by Simon Archer
Feral Forms: Your connection to the magical forces around you has given you the chance to walk a mile in the skin of the beasts of Neo Ceissein. Where a humanoid form may have a disadvantage, any number of creatures might make up for it and solve your problem.
+Activate: change into animal forms. Limited to creatures roughly gnome size or smaller, no flying or water-breathing. Animal forms are unable to cast magic but will carry any self-enhancements or blessing hexes placed on the mage before shifting forms.
Eh, the limitations were a bit unfortunate, but they made sense, given my level. I couldn’t have expected to be a crazy beast mage from the start when I was still in training. From a design standpoint, anything that ‘the system’ wanted to throw at me, I could have just flown over if I had a bird form too early. I just hoped that I’d have gotten those limitations unhinged soon so I could have transformed into something much more ferocious and intimidating, like a bear. Could anyone have anticipated a bear with magical powers? Or better yet, a fly that turned into a bear with magic powers, manifesting in a crowded room? Roaring fire, throwing curses around, then changing again to keep them on their toes, into something else even crazier? How would anyone have fought against that? Once they’d stopped screaming, I’d have already ripped them apart.
Were there limitations on what I could transform into otherwise? Could I have gone mythical with my transformations, or even prehistoric? Like maybe a dinosaur? Oh, I hoped dinosaurs were on the table for me. Wizard dinosaurs were something I needed to make happen. I didn’t care how impractical they were for the current situation if it was possible. As soon as they were available to me, the very moment my status screen told me the information I needed to know to make wizard dinosaurs, they were coming into existence through my own body. I felt like I owed that to the universe for letting me live inside of it. Such an endeavor may have been the very reason I was put into this wide world in the first place. Well, besides the saving the world thing. Either way, all of that was some Celtic shaman, pagan ritual level magic shenanigans right there.
To be perfectly fair to the little creatures of the animal kingdom, I wasn’t just shirking off all of the tiny forms, especially since they were my only options currently. I didn’t know how tiny gnomes were in this world, so I had to imagine anything between a badger and a chipmunk. In that range, the abilities weren’t always great in terms of combat effectiveness, but they were going to kick some ass if I needed to get the drop on any baddies. Some of the fastest animals around were tiny. And maybe, if it came down to some wilderness endurance, then a tiny animal didn’t need to eat as much as a human man.
Last, but certainly not least, the ability that may have been the most typical for the wizard community of any magic after storm calling, demon summoning, and throwing fire:
Wizard’s Familiar: What was a wizard without a magical beast to serve at their beck and call? Your budding mastery of magical forces and study has yielded the manifestation of a spirit that will be your lifelong companion in the trials ahead.
+Activate: Summon a magical spirit to help with spellcasting, along with other useful abilities based on the spirit. Each is unique to the caster and may evolve with mage specialization.
Did somebody say magic pet? Magic, evolving pet? At best, a personal goddamn dragon I could have poofed in and out of any situation to devastate my enemies at a moment’s notice. Endless amounts of fantastic. At worst, it was going to be a useless blob-creature, but still adorable, which would have been its own kind of useful if I leveraged it right. It was unwise to underestimate cuteness. Cuteness could kill.
What were the possibilities, anyway? Was it just any creature alive that could have been my familiar? The ability itself said that it was a spirit, but the description called it a magic beast. Were there choices to choose from? Did I have limitations? Was I supposed to imagine my own? What would I have wanted from some of the classics? Something that anyone would have imagined following Merlin around, like a dragon, a phoenix, or some chimeric kitty thing. A phoenix would have let me rain hot, fiery death upon all of my enemies, as would a dragon. Depending on if the evolutions worked like maturing into adulthood, then a full-grown phoenix and dragon would have been awesome to have been summonable. A shapeshifting cat with teleportation powers and a snarky attitude would have been fine as long as it didn’t talk. Or maybe the talking was fine. It would have always been nice to have the company from time to time. Except, now I had Delilah, so maybe a snarky cat wasn’t necessary or wanted. Regardless of those prospects…
“That needs to happen right away.”
