She thinks he's a basic mob, a simple creature to do her bidding, only at the end does she start to realise she's spent years summoning an actual person, and someone more powerful than she can fathom

Pt2.

"You have no idea do you?" I asked.

Number 1 cocked her head to the side and gave me a puzzled look, she herself barely noticing the fresh blood dribbling down her neck. Three blades meant any movement would cut, and she was fidgeteding like she'd just hit the nose-beers herself. Though, sadly, she was full send ADHD and never once thought it was something to work on or control, only embrace.

Not that she knew what those four letters meant, no one on this world did.

"You actually don't." I was stunned. Genuinely. Though I guess I shouldn't be, she had been twelve, maybe thirteen when I gave her the glyph. Starved, beaten, slaved and possibly worse, she'd been half feral when I'd chanced upon the wagon train that held her captive. Too young and too traumatised.

I laughed. I couldn't help it. All this time and she had no idea.

"Guards!" The King, er, Emperor... the Kingperor said with a casual, dismissive wave. "Remove the summons already and bring her to me."

"What are you laughing at asshole?" She demanded, her eyes never once leaving my face.

I laughed even harder. This crazy wench had summoned me more times than I'd had different lives, she'd called me to fight, to solve her petty squabbles or to beat someone who'd beaten her. I'd stolen, intimidated, coerced, I'd hunted and cooked, I'd even hand stitched patches into her clothes.

And this entire time she had no idea who or what I actually was.

"Ah-hah-haaa! Oh man, sorry little one, that's just too much," I finally managed to say.

"Oi, you shitty summons, I'm the master here!" Number 1 yelled. I want to say screamed, but it wasn't screaming, not yet. And she wasn't anywhere near girly enough for that anyhow. Roared would be more accurate. "I give the orders, me, Eslyn Dar! You, the summons, follow the orders, same as usual. Now help get me out of here!"

I laughed again. I couldn't help it. It was too good, and I was a little too broken by now. One hundred and... ten, or was it eleven? One hundred and eleven different lives, and then this crazy bitch summoned me hundreds of times, fracturing an already strained psyche. So I laughed, and enjoyed the hilarity I found in the situation. Worst was that I was glad the summons hadn't hurt at all, like, at all.

"YOU DARE IGNORE ME!?"

Eslyn and I both turned to look at the Kingperor, who was so red he was almost purple. His eyes were bloodshot and spittle flecked his lips and chin. The pudgy man looked apoplectic with rage.

"Hoo-boy, woo-sah my rotund friend, woo-sah!" I tried to sound calming, but mirth colored my tone and I could barely keep my hands steady as I patted at the air.

Eslyn on the other hand, took a different approach. "Shut up, beefcake."

I actually giggled at that. I'd taught her that one. And a lot of the insults she used that just confused everyone on her homeworld.

"OFF WITH HER HEAD!"

Three blades moved before the words has finished leaving the kingperors mouth and Eslyn shrieked. Full on screamed. Like she always did when she genuinely thought she might die.

Clang, clang-ang!

I don't think I'd actually stopped laughing since I started, just barely managing to get my words out, but now in the silence that billowed out in the wake of the ring of steel on stone, my laughter bounced around the wide vaulted chamber with quite dramatic effect.

"Eh!?" Eslyn flicked one eye open and peered around, then gasped in shock and squealed in delight - just like she used to do as a kid - when she saw all three men staring at the bleeding stumps where their forearms used to be. "Eat a bag of dicks, stumpy boys!"

"M-m-my men, what... what did you DO TO MY MEN!?" Kingperor started with a scared stutter, that progressed into a scared shriek. One to rival Eslyn's. Impressive. "GUARDS!"

The sound of armored feet began to echo down the halls leading into the room and Eslyn turned panicked eyes on me again, once again ignoring the now handless men who fell back toward the walls.

"GUARDS!" The Kingperor screamed again, his voice shrill and cracking.

"Oi, Kami," Eslyn said, her voice much smaller now. I giggled again. "The laughter is getting weird now. He's about to bring hundreds of soldiers in here and then we're screwed!"

