10) Out of one, many [ In which my Summons get Swole ]

  “Viola?”

  The Fairy stopped mid rant to look toward the hiding place of my Core, abruptly switching from her angry complaining to a friendly greeting.

  “Yep, that’s me Fell. Whatcha need?”

  Lots of things, mainly answers. “What was that all about?”

  Viola seemed to sag in place. “The Mother of All created us each and every one, Fairies that is, out of a Core made up out of pure Magic with all the things we need to know to do our job already inside of us.”

  The Fairy rubbed at her stomach, “But while we know everything a God might think we need to know, we don’t know how to be…” She shrugged. “To be people, I guess. It’s like we’re all information without the means to know when to use any of it, so we get assigned to a senior Fairy until we’re…” Viola waved her hands around as if at a loss for a better word. “More.”

  Oh. So is what Viola meant about her and other Fairies having Cores like Beasts. But Beast Cores are made of Chaos, not magic… You know what, I don’t know if there really is all that much of a difference between the two, but what I did know was that Viola didn’t care all that much about being compared to a Beast.

  So I decided not to bring that up again. “I’m guessing your mother is the Fairy who trained you.

  Viola winced and then nodded. “The Fairy Queen of Hoaryridge. Or as she insists, Mother.”

  Hrmmm… So becoming a Fairy Queen is a thing. I guess if the two of us last long enough Viola can become a queen as well. But of what, the city’s drains?

  Something else to consider. At some point later on. Much later on.

  “And the Fat man?”

  Viola sighed. “Yule. Getting all those Deer Totems qualified him for a unique Tier three Class set up by the Jolly One that only one person in the world can have at a time. I don’t know what it’s called, but he works for the Queen.”

  Surprisingly, her answers pretty much covered everything I had wanted to know about, and more.

  “Alright, please keep an eye out, I’m leveling up the Summons.” Viola nodded and began slowly turning in a circle, her eyes a solid green as she used her Gaze.

  First off, the Earth Spider, a larger Spirit, should mean stronger webs, right? “Blinky, level up the Earth Spider to Level six.”

  Magic drained from my pool, nearly a quarter of it, as...

  Tier one Earth Spider is now Level six

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  The Spider, at one time, had been just large enough for all eight of its feet to touch the edges of one of Nictob’s dirty, but now goat licked clean plates. Now that I had Resummoned it in its Rank six, it was a much larger fuzzy dark gray and light tan colored Spider with a body about three quarters the size of one of the Ratlings.

  At that size, the Spider’s legs could have easily rested over the edges of the hole in the floor of the outer hallway that led down to the drains one story below.

  Which made me ponder if I wanted the Spider to get any larger than that. Bigger isn’t better when it comes to going up and working in the shaft leading to the surface of the city.

  You need room to spin a web out of your rear end.

  Speaking of which. “Spider, repair and improve the webbing you made earlier.” With a salute of its right fore limb, the Earth Spider headed back out to resume its duties.

  For the rest of my Summons, which were crowding the library where I had Summoned them to, I had to first, one at a time, dismiss them before leveling them up, then Resummon them in their new, larger forms.

  Of course, I kept my rule about keeping half of my Magic pool filled, and Leveling up the Undine to Level six on top of the Spider took my Magic down to nearly half. So my other Summons had to wait until I meditated and restored what I felt was enough magic to Level up another Summons, without going past the halfway point on the blue circle that measured my Magic.

  But from where I could see from the bottom of the shaft to the surface, the sky lightened and had begun to go dark again before I finished Leveling up all of my creatures.

  All of them, aside from the Roaches.

  I wanted something I could send out to swarm a target, and then Resummon them over and over again in continuous waves of giant flying bugs. They would not only be a decent distraction by flying at people’s faces, but at their Rank one sizes, they would be harder to hit.

  For the most part, all of my Summons that I had advanced to Level six looked to be not only bigger, but also tougher, and more defined than their Level one versions.

  The Undine now had real claws. The Fire Snail, for whatever benefit a burning mollusk might have for them, now had two heads. The Earth snake was big enough to survive being stepped on, but the Air hawk’s wingspan was nearly too wide to fly down the hallway.

  So the effect of raising their Levels was mostly beneficial, but whether to keep increasing their Levels or not remained in question.

  The Air Fish?

  It had gotten bigger…

  Viola fluttered up to my Core’s shelf, ducking her head to land even as her gossamer wings vanished.

  “Fell. There here… The Ratling. A lot of them are here.” The Fairy laid her hand on my Core and showed me with her Gaze what she meant.

  Ah. “It appears a Tamer can Tame a lot more beasts than a Summoner can Summon.” Or at least more than I could Summon with my limited number of Cores. I guess I could transform the Tier two Cores I had into Totems, but they would come in as Tier one Level one Summons.

  Which would be a bit of a waste. But…

  I think I’m in trouble.

  Turnip Toad had more than just Ratlings Tamed.

  Leading the way along the walkway next to the drain was a Ratling in crude armor, seeming to be made of layers of heavy canvas that had metal plates bolted to it over some of their more vulnerable places.

  And it was mounted on a boar. A Beast whose eyes glowed green with the color of Torb’s magic as the Tamer controlled the creature directly.

  Wait. I think I just got the nasty little man’s name right. Let me try again, ‘with the color of Toob’s magic.’

  Much better.

  That next few, more heavily armed Ratling, were mounted on a long legged Lizard of some sort… well, relatively longer legged. Their claws looked more suited to climbing than hunting, not that it would need anything other than their long, toothy maws to do some serious damage.

  Following along behind the front three mounted Ratling were at least three dozen more of them on foot, followed along by two more of them mounted on lizards, including the familiar older one eyed Ratling who had seemed to be leading the Ratling the first time the Goblin had sent them against me.

  Behind all of them...Doob. The Goblin pot thief himself, and Tamer of all the creatures coming at me.

  I was hoping the strategy for going after a Summoner rather than their Summons would work just as well when going up against a Tamer.

  Sitting in a chair mounted on two long poles carried aloft by eight of the Ratling, with the very Tamer I was expecting. The Goblin’s hands were clutching the armrests of his chair tightly as the Tamer himself sat with his eyes clenched shut, focusing on some inner strain.

  Perhaps the strain of keeping the four lizards and the pig all under his direct control?

  If I was correct, then taking down Boob might result in all the mounts under his direct control all going feral at once. Perhaps even attacking the Ratling.

  Whatever I can do to cause the disorder of my opponent, will be my opportunity.