“What needs to happen right away?” Delilah said, hearing me speak out loud as she put the last few pieces of her tattered armor back on.
“I’m summoning a familiar!” I shot up, still in just my boxers, as I giddily prepared to channel the magic forces to bring a familiar forth. “My own little friend to help me with magic stuff! You have no idea how excited I am right now! Absolutely ecstatic. I’m getting a magic pet!”
“A wizard’s familiar?” Delilah finished the last buckle on her leg. “Shouldn’t you already have one of those by now? I thought that wizard apprentices got those as soon as they began training their magic. Most of the wizards I’ve met said that the manifestation of their mage school was in discovering their familiar, usually at a young age.”
“Well, it hasn’t even been a day since I got this stuff, so I’d say I’m still well within the parameters of young age familiarizing,” I reminded her, “Or has it been a day yet? How long has it been since we ran into each other? Are you keeping track of the time?”
“Do you mean when we ran into each other,” the pseudo-zombie leaned forward to emphasize attention on her innuendo, “or when we first met a little before then?”
“Take your pick. They weren’t that far apart.” I got into a squatting stance. “Do you not know? Are there no timekeeping practices in Neo Ceissein?
“How primitive do you think we are here?” Delilah crossed her arms.
“Anywhere between the Stone Age and the Enlightenment,” I answered. “That’s a big swathe of time since you didn’t get the reference. Do you know the time?”
“I’ve yet to employ any of my time-keeping practices.” Delilah rolled her eyes. “And neither have you, alien man.”
“Hush, now.” I silenced the sassy zombie girl as I perfected my Squat of Focusing. “It’s going to take all of my training to get this right.”
“All of your singular day of training?” she gently corrected.
“Yeah, that one.” I did some shallow squats, pretending like I knew at all what I was doing. “In all my many, many minutes as a practitioner of the arcane arts, I’ve never tried anything like this. Today is historical, Delilah.”
“I see you dressed for the occasion,” she sassed me, staring at my half-naked situation. “Is that the official ritual attire for summoning a familiar? Wizards are much more minimalist than I ever imagined.”
“Pants are a distraction, Delilah.” I kept my knees bent while I twisted my torso from side to side, popping my back. “They restrict the flow of magic through the body, especially at the waist. If I am to properly conjure a magical familiar without any complications that could doom all of life, I need my utmost focus, and that requires freedom of mind and body. I need to feel the limberness of my limbs as they weave the primordial energy to capture a spirit into my service.”
“Did you forget where you put your leggings?” Delilah called me out as she leaned against a nearby stone coffin. “You did, didn’t you?”
“Do you know where they are?” I said, revealing my shame.
“The tomb has claimed them.”
The revenant warrior pointed to my unfortunate legwear, being eaten by many tiny, fluffy bugs, the display above labeling them ‘flightless dungeon moths.’ I would have run over to save them, but it was far too late by the time I’d noticed the destruction. As the tiny charcoal-colored crawlers dispersed, the floor un
derneath them was bare, no remnant of my pajama bottoms remaining.
Adventuring without pants prophesied ill times ahead for me and my vulnerable places. I didn’t like the options for the immediate future of my heroic career created by this latest wardrobe malfunction. And I wasn’t going to think about it anymore. All of that was a problem we were going to save for another time and place. Right now, it was focus-garnering and nearly naked ritual time.
“They were a distraction anyway,” I lied to myself, “Civility in clothing is an illusion held by the societies of lessers who do not have the magic to go without pants. My focus has never been greater. My magic has never been more potent than in this bare moment.”
“Is that why you’re squatting?” Delilah laughed at my failing ruse. “I must say, as a practitioner of magic myself, who specializes in utilizing magic by harnessing internal energies through different martial arts forms, I have never seen a magic-harnessing from quite like what you’re doing right now. Do wizards use that kind of squat for focusing? Is that your focusing squat, O Master of Magic?”