The name she'd used was from one of my favourite worlds, one so devoid of magic I wondered if I'd finally found a way to cheat reincarnation. Sadly it didn't, but it's lack of magic made it fascinatingly diverse in so many unique ways. Such as their folklore, mythology and the bizarre, almost fanatic and fetishist ways subgroups of cultures embellished and twisted said culture. I'd told her it because to a twelve year old, I may as well have been God, yet here she was, still treating me like a regular old summoned pet Axehound.

Kids.

"GUARDS!" The Kingperor screamed again as dozens of heavily armored figures began spilling into the chamber. "KILL TH-"

His voice cut off so abruptly that even the soldiers still pouring in turned to look and find out why.

Clang-thud, thud-thud.

First the crown, then his knees, then finally the Kingperors head hit the marble stone floors moments before his body did too.

Clap. Giggle. Clap. Giggle. Clap.

"Well, Eslyn, you little rascal." I slung an arm over her shoulder as she stared wide eyed at me. Wider than I'd ever seen her stare, it looked like her eyes might genuinely fall right our of her face if her eyelids retreated any further. I could barely see them as it was. "Let's get out of here shall we?"

"But-" she began, one hand raised to point at the half crazed, half stunned royal guard.

Then one exploded. The concussive force blew his neighbours aside and several cried out in pain and disorientation.

"But-" Eslyn tried again.

Bang! Cla-clang, thud-thud! Bang! Bang!

"What?" My laughter seemed to have stopped, which was good, but the wide, manic smile I saw reflected in the girls eyes told me it had just retreated. The laughter didn't need to be free at the moment, not when realisation was dawning in those same glassy eyes. "No time for your oldest pal?"

Bang! Ba-bang! BangBangBangBangBangBang!

I felt like I was Rambo, or Carl, or Jon Lajoie.

Cool guys don't look at explosions.

"I'm hungry," I felt my grin get wider as we walked out of the throne room. Eslyn shook, her skin pale and clammy. "You?"

I wonder where the kitchens are?

Time for some more laughter.

And food.

thwip

A summoning is never a pleasant experience. Never. It starts with a slip, a tug, not so much physical, more like vertigo I'd say, your inner ear rocking like you're on the open sea. It's kind of a special feeling.

Then, suddenly, you're in two places at once, your mind, your body, your very spirit itself duplicated for a single fleeting moment in time. But then that moment is actually outside of time, and the duality is not clean. There's a... a rending, of sorts, a splitting strain, an impossible burden of your meta-and-physical presence being in two places at once. A paradox, an impossibility.

Then the magic of the summons properly takes effect and WHAM! You're in a new location as if you'd always been. It really screws with your head.

All of this to say, I don't dole out summons glyphs lightly. In fact, I try not to give them out period. They are ALWAYS BAD. Which is what makes this current moment so bad. I mean, the moment has been happening for a damn long time now. So long, actually, that I almost feel like I'm that blighted rock again. How can this one moment take so bleeding long that I'm reminded of MILLENNIA of solitude and darkness and wet dirt?

Woah now, hold up man. That was several cycles ago, don't get carried away now. Actually, that was... dozens of cycles ago. When did I start getting put into humanoid bodies again?

thwip

"-to me!"

Wait... is that? I barely caught the last words of that, but I'll be damned if I don't know that voice. That godsforsaken voice!

Do you know how many summons glyphs I've handed out? Four. FOUR! One guy I know - gods he's a special case, full blown nut job that one - he's given out dozens, at least! I also know a faeling, one the ahh, the um... gah, you know the type, short, rail thin, backwards knees with the bug-like shell and eyes? She's given out three hundred and thirty three, and the numbers always have to match so she's spent the last century picking the next one hundred and eleven people she'll give glyphs to so she can dole them out in one fell swoop.

Madness.

Me, on the other hand, four. Only four. Because the first person I gave one to truly made me regret, and the other three I gave out in desperation and delirium. Ol' big shot number 1 summoned me for anything and everything. It near broke me, Mr Returner, Soul of a Hundred Lives. Thus I turned to the sweet release of narcotics and hallucinogens, and when that only encouraged my abuser further, I discovered a wondrous quirk of summoning that I've kept close to my chest ever since. You can't be summoned twice.

