Bonded Summoner

When Jake woke up, his body was aching. He struggled to get up, feeling completely drained. He looked around, and saw that his front door was replaced with an ominous looking portal. In front of it, a box, with a letter on top.

Jake did not feel well, and he was full of despair and frustration. He was, sort of, taken away from his home, and is now being forced to trudge through dungeons killing creatures. This is something that happened to him many times already in his life: forced to move and leave schools for new ones many times outside of his control due to foster parents, and once again, he is forced away from the life he had thought he finally had under some level of control.

He is now all alone, unable to communicate with anyone until he completes this so-called [Trial]. He took a minute to calm down. This was something that he could not change, so he would continue to focus on the things that he could. He could prepare, and he could work through dungeons until he completes this [Trial].

He dragged the box away from the portal and further into his room, and then opened the letter.

Welcome to [The Alliance]. Your sponsor is not able to communicate with you again until you complete your [Trial]. We have included everything you need to be successful as a new initiate into [The Framework]. You can now access your [Menu] by just thinking of it. Note that framework access is only fully available in a framework [Refuge]. It is limited inside the dungeon to [Dungeon Information] and [Status].

Your home has become a [Refuge] and is no longer on Earth! You can think of it as a magical spaceship that travels through subspace as it faces incursions, or moves on to challenge [Tartarus]. You may only exit to challenge dungeons, for now. Earn credits by selling monster materials on the [Alliance Shop] and [Multiverse Market], and some will be awarded for completing incursions. You can still go on the internet using your personal computer, but you may not intentionally communicate with the uninitiated of Earth.

You can access the [Alliance Wiki], [Alliance Shop], and [Multiverse Market] from your [Menu] or personal computer. Please note that while your tutorial incursion should have plenty of leeway for you to complete it: you do not want to procrastinate for too long, lest you run out of time and monsters burst forth into your [Refuge]. Good luck on your fight against the outsiders!

Jake put down the letter then decided to open the box, as it was fairly large, and was quite heavy. Inside, he found several large books, along with what appeared to be a staff mixed with a spear. Jake remembered in the early game, this type of weapon made the most sense as summon options were quite limited and potentially weak, along with the summoner having very little in the way of supporting them, thus the summoner needed to bring some melee damage to the table.

Later on, this was replaced with a pure staff as melee damage from himself instead of casting was superfluous. The staff a little taller than himself looked mostly plain with an inlaid blue gem-like focus near where the copper or bronze spear tip connected to the wooden shaft. It was a starter weapon that would do him quite well for a while. Aside from the spear and the books, the box was mostly empty, aside from another box. Inside the box was an assortment of fantasy materials, along with a small, what appeared to be a hand-made booklet for a ritual labeled: [Summon Familiar].

Jake had a familiar in the game, but the familiar was just a minor personal buff disguised as a cute pet; not dissimilar from visual only pets in various other MMO’s, where they served no purpose other than to look cute or cool, or both. He wondered if things would be the same here; perhaps within the confines of the game, they did not undertake the effort it would take to make a familiar behave like what a common familiar might in fantasy stories. It appeared that the box contained all the prerequisite materials for the [Summon Familiar] ritual.

With the box unloaded, he decided to take a look at his menu. It appeared in his vision, but didn’t block it, somehow.

Menu

Status

Alliance Shop

Multiverse Market

Dungeon Information

Alliance Wiki

Nothing outside of the ordinary there, the letter telling him what to expect. He looked over the current dungeon allocation information.

Dungeon Information

Dungeon:

Beginner Goblin's Lair

Time Left:

10 Days, 4 Hours

Goal:

Defeat Goblin Shaman

Level:

1-2

He found that he would have just a little over 10 days to complete the dungeon, and that the target appeared to be some sort of boss monster. This was plenty of time for Jake, as he couldn’t imagine preparations nor what should be a beginner dungeon should take overly long.

When Jake did something like make a character in a game, he tried to get all the information he possibly could to make a plan with a high possibility of success, while also remaining effective in the early stages. Instead, this is actually himself that he will be building, and so he would want to spend even more time than usual. On top of that, it’s one thing to control a character with a keyboard and mouse; it’s another thing entirely to cast spells and attack a creature with a spear staff. He needed to build his confidence first.

