What the Loss of a Summons Looks Like

By the time we reached Flint City again, the others were breathing hard. Justice had carried me, since my legs were too short to keep up with them otherwise. Maxwell led us to the city guards. “Excuse me,” he said, “Do you know if the dungeon has opened again yet?”

The guards looked back at him, not even glancing at the rest of us, and shook their heads. "There are signs it should be opening soon, but it remains closed,” one told him.

“Is there a rescue team?”

“Yeah, you looking to join?” At Maxwell’s nod, the guard told us, “Last we heard, they were gathering at the Guild. Go ahead, and good luck.”

"Thank you," Maxwell said. As we entered the city, he explained what he knew about dungeon closures. They were something you learned about once you were A-rank. When one happened, a team of four A-ranked parties would be assembled to explore and clear the new dungeon and rescue any survivors.

(The sole exception to this was when the dungeon in question was already an A-ranked dungeon. If that was the case, the Adventurer's Guild would seal off the dungeon until two S-ranked parties could group up to clear it.)

We headed directly to the Adventurer’s Guild. The Guild assistant at the counter was the same one who’d helped us. She recognized Justice and Heather, saw me, and frowned. After a moment, she shook her head. “I won’t ask how you’ve managed that,” she said. “If your party intends to assist with the dungeon exploration, please fill out this form, then quickly make your preparations. The dungeon is expected to open sometime within the next 72 hours, and the rest of the team is already at the ready outside its entrance. They will enter immediately upon its opening.”

Maxwell did as she said, and we rushed to purchase what we could with our limited funds. I had most of Nero’s money, so we were able to at least buy extra potions and food. Maxwell dug into his own pocket to get me a dress I’d have called cute if it were for someone else. It was very much a child’s sundress. “I’m not a little kid,” I muttered, studying myself in the shop's mirror.

I looked to be six or seven, and it was clear that further evolutions would not make me look any more like my former self. As an adult, my past self had had brown eyes, more freckles than you could count, and white hair, the irritating result of some fluke of genetics that caused my brown hair to start going white at age eleven. Now I had thigh-length black hair, gray eyes, and no freckles. I quietly mourned their passing. I'd miss those guys. 

I suppose it was what I should have expected from a black cat with silver eyes, but I'd sort of hoped that, if I couldn't look like myself, I'd at least look like my ideal. This coloring was neither. 

Maxwell looked at my reflection, smiled, and ruffled my hair. “You look like a kid, though, and appearance is 9/10s of the law, kitty-cat,” he told me as I hissed at him and swatted his hand away. One of my nails caught him, and he winced. “Even if you're a feral one,” he muttered as he examined the wound.

The shop clerk, upon learning that we intended to enter the dungeon, insisted that Maxwell 'couldn't let his summon fight with such long, loose hair.' She fetched a spare piece of fabric, cut it into a ribbon, and set about braiding my hair for me. Heather watched the procedure carefully. Alicia normally took care of Heather's hair, and after so long without her, Heather was looking a bit rough. It hadn't occurred to me, but Heather probably felt uncomfortable being so disheveled when Alicia normally made sure the party was well put-together.

After leaving the clothing store, Maxwell led us to a much sketchier part of town. We entered a long, narrow alley lined with rundown buildings with no signs. Though it was a sunny day, no light entered the alley, giving it the impression that rain would begin falling soon. Maxwell guided us up some stairs to the second floor of a building identical to all the buildings around it, and stopped in front of a specific door. His home. 

It was a depressing place. The door was made of flimsy metal, rusted and crooked in its frame, and had a handwritten sign declaring it as 'number 203.' When Maxwell opened the door, dusty, stagnant air greeted us with the stink of mildew and rotten food. The inside was gloomy, with no windows anywhere to let in even a little light. Maxwell gritted his teeth, tried to smile, and said, "Welcome to my home." 

I followed him inside, but Heather and Justice remained outside. There simply wasn't room for them. 

Although there was a handful of lamps we could light, Maxwell navigated the piles of trash by only the dim light let in through the doorway. He went straight to a heap of clothing beside what could only charitably be called a couch. Maxwell pulled a bag out from behind the couch and started shoving clothes into it. 

While he worked, I glanced in the bedroom. It was nicer than the rest of the place. The walls were a fant pink, and someone had drawn a window onto one. The artist had colored in grass and sky and flowers through the window. The bunk bed seemed relatively intact, and there was a single dresser. I went ahead and grabbed some clothes out of it to put in my Inventory. Clara and Marie had already been wearing the same clothes for weeks now. They’d surely appreciate something clean.

