Implode ~ 11!

They were only a little way outside of the city when Joe handed Cleave a small tile that contained a ritual he had spent a few hours crafting. “This is a Ritual of Bubble Travel. To activate it, all you need to do is put in a little mana right here, and it’ll send you flying in a straight line toward the capital. It only has a range of a hundred miles or so, but that should get you out of any immediate danger. I need you to swear that if we get into too much danger, you will leave immediately.”

“No,” Major Cleave announced firmly.

All Joe could do was shrug, and he held up another tile. “If you won't do it of your own volition, I'll have to make my best judgment call and send you off whenever I feel it is necessary. Let's be realistic. I look at danger a lot differently than you do. If you can't keep yourself safe, I’ll make sure that you’re out of harm's way as soon as I get nervous.”

The Dwarf very begrudgingly took the original tile he had offered her, sticking it in a pocket where it would be easily accessible. The Ritualist patted her on the shoulder to show that he had meant no harm, then tossed five of his Ritual Orbs into the air. “Now that we have that unpleasantness out of the way, I'm going to try my hand at summoning a… definitely not a demon. I think. Pretty sure. What? I waited until we were out of the city!”

“Is this what you were doing out until the wee hours of the morning?” Daniella crossed her arms and glared at him. “Is this a healthy, or safe, way of progressing your power?”

“I’m not sure yet, which is why I'm going to try summoning it!” Joe could only chuckle as the others retreated a hefty distance, but when they were out of easy earshot, he swallowed nervously and mumbled under his breath, “I really hope this goes well. Kinda need to keep my traveling companions happy.”

It was awkward controlling all five of the Ritual Orbs at the same time, especially once he had set them out in what he believed their relative positions should be for the ritual. Even a slight loss of focus would result in an orb dropping to the ground, flying off into the distance, or otherwise making a nuisance of itself. The main problem was that he could still only skillfully control two of them at a time, although he found it surprisingly much easier than he had expected to keep the others under control. He shrugged and whispered, in an attempt at keeping his mind more focused, “Probably has something to do with my Exotic Weapon Mastery increasing.”

Deciding that trying to move all five at once was not going to work as well as he needed, he called back the first orb, which had been bound with the summoning spell, and mentally commanded the first circle to pop out of the next orb in line. Once it was extracted, he guided the second one into position and commanded that to open as well. He discovered an unexpected benefit: since the first two circles were meant to interact with each other, he was able to somewhat link them together in his mind's eye, giving him finer control over them as a single unit. He added the third circle, then the fourth, and checked to see how long it had taken. “Abyss. Fifteen minutes is far too long to do this during combat; I'm going to need to practice a lot.

With the four open orbs acting as a single ritual, he added the final one to the center and sent the mental command to activate the spell. The resulting surge demonstrated  exactly why the orb consumed nearly five thousand mana in a single shot. Power raced out of the central orb, traveling through all four Ritual Circles in a flash.

The ritual sprang to life, and a ghastly visage appeared to surround the main spell focus, which remained firmly planted on the ground. The details of the ghoulish face filled themselves in as the being was summoned through the barrier keeping it separate from this Plane of existence, soon followed by a black fog that was more akin to fire than water. Empty eye sockets peered at Joe, and a strange empathetic link was created between them.

<Kill. Feed. Taste life.>

“Now there’s a pleasant way to introduce yourself.” Joe spoke cheerfully, deciding that he needed to keep his audience from seeing how much that presence in his mind was making him shiver. “I want to make a long-term contract with you in order to use your power in battle and further my own goals. What do you say, want to come and do fun things?”

<New experiences. Constant stimuli.>

“I can't promise constant stimulation, as this spell can only summon you for an hour at a time. I plan to summon you just before I enter battle, so you would be able to attack creatures fairly quickly whenever you are brought here. Does that interest you?” There was no answer to Joe’s query, so he decided to sweeten the pot a bit. “Unlike anyone who may have summoned you previously, I will not be putting you in one spot to watch others fight from a distance while restricting you to blasting away with your mana. Observe.”

Joe took control of the orb that the skull had formed around, sending it into the air to fly around. If a skull surrounded by withered flesh could show absolute shock, this one would have. Joe let it zoom around for a few minutes, then guided it back to complete their contract.

<Flight. Always flight. Sink teeth into flesh from flight. Kill only for you, never kill you.>

“I can only guarantee flight for about half of each time you would be here, since we would be in combat, especially at the start of your summon.” Joe was stuck on something else that the Pseudo-Lich had projected at him. “Why would you want to sink your teeth into something? Your main mode of attack is bolts of mana… at least, that’s what the book says.”