“Hey, lay off!” I gave her a stern point of the finger. “Do not question the might of the Master of Magic! I’ll have you know that this stance you see before you is a highly practical stance for channeling the mystical forces. Every wizard worth their magical salt uses this stance when they’re performing their most complicated spells. You would know if you were a wizard.”
“So, it isn’t just to keep your undergarments from falling down?” She looked down at my loose waistband on my boxers, trying not to laugh. “Or are those also an illusion and a distraction from your magical focus?”
“That is,” I pulled the waistband back up from falling down to my butt, “just ridiculous, madam. Just ridiculous. Preposterous. Absurd. Pure poppycock, madam. Can you not see with your eyes that I am focusing with my focusing stance of focusing and have achieved total focus on the focused task at hand?”
“Really?” Delilah pushed away from her leaning rest, walking over to where my pajama pants had met their demise. “You’re totally focused right now? Nothing is distracting you, wizard boy?”
“Yes, I am.” I lied again, trying not to look at her figure as she passed by me or let her sly smile intimidate me. “Focused and ready. I require absolute silence now. Do not speak another word, or risk the destruction of this very tomb around us.”
“But, Magister Thorne, sir,” the normally informal warrior now spoke with an obtusely bubbly and high-pitched voice, “even though these leggings would be a distraction to your focus on your magic, should we not check to see if we can save your leggings, at the very least?”
As I pooled my attention to the task at hand, she bent herself over right at her hips, showing off as much of the brilliantly sculpted results of her warrior monk training. My will faltered. My focus waned. My body succumbed.
But I couldn’t fail. Not now. If I let her win in this battle of wills so easily, I might never have cast a magic spell again or leave this tomb in favor of plowing pale fields and driving deep pegs in the snow. The sooner I figured out about all of these little mechanics, the better I was going to be able to handle future threats. Work before play.
The white witch of a monk revenant was not making it easy for me, but I wasn’t going to just let her walk all over me and my whims like this. She knew exactly what she was doing, that saucy harlot. That beautiful, bountiful, ridiculously attractive wench. Now it was a game, and I intended to win at all costs.
“We should not check.” My peripherals, despite my focusing focus, got an eyeful of what she was presenting right to me and my meager defenses against her wiles. “Those pants, and everything they upheld, are but a memory now. Poking around is just assing for trouble.”
“‘Assing,’ you say?” She clearly noticed my Freudian slip as she arched herself back up with dramatic precision, walking over and coming down to her knees beside me. “We wouldn’t want that, now would we?”
“You need not be so close, Delilah,” I said, resisting the magnetization of my eyes to the probing of her skin. “I believe I’ve stated many times that this process could be very dangerous for you, especially if I lose my focus here and now. I will need all of my will and strength to keep us alive through this ritual.”
“But I still want to help you, Magic Man.” The coy woman taunted me further. “The danger to everyone is far too great for me to simply sit by the wayside while you risk your life. You need all the help you can get to see the truth of the matter. How could I help you improve your unwavering focus and resolve to perform your talents?”
“I’ll need no further help, thank you.” I tried to shoo her away, desperate to just finish this one stupid thing as she pressed herself up against me. “I thank you for your concerns, but they will do us no good. All I’ll need now is a heavy breast of fresh air.”
“‘A heavy breast of fresh air?’” She continued to highlight my faux pas and had started unlatching the armor she’d just put on a moment ago. “That’s good. The key to focus must be good ‘breasting.’ Sometimes I like to just take a deep breath through the nose to help me center myself for a ritual.”
Employing her greatest assets of my demise in this game of wills, she’d released her chest from her chassis as she took in her deep breath, inflating her lungs and bringing the neck of her tunic down as everything came up to the center of my attention. Even though I’d seen her pale form in all of its revealed glory, even this glimpse of it ensnared me unfairly.
“I will take your words into consideration, madam.” I opted to close my eyes as one of my last defenses against her presented view. “Now that the ritual has begun, any distraction from my work could spell disaster.”
“But nothing’s happening yet.” Delilah perched her chest, and only her chest, on my outstretched thigh. “Why is that?”
