And Heroes Shall Be Summoned!

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It was a perfect day. Blue skies with lazy clouds floating along. The rolling meadows going on and on until walls of uncut trees rose up on the horizon. Sparrows and jays flew up and about, occasionally joined by a solitary raptor looking for a meal on the ground below. The gentle breeze carried off falling leaves from trees or dandelions sprouting from the grass, carrying them to far away fields to grow and begin the process once more.

Jehoshaphat Desiso took a moment from his letter writing to look out the window of his train and enjoy the scenery. Having been travelling for so long up and down the continent, he found that he never really gave enough attention to nature. Which was a shame since as a boy he had loved to play with the rest of the local children in the woods and nearby waterhole.

... Somewhere into adulthood I lost sight of the simple pleasures of going outside. If the war did one good thing, I suppose it was reintroducing me to the natural world.

The natural world went black. Outside, the train had entered a tunnel, going right through the mountain pass on there way to the border. The only light available to the passengers was the dim lamps set up high on the walls of the carriage. Joe did not bother straining his eyes, setting his pen beside the letter paper and waiting for the train to exit the darkness. A few minutes later and it was so. Joe grimaced when he looked out the window again.

On the other hand, he wrote, One need not go far to witness how war can turn that beauty into carnage.

The serenity of the natural world stopped at the mountains. On the other side were rows upon rows of trenches and rifle pits. Remnants of their occupants littered the dug up dirt; discarded caps and helmets, broken rifles and spent ammunition cases, bones of people and animals. With spring just beginning, the churned up battleground had not been given the opportunity to bloom yet and so the area within sight looked for like a wasteland with stumps and fallen trees left in the middle of the emptiness.

Thankfully, the city of Bellflower showed more signs of life than its surroundings. The three month siege and subsequent fire had burned down a third of the once bustling trading center, but the citizens had proven to be resilient and resourceful. They threw themselves into rebuilding with gusto, a task made easier when the railroad had been repaired as well. With supplies flowing into the city, it had not been too long before Bellflower would be back on its feet.

Bellflower was not why Joe was here, though he placed his journal back into his bag as he prepared to disembark once the train rolled into the station. It was ironic that while Bellflower had been fought over and fought in, once the war was over it sprung right back up but Lakewood had been spared from the fighting only to slide further into trouble as peace came to the land. Evidently, peace had become a relative term. The inner language arts professor in Joe twitched.

Once off the train, Joe and the representatives from the Lakewood city council obtained the cargo they had brought with them from the capital and obtained horses for the journey to the border.

"You know how to use those things?" One of the Lakewood citizens asked Joe, pointing to the crate with summoner stones in the cart behind them.

"I haven't had a chance to look at them yet." Joe said. "The crate is sealed. Don't worry, this'll keep people off our backs." Joe patted the revolver at his side. "Worst comes to worst, break the box and contract with the first monster you see."

The other man did not look reassured.

As it turned out, there was no trouble on the road to Lakewood. The tense six hour journey ended with a chorus of relieved sighs. City watchmen and excited children heralded their arrival while curious onlookers observed from the unpaved streets and windows.

Word of their arrival spread quickly. By the time Joe and the others had made it to the police station, which now doubled as the militia headquarters, a crowd had already gathered. Joe was reminded of children waiting for presents at Christmas. Or more recently, of recruits getting their first rifles after completing training.

"Okay, everyone!" the police chief shouted at the crowd, "Those of you who already have an elemental, bring 'em out and line up for inspection. "Those of you who were waiting for one, line up right here so we can hand them out!"

The crowd hustled about to their respective lines. Those with elementals summoned them as ordered while an inspector walked down the line taking notes. The others waited eagerly for their chance to grab a stone. One by one, everyone eventually had a stone in hand. The summoning of the new elementals began immediately.

"All right, whoever you are." Joe said to the stone, "Come forth!"

Aeric Dacier stood in his blacksmith workshop in Lakewood. Several weapons of strange appearance and in some cases, jobs, lay on several tables, in vices, and on sheets. He had a very large collection hung up around the walls, ranging from decorative excalibur type swords, to massive serrated cleavers. He was polishing a small dagger, with a blade resembling a dragon, the head as the tip with a curving neck and wing.

He rarely did much apart from make new weapons, more exotic the better. After his brother went missing in the war he had nothing to do, he never had any other siblings so the grocery shop the female relatives usually was converted into a storage/practise area for his swordsmanship. He finished up the polishing and rest the blade on a table off to the side he used for embedding gems and decoration.

He opened the window to clear the air and heard commotion outside, he couldnt see anything as the window was a narrow slit higher up the wall. So he opened the large doors into the workshop and saw a crowd gathered around a few men handing things out. I'd forgotten about the summoning stones...I never expected them to arrive unharmed... He started walking toward the crowd, pushing through the mill of people and reached the man handing the stones out. "Excuse me, i'd like a summoning stone, if you please"

The crate was being kept under the watchful eye of Joe, while two policemen with rifles stood guard over it. A third officer beside the crate checked the list of militia recruits in his hand as Aeric came to the front of the line. "Dacier... Dacier... Dacier... Ah, here you are! Give him one." he said to one of the guards.

With that done, Aeric now had a simple, smooth white stone in his hand.

Raymon Wildoran walked down the street, trying to walk as upright as he could. Just because he had his hands wrapped around a man's spleen an hour before was no excuse for carrying himself like a peasant. He had big dreams for this town, so he was going to walk up to the man and start a new chapter of his life.

"Evening, my good man," he said to the officer, "If you would be so kind as to give me one of those stones, I would be quite grateful."

