White Flower, Black Feather

Calling for Help

Brenna woke up feeling hungry and dizzy, barely noticing that the tree stopped hiding her

‘I… should have waited…’ it wasn't much, but it was annoying enough for her to regret not waiting for the next fruit while stretching her slightly larger body ‘Ugh…’

-It was a good opportunity to do it! And if you are curious: it should be past noon right now-

‘Ah… thanks… I should have time to find some fruits…’ a quick glance up confirmed the time her Helper gave her, but no matter where she looked… ‘Still nothing from Sunny…?’

The ladybug wasn't there…

-She must be with Miriam-

‘I’m that boring to be around or something…?’ she made a small joke before shaking her head, feeling some fog in her brain as she moved ‘I could swear she liked my singing… Status’

‘Not enough to buy anything… is there anything new in the shop?’

-Nope! Just higher costs. Oh! Don’t worry about “(Magic)” not appearing with the name of your Species, it was just a minor indicator, not part of it-

Brenna nodded at the message, not even remembering about that word until it was mentioned, and looked at her surroundings again before looking at her body, she appreciated her new size, but didn’t noticed anything blatantly different in her body

The only difference that was easy for her to feel, was in her magic. She had a far greater amount in both her inner sea and the Magic Organ

‘Ugh…’ but her hunger was something more… annoying… at the moment, stopping her from trying to gauge it ‘Where should I-?’

‘Ah?’

-Oh! Must be a big swarm! If they are being this direct, you should flee!-

‘Ah! Right!’ Brenna shook her head again and took flight moving above the trees ‘…?!!!’

Just to see a few wasps at a stone throw from her position flying at her… and a massive cloud of them not that far behind those…

‘AAAHHH!!!’ and her mind snapped into focus almost painfully so. Her first instinct was to fly away, so she did just that, moving to the west while opening her Grimoire and searching for her flying spell while the buzzing of the wasps intensified behind her

A headache started to grow, as she was realizing that her mind and body weren't acting at their fullest…

Only when she managed to use that spell and fly faster, is that she dared to glance at the swarm chasing her, noticing some differences between the individual wasps besides the sizes

On average, most of them were around the size of her wingspan, while the bigger ones had the size of motorbikes. The ones smaller than her, were faster than the rest and had in the abdomens multiple small stingers, around the bigger central one

Some of those abdomens were aiming forwards at-

Bam! Bam! Bam!

‘WHAT?!!!’ Brenna was forced to roll in the air, hearing multiple projectiles fly next to her, because those wasps were capable of firing the small extra stingers without loosing speed

-There must be a Queen without a nest nearby! There is no reason for them to make a swarm, or chase you like this, otherwise!-

Before she was able to think about the message, or ask for a solution, the trees rustled below her…

‘More killing?!’ and she… guessed… what the trees wanted…

Ascending sharply while looking for a spell she hadn't practiced much, while the whole swarm started to fly up towards her-

‘Lightning Coat!’ the swarm wasn't expecting her to fling herself down at them while covered in electricity

CRACKLE!!!

The effectiveness of her spell was felt immediately. Many of the small and medium sized wasps tried to attack her body, but the moment they got close enough the electricity jumped through the creatures, not letting them, and those near them, touch Brenna

The smaller ones died the moment they came into contact with the lightning, making their bodies fire their stingers at random, those shoots missed her and started to hit other wasps, causing chaos and anger between those not hit by her magic, incidentally making many of the wasps to ignore their orders and attack each other

The medium ones weren't dying with the spell, instead those hit by it became paralyzed, letting gravity be the one that finished them and any other wasp that was struck by the falling bodies

Brenna wasn't fully aware of this, she was mostly grateful of not being hit while scanning the swarm, trying to find a wasps that screamed “Unique” or had any distinctive feature-

Bump!

Caw!