“It’s a long and complicated ritual,” I explained through beads of sweat, now just refusing to let her win in this sick game she was playing, “summoning a familiar takes a lot of time and energy… apparently. Focus. Patience. Dignity. Grace. Excruciating wait times.”
“Yes, you’re quite dignified in your current choice of attire, Magister Thorne.” She finished undoing the latches of her upper body, letting the plates of her armor clang to the ground as she continued to fiddle with the rest of the belts and hooks. “However, you seem to have found an ingenious way of holding things together, especially when undergarments are so counterproductive to focusing.”
“What?” I fell for her ruse and opened my eyes to look down, seeing that I’d pitched quite the tent, and the cheeks on my face heated up. “Mhm. Yep. That’s all part of the ritual. Perfectly natural when doing something like this. Such problems arise all the time when assailed so endlessly by the temptations of the flesh.”
“Of course, they do.” She continued to unlatch and unbuckle her armor. “You know, maybe it would help if I joined you in your nudity. All of this armor could be affecting my own focus and cause a distraction for me as I assist you. It may take more than one ritual participant to complete effectively.”
“And how would you know that?” I said, my peripheral vision catching her strip down to just the torn tunic she usually wore over everything, now acting more like a loose sundress. “You’re not a wizard. I’m a wizard. Kind of. Mostly. Whatever, I know what I’m doing.”
“You’re certainly a stubborn wizard, Jeremiah,” Delilah whispered under her breath as she crouched down in front of me, taking advantage of my wide squat to press right up against my boxers, “since you’re the expert mage in this ritual, can you judge how good my stance is? I want this ritual to go off without anything strange arising. Or anything else strange, perhaps.”
“You dirty little floozy,” I said, abandoning the subtext of our little game, “that is a low blow. You know full well that you’re way too much for me to handle. Just let me summon my damn magic familiar in peace, woman! What are you trying to prove, anyway?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the scantily clad revenant fibbed right through her teeth, “I’m only trying to help you out with your ritual, nothing more, and then you started calling me names. No need to get upset with me and my innocent attempts to assist you. I only wish to serve. Just tell me what you’re focusing on right now, and I’ll serve you in every possible way relating to that. Are you focusing on the ritual?”
“I’m focused on the important things right now,” I said, looking directly at all of her in front of me with my hands chained down on my thighs only by the last few shreds of willpower left in me. “The ritualistically pure… and powerfully enchanting things. The magnificent, godly, unfathomably perfect things. The real… real fricken good things.”
“My, my, Jeremiah,” Delilah cooed, “Such high praise for the object of your focus. An innocent girl like me can’t help but be a little jealous of whatever has so much of your fervent attention. I didn’t know you thought about magic so highly.”
“Goddamnit.” My willpower snapped under the strain, magnetizing to her sides in my shameful weakness. “You don’t fight fair.”
“I fight to win.” She pulled me in tighter from behind her, leaning her head back against my shoulder. “You won the first battle, and now I’ve one this one. This makes us even.”
“Grawr?” some sort of animal spoke up, giving both of us pause as we looked over at the creature. Before I’d even gotten a good glimpse of it, I saw its analyst screen above its head:
Servant (Jeremiah’s Familiar), spirit Lv 5
Health: 500 Magic: 500
Armor: 25 Aegis: 25
Abilities: Bonded, Mountain Strength
Of course, now it showed up, just as I was about to switch gears to something more fun. This did not bode well for its tenure under me.
14
The creature itself was not even two feet tall, covered in white fur, and reminded me of a baby gorilla, but the winter version. Of course, that would have been more like an ‘archetype’ of the creature, rather than the direct comparison. Several key differences between them included the white hair being much shaggier and covering up more, the forearms and hands being much larger with three pearly claws at the end to match the toes, and the back being much hunchier. Besides that, the ape head was swapped out with something more akin to a wolverine’s head, with a touch of the primate jaw mixed in as an accent to the hydraulic-press-like bite power it must have possessed. As a whole, it was a strange thing, and yet very cute at the same time.
