Bonded Summoner

The demoness had stopped Jake and grabbed his sleeve, directing him to his make-shift armor stand: his coat rack. It appeared that she wanted to present themselves as adventurers to the newly summoned. He set about getting dressed like he was ready to enter the dungeon. She even made a few more purchases to try to complete his look. It looked like she wanted him to finish his equipment, replacing his helmet and bracers with red to match with the rest.

She purchased an ornate looking fan for her, which fit just fine in or was sized for her tiny hands. She had Jake rearrange the furniture and everything was as clean as it could be. Once they were ready, she pointed over to the computer. That made sense as they could select their partner together, utilizing the menu on there.

Before they triggered the menu, Jake thought about what his party needed. They needed the humanoid version of the badgerdillo, Jake thought, to which the demoness laughed. Really, what they needed the most right now was what in MMO terms is called a tank. A person that was able to take the beatings that enemies dished out, while protecting allies and forcing enemies to focus on them: one way or another.

This was not a game but real life for Jake though, so the idea of “taunt” likely did not truly exist. Having creatures and thinking humanoids focus on them, the armored tank, instead of their squishy allies required more than just activating a spell or being the first one to attack: it required positioning, it required that the person was a threat on their own, and it required the person to have abilities or spells in which they are actually able protect their allies.

In the game, Jake preferred a paladin to be the party’s tank. In a way, they were kind of like the summoner when it came to all the things a tank could do and do well. They did it all, and while they were not the best at them individually, their counterparts that were other party choices could only do some of those things.

They had answers to non-taunt-able creatures where they would significantly reduce the enemy’s damage when they did not focus on them, they could also heal themselves and others, and they even had some area of effect abilities to hit and draw the attention of many enemies along with barrier spells. A paladin would be an excellent addition to the party no matter what other classes Jake picked for the other party slots.

While Jake was thinking about paladins he felt a mental eye-roll from the demoness, and he wondered why. Is it because he’s min-maxing his party members? She shrugged but also shook her head no, so then he thought some more about paladins– right. He has to actually live with and speak with the person, and hearing them go on about their god that they worship in order for their powers to be granted, and their strict adherence to both their god’s tenants and their rules, it could be quite a challenge.

The demoness agreed, so he would certainly keep that kind of idea in mind when he looks at the potential party members and not just jump to grab some justice seeking paladin, or worse, some paladin that refuses to fight others for some reason.

Jake triggered the summon from within the [Menu], and was given a list of choices. Of the ten choices, only four of the classes even began to meet Jake’s criteria of what he felt they needed for the party right now, and the demoness looked at the list in interest.

Overall he was a bit unhappy about the information given about what he would be summoning. He supposed that he was lucky to get a choice at all and it was not just random, but he would like to get as much information as he could, such as their attributes or skill levels. Instead, he was just given their race, class, and gender.

Jake’s top choice on the list was a Centaur Paladin of Tyr, which he had just thought about. It appeared that this one was a male. Jake imagined having the advantage of having a Centaur with him, especially up against creatures like the gnolls. They would be crushed under his hooves, and his plate mail would render him nigh-invulnerable to them. A centaur’s mass, power, and speed were simply a huge advantage that could likely be used in countless situations.

Jake then imagined them fighting side by side, or Jake riding the Centaur into battle, casting spells and watching each other’s backs as they fought hordes of enemies. They had drinks at a fantasy inn, and gave each other a high-five. At some point during his imagination, the demoness took on a feeling of dread, and then urgency. He looked over, and saw her crossing her hands in front of her like she was making an X like she did not want the centaur, and he could have sworn he saw her eye twitching.

She rushed to a piece of paper and immediately began drawing. When she returned: a picture of a ladder, with Jake at the top of it, and the centaur with his shoulders slunk down at the bottom, unable to proceed. Jake laughed, and he shook his head. It was clear that she did not want the centaur, so he would move on and look at the other options at least, first.

There was an Elvish Warrior, male, that didn’t stand out at all to Jake but met the criteria, and a female Dwarven Guardian. While the latter sounded like it could be quite effective, Jake felt like that sort of option was a weaker one as such a class was probably lacking any kind of magic. Jake would rather take a non-tank based on his choices for this rare summon, as he could see some interesting race choices for some of the remaining.

It was with some trepidation that he looked at the last of the tank-viable choices, but he could just feel Fhesiah’s interest over the bond. He knew this was her pick: the Valkyrie Shieldmaiden, for which their race could only be female. Jake decided to look over the wiki for information about both Valkyries in [The Alliance] and also [Shieldmaidens].

Jake knew from Norse mythology that Valkyries were immortal beings that brought souls of the warriors of the dead to Valhalla. They would then fight alongside their chosen souls for eternity in Valhalla, at least until Ragnarök, anyway.