‘Ow!’ getting hit by the first big wasp that managed to get close enough

Her coat didn’t paralyzed it, but it was enough to make the wasp flinch as it moved, turning a bisecting bite into a tackle. The momentum of the creature during the collision with her, disrupted Brenna’s spell

Thankfully even with her hollow bones, she didn’t received much damage from the impact, but she did started to fall down…

‘AAAHHH!!!’ making her panic at the sight of all those wasps surrounding her

And struggled to recover control as she moved down, weaving between the aggressive wasps, abandoning the idea of looking for a queen, just focusing on evading the insects and branches until she reached the ground

‘Earth Dome!’ and landed immediately making the dirt cover her-

Crack!

‘Eek!’ her dome was pierced by many stingers and mandibles that were trying to reach her ‘Earth Shift!’ so she dug herself deeper, doing her best to place more dirt between them, remain away from the wasps that she could hear start digging towards her ‘Ah?!’

Until she reached a root that stopped her a few meters down… but she managed to take a deep breath

‘All right… ow…’ and look around the small underground pocket she made, illuminating it with the light coming from her blue eyes ‘This… ow… should give me some time…?’ she didn’t knew that her eyes now had a natural metallic glint, while she was trying to not let the pain overwhelm her

‘What do you…? Ah…’ she covered her head with a stiff wing ‘The Line…’ the sounds coming from above intensified with the buzzing from the wasps becoming more annoying with time ‘What do I do…?’ a sound made her look forwards again

‘What?! No! If my Lightning Coat can be dispelled by touching the big ones, then I can’t…!’ she got a sudden dizziness invading her body ‘Ugh… I need help…’

-I know it’s not a good time, but when the trees were rustling, they were telling you about going south… I suppose that the Evolution Nausea didn’t let you understand them…-

‘Noted… but they don’t go telling me to run often, do they…?’ she tried to not grow irritated, but the sounds coming from above, were intensifying… ‘I don’t suppose they can summon some… help…’

That word froze her…

‘I… summon…? Wait! When you said “All magic” that includes Summoning?!’

-Yes!-

Brenna couldn’t get happy after reading that message… because her Grimoire opened on a blank page without her input…

‘W-what?!’ that message made her shiver ‘W-why a tricky god controls that?!’

‘Wait!’ her protests didn’t stopped what was happening

The page glowed as silver lines swam on her Grimoire tracing many symbols and geometrical shapes. That all together started to form many circles around circles… for some unknown reason…

Brenna had a sense of… familiarity… coming from those patterns…

Then the silver glow started to spread into the circle, becoming a mercurial puddle that was perfectly flat

CAW!!!

‘AH?!!!’ with all the magic of her organ getting pulled towards the circle, creating fast ripples that focused in the middle of the surface

Making a drop of it float up and just as the spell started to use the magic in her sea, the tear crystallized and soundlessly fell back in…

/////

Far away in another world, a dark gray-skinned woman just lazily greeted a new young customer inside her shop while yawning, she wasn't sure if he was an adult yet or not…

He wasn't offended or angry at her yawning, because he knew that blacksmiths worked at night, so, seeing who he was told was the owner, directly manning the shop at noon, was actually a bit surprising for him

“So… what I can do for you? If you are here for birth-control potions, check the shelf in the corner” not many humans bought weapons from her, so she had branched out into potions too, and those were the most… popular… potions she sold…

Even if healing potions were just two shelves away…

“Ah…?” he blushed and coughed in his hand while shaking his head “No! No… I want… I need a sword” she glanced at the weapon strapped to his waist, but the moment she was about to point at the wall behind her, he lifted a hand to continue “A magic sword…”

“Bonded swords cost a minimum of two platinum coins” he winced, loudly, at the cost, almost making her smile “And I need about two weeks to make them…” he waved his hands while shaking his head

“I was told by the mayor that you have… not-Bonded magic swords…? Can I call them that?” she nodded, before he placed on the counter between them a signet, two sealed envelopes carrying thick letters, and a scroll of parchment with golden ‘Veins’ glowing in it. Everything was from a pouch that looked too small to carry all of that “She will pay for one”

The blacksmith raised an eyebrow, but didn’t said anything until she confirmed that all the items were genuine. Only then she nodded and gestured to three exposed swords hanging on the wall to her left

“Did the young grandma gave you a prize range?” she chuckled “My cheapest… oh?”

