6 Ch. 5 New Equipment and Double Teaming

At the crack of dawn, I wake up and begin doing my morning routine of eating breakfast while my summons both eat their respective cores. Instead of heading straight to the gate like I normally do, I veer on the cobbled street towards the commercial district to pick up my wolf-hide jacket and tusk dagger that I had commissioned earlier in the week.

I enter the smithy soon after walking into the burgeoning district and once again see Garth behind the counter. The moment he sees me he instantly reaches under the counter and pulls out a curved ivory-colored dagger from what used to be a boars' tusk along with the sheathe it goes in.

After admiring the craftmanship for a while and testing the sharpness, I pay Garth the remaining 2 credits I owe him and secure the dagger and its' holster to my waist before going a few shops down to the leather workers shop.

I greet the worker after entering the pungent shop to which he just motions for me to follow him to the back. We enter into a larger back room with a plethora of leather in various stages of being stretched, cured, dyed, and then made into clothes.

Hanging up with the rest of the finished pieces is a sleek black wolf hide jacket that the leatherworker hands to me. I put on the jacket and feel it's cool but smooth interior coupled with the warm and soft fur coating on the outside. I give my thanks to the leatherworker before heading out the door having already paid for it when I commissioned it.

After having gotten both of my previously ordered items from the respective stores, I head towards the gate giddy with anticipation at the thought of all of the monsters my summons will be able to defeat with their combined might.

With those idle thoughts running through my head, I managed to entertain myself till I pass through the gate and am able to bring out both of my summons who both seem ecstatic to be out of their crystals. They seem almost as if not more so happy at seeing me, judging by the way they happily pounce on me the moment I bring them out.

After giving them enough attention and head pats which Brutus seems to greatly enjoy, I indicate to them that we should head north, and I lead my party once more into the forest with the aim of making money and growing stronger.

Money is my most important focus currently because there are many things that money will allow me access to or at least make things easier for Mira and I. When I eventually have enough after all of the costs deducted from summoner expenses, I'll focus on making my summons stronger or better. Summoning seems to eat up most of my money currently, but money isn't my priority because, with power, money can be easily gotten at any point in time.

Eventually, we come to the border of the outer area of the forest where the tier 1's reside and I adopt a serious expression on my face, any lax in concentration could result in my untimely demise to even tier 1's if they were smart about it or just plain lucky.

With the combined assault of Jareth and Brutus, we managed to tear through 12 tier 1 monsters, some of which were in groups that were taken care of almost as easily as the individual monsters, the only ones of note were 4 spiderlings that must have traveled from a nest in search of food in two separate pairs.

Before we enter the territory of tier 2 monsters I decide to take a break and feed my summons a core each before bringing out my own cheap but satisfying meal of meat stew with hard bread that Mira had set out for me this morning.

After resting long enough to recover some energy and finish our respective meals, we enter the tier 2 area deeper in the forest. Soon enough we come across another iron-hide boar which Jareth and Brutus quickly take care of, they manage it with no injuries as a result of their team work and having the numbers advantage.

With quite a bit more space remaining in my storage and a decent amount of daylight left, we continue our trek before coming across a pair of spike tailed squirrels, each summon takes on one of the squirrels by themselves.

Jareth has an easy time with his squirrel due to his reach with his club, but Brutus was at a standstill with his squirrel due to the danger presented by its tail and his lack of any ranged attacks that would let him escape said tail. He manages to trick the squirrel once with his illusion ability and takes a swipe at its face.

He manages to gouge an eye before retreating. Jareth quickly beats in the skull of his squirrel around the same time that Brutus swipes his squirrel's face, and so with his opponent already taken care of, he follows my directions and double teams the remaining squirrel that quickly falls due to being overwhelmed by two opponents while partially blinded. After inspecting my summons and seeing no serious damage to them, I decided we should have one or two more fights before turning in for the day.

We walk some more, all the while remaining firmly in the tier 2 area and manage to see a screaming coyote in the distance that hasn't yet noticed us. I have my two summons begin to sneak towards it slowly while I begin to plan an ambush for the monster. The primary reason for which is to prevent it from attacking with its sonic scream which can temporarily disable its' victim.

I begin by having Jareth sneak closer in order to throw his club at the coyote and stun it. Brutus, on the other hand, will be using his illusion to get the coyote to direct its scream away from us, to which Brutus will then rush in and rip out the throat of the coyote with its teeth.

Jareth eventually gets into range of the coyote while still remaining hidden due to the dense trees obstructing its' view along with being downwind of the monster. He waits for the coyote to get into his line of sight and clear of any trees, and when it eventually does, he throws the club as hard as he can in the general area of its head.

Either due to skill or luck, the club manages to stun the coyote with a head blow, with the heavy end of the solid wooden club. While the coyote is stunned and planning on retaliating with its sonic attack, Brutus comes in with his illusion emerging from the shadow of a tree in front of the monster and as the coyote prepares to attack the illusion.

Brutus rushes in and manages to catch the coyote unaware of its' impending doom until it feels the clamping of jaws on its' vulnerable yet muscle-clad throat. With a jerk of Brutus' head, the monsters' throat is ripped out and it quickly dies without even having had a chance to retaliate.

With the success of this latest hunt, I feel even more confident of our strength and capabilities, and after a small break, we continue along and finally end hunting for the day with a Drill rabbit that quickly dies in a direct confrontation between the two summons.

Once more, I begin the laborious task of removing the cores from all of the bodies, and after that is finally taken care of, we head back to the city and only once are we intercepted by a monster. It was a normal wolf that had likely been tracking the scent of blood clinging to us for some time, I let Brutus take care of it and even fed him the core for dinner.

To make things fair, I ended up giving Jareth the iron-hide boar core from the boar that they had previously killed today as a reward for his hard work and to hopefully speed up his evolution.

Once their meal was finished and we made it out of the forest, I reluctantly unsummon them and pass through the gate. I sold the remaining cores that we had earned that day to the core exchange and managed to earn myself 32 credits.

After that, I went to the Summoner association to sell the bodies in my storage, with 8 normal tier 1 monsters selling each for 3 credits, the 4 spiderlings selling for 6 credits. The iron-hide boar selling for 28 credits since all parts remained intact, the screaming coyote selling for only 12 credits since the only remaining valuable part is the hide since the throat was destroyed.

The drill rabbit selling for 16 credits, the two spike tailed squirrels selling for 18 each due to their hide being used in armor, and lastly the intact wolf selling for 6 credits. Making for an additional earning of 178 credits today, which is quite an impressive haul considering I'm still fairly new to summoning.

I decided to treat myself to a nice dinner and started to head towards a nice restaurant and ended up eating a pricey 3 credit meal that left my total credit amount at 211 credits.

While enjoying my meal of rabbit stew and thorny deer steak, I begin to ponder how I should spend my credits. Eventually, I decide to upgrade my storage 4 times, which leaves me with 111 credits after spending 100 credits on the four upgrades.

Heading home after my dinner, I quickly take care of rent for the month which is 25 credits by sending the funds to Mira, further draining my money and leaving 86 credits. I sigh in exasperation that despite all of the money I've made, it always seems to disappear right after it goes into my account.