She wrung her hands over one another, fingers enmeshed for one desperate moment before they lost their grip and her hands resumed circling one another, her eyes locked on the bright and swirling colors that danced before her.
Clashing flashes of violent magical energies danced above and around the altar, another, older, woman stood nearby with a kind smile, watching it all happen with a placid expression as if this was all something she'd seen many times before. "Just a little longer," she advised, her eyes on the riotous event with an easy patience.
With the sound of forming stone, great structures of granite formed as if the energy were filling the shapes, rapidly taking the shape of two great decagons, ten sided polygons of uneven sides that spun wildly, throwing shades across the room with a swirling noise that began to pick up in volume and intensity.
The younger one clasped her hands as if in prayer, her eyes stuck on the strange shapes as they wobbled and spun. Her breath caught as they fell, smashing into the altar with a great weight, but they did not stop, rolling and rattling around, bouncing off a field that had been invisible a moment before and sent back towards the center. The smaller sides were almost comically small, as if the dice would have to defy reality itself to land on them, and each time it hit one of the heavier sides, the dice lost momentum, as if it would be so easy to stop there.
They struck one another with a great sound of stone on stone, and stopped. They were leaning against one another, both on the smallest side. A great 0 0 appeared, one over each die. A single one appeared just to the left of them and the younger squealed, faltering back a step. "What does it mean?!"
"It means," counseled the older. "--that you have won the right to the next possibility. Greater things are now in store." She waved at the shapes and they lifted, tumbling and shaking. The sounds become more subtle, each shape glimmering as if sparkling instead of throwing out random lights. Rattling sounded from within them and they tumbled wildly, testing the whims of fate once more. "Very lucky. The gods smile on you."
The shapes bounced and shook as if something alive were inside them, forcing them to jitter and shake in unnatural ways. "What's going on?!" stammered out the younger, bewildered at the possessed movements of the judging stones.
"Unusual…" It was the first time the elder looked interested, leaning forward a little as she considered. "Fortunately for you, the guild fee does not increase with better results. You are… blessed, perhaps."
One die jumped as the other rolled, and the first landed on the second, and both became still.
0 0 0 0 displayed over the two, then a single 1 appeared before it. The colors turned a gold before they began to scramble, the letters cascading through all ten digits wildly a moment before 9 9 9 9 9 settled. A great yawning gulf of energy appeared from the top of the column, wiping it all away and filling the room with blinding light.
The older woman smiled and clapped her hands. "You've done it. Perhaps your fortune as an adventurer turns today."
"Eeee!" squeaked the younger, about as articulate as she could manage in the moment, energy waving through her hair and throwing her clothing as if she stood in a brisk wind.
It all gusted past them, revealing three forms on the pedestal, all the glowing fading away. Faint wisps of smoke rose from them and one coughed softly. "Very funny, Garble, but that doesn't count as a win." He spoke with the voice of a young male, but he was not a human.
"Yeah, not cool." Another, female, older than the first, but not by a large degree, tapped her foot. "First back up to the… top…" She was just noticing where they were. There were no lava flows to race.
Towering over the other two was a large, broad figure, who came into view first, covered in red scales, clearly muscular with pointy teeth, taller than most men. The younger girl squeaked in glee. This looked like a dragon, and he looked really powerful.
He looked around angrily, though, and said, “Wait, where the heck are we?”
The younger purple-scaled male that was half the height of the others rubbed behind his head, looking equally confused, if less angry about it. "Uh…"
"Not at the lava flows," finished the orange-scaled female with purple fins, crossing her arms impatiently. "Hey, you, whatever you are." She was looking directly at the girl that was gaping at them with open wonder. "Where are we, who are you, what are you, why are you, I'll throw in for good measure."
The girl, however, looked to the older woman. “They can talk? Can they usually talk?”
The older woman looked at her book, as if referencing it. “It’s not unheard of, summon’s talking. What is unheard of is three separate creatures...” She started leafing through her book. “What to do, what to do…”
“Hey!” The red dragon shouted, and took a step forward. “My sister asked you a question.”
The younger girl looked at him, like noticing he was there, and looked back to the older woman with uncertainty. The elder didn’t even look up from her book, but said, “it is your responsibility to manage the temperament of your summon, Sandra. Even if there are more than one.”
“Oh, right right.” Sandra tried to comport herself, dusting her clothes as if any lingering dust hadn't been blown away in the great rush of wind created by the summon. "My summons, I welcome you as your summoner. I am Sandra Kite, and I accept this responsibility."
“Oh,” the orange dragon female said. She put a hand to her chest, smiling amicably. “Okay. I’m Smolder-” She gestured up to the large dragon “-this is Garble-” and she gestured down to the small purple dragon “-and this is Spike.”