However, instead of them being a partial divinity themselves and daughters of Odin like the mythology he was familiar with, in the multiverse they were often simply a warrior race that always birthed females and originate from many worlds with various other species. At the very least, Odin and Freyja are or have been important or involved in many of their worlds’ history, having a special connection to them.

They may or may not worship Odin and Freyja, and they may or may not have powers related to them. Valkyries in general would be very compatible with divine powers of various gods, so they would often give their oath to one in order to accomplish their goals.

A shieldmaiden was definitely a warrior that specialized in defense, and Valkyries as a race were adept at runic magic. If they worshiped a god and obtained power through them, then they often were very much like a Paladin, their list of capabilities nearly identical– though, how they accomplished the same tasks might be very different.

The Valkyries of the [Multiverse] were beings that reveled in battle, often seeking greater glories on the battlefield. They were attracted to men that showed excellence in battle, or otherwise heroic traits. Valkyries often left their society in search of a mate, unable to have children with another valkyrie. Their culture led them to seek strong men to follow into battle, and to give birth to the next generation of valkyries. A shieldmaiden was a valkyrie that sought to protect or otherwise assist their chosen warrior in battle, as both their shield and spear.

The trepidation from Jake was primarily because Odin was the one who forced him into what was essentially a prison, and this almost seems like his influence, for him to receive a Valkyrie for his first summon. It had turned out well enough, because he’s happy to have met Fhesiah, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be salty about it.

On the other hand, a valkyrie was certainly a rare summon. The idea that this initiated Valkyrie died in battle, but was not resurrected by [The Framework] when they live and breathe battle, would mean they are either the most flawed valkyrie or otherwise beginner valkyrie, or it had required some form of divine intervention from Odin or some other god or goddess for her to be placed or otherwise be made available for Jake. Jake also knew that the valkyrie even appearing on this list means that she had accepted Jake to be her Summoner: her master.

The demoness sent reassurance and certainty over the bond: this was the right choice, and she believed that Jake would not regret it. As part of staging their presentation, he moved to the area with the most space and where the demoness wanted to be when the Valkyrie entered his [Refuge].

Jake wryly smiled at this. His apartment was the furthest thing from impressive, and they simply could not afford superfluous spending. He’d love to expand everything and replace his junk with much nicer things, but Jake’s credits were a matter of life and death. There was no way he would be elbow deep in monster guts daily if it weren’t a necessity.

Jake had long since even run out of food in his apartment and was forced to buy food using credits to stock his fridge. Thankfully, Jake was able to purchase like-Earth meats and foods for very low prices that even a full-time goblin slayer could afford. Jake likely would fight purchasing items like a nicer couch or rugs tooth and nail until killing a single monster yielded enough to make changes like that.

With that thought, Jake triggered the summoning and similar to the badgerdillo, motes of light gathered until a woman with wings appeared. The young lightly-tanned woman was wearing a scale mail hauberk that extended well beyond her thighs like a skirt, and her greaves reached up to just below her knees, providing adequate protection. Jake guessed she was as tall, or taller than himself, impossible to tell with the equipment each of them were wearing. At that moment, she was taller.

Her shoulders were covered with plates, and her arms had bracers and gloves as well. She had an open-faced, winged helmet, and she had a heart-shaped face. He could tell that she was very beautiful. She had white hair tied in a ponytail coming out the back of her helmet and draped down her back. She also had a fairly large diamond-shaped shield, and a spear a little taller than herself.

It took a moment for her to have clarity on the situation, to which she got an almost panicked look, and she knelt on the ground, with her eyes focused there. “My Lord! I’m…” she hesitated, like she was searching for what it was that she was supposed to say. “Valkyrie Ophelia reporting for duty, sir.” she said.

Jake looked over to the demoness floating near his shoulder, who had a haughty demeanor, and was now covering her mouth with her fan. She gave Jake the feeling of wanting him to play along. Jake was definitely out of his element, but the idea of having his own winged knight compelled him to try to have a little fun with it. So, he tried to channel his inner boss, to play along.

“Acknowledged, Valkyrie Ophelia. I am Commander Jake, and this is Captain Fhesiah, your superior officer,” he motioned to Fhesiah, but Ophelia was still staring at her own feet and didn’t look. Her entire body language shouted that she was stiff and uncomfortable, but the demoness was quite satisfied with the situation thus far, so he continued.

“Welcome to my [Refuge]. The current situation is that there is an active incursion: a village of gnolls. We have 9 days to complete their extermination. Captain Fhesiah and I have been thinning their numbers, and are ready to proceed with an attack on the main village soon. Valkyrie Ophelia, report: who was your previous commanding officer?”

