Unruly Summon Chapter 23: Black Fire (Patreon)

I haven't posted the schedule in a while as part of a post, because it hasn't changed, but that seems to have confused a couple of people. Current schedule is An Unruly Summon on Tuesday and Friday, and A Willing Victim on Mondays. (Unwilling Victim is via discord, due to NSFWness.) Chapters are 6AM UK time (currently GMT) give or take an hour. This will continue at least until the end of March.

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"Grysuurm. Sca xrouukn li."

My eyes snapped open as I flipped from unconsciousness to wide awake. Or, at least, I felt awake. Given the recognisable voice, ashen ground and impenetrable dark fog, I suspected my body was still sleeping, whatever my mind was up to.

Thankfully, this time I came armed.

"Maius Magus Visus," I chanted, and it worked.

The dark fog burst into colour; a background of blue, with purple tendrils sprouting from the ground and knotting together as if they were trying to strangle the air itself. Easily recognisable as the same stuff as the remains of the devil-fire, but far denser, and spread uniformly as far as my mana sight could see.

"Nuvaarz ka xi enthurm!"

Uh. Was it my imagination or did that voice sound angry?

As in my last visit, the dragon roared, blasting away the fog. The force almost blasted away me. I instinctively drew upon the local mana, employing body strengthening merely to remain upright, staring at the monstrous creature in the distance as it dropped from its hind legs to all fours, the impact of its forelegs heavy enough that it was felt as a tremor rather than heard.

"Klazzacorl," spoke the dragon, but I wasn't paying attention because one half of my body was burning.

I'd drawn on the mana, and a small amount of miasma had been pulled in with it.

With what little attention I could manage, I witnessed the dragon open its mouth, wisps of black flame curling up from the edges as it inhaled. Forced to my knees by the pain of the miasma poisoning, I couldn't even move.

Could I die here? Where was 'here'? With no way to answer such questions, there was no choice but to assume the worst.

"Maius Scutum, Maius Scutum, Maius Scutum!" I shouted, producing shields over and over until a dozen of them stood between the dragon and my immobile form.

Black flame lanced from the dragon, hitting the first shield and splitting into two, rolling past me on either side closely enough for the heat to be felt even above the burning miasma.

The first shield shattered. The second followed half a second later. Then the third and fourth.

"Maius Scutum, Maius Scutum!" I continued to shout, desperately trying to build defences faster than they were shattering, but the race wasn't even close, and the flames drew ever closer. I called on my battle aura, trying to protect myself, but it did nothing to defend against the heat, my bare skin blistering before my eyes.

And then the final shield shattered.

"Master!" yelled a voice. "Master!"

It took a moment to work out that I was not, in fact, dead, but was sitting upright in my bed, and the voice belonged to Mary. Sunlight was visible through the arrowslits, but it was dim. Still early morning?

"Good morning?" I tried.

"Master!" repeated Mary, her head snapping upwards, revealing her damp eyes. "Thank goodness! You're awake!"

She leapt forward, wrapping me in a relieved hug.

"Uh..." I said, experiencing a few more seconds of uncertainty before hugging back. Whoever was on night-guard duty was in the room, too. Between them both being here, Mary's reaction, and the way I was sitting upright, I guessed they'd been trying to wake me for a while. "What happened?"

"You wouldn't wake up!" answered Mary, confirming my guess. "I came in to get your room ready, and you were squirming in your bed, and then you screamed, but you wouldn't wake up!"

"She was shaking you, and you didn't react at all," affirmed the guard. "Are you feeling okay?"

"I had the same nightmare as my first night," I replied. Christine had said she was going to look into it. I needed to check with her if she'd found anything. "I feel fine now."

I really did, too. In the dream—if dream it was—I'd suffered miasma poisoning and massive burns, but now there was no sign of them. Likewise, I'd cast mana sight, and from my perspective it had only been a few minutes earlier, far within the spell's duration, yet the spell wasn't active. As real as it felt at the time, now that I'd woken up for real, the whole experience seemed dream-like and surreal. The memory was already failing, just like last time, and even this soon after waking I doubted I could repeat the words of the dragon.

But if it had been a mere dream, why couldn't Mary wake me? A quick check revealed that I hadn't been bleeding this time, but being stuck in a coma was no better.

"Are you sure?" questioned Mary, pulling back and giving me a careful inspection.

The move put her in position for me to inspect her, too.

"Your collar!" I exclaimed.

Her hands instinctively went to her neck, where they grasped at a ring of metal that was no longer there. "Ma... I mean, Minister Dennis stopped by last night, after you'd turned in. He... umm... made some good points, and now I'm a proper, free employee of the castle. Is that okay? I still want to serve you."

It wasn't just the missing collar; she was wearing the same uniform as the maids she'd spotted yesterday. Still the same blacks and whites as her old ones, and still favouring practicality without much in the way of frills or ornamentation, but the material was much finer, and the hems were skilfully decorated with embroidery.

If they'd sorted her clothing out so quickly, hopefully that meant I'd get something less scratchy, too.

"Yes, of course that's okay; I'm happy for you! But what sort of good points?"

"He asked if I wanted to make you happy, and then pointed out that me being freed from slavery would make you happy."

True enough, but also obvious. Did he need to jump through some hoops to convince her to keep her collar off?

"And also, if I was free, then I was free to call you whatever I wanted, so I could still call you 'master'," she added, slightly bashfully.

"No comment," I sighed, admitting I'd already lost that battle. Instead, I peered over at my chair, where my usual pile of clothes was missing. "Where are my clothes?"

"Wendy said she'd bring your new outfit over. It's still a bit early, so she hasn't arrived yet. Would you like some breakfast?"

