You are Summoned

My vision faded along with the forest battlefield. After what seemed like only a moment, I was back in my personal space. I took a deep breath and planned my next moves. Before I did anything else, I wanted to see what my rewards had been from the last summoning. I pulled open my loot chest and sorted for it to display only the new items.

Rico’s Loot.

New Inventory.

Copper coins, 187.

Silver coins, 27.

Gold coins 9.

Small gem, 1.

Summoning Figurine (1).

Not a bad haul. Not only had I unlocked a new Foe Summoner template, but I’d also replaced one of my consumable figurines. I’d seen coins and gems before, so I left them in the chest, but I did grab the new figurine to see what it was. Thinking about the item I wanted to retrieve, I reached into the box, feeling the cold stone figurine appear in my grasp.

Verdigrim, corrupted treant. Tier 1, rank 2 (veteran). Gear cost, 5.

Nice, I got a veteran version of Verdigrim. It was too bad I could only summon him once, but he was a welcome addition to the collection. I headed toward the armory to add Verdigrim to my loadout. I would likely keep him there for now, but I would take him home if some of the other figurines I had stashed back on Earth needed to be replaced.

Verdigrim’s gear cost equaled the cost of the razor wolf I’d used. I’d also used the dwarven militia figurine and a dire rat which freed up another three gear points for future additions. I was now 146 out of my new maximum gear cap of 155. There was a little wiggle room of nine points now if I found some extra consumables or other new items during the rest of this summoning session.

A quick check of the summoning gauge atop the reward chest showed it to be around 68% filled. The dungeon mission had given me a nice bump. I’d also have an extra seventeen silver waiting for me from the contract. There would probably be a couple more summonings before I was sent home again, and by then I should be getting close to the next rank.

My training center had probably recharged a bit of mana by now, but before I dove into more training, I wanted to check out the new summoning template I’d unlocked.

Available summoning templates:

Tier 0, rank 0. Mana reserve required, 5.

Dwarf Commoner, Rupert.

Mangy hound.

Tier 0, rank 5. Mana reserve required, 25.

Elven militia, Lillia Farwind.

Juvenile cave spider.

Zombie.

Tier 1. Mana reserve required, 50.

Ghoul.

Advanced skeleton.

Human warrior, Marvin Glum.

Cave spinner spider.

Halfling healer.

It looked like my new template was for a tier one version of the halfling healers that we’d dealt with while protecting Glenda’s dungeon. It was a solid addition to my options, and I only wish I had more mana so I could summon the healer along with some tankier creatures for it to heal. As it stood now, if I summoned the healer, I would only have enough mana left over for some of the weaker creatures, none of which were likely to survive long enough in a fight to require healing.

There was still the question of how often I’d have a new template added to my roster. It seemed random as to which foe was selected, but my forces did engage with quite a few of the healers during our latest dungeon battle. I was also willing to bet that the healers we had been up against were higher than Tier 1, Rank 0 given how they had performed in the fight. That led me to believe the system could scale certain minions up or down in their tier and rank to fit what the system needed.

No matter how the system decided to distribute templates, the one I had just gained need some testing to see how it performed. It was time to take my minions into the training center for another test drive. Before I could do that, I needed to craft the figurine. Like before, I concentrated and pushed mana into my ability. Slowly, a new stone figurine of a halfling healer appeared in my hand.

With the figurine crafted, I entered the training center where Melvin seemed to be having fun sliding slowly along the floor. I warned him about what was about to happen inside here, and he began to slowly slide to the side of the room in order to keep out of the way. While I could feel a connection to my pet, I really had no way to know for sure how much of what I asked was understood by the little guy.

As I summoned my new minion, a halfling in yellow robes appeared at the spot I’d indicated. She had the same blank look that Rupert had, telling me that just as Minerva had claimed, the minion was simply a mana creation. The healer was a tiny thing, barely four feet tall, and her slender frame held little in the way of muscle. Still, I hadn’t summoned her for melee combat, she was a healer. While concentrating on her, detailed information on the newest member of the team appeared.

Elida Silverbarrow, halfling healer. Tier 1, rank 0.

Current health, 100%.

Current mana, 100%.

Attacks:

Unarmed strike/untrained simple weapon usage.

Spells:

Minor healing burst.

Blast of light.

Personal shield.

The halfling had three spells, so I summoned a few foes and a combination of allies to test them out. The minor healing burst was a ranged spell that seemed to work at a maximum distance of around twenty-five feet. Its healing power was modest, and I pegged it around the same as the weak healing potions I used.

Unlike the healing potions, there were no diminishing returns on the spell and Elida could chain cast one every five seconds or so. Each cast used up about five percent of her mana pool, making it a rather efficient spell. I could see why the enemy we had just defeated took multiple healers into battle as they could keep a continuous stream of healing pouring into the front-line fighters.

Her other spells were also useful. As I suspected, Blast of Light was a medium range, single-target damage spell that burned any foe hit by it. Targeting was automatic, so, just like with her healing spell, I didn’t have to worry about Elida missing her shots. The damage of the spell was underwhelming, but ranged damage was not her specialty. The personal shield was something I’d seen before, but the one on Elida was pretty weak, and would barely hold back a single blow. Still, any protection for an unarmored caster was always welcome.

In melee Elida was rather pathetic, and even struggled to best a tier zero, rank zero opponent. It didn’t matter, she filled a role my growing force would eventually need as our numbers and power grew. I tested out a few different minion combinations but kept coming back to the fact that I needed more mana before I could run a team that was truly powerful.

I found that Elida, paired with Lillia, the tier zero, rank five elvish militia recruit, was a solid combo. Pairing those two reserved 69/80 mana after I factored in the new presence score dropping the total cost. Having only eleven available mana to work with was too small of a mana pool. Sadly, Elida would have to wait on the bench until my mana pool expanded or I found some way to reduce the amount of mana that my ability reserved.

Testing a few different opponents proved that my current combo was solid, but I did swap out the ghoul to give the tier one, rank zero warrior, Marvin Glum, a shot. He did about the same damage as the ghoul but lacked the paralyzing ability of the monster. Glum made up for it a bit in his ability to carry out more complex orders and wield a variety of weapons. The ghoul tended to charge forward and attack anything in sight, while Glum would work with the other minions to help flank opponents and create openings for deadly attacks.

Marvin Glum, Rupert, and the hound reserved 54/85 mana leaving me a much healthier available mana pool of 31 to work with. I locked in the changes in the armory and spent more time trying out different tactics with my minions. With the new tier one minion in the rotation, I finally had someone with a ranged weapon. The sling that Marvin Glum carried was more powerful than I had realized. I figured slings were like toy slingshots back home, but these weapons were deadly.

Marvin would be summoned with a pouch of ammo, twenty smooth metal balls the size of a marble. Once that ammo was expended, he was back to his shortsword and dagger. His melee skills were on point, and he carved through weaker foes almost as quickly as the ghoul could.

Just before the mana in the training center ran out, the system intervened once again.

You are Summoned.