Maxwell glanced in his kitchen with a grimace. It wasn't a separate room - just a small portion of the main room containing an icebox, a sink, and some shelves. There was rotting food in the icebox, which was no longer cold, and the shelves were mostly bare. He didn’t say anything as he grabbed a handful of bottles of alcohol and smashed them against the sink before leading us back out of the apartment. He locked the door behind him and stared at it for a moment. “One more stop,” he murmured.

That stop ended up being to a clinic. Maxwell smiled weakly at the nurse who welcomed us. She exclaimed over his improved appearance, which, considering we hadn’t had time for a bath or anything, said a lot about how bad he normally looked. Maxwell led us to a bed where a blonde woman lay. She might have been pretty once, but she’d clearly been unconscious in this bed for years now. Her skin was translucent and hung off her bones. Her cheeks were sunken, and her hair was limp and greasy. “They’re keeping her alive with magic,” Maxwell said quietly. “Luna, I haven’t been entirely honest with you. If your Masters are still alive when we reach them, then good for you, but if they aren’t…”

“You’re hoping we’ll bind ourselves to your wife and save her,” I said. “I know. We realized that from the beginning.”

“Will you?” he asked with a pleading expression that tugged at my heart.

Even so, I shook my head. “No. We know others in the same condition.”

Maxwell’s shoulders slumped, but he nodded. “Fair enough. Let’s go.” He bent down to kiss his wife on the forehead. “I love you, Mora. I’ll bring our daughters back. I promise.”

I shared a look with Heather, who nodded. I didn’t want Maxwell to have any temptation to deprive us of our Masters. He seemed like a decent person, but even good people could do horrific things for love. However, if either Alicia or Nero died, the summon(s) they left behind would come here and bind themselves to Mora.

When we reached the dungeon’s entrance and the group waiting there, several of the adventurers recognized Maxwell. “Holy crap, look who it is!” one of them shouted, drawing attention to us.

“Hell, they actually found you some summons?” another asked, examining the rest of us. “Or, wait, no…” I felt the familiar tingle of Assess. The caster was a huge man. I could tell the moment he saw my type. His lips curled down, and he switched his gaze to first Heather, then Justice. I assumed he was Assessing them, too. At last, he looked at me again, still frowning, but he finally looked back to Maxwell without saying anything.

Maxwell smiled. “Hey, Bode. No, I woke on my own a few years ago. But these three’s Masters are in there, so we’re working together right now.”

“You woke up and didn’t tell us? What gives –” another started, only for ‘Bode’ to smack him.

Maxwell’s smile faded. “Sorry. I’ve been…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bode said. “Glad you’re doing better now. Plenty of us still remember the Seven Sins. You don’t need your summons to be a terror in a dungeon. Just say the word, and you’d be welcome in any party, mine included.”

“Well, I plan on joining you today, at least,” Maxwell said. “My daughters are in there.”

Bode’s eyes widened. “Shit.” He nodded. “Okay. We’ve got a bit of time still, so how about you clean up some, rest, and I’ll get you when we’re heading in.”

“Thank you.”

We made our own camp, and Maxwell did as instructed. Since the dungeon might not open for another sixty hours or so, Justice and I went a little further away to the plains between the city and the dungeon and started hunting. They’ll probably be hungry, I thought, so I stored as much as I could in my Inventory. Meat, mushrooms, edible plants, water. Anything we could find got put in until, after a little more than a day, Justice caught my attention.

“Heather… is coming…” he said softly.

I looked over and saw Heather flying toward us. “The dungeon’s opening!” she cried, and we immediately sprinted back. Maxwell was there waiting for us. He looked much better. He was clean-shaven, his hair was tied back, and he was wearing clean clothes. I almost didn’t recognize him.

“You ready?” he asked.

We were part of a group of 31 adventurers and their summons, which included four A-ranked parties and a group of healers. We'd be entering with Heavenly Principles, a party of people who looked far too ordinary for such a pretentious name, Witches Five, a group of five female adventurers who all appeared to be mages, Please Daddy, another group that looked exceedingly normal despite their name, and Shark Attack, Bode's party. 

(When asked, Maxwell told me that no member of Shark Attack had a shark-type summon, nor had any of them grown up around sharks. His eyes were dead as he told me that I should under no circumstances ask the story behind their name. I was better off not knowing, he said.)

There was a sharp crack, and we turned toward the dungeon. I hadn’t realized what they meant by 'opening.' A pair of black doors was slowly fading into view. Everyone milled around impatiently as the last few inches finally appeared. The doors swung open of their own accord, and we entered.