Chapter 253 253 More Familiars



Wolfe watched as the witches played a quick match of rock, paper, and scissors to determine who was going to go first, with Mio, the unofficial leader of the first group of five who had become Wolfe's servants, winning the match.

She stepped into the circle with a happy smile on her face, and Wolfe felt the dip in his mana pool as she began to draw on both him and her surroundings to give herself the best chance possible at a cool Familiar.

At least, that was the thought in her mind. There were outsiders watching, and this would be a replacement for the beloved Familiar that she had lost in combat due to the Morgana Coven's lies, so she desperately wanted it to be something impressive to honour the memory of Squeak, her first Familiar.

·ƈθm The black ball of smoke rapidly formed on the floor of the Altar where the summoning was being done until, at the very last moment, a ray of sunlight reflected off something in the room and lit the whole cloud in a deep orange.

That was the moment when the cloud coalesced into a Familiar, and a small sparrow, with Flames licking around its wing feathers, appeared on the ground. It looked around for a second, then took flight, circling the room happily before landing on Mio's shoulder with a light chirp.

"A Flame Winged Sparrow. Now that is an impressive Familiar. One of the visiting witches sighed in envy.

They were a deadly one, too, at least when there was a whole flock of them. In the Frozen Wastes, they were carnivorous, and Wolfe had seen the locals steal one of their eggs to lead a flock to an army convoy, which the small birds tore apart in minutes, leaving no chance of escape for the hapless humans.

"Alright, that's how the ritual works here in the Spire Altar. Just put everything that you can into the spell and either visualize what you want or hope for the best. That's what I did. I just prayed for a worthy replacement for the Familiar that I lost.

Now, let's get to it. The daylight is wasting." Mio explained.

The next witch in line stepped up to see if she really could summon a Familiar. Her aura had stabilized only minutes after Wolfe had worked his magic, but the thought was still a foreign one to her.

Like so many other soldiers in the Myrrh Coven Army, she was at the bottom of the societal barrel, and her only job offer with any sort of dignity was fighting on the front lines. So, a miracle that would let them become proper witches was a longstanding dream of all ten volunteers, and they had their whole lives to dream of what they would love to have if they had a Familiar.

So, she did her best to gather the mana that she could and concentrated on the slowly growing cloud of smoke until it formed into a solid object, and a fluffy white kitten stepped out of the spell with a smirk on its face.

The kitten gave the girl a pointed look until she picked it up and then settled down in her arms with a soft purring.

The witch recovered her wits quickly and stepped out of the circle so that the next witch could begin her ritual, and then went looking for a spot to sit and bond with her kitten.

The next witch to begin the ritual could have almost been Mary's twin. A tiny woman with bright pink hair and eyes, but with a much more serious look than the one that Mary usually wore.

Her cloud formed quite quickly, and a fluffy squirrel appeared in her outstretched palm, then scurried up her arm to sit on her head and observe the room full of people where it had found itself.

One after another, the newly awakened witches went up to make their summoning, and one after another, they found themselves with forest creatures. Not all of them were plain old animals, though.

The Squirrel that had been summoned was showing a remarkable affinity for Earth Magic as it made small decorations for its witch's hair, and there were two wisps in the group, small balls of light that were everywhere in Fae Forests. They served both as guideposts and as a way to cause visitors to get lost because the Wisps would move and use illusion magic to change the path behind them.

Then, it was time for Cook and the other four Servants who had reached Rank Two to make their summoning. Cook had won the contest to go second, and she happily skipped to the alter. It totally didn't match her appearance, but the tattooed line cook didn't care what anyone thought, and if she was happy enough to want to skip, she would do it.

She cast her summoning, and a small white ball appeared at her feet. It was on par with the summoning spells that had produced many of the smaller forest creatures, but the white smoke was out of the ordinary. They had only seen it once before when the Faerie was summoned, but Cook had no idea what was happening. She was focusing on her desires with her eyes closed and didn't open them until the spell finished and her Familiar took form.

A thirty-centimetre tall copper-skinned Fae, with long ears nearly the size of its head and greatly oversized eyes, faded into being and stared at the cook for a moment, then flashed out of existence to reappear at a much smaller size inside her coat pocket with a handful of cookies. Brownies were known as a domestic sort of Fae, and they usually wanted treats in return for their assistance.

"So that's what you were after. Well, they call me Cook, and I've always got food. But we should make way for the next one." Cook chuckled as her new Familiar gave her a thumbs up and happily munched away.

Alice was up next, and with a light pull at Wolfe's mana, it only took her ten seconds to form her Familiar. A flame-winged sparrow, identical to Mio's. Next up was Mai, and again, a Flame Winged Sparrow appeared in front of her, making everyone in the spire wonder if there was some glitch in the spell or if there were simply so many of the things around that they were as common as rats and mice were in the city.

The twins were up last, and they chose to enter the circle together. That wasn't normally recommended, but as identical twins, they believed that trying to do it any other way wouldn't work properly. They were two halves of the same whole, so they both had to do the spell at the same time for it to work.

Whether that was true or not was another question, but it had worked the first time, so nobody was going to stop them this time.

Two balls of smoke were forming, so the spell seemed to be working as intended. The twins focused on their spells, and the strangest pair of creatures appeared before them. They were little more than the size of an imp, no taller than the twins' waists, but misshapen, with long arms and thick bulbous noses. They were both bare-chested, with a paunchy dad bod build and slightly hunched back, but Wolfe could see that there was muscle under the flabby skin.

What he didn't know was what they were. Not until the leader of the visiting Witches identified them.

"Trolls. Those are Earth Trolls, the fae that guards mountain passes and crossroads within the Fae Forests." She whispered, mostly to herself.

If that's what they were, they should be extremely powerful Fae, on par with the Faerie, but more focused on Earth Magic than Nature. It was an incredible summoning, and the pair of gnarled Fae seemed happy about it as they high-fived each other.