“Oh! Hi!” Sandra said, waving, the billowing sleeves from her robe flapping around with her hand.
“Now where are we and why are we here?!” Smolder shouted.
"Noted." The older of the two humans was making a note on a floating pane of words that vanished with a puff of magic, collapsing into an ornate bracelet she wore on her right arm. "Good luck in your adventures." She turned to leave, not sparing another glance back at the four she left behind.
Spike glanced towards the departing woman, his eyes darting to the younger of the two. "Hey, you're a human, right?" He had seen plenty of those, past the mirror. "But I'm not a dog…"
"This is all so much," sighed out Sandra. "Alright, you are all in the guild." She pointed at Spike. "You are a dragon, not a dog." She looked a bit confused that she had to specify that. "And you're here because I summoned you. I found a summon in the grassy fields. Do you have any idea how low the odds of that are?" She clapped her hands, excitement rapidly building.
The three dragons just watched as the girl looked back at them with anticipation. “... No,” Smolder said. “We literally have no idea what any of this is.”
“Right right right,” Sandra said. “Newly summoned, you probably don’t know anything at all. So! I am-” she flashed a bangle wrapped around her arm with an ornate setting on it, and inside that ornate setting was a dull grey orb, and she tapped it, summoning a flat image floating up. It said on it “Sandra Kite, slate rank Elemancer.” There were also some bars with writing too small to read. “An adventurer in the adventurer’s guild! We go get hired--"
Garble held up a hand, cutting her off. "--you go get yourself hired, great. Send us back, now."
Spike pointed off in the direction the other human had wandered off in. "Do we need her back for that? She seemed to know what was going on."
Smolder glanced towards Spike. "What makes you say that? They all look about the same to me."
"Really? That one was older and this one, Sandra, looks kinda nervous." He shrugged towards their summoner, examining her without certainty.
“I-I am not nervous!” Sandra stomped the ground. “I am your summoner, and I that makes me in charge! You have to do what I say, so that I can become more than a slate rank adventurer!”
Garble snorted smoke. “The heck you are! I’ll show you who's in charge!” He tried to stomp over to her, and she flinched away, but as he tried to go down to grab her, he felt himself freeze. He was unable to move any further.
She opened her eyes, seeing him looming over her, and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Wh-what’s going on?” Garble tried to push forward, and it was like his body was unable to move. Not forward, anyway. He breathed in, and readied himself to breathe out a big flame… only to find he couldn’t do anything but hold his breath.
“B-bad summon!” Sandra shouted, pointing at Garble. “Don’t attack your summoner!”
Garble started to turn blue as he was unable to breathe, his lungs filled with magic ready to become fire.
“Oh, but while you’re here,” Sandra said, touching the slate on her shoulder, and fiddling with the flat image she had. The words “register summon” showed up on it, and she popped the slate orb and briefly touched it to Garble, letting go of it and it floated back to her bangle automatically, the words “summon registered” showed up.
She stepped away, and, as soon as she was far enough away the flames wouldn’t spill out and scorch her, Garble finally was able to breathe out, a dramatic puff of flames coming out of his breath, but Sandra was busy looking at her menu, making little squeaks. “Look at those stats! Lotsa toughness and strength!” She walked over to the other two dragons. Spike perked as she approached.
"So, uh, my stats are pretty good, right?" He struck a confident pose, full of the heroism he envisioned himself having when not dealing with trouble he couldn't handle. "Give it to me straight."
Smolder rolled her eyes. "That's cool and all, but what part of this gets us back home? We have a school to get to." She hiked a thumb at Garble. "And Gar Gar has things to get to too, right?"
With an unresisting subject, Sandra was easily able to register Spike as her summon and began looking over his stats curiously. "Oh, a very young dragon, cute!" She suddenly threw an arm around him, hugging his smaller pudgier form. "I will take such good care of you, promise."
Spike went red in the cheeks, but didn't try to attack the human. "Uh, thanks, but I'm not a kid. I've saved the world before."
"It's true, he has," dryly noted Smolder with a little smirk on her face. "Better tell him what his stats are before he loses it."
“Um… I mean…” Sandra looked at Spike’s bars, that Spike could already see were not particularly tall. “You have… decent… mental stats? Your stats are like a human’s, with a few above average, but nothing super special. Except your toughness is still pretty high, which must be a dragon thing.” She walked over to Smolder. “Now for you.” She touched the stone to Smolder’s shoulder, another list of bars. “Well, it’s not like the big guy’s, but you still have higher fighting stats than the little guy.”
