Bonded Summoner

Book 4. Chapter 14: New Arrivals

Jake woke up at his bench with a start. He had been working on–

“What did I say about working too hard, husband? You’d fallen asleep once more, so I came to remove the sleep from you.”

He gave a yawn and stretched his body, Fhesiah beginning to knead his shoulders and back a little for him. “How long was I out?”

“I gave you an hour and a half before I came in, but it’s now been two hours. A power nap, I guess? There is still plenty of time before our training, and we head out for the day. What is this that you were working on, anyway?”

Jake looked down at his desk, finding the gold-like chain he had been working on. He smiled, as he remembered his success.

Ophelia had succeeded in her own forging enhancements, which, he felt, were a lot like he read about what made certain metals more conductive. Except, instead of atoms with valence electrons being evenly spaced allowing them to move more freely across the material, it was filling the spaces between them with pockets of mana.

This cushion between the atoms made the metal more magical, and able to hold a stronger magical charge at the same time without breaking down.

Jake would then latch onto these many free pockets of mana inside the object, and enhance the connections even further with his new enchanting [Sub-skill], [Manaweave Reinforcement]. With this, even lower-tier materials could be enhanced further, allowing them to accept more foreign mana to cause an effect.

With this, he could update all the girl’s necklaces, and even craft things like rings. Though, the real reason he had learned the sub-skill, was to improve the magic motors for potential blimps or an airship even further.

It had been one week since they took back Life’s Haven, the family continuing their mostly crazy schedule. They fought towards Nature’s Crossroads, and were probably only a day or two away from their next assault.

The number of Rifts spawning was out of hand, and the Hart Clan had found themselves running around putting out fires, despite having additional help. Tartarus still used the undead, the blight being its favorite weapon. Even if Jake’s party put them down easily, they would need to spend some time clearing out the blight, besides.

Every day, beastkin were dying all across the world of Highlands. Jake was working around the clock to reduce their deaths, doing his best to play both the long and short games at the same time. It was because of this, that he hadn’t gotten much time to spend with Tanda, at least not alone.

They still trained, fought, played and ate together, and for now, they treated Tanda’s night as a group sleepover night. Jake just hadn’t had time for a date. Part of courtship would include a few common beastkin dates that were borderline ritual in nature. Of course, not all beastkin required this, and would go by their whims.

But Tanda’s heart was in tune with the world and with her people, and treasured their values as a Chieftain’s daughter. It was why she followed the tradition of the courtship duel, rather than just picking the most powerful male around her age. Jake wanted to give her a memorable courtship experience, as, to her, it was not dissimilar to an Earth woman’s wedding.

Fhesiah snorted. “That girl is having enough fun as it is, Jake. She and Ophelia are getting along as thick as thieves. A big part of the courtship was to make sure she could find harmony with us, and so far, things couldn’t be better. She’s even joining all of us in our crafting, except for you.”

Jake nodded. Tanda had in fact helped Ophelia with her new [Hearthtree Forge], adding auril into metals. She would use her ability as an auril hero to latch onto the auril into the area, and help focus it into the forge itself.

This added tons of the life force and latent will to congregate into the metal as it was forged, locking it in. This allowed Ophelia to be successful with her first auril metals.

Then, Tanda started a herb garden in their refuge, using her druidic powers combined with the energies from their hearth fixture to rapidly grow herbs, for Fhesiah. She then, once again, used her powers as an auril hero to help enhance Fhesiah’s alchemical concoctions. Though, Fhesiah’s [Advanced Energy Control] made it so that she hardly needed the help.

“That’s not entirely true, husband. You can think of [Advanced Energy Control] to be up to one Tier beneath the effectiveness of the more specific skill, depending. Because she’s already at the first Tier with auril energy, she’s already a bit better than I at moving around auril on its own. Not only that, but auril is a little different. It has a heavier weight than mana, and my powerful soul makes up for that. But because of her world’s connection, auril moves at her whim, while I must fight it to make it follow mine. Very peculiar.”

Finally, Tanda was working with Bloodberri on auril leathers and armor components. Now with what they knew about the bones, they were working on a powerful combination of the auril beast leathers and bones to make equipment.

