Summoner school 5 a reve.., p.1
Summoner School 5: A Reverse Portal Fantasy, page 1
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Chapter 1
“Th-thank you for helping me,” Stacy said.
I closed the door to my dorm room and then resealed it with the shields that kept any passersby from listening into our conversation. They would also keep the rest of the campus safe from the technomage if this ended up being some kind of trap. I doubted that she planned to try to kill me, but it had taken a teleportation amulet to arrive at Magia Schola, and there was no way to know just how many her people had.
The technomages all thought that they were the superior humans and that they used technology and not magic, though all of their inventions still had the spell sigils that we arcane mages used. It was the kind of insanity that was beyond any real conversation, though the blonde scientist in my room did seem smart enough to realize what was actually going on. Still, she’d threatened to do experiments on me at one point, and that couldn’t be something that was just swept under the rug.
I kept one hand in my pocket so that I could summon a swarm of wasps if needed. The tight quarters would be too hard for my jackalope to maneuver in, and the will-o’-wisp would probably eat Stacy before we could have an actual conversation. I didn’t want to attack first, especially since the usually put together woman looked like she’d been through every level of hell over the last few days.
“I’ll hear you out,” I said and ran a hand through my hair with my free hand.
The others had all headed off to relax and get some rest after breakfast, except for Rarus, who I was pretty sure was heading toward the stadium to train. We had a full day and a half before the headmaster’s public wake and memorial, so Ira would be busy with the preparations and getting the word out across the nine realms, and that might include Sarya’s help since her father was head of the magical council. My friends would all return the second that I sent a distress signal through the transportation amulet in my own pocket, but I didn’t want to cry wolf if Stacy really needed our help.
I also seriously doubted that any of them would give the technomage a chance to talk since every other interaction with her had ended with a fight. The only time that she’d ever ran instead of shot at us was when Sarya and I went to the South American mage temple to find that the shadow creatures had already stolen the mana from every single villager. And I distinctly remember how thin Stacy had looked compared to when she’d been stationed across the street from my grandmother’s house to spy on us.
“I’ll take whatever I can get,” the blonde woman said and ran a hand through her greasy hair as if that would fix the tangled mess.
The usually put together Barbie-doll-like woman was even thinner than the last time that I saw her, like she hadn’t eaten since we chased her through the woods to the invisible ship that the technomages used to get around. The shadows in the room made her pale skin sallow, and her cheekbones were sharp enough that they could cut someone. Even her blue eyes were dull, though that probably had something to do with the heavy bags under them like she hadn’t slept in days.
Stacy’s Metallica shirt was wrinkled and pockmarked with holes in random places like moths had gotten to it, and her shorts were cut off with uneven strings that hung down her thighs. It was the messiest that I’d ever seen the technomage. Dark bruises that looked like they’d started to heal were spotted all around her body along with burn marks that reminded me of a taser mark one of the guys I used to work with showed me, and there were welts on her wrists like she’d been restrained.
“What happened to you?” I asked and walked over to my dresser.
Every muscle in my body was tensed so that I could defend myself if she pulled a weapon on me, but there wasn’t much room to hide weapons in her outfit. A small neon pink drawstring backpack hung from one shoulder, but the bulge inside looked more like the edges of a laptop than the butt of a gun. The perfect pinup with smarts and a quick wit looked like she’d fallen all the way to the bottom of a well and had started living on the streets instead of the high-tech weapons silo that acted as a home base for her sect of technomages.
I could smell her from across the room as if she hadn’t bathed in days. All of my laundry was clean at the moment, so I grabbed some jeans and an old blue shirt that would match her eyes. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing, and if the technomage had any weapons hidden somewhere using an invisibility shield, then she’d have to reveal them when she went to bathe. It would also give me the opportunity to peek through her backpack to find out what she thought was important enough to take with her on the streets.
“It’s kind of a long story,” she blushed and took the clothes. “I-I’ll go change and then tell you everything.”
“Go ahead and take a shower,” I said. “The bathroom is right over there. You can use my stuff. Atlesia and Sarya brought back some facial wash, shampoo, and conditioner from an elven spa that’s supposed to be amazing. It smells like lavender and eucalyptus, so that’s nice.”
“Elven?” Stacy asked and wrinkled her nose.
The technomage closed her eyes and took a deep breath like she needed to take a second to gather herself. Stacy did have years of brainwashing to overcome if she was going to ask for my help, because the others would definitely be right there with me if we were about to save the nine realms, and there would be no room for the technomage’s disdain.
“It’s fine,” she said and headed to the bathroom. “I appreciate this.”
“Leave the bathroom door open,” I said as she started to shut it. “I don’t trust you enough to leave you alone. You don’t have to worry about me watching. I just don’t want you to have the chance to attack me with one of those guns.”
“Sure,” she said with a weak smile. “Here, you can take my amulet. That way you can be sure that I’m not about to bring more people in here. And here’s my backpack. I know that you want to go through it. The only thing in there is my personal laptop. I wouldn’t turn it on right now, or they’ll try to track me.”