Smolder shrugged expansively. "He's a nice guy, but he's more pony than dragon, so, you know, less fighting. No offense." She shot a thumbs up towards Spike. "So can we focus on the 'how to get the dragons home before they get ticked off?'"
Sandra looked at Smolder like she had an extra head. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you don’t want to get us ticked off?” Garble asked.
“Because it’s a bad idea to keep friends who aren’t really your friends?” Smolder asked.
“Because it’s the right thing to do?” Spike asked.
“What… no!” Sandra protested, but she composed herself and pointed directly out. “You three are the end of my bad luck streak and the beginning of my rise to the top (or at least not the bottom) of adventuring! So come on!” She began to march out, before stopping, and turning back to them. “Besides, there’s nowhere to send you back to. Summoning creates monsters from magic itself, it doesn't pluck a creature from somewhere real.”
She snorted a little to herself. “Can you imagine how awful it would be if we just stole creatures from their normal homes and forced them to fight for us?”
Hmm. Interesting. It reminds me a bit of Zero no Tsukaima.
"That most feared and desired outcome," said the elder, "one legends are made of."
"What?"
"DM's choice."
(Yes, yes, wrong kind of RPG, but I couldn't resist.)
"Those are some of the stingiest loot tables on the continent!"
Hoo boy. Sandra iust accidentally uncovered an ethical catastrophe... assuming the dragons can get her to believe them. And even then, society at large likely won't be willing to believe the word of a few magical constructs and a low-rank nobody.
In the meantime, there are raids to grind!
Also typos to collect:
Who's.
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Ha! I was right. That was not my typo. Good to have you on board.
I’m loving this so far and cannot wait for more.
Quite the pickle for our dragon pals here, can't wait to see what happens next!
In before "not enough pony".
Oh this will have hilarious ramifications, I can tell
love it!
Maybe I’m just dense but is this based on a particular fantasy world and i overlooked it or is it a custom generic MMO gacha type setting.
Ummm yeah I can see 3 scaly ones that might disagree with you there girl!
>brown scaled
Smolder's got orange scales m8
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The latter.
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Fixed, for you!
Slate class?
Oh crud.
I really hope Sandra doesnt think The Great Tomb of Nazarick would be a good place to hit.
Garbles the tank, Smoulders the sweeper, Spike is the dragon with human mentality which currently puts him as one of the most deadly entities in that realms existance?
Given gaming experience, I wonder how hard it would be for Spike to learn Magic Missile. given combination of firebreath and targeted message delivery?
If the dice sides are asymetrical, then they might have ten sides, but the probability of rolling a 0 is a lot less than a tenth, so you can easily be looking at millions to one for a double roll.
And to Discord, millions to one occur 9 times out of 10. In Octal.
Well, thats the starting point. Lets see how long it takes them to get out, or thrown out of town, if its not an isolated temple?
I can't tell if that is a jab at Pokémon or if that is just what she did. Either way I don't think Twilight would approve.
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There are countless games where you take creatures from where they were and expect them to fight. D&D was doing it way before Pocket Monsters made it cool.
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So... is this some kind of a crossover?
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If you can call an entire genre a crossover, seeing as this is not a specific MMORPG they have stepped into.
This is interesting for sure. I think one of the biggest things need to be the relationship between the dragons and the human for sure. I mean the biggest problem is that they are seen as nothing but servants in this world. By her dismissal of everything they say and their feelings it is clear this will be a long going issue between them and Sandra. I will be honest I would have loved it more if that were brought there and not bound to someone and we just had to see the three of them deal with this world on their own. I do also kinda wish Spike wasn't so.... hmmm what is the word..... belittled in this so far. I mean he clearly showed he is smarter than the other two dragons by him figuring out WHO it was that knew more and the mentality of Sandra just from a glance. That means if anyone is going to be able to figure out a way out of this contract best chance it will be him. And her treating him like a baby I REALLY hope it ends soon. While by dragon age he is young he is still best chance older than Sandra is. I am interested in where this story will go from here for sure. It is a silly thing but I honestly care more about the dragons than this Sandra person by far seeing how in the eyes of the fans she is just a slave owner who is holding the characters we like as slaves and will make them do things they don't want to do. I mean come on just by the hints we have gotten so far it is showing she is already shit at all of this already. I fear the damage she will cause the three of them by her mismanagement. I wouldn't be shocked if Spike takes up being the lead, seeing how he has been a DM before so he knows party management VERY well and best chance the second smartest of all his friends, that is counting the mane 6 as well.
No clue on the anime, but very piqued by the starting chapter. Looking forward to reading this!
And here I thought it was always the summoned ones who were dense and oblivious in this kind of stories! Seems it’s less that she has good luck and more she managed to transfer her bad luck to the dragons.
