16 Suns

--- Jon ---

“Surprised you’re keeping up so well.” His ma told him, once more reminding him of the fact that he was significantly better at fighting now than before his latest Summer in Blackwell.

“It’s not that hard.” He admitted, trying to buy time as he came up with an actual excuse. “I mean-”

He deflected a knife strike by pushing her forearm away with his own, before using the opportunity to get in a quick hit with his own dulled blade and fleeing before his ma could retaliate.

“-once you get used to dropping one thing and running to another, this becomes really easy.” He explained, rushing a few meters deeper into the forest before dashing in for another clash. “If you think this is impressive you try running between thirty kids stuck inside with hot glue guns and paint.”

Rather than sprinting ahead, his ma seemed to pause to consider what he’d said, before nodding. “Sound’s legit. I got a lot of multitasking practice when you were little.”

“I wasn’t that bad was I?” He asked with a touch of worry.

“No, you were a sweet kid.” His ma assured him with an amused grin. “Doesn’t change the fact that you were also a very curious child. You have no idea how many times I had to pull you out of someplace you weren’t supposed to be.”

“That’s not good.” He admitted with a frown.

“Worst part?” His ma smiled. “I’d childproofed the entire house and you somehow figured out how to get around all of it on your own.”

“Huh…”

“Yep, you’ve always been a clever kid.” His ma nodded. “Though you’re slowing down a bit, since you’ve dropped your guard.”

“Wha-Ah?!” He dodged the knife his ma threw at him. “Hey, family bonding is neutral time!”

“Fighting time is family bonding time.” His ma reminded him.

Scene Consequences

-Gained 1XP to Knives and Mobility

--Currently: Knives Lv. 3 (2/8) and Mobility Lv. 5 (11/12)

---

(Well, I can’t say this one isn’t about relationships.) He was forced to admit as he continued through the book. (Too bad it’s all so… complicated…)

The latest book the librarian had given him in his attempts to study relationships did not follow a protagonist with a lack of survival instincts, but instead a group of friends. Unfortunately, this group of friends had an extremely complicated series of tangles that he could not decipher to save his life. (It’s so bad I can’t even remember their names half of the time!)

Shaking his head, he pulled out a piece of paper and started drawing out connections between people, because given what he was reading he was honestly a little scared of mixing up anyone’s names.

(Alright so if I’ve got this right… this girl is dating this guy, but in love with this guy, who is dating this girl, who happens to be guy A’s sister and friends with another girl who is in love with girl A but is pretending to date this other guy because he hasn’t come out yet, but that guy is in love with guy B and is girl A’s cousin?) Or that’s what he could decipher anyway.

(What’s worse is that that is all before you bring in the adults in their lives.) Because I’m pretty sure there was something about guy C and guy A -or was that guy B and guy A? (really hope it wasn’t guy C and B…)- having the same father because their father dated the mothers of half of the group before all of this.

Groaning in actual pain, he crumpled the page up before throwing it into a nearby bin on the other side of the library, getting an applause from one of the nearby students for some reason.

(Okay, I get that relationships are complicated. I get people can have all sorts of relationships between each other. I get that two people can be related without involving a third. All of that’s just fine and dandy.)

What he wanted to know though, was (why does it need to be so complicated a hundred pages into the first book?!)

He felt he could –(maybe)- decipher all of this if it’d been spread out across three or four books with revelations about everyone’s connections slowly coming to light. But the fact that they wanted to cram such a complicated dodecahedron of relationships into a single book?

(Haven’t these people heard of pacing?!)

Scene Consequences

-Jon has taken a small amount of mental damage.

-Gained 1XP to Psych Warfare for experiencing something that can count as such.

---

“Alright, so everything looks like the diagram in both books.” He told Pix, once more going over the complicated Spell Circuit that took up the majority of his room’s floor space. One that would summon a magical creature from some random place in the multiverse based on what variables were filled into the blank spots around the circle’s edges.

Luckily, while he may not have known what variables to fill into those blanks he did however still have the Confidant Catalyst he’d bought from the Witch’s Wares a few days prior.

“Okay, so let’s see here…” He opened the little hand drawn instructions Miss Delacroix had given him to (‘make sure you don’t fuck up and summon an eldritch horror to eat your soul’) as she’d put it.

(Which was really nice of her, since I’d really rather not deal with another one of those.) He admitted to himself as he re-read the instructions.