The sword in the middle of the other two glowed softly, pulling the attention of the two of them as it vibrated…

And vanished without another sound…

“Ah…?” he was confused by that, but didn’t said anything since a floating tear-shaped crystal appeared next to the woman

“Ah!” she grabbed it with care and analyzed it “I was wondering when that was going to happen…” she nodded at the crystal with satisfaction “Good, I accept this as payment for that sword”

She smiled and placed it under the counter, before looking at the young adult with her smile widening slightly

“Sorry, that was the cheapest one” even if she was trying to sound professional about that

/////

The surface of the puddle sunk briefly-

BOOM!!!

CAW?!!!

And something too fast for Brenna to see shoot upwards, immediately destroying the ground and wasps above her, making a lot of loose dirt fall on top of her. Most of it was thrown around that spot, so she wasn't in danger of getting buried

‘AAAHHH?!!!’ but she couldn't stop herself from feeling fear from the sudden impact, or from the dirt falling on top of her, or from the sounds of something sharp cutting the air… and creatures… above her…

What scared her the most… was how quickly her magic was being consumed…

So, once she realized that she wasn't in danger of being buried, she shook her body and tried to see what was happening above…

Brenna saw a blur passing through the wasps, piercing, cutting, bisecting. A rain of body parts and many insect fluids, was falling all around the place where she landed. Just as she started to feel sick from the carnage, she saw it up above the trees

The Wasp Queen was pink and black, currently riding the abdomen of a far bigger wasp, the queen lacked wings, and her own abdomen was almost as big as the one of the wasp below-

SLASH!!!

But she couldn't see more details, because the moment she made eye contact with the wasp, the thing that came out of her Grimoire pierced through both the Queen and the one below

Ding

Causing the rest of the swarm to flee as the sharp thing started to spin in the air chasing a few stragglers

‘Ah?’ suddenly stopping and letting her see that it was a sword aiming at her, before shooting towards her ‘AH?!’ too fast for her to even think about moving away-

THUNK!!!

Just to stab the ground in front of her… letting her see the simple shape of the double edged sword, the rectangular guard of a yellowish metal that she confused with gold, the leather bound grip… and the blue jewel on the pommel of the weapon

‘…?!’ making her freeze… ‘It’s… judging me…?’ there was a pressure coming from it…

Joined by a feeling of dissatisfaction…

Before all her magic was consumed, her Grimoire closed by itself and the sword glowed for a second before vanishing. Leaving her there to get out of the hole and look at the… hundreds… of body parts that were created in the few seconds the weapon was summoned…

Her book opened again in a different page…

The message and what she could see on the page made her shiver…

/////

And she truly wasn't told anything until she finally ate from the nearby bodies

Brenna didn’t liked it… but once she started to pretended to ignore what her body was doing, the process became faster

Her hunger going away helped a bit, but she still flew away the moment she didn’t needed to eat more, and when she landed on a branch she finally got the explanation

Summoning could represent a treaty between two beings to achieve a mutual benefit, an attempt to dominate and control another, or simply bringing a person/object from one place to another

This time The Trickster used their own magic and a previous contract, to buy the sword and once that was done, an “Empty Pact” was made. Letting Brenna maintain the summon briefly, but from that point, she was the one that needed to use her magic for everything

The Trickster explained what the symbols drawn on her Grimoire meant, the things she could do with it, and what she could and couldn't modify. This was important because one of the largest limitations to the this kind of magic, other than distance, was the size of the Gate (The summoning circle in her Grimoire)

Sapphire was summoned from a small list of things that could past such a small Gate, but this wasn't the reason the sword got angry…

Her anger was due to being summoned to kill weaklings, by just a summoner, and not a true wielder…

Future Summons, if any, depended entirely on Brenna. So, The Trickster left to her the homework of making spells for: contacting other entities, and the creation of Pacts with the summons, explaining that the symbols already provided should be enough for that task

She also needed to make a proper Pact with Sapphire, or find a way to make her happy. Otherwise if someone else summoned her, she could kill Brenna in her anger

‘Wait. She?’