So, is this based off any isekai in particular like Familiar of Zero or no, just isekai in general?
I wonder if this is going to end up like a story I’ve read called I believe it was Demons of Astlan, in which the “demons” that wizards summoned were really humans from other worlds who were twisted to look like demons due to the summoning spell. The wizards didn’t believe them of course and their treatment of them caused the humans to basically become demons in mind as well as body due to how cruel the wizards were.
So I wonder if all the summons are summoned trim other worlds, it’s just nobody does(or wants to) believe them due to the ethical issues?
I love this story but there are a couple things.
I like that the girl doesn't really care about her summons and doesn't because she doesn't think they are real creatures. That could be an interesting discovery when she realizes they are from another dimension. She must have been reading from a different kind of book then her school uses.
However the stats... those might need a retcon. Spike was able to beat the Gauntlet of fire because of his brains combined with Ember's strength. Spike is often shown to be brilliant but just doesn't think about common sense issues (which is a common problem for brilliant minds).
Also Smolder's Stats. The show often implies that despite her size she is actually stronger and tougher then most teen dragons, including Garble. This was shown when she was able to successfully intimidate Garble's friends.
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Note the picture. She and Spike are higher level than Garble and that was not a mistake. She can hold her own because she has attitude and experience and is willing to reach for more while she's at it.
Spike was noted as having higher mental stats, and is already acting it, as another reader noted. The summoner brushed it off, and this should not be surprising. Who cares about the Int stat on your young dragon? They're here to rip things apart and set them on fire, right? So she shrugged past it and focused on the physicals. This is her mistake.
I can see their summoner is of the "hears, but doesn't listen" variety. That's... going to make it difficult to get the idea that they are very much real and would like to go home through her skull.
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Yea I agree with all of that. One thing tho that we have seen that I feel also shown that Spike, while not prone to physical displays of might like the other two dragons is FAR more powerful with his fire or at least his control of it. He has magic fire by his use of teleportation he uses with it. But also the mass of his fire has shown to outshine anyone who isn't a adult dragon. I reference the Equestria games. When he breathed a HUGE fireball to save EVERYONE in the stands. It was so big and dense that multiple ponies couldn't slow it down and he also held the fire for extended amount of time. Long story short I really can't wait to see where this story will take the gang since it felt like we haven't had a new good Spike and gang story in a long time.
This isn't my usual genre of story to read, but I'm a sucker for Spike stuff, and this isn't a bad way to start. Though I admit I was having a bit of trouble until that last bit. Up until then, the humans seemed a little too okay with plucking sapient being out of their world, but with it firmly established that something very bizarre has happened, I'm on board for seeing what happens next.
Sweet new story picture, it fits the 3 of them perfectly!
I love this story so far it has a lot of potential. And better yet Spike.
What, no "how are you", just to cover all the bases?
Why do I get the feeling that this was a stab at equestria itself with them sealing things in stone
The mage looked at the number , smiled mischievously then shouted "It's over 90,00!"
if she had rolled a 20, would Luna and Celestia appear?
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u forgot 'When'..that covers them all
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10 is at the side opposite to the largest one, so rolling them easiest of them all. Guess she'd summon a kitten. Completely normal one.
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Or all summoners are in institutionalized denial... although with the "million to one odds" implications not being quite covered* just by the multi-summoning might indicate you are totally right.
*Narratively I mean. I think the older lady said she had never heard of it happening... which makes me wonder why she didn't want to study it. Twilight would GREATLY disapprove. Oh well, more chance for Spike to shine by doing that studying?
Ah, an RPG mechanics-verse, always fun. Mind, this is reminding me of one of the Summon Nights games, not sure which one specifically, as they all kind of run together. Of course, there, the fact that 'summons' are aliens from other realities is a known fact, and is useful for both sides, as Summons becomes so much stronger that when they return to their own worlds, they've basically become near demigods in most cases.
this makes you think.
I feel like i am missing a whole slew of information. This starts as if a buncha stuff has already happened
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Because it has. Our trio is entering a world already in motion. Confused? So are they. Explanations will occur.
This is going to be something she finds as a lie later. I just started this story, no spoilers allowed, but that is my theory.
10737618 Alternatively, they are actually copies of the originals, effectively 'transporter duplicates' in Star Trek terms. It's not like that isn't canon, between the mirror pool and Chrysalis's 'Bane Six', duplicates of characters can be created, though these are far more complete,
In the end, it doesn't matter. Whether these are the originals or identical copies, they are self aware and unwilling to serve her. That makes what she's doing slavery. She is scum, and I hope she gets splatted by a bugbear.