"Why Wendy?" I asked, confused as to why she'd be the one bringing clothing. "But yes, I'd be thankful for some breakfast."

The guard excused himself, and Mary served me breakfast in bed while we waited for Wendy to turn up.

She soon did, holding a thick bundle of white cloth. "Good morning!" she declared, barging into the room without even knocking. "As requested, I picked these up from the tower on the way over."

She unfurled the bundle, revealing a white garment long enough to stretch from my shoulders to my ankles.

"That's a dress," I pointed out.

"No, it's a robe," denied Mary.

"What's the difference?"

"Mostly that it's being worn by a man who doesn't want to admit he's wearing a dress," claimed Wendy.

"There are lots of differences!" corrected Mary, pulling up an extra flap of cloth from its back. "Look, it has a hood, it's a thick material so you don't need a cloak over the top, it's a loose fit, and you put it on over your head rather than stepping into it."

"Okay, so terminology aside, why do you want me to wear a robe?"

"It's the official uniform for a male mage working in the castle," explained Wendy, which seemed plausible; the four mages I'd seen upstairs yesterday had been wearing something very similar, except in different colours. Maybe to match their affinities? Then why did Wendy always wear blue? "Given the conflicting goals of taking you off your leash while still preventing information about you spreading, a disguise is a sensible precaution. The plate armour of a knight was another option. It would hide your face, but would take some time to learn how to move around in, is time consuming to get on and off, and would prevent the people who do know you from easily recognising you. Not to mention that with how quickly you picked up battle aura, it wouldn't actually offer much extra in terms of protection."

"Fair enough," I conceded, not seeing any flaws in her logic and letting Mary help me get it on, along with a pair of breeches that went with it.

"It looks good on you!" she declared.

"Thanks," I responded, feeling a little like I was cosplaying, even if I was lacking the customary fantasy staff. I'd never seen anyone with a staff or wand, though, so maybe they didn't exist here. Also, did it still count as cosplay when I could really do magic? "Feels nice against my skin, too. Far less scratchy than those other things you gave me. It seems a little impractical, though. How do I use the loo?"

"Just hoick it up," shrugged Mary. "It's not hard. What do you think we girls do?"

"... To be honest, what girls do in the bathroom is not something I've ever thought about in that much detail."

"I'm starting to get the impression that you don't think about girls at all," giggled Wendy. "Minister Dennis tried to bribe you with a harem, and even somehow talked the king into including one of his daughters in it, and you just... ignored it. You really know how to make a gal feel inadequate."

"Minister Dennis?" I questioned, ignoring the fluff about harems and focusing on that interesting snippet.

Wendy froze.

"Ah... You didn't know the whole hero summoning thing was originally his idea?" she probed.

"No. No, I did not. But by all means, please continue."

"Before you go off on a rampage again, he was, to the best of my knowledge, not involved in the fake assassination plot. He suggested things like the appearance of poverty, the fake smoke, and to encourage you to invent soy sauce."

"Fake smoke?"

"Ah... Uh... Maybe I should stop talking..."

"Out of the window during my summoning," I realised. "Of course. From the maps Stephanie showed me, there's no way the front lines would be visible from here, so you made your own. I can't believe I didn't question that the moment she showed me the map."

Wendy took her own advice and refrained from speaking.

"I don't suppose it changes anything, though," I sighed. "I still would have stayed, because I didn't trust you to send me home."

"You didn't? Why not?" asked Wendy. "I'd have had you back home like a shot, if you asked. Actually, that reminds me; you were supposed to write a letter for me to send back in case of death."

"Maybe you would, but I'd just been yanked off another planet, and had no idea who you were. For all I knew, you'd just kill me and summon someone else if I turned out not to be useful, to save on mana."

"That's what mana potions are for," she shrugged.

"I didn't even know they existed at the time, and even if I had, I wouldn't have known how plentiful they were. And as for the letter, I figured there wasn't much point while I was still here and trying to figure out what was going on. I planned to do it before leaving the castle."

"Eh. Just let me know when you've written one," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "It's not something we need to make a big deal about. Anyway, now that you're dressed, shall we get to the courtyard to learn some new spells?"

"I thought we needed a wide open space for the next lesson?"

"That would have been true if I was teaching you anti-army tactical magic, but priorities have shifted somewhat. Today we'll be learning some stuff I know you've been looking forward to; information gathering spells and subvocal casting."

Oh, awesome! Stuff I really wanted! Of course, the original reason I wanted them no longer applied, but doubtless there would be more things I wanted to check up on myself as time went on.

"Do you regret it?" she asked as we walked.

"Pardon?"

"Not asking us to send you home. Knowing what you now know, and assuming you did trust me to get you back to the proper time and place, do you wish you'd gone home?"

"What I now know still isn't all that much," I admitted. "You realise I've still not seen a single demon? Not even a drawing of one. I've not seen a single shred of evidence that demons even exist, let alone that you're at war with them. But if I assume that everything I've been told is the truth, then no, I do not regret it. I can help people here."

Neither Wendy nor Mary responded to that, leaving us to continue walking in silence for a minute.

"Out of interest, how in the hells did you expect me to invent soy sauce?" I asked, to break the silence. "I know it involves fermenting some sort of bean, but nothing beyond that, and I imagine not many people do. Besides, if you already know what it is, why does it need inventing?"

"Don't ask me. I have no idea what soy sauce is. Dennis just said something about how heroes always think their local cuisine is better than ours, and keep trying to recreate it."

"Local? Soy sauce isn't exactly local to me... You know, I think I'm starting to form a suspicion."

"Oh, seriously? Another one. What are you suspicious about this time?"

"Nothing bad. I'm just starting to suspect that most of your heroes have been Japanese."