks her today, she is a bitch but she is still my quote-unquote-actually-do-not-quote-because-it-is-true-so-what-are-the-quotes-doing-here-elemental-stuff-is-confusing-oh-my-gaia-i-can-do-this-forever-because-i-don’t-need-to-breathe-how-cool-is-that sister and I am worried about her.”
“Apparently, she is trying to get this whole ‘lesson for me’-thing sorted out.”
“Oh, okay, I can understand that,” Sylph said and whirled away. That was uncharacteristically short for her.
“That’s all you got to say?” John shouted up to her.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s really not easy to do it correctly, you know? nning that I mean,” Sylphughed back.
“So, you all have a lesson for me?” John had guessed as much, but confirmation would be nice.
“Why yes, silly, dunno why but we kinda were made with the purpose in mind to teach you a thing or two,” Sylph said, “nothing major, just, uhm, Undine you are better with words, say something.”
‘Something that you already know but have not truly awoken to yet.’ A full sentence of Undine’s serene voice filled his mind.
“Yeah, that!” Sylph supported the statement. All John got out of that was cryptic Yoga nonsense. He refused to think about this more than necessary, he had other things to worry about now.
“I will just let ite to me,” he decided and nodded to himself.
“That seems best, Master,” Aclysia agreed, she had no idea what the elementals were on about either. Beyond the fact that it was some necessary spiritual development.
John finally reached the gate and was about to walk through when it flickered. Golden light turned ck and red for a second. He froze. It had never done that before. Should he be worried?
Rumbling and heavy steps, the sound of a door being thrown open and of Magoi bursting outside. The Fateweaver was breathing more heavily than a simple staircase should induce for an Abyssal. “GET AWAY FROM THAT TRANSDIMENSIONAL OVERBRIDGE!”
‘So that’s what they are actually called?’ John thought in a brief moment of satisfied curiosity before his body reacted to the seriousness of Magoi’s tone. As per usual, his mind was much faster than his feet.
The gate flickered a second time and a ck scaled human hand burst out of it, grabbing John by the wrist and then pulling at him with undeniable strength. Before he even knew what was happening, he was sailing through the air like a bullet straight out of a pistol. Hot air tore at his skin, his HP decreasing bit by bit because of the resistance. Underneath him was a vastndscape of ash,va, and ck rock.
“I finally got in here,” he heard the husky voice of an older woman, a much older woman. She flew by his side on skeletal wings of obsidian, membranes made of streaming magma. Her form was enticing, her skin of light brown and d in ck scales that looked very dangerous and sharp. In her chest, between her corbones, a gemstone was set into her body, sharing its colour with her burning orange eyes.
He could hardly run right now.