“To activate the Confidant Catalyst, draw a standard contracting circle with variables left blank.” She’d underlined those last two words, and he felt the need to eye his circuit once more before nodding. “Check. Next apply blood of the caster to the catalyst, to designate the contractor through genetic and magical imprint.”

He handed the paper to Pix, as he pulled out his knife before pricking one of his fingers and waiting for a decent amount of blood to build up. Once it had, he smeared the blood between the fake skull’s eyes before taking the instructions back from Pix, who refused to hand it over until he let her heal his finger.

“Alright, and lastly set the catalyst in the center of the circle before flowing magic into the circuit and wait for the re-write to finish in five to ten minutes depending on magical capacity and local variables. Do not interfere with the process after it has begun.” That last line was again underlined.

“Easy enough.” He nodded as he set the fake skull in the center of the circle.

As he fed magic into the circle familiar sparks began to fly through the air, a sight that while incredible, he had seen enough to not give him pause. What did catch his attention however was the fact that he could see the circle changing minutely with each pass of electricity over its surface.

(Huh, cool.)

“Just got to wait a few minutes for this to-” The doorbell rang. “finish?”

He glanced at the door to his room before glancing at the still active circle, remembering Miss Delacroix’s final instruction on the catalyst.

(Maybe I should just-) The bell rang again. (deal with that…)

“I’ll be right back.” He told Pix before making his way to the front door, closing his own behind him.

He opened the front door right as the bell was ringing for the third time and found Miss Valentine outside with Kenneth pressing the bell.

“See told you he’d come if you rang it.” Miss Valentine cooed at the toddler.

(Oh, oh no.) He realized what Miss Valentine wanted immediately. “You want me to watch Kenneth for you?”

“Yeah, I know I forgot to give you my schedule at work, but I’ve got shifts for the next few days.” Miss Valentine explained, not catching the hint of panic to his tone. “You’re still good to watch Kenneth right?”

His eyes darted toward his room where he could clearly see a lightshow from beneath the door’s frame. (No, I’m not.)

He wouldn’t have attempted his summoning if he’d known he was babysitting, what’s more he couldn’t just kill the ritual because the last line of Miss Delacroix’s instructions and comments insinuated that that would be a very bad idea.

(No, wait. The Catalyst just re-writes the circle to summon something specifically tuned to me. I don’t actually have to activate it do I?) He wasn’t completely sure, but he very much doubted he’d given the spell enough power for both whatever it was doing now, and the actual summon given how much magic summoning Pix cost him. (Yeah, that’s right. I can just take care of the actual summoning after she picks Kenneth up, or hide the circle from ma until I get a chance to use it.)

Course set, he gave Miss Valentine a smile as he took Kenneth from her, placing the toddler on his hip. “It’s no problem, I just had something cooking when you rang.”

“Thank you.” Miss Valentine smiled back, his moment of silence apparently worrying her.

“Mm-hmm. I just got to get back before anything burns.” He assured her, before turning to Kenneth. “You going to tell Momma goodbye?”

Miss Valentine chuckled before leaning in and kissing Kenneth’s forehead. “Okay, sweetie you be good for Jon alright? And Momma loves you very much.”

Kenneth kiss Miss Valentines cheek before the older woman left, leaving the two of them alone.

“Alright, we’ve got this.” He told himself as much as Kenneth. “I’ve faced worse problems at Camp Bet then a mistimed spell. Nothing I can’t handle.”

The door to his room burst open as Pix came flying out with a panicked series of trilling sounds.

(Dang it.)

“Brutus.” He barked, getting the old dog to jump to attention as he set a confused Kenneth in front of him. “Protect.”

The old military dog gave him a bark of confirmation, before licking at the toddler’s face, earning a giggle despite from the child unaware of the situation.

“Pix with me.” He ordered, as he made his way back to his room where a number of erratic lights were pouring out.

As he caught sight of the re-written spell circuit he felt a sudden tug on the magic in stored in his amulet. Something that caused a snarl to work its way up his throat. “Oh, of course the catalyst is designed to take payment for its sequel spell! Can’t have anyone recreating the Confidant Circle themselves!”

Shaking his head, he took a step into his room, and felt his vision immediately begin to swim as the circle’s light grew ever brighter, until something snapped, and the light erupted sending a wave of magic rippling through his own.

And even blinded by the light he could still, see, hear, (no) feel the vision that tore through his mind as a wolf’s howl called out to the Moon, the Hunt beginning with each new beast of the pack taking its fill.