Tanda would help add and trap more auril into the leather or bones, as well as manipulate the bones to change their shape, as Blood and Berri both infused monster essences. The effects were substantial.

The reptile beastkin almost required this type of equipment, as many of them would grow when they built up their auril. Auril metals were hard to come by at this point, so metal plates underneath would not work well for them. For now, Ophelia’s efforts were primarily on blades and spearheads, as they required the least amount of metals.

The beastkin favored polearms, though many were starting to consider shields. For now, their auril woods were the favored material.

Jake was about to take out some more materials to work further on their future necklaces, when Fhesiah wrapped her body around Jake’s from behind, her softness enveloping him, her warm breath on his neck.

“You know, Jake. I think I’m ready to try out my Yin Yang Body Tempering. You know what they say about all work and no play–”

She was interrupted by a message from Valtor.

[Mass Migration first arrivals are here, but we can meet with a representative before we choose where they arrive – Kenwodi or Life’s Haven. It would be best if you came.]

Fhesiah groaned as Jake worked on a response, requesting if he could add Seamus and any of the Kenwodi council to the meeting if they can make it. That would better allow them to decide where the people would go.

Fhesiah scoffed. “That’s the third time I’ve been box blocked by that hollow armor, and it’s only been a week. There must be some way I can get back at him. Can unliving armors get incontinence, I wonder?”

Jake chuckled as he cleaned up his workbench. He knew she was mostly joking–

“Ah, I know. Some of them must be at least a little magnetic? Maybe he can reconsider his timing as he’s stuck to the ceiling, or better yet, inside some closet or bathroom? Ah, but that won’t work either. He can probably still use the [Menu] within the HQ, then, the workaholic. I’ll think on it.”

Thankfully, Jake hadn’t done anything to earn her ire. Ophelia and Tanda had been working together in the Hearthforge, but they too had taken a nap. He prodded the two girls over their bond, getting them to stir and wake up. Jake headed towards the living room, and Bloodberri was already there.

Berri said, “I wonder what kind of people we’re going to be meeting! I can’t wait!”

Jake smiled at Bloodberri. He was sure in this first round of migrations, a majority of the arrivals would be the lower level people, the citizen types at barely level 1 or slightly above. That meant, there should be some children for her to play with. Though, there were definitely enough beastkin for her to play with, her baseball and martial arts mixture of play and training taking off.

Jake said, “One way or another, things should be exciting.”

Jake could feel Fhesiah’s excitement, but it was tempered somewhat. Their previous conversation on the matter was mostly the end of her odd desire to add more women to his bed. He knew she hadn’t exactly given up, but she was content to play cupid for Hearthtribe, instead.

“Hmph. Once we start having children, and we have a lot more leisure time, I’m sure you won’t fight me on finding a wet nurse, a nanny, a maid, why, I’m sure Tanda would like a bard–”

Tanda and Ophelia came from the hallway, and Tanda said, “We’re going to meet the new arrivals? Oh, I wonder if there’ll be any treants?”

Blood shook her head. “My understanding is that all treants able to move and leave the world are aged, and should be near the peak of Tier 1. They should be the last to arrive. We may not even see any dryads today, unless they are particularly young. The representative is likely the only exclusion, not allowed to partake in combat until future arrivals.”

Jake knew that travel was one of those things that the Framework set the pace for, to an extent. If it wanted someone to instantly teleport across the multiverse, it could totally do it. But travel speeds influenced the war too, so people of different Tiers were supposed to move at different speeds. The representative was arriving rapidly because they were not allowed to participate in battle for a time.

The family made their way to Life’s Haven HQ, then to the Hearthtribe guild lobby, where Valtor did a lot of their meetings. Valtor and Amara were waiting for him.

Valtor spoke when his family got near, “It should be just a few minutes more before Seamus and Grayson should arrive. The others are in need of sleep themselves, but respected you and Grayson to make the right decisions on this matter.”

Jake nodded. Grayson was the turtle beastkin elder that he first met when arriving to Kenwodi, and had been an excellent representative of Jake’s interests.

Having witnessed the goddess’ arrival, the turtle man made sure that everything Jake required to be accomplished, was done without much pushback from the people.