Her words caught at the mention of the technomages, and tears pricked the corners of her sky-blue eyes. I also noticed the goosebumps that erupted all over the blonde’s exposed skin and the way that the tough woman tried to hide the marks on her wrists. Whatever had happened had to have come from her own people, and if there was a problem with the technomages, then it was better to know before they figured out a way to attack us, especially if there were more transportation amulets.
The brilliant scientist had managed to get her hands on one of the moonstones after a coordinated attack with some of the gnomes. We’d broken into the two-story house across the street from my grandmother’s old house, grabbed as much information as we could, and then blew it all to smithereens. But Tanner had dropped his transportation amulet when the technomages chased him through the woods, and we’d had to launch another mission to go into the heart of the beast just to get it back, but apparently not before Stacy could make at least one replica.
The transportation amulets were easy enough to get for arcane mages like myself, but the technomages had made a point of avoiding any contact with supernatural creatures for more than a hundred years, so the sect had lost the spells required to create one. Which was good, since the last thing that any of the realms needed was the crazy fanatics in their backyard, especially with the shadow creatures on the prowl. But I wouldn’t put it past the group to use any replicas of Tanner’s lost stone to try and launch a coordinated attack of their own and wipe out all of the so-called abominations.
“Thanks,” I said and took the moonstone and backpack. “And we’re going to meet the others somewhere safer for us to talk. I’ll let them know while you’re getting showered.”
“O-of course,” she said and tugged at her wrinkled clothes. “Then I should definitely shower. I can’t give a presentation looking and smelling like this. A-Andrew… Thank you for not kill-killing me at first sight.”
“We ‘abominations’ don’t do that,” I said and then motioned to the bathroom.
I watched the thin blonde woman head into the bathroom and then shut the door so that it was only opened a crack. Every warning bell went off in the back of my head as the water turned on and steam started to drift into the room. I was sure that the technomage had been through something terrible, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d wanted to actually put Atlesia and me in a cage and experiment on us.
“I need to let everyone know what’s going on,” I said and turned to my desk.
I sat down on my twin-sized bed and sent slips of paper through the transportation amulet to the others. The moonstones could open a portal to anywhere that I could picture or point to on map, so I could send written communications easily enough, and on a good day, we could even use the devices like walkie-talkies. But that last feature was as spotty as cell phone reception in a warehouse, so we usually just sent quick notes, especially if we were talking about something that we didn’t want everyone else to ove rhear.
Stacy’s voice drifted through the room as I sent the last message to Rarus, and a smile tugged on my lips at the sound of an old pop song, but then the lyrics cut off as if she’d remembered where she was. I’d told everyone to meet in our usual spot in the south forest where we’d have some privacy, and where we could defend ourselves if this turned into some kind of trap.
The drawstring backpack sat on the bed in front of me, and I tugged it open to peer inside. A silver laptop just like the one that had been in Stacy and Charles’ basement took up most of the space, but there was a small dark orange USB, and one of the leather-bound journals that the scientist liked to use for her notes. There wasn’t even a pen to write with, and papers had been shoved into the notebook as if the blonde had been in a hurry when she’d packed.
Something bad had happened to Stacy since Sarya and I had seen her in the South American forest, and my mind raced with every possibility. I still considered the scientist a threat even without a weapon, but the terrified expression she’d had at the mage temple flashed across my mind. If the brilliant woman had figured out that we were telling the truth about the technomages using magic and not just advanced technology, then her fanatical brethren would take that as an act of rebellion, and maybe even try to torture her back into their way of thinking.
Of course, it could all just be an elaborate trap to have me lower my defenses and let her in. It was bad enough that I’d let her past the barriers around my dorm room, but those were easily reestablished, and there hadn’t been time to take her out into the south forest with everyone bustling around campus. As long as I had her moonstone we were safe, because no reinforcements could portal in without showing their hand, and my roommate’s fungal spores were keyed into every energy signature in our friend group so that they could put anyone to sleep that wasn’t welcomed.
Mike had experimented with the sleep mushrooms over the last week to accomplish the task, and Sarya had been the first one to test it. The redheaded elf had used her transportation amulet to get past the barriers, but the spores had still released since my roommate hadn’t added her energy signature to the device he’d planted in the soil. The tree-man was a mad scientist, and I definitely didn’t understand half of what he did, but there was no denying how well his inventions worked.
A knock on the door startled me out of my thoughts, and I instinctively reached for the wasps in my pocket. The headmaster was dead, but we knew of at least three teachers that had been working with the shadow creatures, and there were probably students involved as well. I glanced at the bathroom and then headed to answer the door right as it pushed inwards to reveal my girlfriend.
“Are you serious?” she asked and flipped her shoulder-length lavender hair. “That crazy blonde is here? And you let her past the barriers? She wanted to cage us, if you don’t remember. How did she even get to Magia Schola in the first place? You don’t think she made a copy of the transportation amulet before we could steal it back, do you?”