‘Ugh… right, I’m a gi… a bird now…’ she shook her head and continued to read the rest of the message ‘By who…? And don’t worry, I don’t like those either…’

Once she repeated the message a couple times on her head, she sighed, doing her best to not remember the scene that she saw minutes before…

‘You just killed any desire I had to try this type of magic, you know…?’ she got a message full of laughter, and her Helper added another one

-I think… that was the idea…- after a couple seconds the message changed -Now you need to eat twice per day at the very least, so, the fruit that the trees give you, and something else you can procure… as of now, I can’t tell if you’ll need more food today-

‘That is still good to know, thanks…’ Brenna focused on her Grimoire, looking between the Gate she had there, and the page with Sapphire’s information… ‘There is a lot of empty space in the page…’ most of the explanation about summoning was written around the circle

She started to make a smaller circle on Sapphire’s page, using only the symbols for Contact, Communication, and since it was already seen as a Pact, she added Mutual Binding too… keeping silence for a few seconds, she also added the drawing of a scale to represent Balance-

-You have very little magic- she wasn't close to be done with the drawing of that circle, when her Helper gave her a warning

‘Ah… thanks…’ but she was grateful for it, because she hadn't keep her magic in mind while working on the spell ‘I’ll do the actual Pact and maybe a Contact tomorrow… maybe I’ll just design that spell? Not sure if… say…’ she looked around ‘You think I can offer Sapphire the idea of Miriam being her wielder?’ the forest felt… oddly quiet… for some reason

-Hmm… could work, but I think you’ll have to wait until a dangerous combat happens to make sure? Since… it looks like Sapphire wants to fight the strong…?-

‘Ugh…’ she flapped her wings in annoyance, but managed to relax after a moment ‘Well… Miriam is stronger than me, so she might make Sapphire a bit happier… if that doesn’t works… oh! I can make the pact to be the promise of getting her a wielder! That way, if Miriam isn't a good match then I can go look for someone else!’

While discussing some more the terms of the pact, Brenna made another circle on the page with some lines connecting the two, the first circle had a black feather drawn inside to represent herself, and the second had a drawing of Sapphire. She hoped that this was enough to move forwards with the spell

But her attention was pulled away by a distant glow… and flew to the top of the tree she was on…

Where she could see Sunny with a lightning storm covering her, the thunders coming from each discharge finally reaching her position… and if she were a normal tree, she would have thought that a strong wind was moving her, but…

‘What’s wrong?’ Brenna started to feel uneasy… feeling that things were going to get worse…

The tree rustled for a moment

-Eh…? Then what is she doing? Can we help?- she waited for an answer, but the tree barely moved afterwards -Apparently it’s something that she needs to do. But they aren't telling me what it is…-

‘Ugh…! Why all of you have to keep so many secrets?!!!’ she flapped her wings in anger again

But no matter what she screamed in her mind, the trees didn’t answered back…

‘Ugh… Status’

‘Ah…?’ seeing that, made her feel nauseous…

And while being distracted, there was also a blank message that appeared too fast for her to read from who it was

-Oh…-

‘W-what happened…?’

-Now I can guide you to where the slavers are… if you want-

Brenna had to close her eyes… she almost screamed after reading that

‘Ah…’ but her body did started to shiver without control, feeling dread bubbling inside her, almost to the point of making her sick

Buzz…

‘Sunny! What happened?’ Brenna held to the hope that the sudden arrival of the ladybug was also the arrival of good news… but as she saw how Sunny was flying towards her, Brenna knew she was irritated

When she landed next to her, Sunny started to buzz her complains, anxieties, fears and anger, making some sparks as she was doing so. She was patient and didn’t tried to interrupt her… even if her dread was increasing due to the constant intensity of the storm surrounding the big tree

-She wants you to help Miriam with the slavers to the east…-

‘Yeah… I figured…’ she sighed and looked in that direction, hearing another buzz

-Your singing calms her, so you will be safe!-

‘I… I don’t think… that things will be so simple…’