So, still fueled by the most magic of mushrooms and inhaling leaf so delightful and smooth you'd have thought it was from the White Wizard and the shire itself, I set out to find others worthy of my glyphs. Sadly, somewhere between the second and third glyphs I found myself run afoul of the dreaded nose-beers and BAM! BAM! Four glyphs handed out with absolutely zero idea of who they ended up with. I do, however, know with complete certainty, that they've never once been used. In more than five centuries. While the second I gave out has been used once.

To show a three year old Gnoll how to tie his shoes. A gnoll. Who has paws for feet. Shoes. On paws. Suffice to say the little pup tore through them in less than five steps.

Though the smile on that pudgy, ugly, Hyena-man face was both terrifying and beautiful to behold. He was so damn proud of himself, aaand I gotta admit, I was pretty chuffed too. However, he then called me his imaginary friend and said that because he'd made his wish we'd never see each other again and yep. Never seen him again.

Only this one. Numero uno. Probably one of my top five, maybe even top three biggest muck-ups across more than a hundred different incarnations.

Geezus. How the hell did I ever think that SHE was a-

"HELLO!?" Number 1 yelled. Right into my ear.

"Gah!" I staggered back, almost slipping as the shout tore me from my thoughts. Whoops. How long had I just been standing there?

"How nice of you to join us," she said, voice dripping sarcasm. "Finally."

"Hey Gatekeeper?" I called out to the empty shadows of the vaulted ceiling above. "Any chance for a reroll?"

Number 1 sighed, far too exaggeratedly, before starting to speak again. How can just a voice give me near as much trauma as Granny Meng's brew? That stuff is designed to scrub a soul clean for reincarnation, yet this voice is just as bad. Maybe worse. And whoops, I should probably listen to what the witch was saying.

"-see, they've got me by the balls and you're the best way out. A Summoner should always be protected by her summons, and as you were my first, you can have the honours of going out in a blaze of glory first."

I just stared at the woman, wide eyed, until my eyes hurt and I had to blink. I barely even noticed the three blades held against her neck and the thin lines of blood that ran from them as she fidgeted and moved, nor the rich tapestries, gilded paintings and the dozen other signs of a royal court. I didn't even look at the red faced king, or emperor or whatever, as the weight of Number 1's words settled in my mind.

Or rather, blew my mind.

"You have no idea do you?"

"Well that was quick."

I'd barely crossed the threshold when that achingly familiar melody caressed my mind. It grated on me, rasping against my very being, its rawness unable to be washed away by the harmonies that laced it. Ones I'd only heard on my first nine visits.

Now only coarse grit remained, like sandpaper upon my soul.

"Hah!" I barely stifled my rather expletive laden, knee-jerk response with a barked laugh. "Funny guy, eh."

A flare of heat - or the idea of it, not exactly the sensation itself, but close enough - mixed with the taste of iron, the scent of ozone, the almost haptic thrum of electricity. All of this radiated out from the being before me. It was the only joy I could get in this godforsaken place.

Turns out the afterlife is really not all that. But at least winding up the Gatekeeper of reincarnation was an option. It was my only option, as reincarnation itself was a bit twisty when it tried its magic on me.

"I am," the Gatekeeper began.

"Not a guy," I finished for him, my tone like old cardboard, flaky yet damp, bored. "Heard it all before Guy. Also-"

"Not a name," the Gatekeeper ground out.

Yeowch, that one hurt. A sensation like ripping cloth, except I was the cloth.

"Got it in one," I said with a grin, a hint of sunshine and the fizz of a freshly cracked can of soda. Man, did I need a serious change of scenery if this was the highlight of my... geez, ahh my week... uh, maybe year? I dunno. Time was all kinds of mucky here. That at least the potion did right.

What potion is that you ask? Why, it's Granny Meng's Tea, the Fountain of Youth, the sweet broth of forgetfulness that a soul consumed to wash away the taint of the living. Scrubbing it clean as a whistle and ready for a new beginning, undergoing nirvana, and moving on through the grand cycle of reincarnation.

Yeah, fat lot of good that did me however. The potion,

• as I refused to call the simmering cauldron of irradiated pink that bubbled and popped and let out bright puffs of iridescent smoke anything but a back-alley Alchemists potion - was just horrifyingly bad and it didn't scrub away eff-all. Like, it is so terrible I am almost sure the substance has tainted whatever amounted to my soul's taste buds, and then went further by scarring the overwhelming sensations and impressions right onto the fabric of my spirit itself.

