The Crucible Campaign

5: Family Ties

.^^ Lady Munin, Messenger Raven ^^

— Teagan —

The storm hound sat up, staring at me, and tilted her head, sniffing my Grimoire. "What do you think, pretty one? Would you like to be my Familiar?" I asked gently, petting her ears, ignoring the small, but persistent, static shock.

She sneezed in my face, making the girls laugh, and I sighed, wiping the electric slobber off of me. "Alright, I'll take that as a yes. Grimoire, the familiar spell, please?"

The book opened, and flipped to a section on familiars. It was four pages long, but the first three and a half were all about summoning the Familiar, by building a statue of it out of diamond and mithril, and many other steps.

I found the point where I could start, and nodded, touching the book to her nose gently, and reaching out like I had with the Grimoire. She pushed her forehead into my hand, and the connection solidified, as easily as that, with only two steps left.

"Alright, and a name for you... Sparky?" I grinned facetiously. She seemed to glower at me, somehow, and then grumbled at me. "Alright, that was stupid... how about Fulminate?" I asked, and grinned when she accepted the name mentally, and the last step approached. I opened the book to what I commanded to be an empty page, and wrote her name, then held out the book.

She stepped her paw in the ink casually, electrocuting it and drying up the well entirely, then planted her paw on the page, disappearing instantly.

I grinned. "Okay, that's legitimately awesome." I snapped my fingers, and the dog stepped through a veil, then leapt into Caroline's lap, and curled up, keeping an eye on me. "Definitively awesome." I amended my statement.

Renata nodded. "It was rather skillfully done, yes, I am impressed. You seem to have a natural skill for familiar magic... no doubt because of your previous life." She added cryptically.

I nodded. "Alright... well, is there anything else? The list of tasks you needed done and also our free licenses would be surely equal to the change from that coin, yes? I don't want to put you out for having to make change."

She laughed, and shook her head. "Your licenses will only run you around 150 Noble Silver a piece, my friend... at four, that will be 600 Silver Nobles, almost one Gold... trust me, you will receive the gold I owe you. Gladrin, take this into the vault, and bring back 74 gold pieces?" She held the coin out to him. He nodded, and stepped through the illusion door.

While he was gone, I hummed. "So is it best that we don't tell people about Midgard?"

She nodded. "Without question. Many mages are... disconnected from society, and mortality in general. For them, study is most important. You would all be Incredibly interesting materials to them, not people, should your origin become known. And there are hundreds of mercenary bands who do nothing except capture materials for mages to study, be they sentient or no."

Caroline hummed. "That is troubling... is it safer or more dangerous outside of the city?"

"Invariably More dangerous. Here, they have to worry about the Guards, who do not tolerate the kidnapping of residents, but out there, the law is what you make it, for the most part. All the soldiers are on the borders, so the interior is full of the things they would usually handle. The Tiefling's and Orc's alliance with the Empress hinges on them getting their work here, in the Capital, which is one reason we have such a heavy population of militants. It keeps us safe in the light, but dark alleys are dark alleys, no matter what realm, you know?" She shrugged.