Where some things he desired were against the beastkin’s aesthetics or disrupted the balance of the area slightly, he was the defender of these actions and the keeper of the peace.

He was thankful for the man, as he had also made things seamless for the reptile beastkin to join. Many visited Kenwodi, and while there were some that still had resentment for the reptiles, Grayson quickly silenced them.

Just as Grayson couldn’t be blamed for what happened a thousand years ago, the new reptile beastkin couldn’t, either.

Seamus was the Lion beastkin man that was the previous Chieftain of Life’s Haven. Now, he still acted in a similar capacity. But according to the Framework, Jake was the owner and ruler of Life’s Haven, having been the one that conquered it back from Tartarus.

Seamus helped manage the beastkin that joined the Framework but did not join Jake’s guild, but was a member himself. He loved to fight, and couldn’t wait to duel each member of Clan Hart.

Berri asked, “Where’s Rhia? Is she sleeping again?”

Amara beamed, judging by her pages lighting up and flipping through the book. “That’s right! This world is already helping her grow so fast! Oh, Valtor and I couldn’t be happier!”

Berri smiled, happy that her friend was doing well. When Jake last saw Rhia, he couldn’t really see the difference. But she was adamant she had grown an inch. Of course, Berri claimed she could tell, and praised the girl for her growth repeatedly.

Seamus was first to arrive, his place near the center of the new city, next to one of the arenas.

“Tanda, my Niece! Good to see you again. Your heart grows stronger by the day! It feels like it won’t be long before you could give me a hard time in the arena.”

Tanda flew over and gave her uncle a hug. “Thanks, Uncle! I am already level 14 now! The Hearth in our Refuge, Fhesiah’s supplements, and the closing of many Rifts, have really moved me forward rapidly.”

Jake would almost be jealous at how fast she leveled, if it wasn’t so convenient. He and his other wives were already over level twenty, and if she didn’t level quickly, they’d have to wait quite some time for her to catch up.

Thanks to her essentially needing half the experience to level, the rest being life force and growing her body’s strength, she was able to catch up rapidly. At the way things had slowed for them after level twenty, he wasn’t sure who would hit level twenty-five first.

Grayson entered, and Jake greeted him.

“Good to see you too, Jake. I understand we may have some new brethren joining us? The Eternum were quite the surprise, but people are getting used to seeing them along with the Necromancer around. We now look forward to those that will help us face this great evil. The original adventurers certainly didn’t give us this feeling.”

Jake nodded. “These new people should be quite thankful, as they now are getting a new place to live. They already fought the good fight, winning a pyrrhic victory where their world was dying.”

“We’ll do our best to make them feel welcome. The idea that treants may return makes our hearts beat with anticipation.”

Everyone moved to take their seats. The Emberborn and [Warrior Brotherhood] were not around, this time. They were adventuring, helping Jake push the Rifts back toward the HQ for recapture. Thanks to them each closing many rifts per day, they could tell Tartarus was losing ground in other areas to slow them down.

Nodes were now reaching the coasts, and on some level, many were joining the Framework. It was nowhere near the numbers near Kenwodi when recruited by Tanda directly, but it was still much better than nothing. Already, enchanting supplies and Fhesiah’s pills were in strong demand, and everyone was struggling to keep up.

Valtor said, “Now that everyone is here, we should be ready to meet the representative.”

They were all sitting around a large conference table, with Valtor and Amara floating on a raised platform off to the side, usually used for speaking. Valtor triggered something, allowing the representative in. They appeared in motes of light, a short figure in the center.

She was a small woman at about four and a half feet tall, with green skin. Brown bark and vines appeared to be growing on her, a part of her clothes. She had long, darker green hair mixed with leaves tied in a ponytail that went beyond the small of her back. Jake thought she looked like she was maybe at most ten or eleven years old, if she were a human.

She looked mostly elven, aside from the vines and bark on some of her skin, and it being green. Her dress was teal, and she held a powerful druidic staff made of some interesting wood that gave off a strong feeling of vitality, as well.

Berri became excited, and Fhesiah became depressed, as the implication sunk in. She knew that Jake was absolutely not and would never be attracted to this dryad, as while she looked young to Jake, Fhesiah already knew this creature in front of them was old, thanks to her [Divine Sense]. Very old. She could already tell that this person was not an exception to the rule, either.