The winged woman’s expression shifted to one of desperation, as she searched for what to say. “Uh… I didn’t have one?”

Jake took that in, and the demoness pointed at her, motioning for Jake to continue. He started to feel bad, as it was clear she wasn’t used to this type of situation. So, he doubled down, as he took an almost disbelieving expression and said, “If you didn’t have a commanding officer, what did you have? What were you doing last before entering the void of [The Framework]?” Jake felt even bad asking this question: it was like asking what were you doing when you died? Jake guessed that more often than not, it was probably a traumatic experience.

The winged woman had almost responded like she had been struck and she now seemed to be tearing up, almost ready to cry. She replied “I was… clearing a den of kobolds…” Jake couldn’t help it, as he was stupefied by the idea that a trained valkyrie would ever die to mere kobolds, he replied, “...Kobolds? A valkyrie died to kobolds?”

Ophelia was now openly crying, and she responded sniffling, “I…had just finished my training, and was getting revenge for all the times that they hurt me and stole my stuff while training when I was younger…when the cave collapsed…I didn’t make it out in time…”

So, the winged woman fell in the “unlucky” category. She never earned enough for her initiation into the framework and thus was not deemed a viable target for resurrection without fixing her debt first, by becoming a servant. Jake suddenly realized something, and decided to voice it, “The cave collapsed? I thought that incursions couldn’t do that.”

If they could do that, then the outsiders would have no need for monsters. They could simply just crush anyone that entered, or flood them with water or lava, line the halls with traps and there would be nothing they could do to stop it. It turned out there is a complicated set of rules that determined how the outsiders could attack and corrupt the multiverse, and how or why they used dungeons and what they could do inside of it was related to that. Collapsing tunnels was not something that it was allowed to do.

Not without the initiated having a fair shot of circumventing the challenge like some kind of trigger that could be avoided or disarmed, anyway. Jake had learned that these types of things could begin to appear when Dungeon Masters appeared, potentially. Jake would need to prepare his party with the skills needed to circumvent and mitigate these types of threats.

Ophelia despondently responded, “Incursion? I grew up in a contested world, and this was just a natural cave that had a den of kobolds. I…got a little… overzealous, and might have charged and crashed into a kobold with a little too much fervor…”

Jake would almost think that it was funny if the winged woman wasn’t so distressed and clearly pained by the experience. After all, if not for [The Framework], it would have been a tragic demise that not only took the life of a prospective valkyrie, but also empowered the evil entity. The demoness had hidden her face behind her fan, but her shoulders were shaking with laughter.

Jake looked over to the demoness and glared at her. Surely this was enough of her mischief. They had to live with Ophelia, there was simply no way that they could keep up this act like they were rigid military officers forever, nor was he going to continue to act like a boss that didn’t care about his employee’s well-being.

Fhesiah shook her head, and sent confidence and reassurance over the bond. She took on a regal air, and motioned to fluff things up even further, gesturing to the three of them and Jake’s [Refuge], and then pointed to the portal.

Jake tried his best to piece together what she wanted from him by using the emotions that she also sent over the bond when she made her gestures, though he really felt like this moment was like a dog telling the parents a boy was trapped in a well on TV. He guessed that she wanted him to reassure and instill confidence into Ophelia using the belonging and camaraderie of their fake three-person military unit, and have her work out some of her frustration and to bond together killing some gnolls. This was a plan that Jake could get behind, at least somewhat. He’d play it by ear.

The demoness showed a beaming smile, and nodded. The whole time this exchange happened the Valkyrie was completely focused on inspecting the dirt on her greaves, still kneeling on the floor, occasionally wiping tears. If Jake was not talking to her or expecting something from her, she was content to stare forever, it looked like.

Jake approached, to which she snapped her eyes up at him. He put his hand on her armored shoulder, and gave her a reassuring smile, as the demoness floated above and beside him with her regal demeanor, flourishing her fan. “That was before, soldier. Raise your chin up. You are now a part of Jake Hart’s Company, and here we will do everything in our power to make you successful, to be the best of the best. You are now part of something greater than yourself, and together we will go on to accomplish great things. What do you say?”

The Valkyrie was a little shocked, but she showed a small, shy smile, before replying, somehow having difficulty meeting Jake’s fake steely-eyed stare. “Y-Yes sir! That’s what I always wanted…”

Jake stood back, and tapped the butt of his spear on the ground. “Good! We’ll make the best soldier out of you yet. Fall in, soldier.” He began walking to the portal, and the Valkyrie stood and followed him there. “With that, we are ready to move out. On the other side of that portal could be enemies, so be on the lookout. Let’s go, Ophelia. Welcome,” Jake said. The winged woman replied “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.” Before they all stepped through the portal.