“Atlesia,” I chuckled and put my hands up to stop the onslaught of questions.
The green-skinned flower-woman glared up at me with eyes the color of freshly tilled soil, and a frown tugged the corners of her turquoise lips. It was hard to take the curvy woman seriously when she was dressed in a white crop top with a kitten, but I knew better than most not to test the flower nymph’s rage. Especially when it came to someone who’d threatened to hurt the people that she loved.
“I don’t intend to harm anyone,” Stacy said as she came out of the bathroom and offered a tentative smile to the nymph.
The pants that I’d lent her were loose enough that they almost fell off, and the t-shirt had been tied off so that it showed off her midriff. The middle-aged woman’s ribs were so visible that I had the sudden urge to feed her, and there was a burn mark that had the braid pattern of wire or rope. Stacy’s hair draped over one shoulder as she dried it with a small towel like this was just another normal day, but her eyes still held the haunted expression that they had when she first came into my room.
“You say that now,” my girlfriend said and put her hands on her hips. “Why are you covered in bruises? Did you try to fight one of us ‘abominations’ and lost? That’s what you deserve. You and all of your kind.”
“Atlesia,” I said and put a hand on her shoulder.
“It wasn’t one of your kind,” Stacy said as her smile faltered.
Tears pricked the corners of the technomage’s eyes, and I noticed that her wedding ring was gone when she swiped at her face. The Ken doll that Stacy was married to was exactly the kind of jerk that actually would take apart someone piece by piece, even someone he supposedly loved. I didn’t think that the scientist in front of me would have tortured us that much since her main interest seemed to be in how we used magic, but there still would’ve been a lot of bloodletting and concoctions that we were forced to take if she’d been able to put us in those cages in their basement and her husband had been there to supervise.
“When’s the last time you ate?” the flower nymph asked with a deep scowl.
I had to fight the urge to smile at Atlesia’s natural instinct to feed and care for people even when she wanted to fight them. It was one of the things that I loved most about the flower nymph, and the fact that she could worry about Stacy after everything that we’d been through was a testament to how forgiving the lavender-haired woman could be.
“I-It’s been awhile,” Stacy said and started to braid her hair like she just needed something to do with her hands. “But I’m fine. I-I just came here for help.”
“Feeding you is helping you,” Atlesia said and rolled her eyes. “Here. I’ll grow you some apples. I’ve been working on making a new version that’s both sweet and tart for Rela’s tarts. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe for humans to eat.”
Atlesia pulled a couple of apple seeds out of her backpack and then infused them with a little of her green-tinted magic. Little vines broke apart the seed’s casings and formed into apples that filled my girlfriend’s hands. The flower nymph grinned at how well they turned out, sniffed one, and then handed both of them to Stacy.
Most of the flower nymphs in the senior class couldn’t grow fruit that quickly, and that was especially true when it was a new hybrid that was still in the experimental phase, but Atlesia wasn’t a normal woman. She’d already figured out how to grow the deadly corpse flower despite professional nymphs not being able to pull that off without keeling over. Still, it was amazing to see my girlfriend’s awesome power at work.
“That was amazing,” the technomage gasped. “You-you can just grow your own food? Even our best Agri-gene engineers can’t grow fruit that quickly.”
“Yeah,” the green-skinned woman answered with a suspicious stare. “Why? Planning on caging me and having me fill your gardens?”
Stacy ignored the jab and took a tentative bite of one of the apples. A groan escaped the blonde’s lips like it was the best thing that she’d ever eaten, and soon, both of the sweet treats were completely devoured. The technomage’s bright blue eyes seemed to fill with life as her stomach was filled, and the tension started to drain from her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she said after the last bite. “I haven’t eaten in so long, but I think those would be the best apples that I’ve ever had even if I’d just eaten a huge feast.”
“Thanks,” Atlesia said with a grin.
“Let’s head out now that you’re fed and clean,” I said and motioned to the door. “If anyone asks, then you’re a friend from the human world that’s a late bloomer and thinks she has some magic.”
“I do,” Stacy said in a quiet voice. “I spent so much time hating all of you, but we’re the same. Completely the same.”
Atlesia and I shared a look but let the quiet admission go as we headed to the door. Whatever Stacy had been through had definitely changed her outlook on life, and the technomage looked as haunted as the north forest after sunset. I almost felt bad for her, but the scientist still wasn’t trustworthy yet, and I had her amulet in my pocket right next to my own.
The campus was bustling with activity as everyone prepared for spring break. Some of the students had already gone back home and decided to skip the headmaster’s memorial on Monday to get a head start on the spring break, but most of my fellow mages had stayed on if only to keep up on all the latest rumors. A few of the conversations that we picked up on our way to the south forest focused on the thought that Alec Enzaron had tried to save the nine realms from the shadow creatures and lost, but Atlesia and I knew the truth.