The small woman took a breath, and she smiled as she took in the room. Jake could feel the life and vitality both wafting off and pouring into her as the auril in the room stirred, and could tell that she was decently powerful. Not in comparison to Jake’s party, but he wasn’t sure who would win between Morwen and her.

“Greetings. I am High-Druid Nadessa of Verdania. Thank you so much for considering our people for the mass migration. We hadn’t had much time left, and soon we’d have been forced to accept…less desirable options.”

Despite looking like a child, Nadessa carried herself like a seasoned adult.

Jake stood and replied, “Good to meet you, Nadessa. I’m Jake Hart, Champion of Hestia. I’m the Guild leader of Hearthtribe, and the one who accepted your [Mass Migration].”

He then went on to introduce his wives and Seamus and Grayson, and Valtor and Amara as he included their titles.

Nadessa looked troubled, her eyebrows moving from a frown to rising in surprise as each person was introduced.

She said, “It’s good to meet you all. I’m…shocked. That we have three Champions, and that they are also priestesses or druids of other gods… I’ve never heard of this. Gaia was not very…welcoming of other gods, and she certainly didn’t send her Champion to defend us. I introduced myself as a high-druid, but well, she has already rescinded my powers, my people failing her, as it were. My title is more my position, as opposed to my class or my power within the Framework, now.”

Ophelia frowned. “It feels like it would be easy for her to provide a place for you people to go, her other worlds matching your needs and desires. With how much we paid to bring you here, they should have been able to afford to retrieve your people.”

Nadessa was nearly brought to tears. “It is true. The Framework certainly subsidizes moves to or within the Frontier Sector to some extent, so your cost was much lower than hers, but for a Tier 2 or above to fund us would have been trivial. However, our failure was not the only one in this sector, and she is being forced to focus her efforts elsewhere, gaining nearly nothing here. She is…not happy, with us, or the situation. She is…quite spiteful.”

Blood said, “Should we be concerned that Gaia will be upset, with us taking in your people?”

Nadessa shook her head. “It’s not impossible, but her not taking us in is rescinding her rights to us. The Framework won’t allow her going out of her way to make our lives here harder after that, so we should be safe. It’s just, if this world gets into a bigger conflict in the future, and she’s involved, she certainly could… make things more challenging for us, knowing we let her down.”

Jake sighed internally. This was one of the reasons they had chosen Hestia, in the beginning. Many of the other gods were known for similar behavior: sore losers, sandbagging, as in losing on purpose, and even leaving worlds they were winning if world ownership wasn’t going to be achieved by them. Hestia, and hopefully her pantheon, were the opposites of this.

Jake would definitely have to keep in mind these types of behaviors if he ever relied on someone outside of Hestia’s pantheon.

Grayson said, “It’s a real shame that a powerful leader did not live up to their responsibilities to protect. What can you tell us about the people showing up today, and the next week?”

Nadessa smiled. “It’s going to be mostly the spriggons, but there should be some satyrs and fauns that are non-combatants; low levels as seen by the Framework. Next week should be the bulk of our people, but the major arrivals should be in two weeks more. The strongest and most of the treants, at the end of a month.”

She continued, “Spriggons are… a sort of wild child of the forest. They do not do well in a city environment, preferring to live in nature. The air here feels different, however. It’s hard to say how they would react, but in general they prefer to live in the forest.”

Jake said, “That’s a concern, since we’re trying to build the defenses of the cities against Tartarus. Then, their jungle is full of dangerous predators, called auril beasts.”

Nadessa smiled. “Beasts are not much problem at all for spriggons, their magical nature allows them to entrance most beasts, or hide from their senses. Of course, enemies from Tartarus are a real concern, but I think you’ll find their self-preservation instincts are quite effective against most enemies it spawns. They will flee toward the city if they cannot deal with a threat themselves. When combined with dryads, satyrs, treants and hamadryads, Tartarus has to fight for every inch of the forest. The real reason we lost…”

Nadessa looked pained. “They poisoned the World Tree. We had fought well, the Adventurers proving to be excellent at offense, and my people a near impenetrable defense. But they poisoned all the rivers and lakes, and eventually, those all flowed into the world tree. With it weakened, they snuck under the earth, and were able to corrupt the roots further. The naiads were simply not numerous enough to stop its efforts, and even though we won the Raid… I’m sure you understand the rest.”