It felt like if you took a dead skunks corpse, defecated in it, covered it in a dozen skunk ass-glands worth of secretion then deep fried it in horse piss. Then you boiled that down into a grainy, jelly-like mess and mixed that with the coarsest sand you could find and proceeded to give yourself the most excruciating scrub bath of your life. All while having boiling tar poured in and around your everything.

"Just gimme the damn drink!" I spat, a stray dog's bite and the kiss of heated iron. My formerly good mood thoroughly ruined by the mere thought of the vile swill.

The bastard didn't even reply, though I could feel the smugness radiating out from it like a bonfire. I had no idea if the Gatekeeper was a he, or a she, or both, or neither? I didn't even know if I was either when I was in my soul form. Heck, everyone just looked like pale blobs of different colored light.

I stared at the tiny vial set before me and reached out toward it, a tiny whisper thin tentacle of pale purple mist bringing it to my blob. I wondered just what I'd end up as next time. Would the Gatekeeper try screw me around again? This would be my eighty first reincarnation, and ever since my seventy seventh - which I'd stupidly thought might be a lucky one - I'd stopped being reborn as a human.

ASSHOLE! Do you know how disorienting it is to go from four limbs, only two being legs, to six? Or eight? Or worse, dozens of them! Gah! The millipede was so damn bad! But being a worm was worse, especially when I realised I was a GIANT worm. Sadly this happened when I scared a kid right off a cliff as I emerged from the earth. I just wanted to say hi, or at least take a peek and see just how big I was, as a worm obviously couldn't speak. Turns out I came up to the kids chest. While i was still lating flat on the dirt.

Actually, I'm pretty sure killing that kid is why I was next reborn as a fungus.

I mean, karma and all, even if I've never had any other real reason to believe in it, even through all the rebirths; but killing a kid? The boy looked like he was barely even five years old, then splat, like a tomato. I honestly hadn't realised such a small, thin body could contain SO much liquid.

Though, my time as a fungus sure was interesting. Being something that isn't just one being... yeah, I did it and I still don't get it. Suffice to say, I was a virus, turning ants and the like into little zombies by taking over their brains then bodies and blowing them up to spread myself ever further.

That was a trip.

I tipped the vial back, feeling the sludge pour down my... blob, far more than the tiny vial could ever contain, and then I felt the Gatekeepers satisfaction. A dim spark that, he obviously didn't try hard to hide as it almost instantly burst into an inferno of glee.

"Enjoy, Returner," he said.

Terrible name that, by the way, Returner. So imaginative. So evocative. Such wow.

Then I realised what he was getting at.

"Oh, oh no you don't! You little fu-"

[WELCOME TO REBIRTH, LOST SOUL]

The voice of Reincarnation blasted apart my awareness, but it didn't stop me from first catching a glimpse of the form I was to inhabit next.

A rock. A goddamn rock. And not even ore, just a bit of stone, so I wouldn't even get the chance to be forged into a sword or anything awesome like that. Hell, I'd take being a plow or a pickaxe. I mean, a kitchen utensil, maybe a pot? Or even jewellery or maybe even a piece of electronic technology from one of the few worlds I'd visited who swung that way. I mean, there were thousands of options for decent metal ore to be crafted into. But a rock?

And you know the real cherry on top? Of late, I'd been pushing as hard and fast as I could, burning bright in life, and usually burning out just as quickly. I mean, I'd been an ant last time and it only takes a few weeks for an ant to go from egg to worker, but as soon as I could move about I'd climbed the tallest tree I could find and leapt off. I wanted to know if ants could actually die from fall damage.

They don't. But the lizard I landed beside did the job for me so no harm no foul.

But a rock? A dim, dull, plain old rock? Oh my giddy aunt I don't even know how long a rock can live for. Holy hells, I am so beyond screwed. Rocks can be millions of years old right? Billions even! What in the fraggle frock and I meant to do for millennia?

"Fuck you guy."

Those were my final thoughts, and I'd like to believe the barest flash of indignation I felt weren't just a figment of my scattering consciousness and unreliable imagination.

Yeah, definitely fuck him. In fact, next time, I think I might kill that guy.

[GOOD LUCK]

It's the awkwardness of having told a server to enjoy their meal