Within the menu, there was a selection for choosing his class. He was almost certain that he was going to choose the Summoner class, but he decided to take a look at what he could select. The list was almost entirely grayed out, with only the Summoner class allowed. It appeared his patron had made this choice for him. He would feel upset at the choice being taken from him, but Summoner was always the class that appealed most to him within the game, anyway. He selected it, and some information about his new class was provided to him.

Summoner Class: Tier 0 Uncommon

+50% Mana Regeneration

50% Mana Regeneration in-combat

3 Spendable Attribute points per level

Through their connection to the void, they draw in energy and call forth creatures of mana. Through their bonds and contracts they draw power, and can cast various magics.

10% Increased Effectiveness for Int, Wis, Cha

It was nothing all that unexpected there, not very much unlike the game. He now brought up his personal status, though things were less complicated here than he was expecting.

Jake Status Level 1

Strength

13

Dexterity

12

Constitution

12

Intelligence

16

Wisdom

15

Charisma

12

There was no health, and there was no mana. Jake guessed that the average human adult would be about 10 in each attribute, or so. Being above six feet in height and in pretty good shape, he felt that it was fair to put him above the average on the physical attributes for sure.

In regards to his caster stats, he felt that this was somewhat accurate as well. He was well above average on these things, often seen as more mature for his own age, and nearly achieved top scores in his school despite all the handicaps he had to go through with switching schools.

Jake decided to start with reading the [Introduction to The Alliance] book. Jake learned that his apartment was now what is called a [Refuge]. His door was now replaced with a portal that [The Framework] connected to a dungeon. [The Framework] was in charge of assessing dungeons that spawn all over Earth, and connecting them to Alliance members appropriate for them to clear successfully, instead. All while making sure to prevent the outsiders from growing and emerging on Earth, where monsters would emerge and attack people not equipped to deal with such threats and become even stronger.

As Jake advanced in [The Alliance], he would slowly get more responsibility to clear dungeons and travel the multiverse to reach other worlds. He would even have the option of teaming up with other Alliance members, if he so desired, at that point. He could expand his [Refuge], which uses magic to add rooms and additional facilities that will help him be successful while he’s inside dungeons, or for rest and relaxation. The beginner guide indicated that there were all sorts of other perks available in the future, though the information was restricted until he reached the appropriate point in the Alliance.

Not everything was good news, however. It was intimated that he would not be able to go back to Earth, or any fringe world under [The Framework]. Once he completed his [Trial], he could go to contested worlds or worlds called [Bastion]’s, for which the details were limited to him for now, but not Earth; not unless [The Alliance] failed Earth and it became contested and dungeons managed to spawn there, anyway, or perhaps they succeeded the world’s [Trial], which was taking place right now in the form of incursions.

Jake decided to test the claim about him being unable to contact the outside world. He had friends that he would still like to talk to, even if they were not overly close. Jake went to his computer, and tried to find his friends online and message them.

He found that there was some sort of compulsion, that when he went to type into his computer with the intent to communicate, that he found himself unable to. Jake felt that it was a bit disturbing, his body refusing to cooperate with his intentions. It appeared that intent was what it worked off of, as he could type into his computer just fine into search engines or otherwise, or make notes.

He was able to make drawings and send them to people, but figured that this was mostly useless for his purposes; sending ominous pictures where he was trapped in his apartment and a request for them to keep trying to talk to him was just not going to end with worthwhile communication. Communicating using language appeared to be the restriction for the compulsion.

Jake sighed as he wrapped up reading the [Introduction to The Alliance] book. There were a few topics leftover, but they were definitely best gone over when he was exploring the [Alliance Shop] and [Multiverse Market], and making his plans for his remaining [Credits].

It turned out the [Alliance Shop] was like a sponsored store for the organization he was now a part of, where what was sold was limited and the price was fixed, and it was affordable. The [Multiverse Market] was similar to a popular auction website and marketplace, and it included sellers that were not even members of [The Alliance]. Even Jake could sell his items he obtained from the dungeon or crafting here, and there were many items he could not even begin to understand for sale there. This led him to move on to the next stage of his preparations: reading the book on [Mana Control].

Jake was filled with excitement. Who doesn’t dream of learning to wield magic? It’s up there on the list of top wishes, up there with flying and becoming invisible. With this book, he assumed whatever being initiated into [The Framework] did to him that knocked him out, he would be able to do exactly that. Though, he didn’t think he’d be able to do much with [Mana Control] on its own.