Seamus said, “So these spriggons, it sounds like they won’t want to live in either of our cities, but instead want to live in the wilderness? We’ll have to help them down into the valleys.”

Nadessa nodded. “Some may live in the city, but typically they are more at home in the forests. Even the higher leveled ones, are really like permanent children, their intelligence never surpassing that of a three or four-year-old that lives in the wilderness and doesn’t speak a translatable language. Most are much closer to a two-year-old. For today, we have nearly ten thousand arriving. But next week, we should have at least twenty-five thousand, along with hundreds, or thousands of the other races, besides. The satyrs and fauns are fine in either location, but also prefer the forest instead.”

Jake realized that this put them around an ape or chimpanzee in their level of intelligence, but perhaps the most intelligent ones a bit above that.

Grayson said, “Perhaps, it’d be best if we split them between Kenwodi and Life’s Haven, then. That way they can stay nearby, with more eyes on them? Do they produce anything that aids the war effort?”

Nadessa chuckled. “Sort of? They help the growth of trees and plants, and many do gather herbs and berries for the satyrs and fauns. We did have them making simple bows, arrows, and staves. Fauns and dryads do have decent means of guiding them and their efforts, though, I’d think humans would compare it to herding cats?”

Grayson nodded. “If they can aid in food collection, that is something. I’m interested to see what else they’ll be able to do here.”

Nadessa replied. “You certainly won’t have to worry about them being able to find food for themselves, either! Just breathing the air here, I can feel it. It’s not at the level of the World Tree, but if your world is like this, they should be quite happy here!”

Berri said, “Well, I can’t wait to meet them! They sound like a lot of fun!”

Jake said, “Let’s let some of them out here, and then see how it goes? Can we do that?”

Nadessa nodded. “We can let out some, but perhaps outside might be best? Do you have an area near a node?”

Seamus answered, “We do. We have a square across from the Headquarters, that would be perfect.”

They all headed over to the node, outside the Alliance HQ. There were a lot of beastkin bustling about, their days well underway. Various beastkin were accessing the node, selling their wares, and some even entering or exiting incursion portals.

It had only been a week, but the number of awakened had increased significantly. In Life’s Haven, well over fifteen to twenty percent had already awakened now, outside of Jake’s guild.

This was in part due to the large feasts of auril beast meat Jake had set up to work through his stores. A majority of people in Life’s Haven were combat focused and earned plenty of latent will in their final battles.

Fhesiah had accomplished her goal of awakening nearly a hundred percent of the Guild that was present at her proclamation, using her awakening pills. Of course, since then, many others had joined the Guild from all over Highlands, so the total awakened percentage was still around sixty percent or so.

Serena, Brock’s panther beastkin mate, had been late to awaken, but eventually was one of the first to use the method. A handful of beastkin just needed that extra push, and there didn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason behind those connecting with the world, based on the user’s personalities.

After hearing Tanda’s story more in depth, Jake and Fhesiah thought it had to do with resonance. Their spirit would connect to the world when their spirit was strong enough, but also when their emotions and heart matched the world or other beastkin on some level. This matched how many would awaken when fighting alongside their brethren.

They arrived at the Node, and Jake nodded for Nadessa to trigger the arrival.

A hundred figures appeared in motes of light, the size of them about two to three feet tall. Looking at them, Jake thought they sort of looked like goblins covered in bark and vines. Their hair had leaves and twigs in them, as a part of their body. Their eyes were a solid yellow to amber color, with no pupils inside.

From what Jake could tell, they were quite androgynous. As far as he understood, they were close to trees themselves, and might not really have a gender.

Nadessa spoke to them, and they all focused on her. “Welcome, children of the wilds, to your new home! You can either live here, or–”josei

Nearly all 100 faces instead shifted over to another figure, off to the side. Bloodberri smiled and waved at them all, and strangely, they all smiled and waved back.