<Teeth main attack. Drain Energy. Life, mana, stamina.>

“That means that… everyone who has ever summoned one of your kind has got it wrong? They have always been used as sentries, beings that could protect a designated space at a distance.” Joe's eyes were shining as he considered the ramifications of the new information. “With this knowledge alone, I can contribute to the repository of magical knowledge. I could write an entire paper on this subject and present it to the Mage’s College back on Midgard! After my exile is completed, that is. Ah… anyway, back to the main point: do you accept the terms as offered?”

<So much yes.>

It did not escape Joe's attention that the longer they spoke, the more articulate the entity was becoming. He decided he would keep an eye on that, but he felt confident that he would not need to worry about the thing’s betrayal, or at least not betraying him. Magical contracts were very difficult to break, after all. “Then I accept as well. Would you like to stick around for the rest of your allotted time?”

<Stay. Hunt?>

“No hunting right away, but we can get you up in the air. These are the members of my party; alert me if you see any other creatures moving around us.” As an afterthought, Joe added, “Don't attack my party members.”

<Lame.>

As Joe set the orb to hover over his left shoulder, slowly rotating, his friends approached him cautiously. Jaxon was glaring at the floating head with severe disappointment evident on his face. “How can you summon something like that? This is completely unacceptable.”

“Agreed. Summoning demons has to be some kind of-” Daniella was cut off as Jaxon threw his hands in the air, then pointed both of them at the floating head.

“It has no spine, Joe! No spine at all! How am I supposed to learn advanced bone structure from creatures I've never interacted with if they don't even have a basic spine? Are you going invertebrae on me, bro?”

“That is the most… Jaxon-style argument against demon summoning, I suppose; what else should I expect from you?”
Major Cleave kept her eyes on the floating head, slowly shaking her own head in consternation. “That is very illegal, Joe. Back near the founding of the planes, there was a terrible infestation. You couldn't tell who was possessed, and who wasn't… until they tore their way out of the bodies. You're playing a dangerous game by letting something like that out in the open.”

“I have an answer for both of those issues.” Joe held up two fingers. “I won't pull this guy out in populated areas, at least not in a Dwarven city or town. That's one problem solved. As for you, Jaxon, do you mean to tell me that you can’t figure out a way to adjust more than spines? What about the temporomandibular joint? Look at the TMJ on this guy, it's got to be twice as tight as coiled steel wire! Also, I know for a fact that you can adjust ears and all sorts of other things! Abyss, look at him! He's immortal, so even if you mess up, all I need to do is resummon him!”

<Wait.> Joe wasn't expecting to hear concern from his summoned being, but he supposed that fear of a maniacal Chiropractor closing in was more universal than he had expected. <What doing!>

“You have a good eye for this sort of thing, Joe! Look how tight this is. I'm surprised it could even open its mouth in the first place, let alone try to bite me, like it’s trying to do right now. But with just a few small… adjustments!” The last word was practically screamed into the Pseudo-Lich’s hollow eye socket as the Chiropractor slammed both hands into the sides of the summon’s face—three hits in rapid succession. “There you go! Whew… I might need to go pour some cold water on my face after an exciting workout like that. I like your new pet, Joe!”

The entity tumbled to the ground, discarded like a half-eaten apple as Jaxon sauntered off. Joe let it lay there for a moment, since it wasn't trying to communicate anything to him, but then gently floated it back up into position over his shoulder. “With that out of the way, let's get back to the mission at hand? We left from a different gate, and I think we should circle around our actual path at least a little bit before-”

“There's no point.” Major Cleave shook her head and started marching directly toward their destination. “A Bounty Hunter team is searching specifically for you, and not only do they have a druid, but they also have a Direwolf to assist in tracking you. So long as you are traveling via natural means, the only way to get where we need to go without taking them down is to stay ahead of them the entire time. Otherwise, we will end up walking into an ambush. Forget whatever you are about to say. We are not going to be hiding, we are not going to be circling. We are going to practice the best and most effective movement technique the Legion has to offer.”

“You just want us to sprint the entire time, don't you?” Joe snorted at the idea that running was her idea of a high-quality movement skill.

“No time like the present to get started.” Major Cleave took off at a pace that she knew all of them could keep for a long period of time, even if it wouldn’t be comfortable. “Nice night for a run. The moon is beautiful tonight.”