"Hey, Doc." The officer greeted Raymon casually. "I already know you on here. Catch." He tossed the "Docter" a summoner stone.

Albert Hrakk stood in the crowd, dressed to the nines in the cape and armor of a real grizzled warlord, right down to the beard and eyepach. The one missing piece, though, was a sword, or any sort of weapon for that matter. He had gotten rid of it, left it at home. If he was going to learn to be a summoner, he was going to do it without the help of any other weapons distracting him. He stepped forward through the crowd, and held up his hand to take an orb. "Albert Hrakk, at your service. You're the guy giving out summoning orbs, I'm the guy to command 'em."

Emil ran up to the crowd, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath. He pushed his hands against his knees, holding himself up. After about half a minute of gasping, he straightened himself up. "Guess that's what I get for getting here late. This crowd is huge." He said as he lit a cigarette with a match.

He pushed through the crowd, muttering pardons as he bumped into people. Finally he pushed his way to the front and took his cigarette out of his mouth to speak. "Excuse me, I believe I'm supposed to get stoned- a stone! I'm suppose to get a stone?"

edited 27th Aug '13 1:25:35 PM by TehStanman

The next person in line was an older man whose family was known in Lakewood's history.

"Mr. Hrakk, miss the old place?" The policeman said with a grin as he handed the old soldier-for-hire a stone.

That same officer eyed Emil warily, but after confirming that he was indeed a member of the militia had him given a stone.

Reggie stepped forward. He knew this would only slow his apprenticeship as a scientist, and he always believed in working for the long time. But now was not this time, he knew it was right to defend the place that made him feel welcome. As the crowd around him coalesced he took his place in line.

He sternly looked at the supply of summon stones. His face did not betray the anxiety he felt about how little he knew about the beings these objects held. The unknown was sometimes a necessity...

Jason was nearly bouncing up and down with excitement, despite himself, as he got closer to the front of the line. He could not believe that he was so close to his dreams. In a short matter of time he would finally carry on his father's legacy as a summoner. He finally made it to the front of the line and politely introduced himself.

"Hello, my name is Jason Krieger, and I am here to finally get my Summoning stone."

"Thank you kindly," Raymon said as he took the stone, and went back a few dozen feet to be away from most of the hubub. Then he looked at the stone. And looked at it some more. This thing didn't exactly come with a manual. After saying a few command words, trying a few motion patterns, and other attempts to make the stone do... whatever it was the stone would do. There was one thing he didn't try yet, though. "Go!" he said as he threw the stone at the ground in front of him.

When the stone activated, a remarkably beautiful woman was standing in front of him. She was made out of water, so 'beautiful' was more of an approximation than it was a statement, but save for her being the wrong color, looked much like a regular young woman. And since she had just been summoned, it meant as she was standing right there, she was effectively naked.

"Oh my.... Put a shirt on," he said, taking off his coat and draping it over her.

After checking his name, the officer dropped one of the fist-sized stones into Reggie's hand. Right after him came Jason, who found himself holding a stone of his own a few second later.

"Elementals out! Line up for inspection!" The police chief shouted.

Joe got in line with the rest of them, the woman who had come from the stone following him quietly until she spotted Raymon and his elemental. Both were water types and obviously female, but whereas Raymon's was actually made of water, the woman with Joe just had a blue tint to her skin. Her simple white dress billowed about her as she approached the other elemental, the cuirass covering her chest giving her a look like that of a war goddess from the ancient world. She proved to be an elemental with no sense of personal space when she moved her face up to Raymon's elemental with only a few inches separating their noses. She examined her with a curious and critical eye.

"Hey, summoner!" She said as she suddenly turned around to look at Joe. "Whose prettier, her or me?" Then she looked at Doc Raymon. "And what about you? What's your opinion?"

"Alright then." Emil said as he walked over to a trash can to toss his cigarette. Then he just stared at his stone for a few seconds, his mind drifting to his first encounter with an Elemental. After tossing it up and down in his hand a couple of times, he finally held the stone out in front of him. "Hear goes..." He muttered under his breath. "I summon you!"

With those words as its cue, the stone emitted a flash of light, and then... nothing. "Huh?" Emil said aloud, puzzled by his apparently botched summon. "Did it not work?" He said to himself, looking to the left and then to the right. "Maybe I should try it again."

As he held his stone out a second time, he felt a small tug on his leg. When he looked down, his jaw almost hit the ground as he observed a small bear not unlike the plushies found in a four-year-old's bedroom hugging his leg with heartfelt affection.

"Happy birthday, Emil." He sighed to himself.

"Uguu~?"

"I prefer not to talk about such things in proper company," Raymon said. "But if you think I would say anything negative regarding my lovely ladyfriend, then you are sorely mistaken."

With a mischievous grin, he leaned in towards her, "Besides, it's an unfair competition. In order to judge accurately, you'd have to wear what she's wearing."

Jason, who had never seen a summon actually take place was suddenly panicking when he realized that he had no idea how to actually summon an elemental. He was staring down at the stone in has hands for a few minutes before he realized that some of the others had already begun summoning. This really made Jason panic, before he decided that all he had to do was mimic what the others where doing.

So, after a minute or so passed, Jason held the stone out and said, "I..Uh, Summon thee Elemental." It took him a moment to realize what he just said was completely off the walls cliché. However, before he could truly complain, a 6 foot tall suit of armor in a naval coat appeared in front of him.

"'Ello good sir, my name is Gentarme and it is my pleasure to make your acquaintance." With that, the summon bowed to the summoner.