Final day of training pt 3: Morning

Eventually, you and Brighid recover some energy and get out of bed, quickly washing each other to get the worst of the mess off -- though the Paladin insists that you leave the cum-smear "A" above her breasts alone and won't let you touch her rear end either -- and eat a hearty breakfast. As you both already got quite a workout this morning, you decide to delay any physical training until the afternoon. Brighid goes out to the forge and soon the CLANG clang of her hammer rings out into the morning fog. You, meanwhile, reach into your Handy Haversack to grab one of the books Ailis loaned you, only to come away with a surprise.

Everything in the upper-left of your extradimensional inventory is as expected; you had put the Sun-ray Spear into the Haversack along with the loaned books, along with all the coins and gems from the dungeon loot and your soothebalm leaves, but what was that book in the bottom corner? You pull it out and it is a large, leather-bound volume with a couple hundred thick pages. The cover is covered with gilded letters in an alphabet which would be unfamiliar except for your Cunning Linguist Trait.

Congratulations! Through your Cunning Linguist Trait, you have learned to read and write Old High Asfarren.

You have found: Spellbook of Call Soul's Familiar. Rarity: Mythic. Item Quality: Masterwork. Additional Properties: Reading this Spellbook will teach the reader the level 1 Animamancy Ritual, Call Soul's Familiar, as long as the reader has sufficient affinity in Animamancy. Time to read: 2 hours at 100% affinity. Chance to learn: 100% at 100% affinity.

"New plan!" You exclaim to the empty room, and open up the book.

You blink and shake your head, your head swimming with new knowledge. You look up and the light is coming through the window at a different angle, but you could swear it had only been a second. You look down at the spellbook, but there is only a pile of ash vanishing into a non-existent breeze. "One use only, huh?" You ask rhetorically.

Congratulations! You have reached level 1 in Animamancy. You are now Unskilled in Animamancy.

Congratulations! You have learned the ritual Call Soul's Familiar.
Congratulations! You have learned the ritual Ensoul Object.

Call Soul's Familiar: Animamancy, level 1. Every living being is given a soul at birth, but not a complete soul. Somewhere, out in the infinite multiverse, another being has the other portion of your soul. This ritual will call that creature to you to serve as your familiar. Needless to say, this can only be done once. Cost: 200 Concentration, 5,000 experience. Duration: Instantaneous. Casting Time: 4 hours.

Ensoul Object: Animamancy, level 1. Through the use of this ritual, you can imbue a soul into an inanimate object. The soul is only very small and is not self-sustaining, and the object will not be truly alive, but a clever caster can find many uses for this ritual. Cost: 50 Concentration, 500 experience. Duration: Concentration. Casting Time: 1 hour.

Wow, Animamancy rituals cost experience? That is a steep cost, especially to practice with, but if the higher tier rituals are as much more powerful in Animamancy as they are in Fire Magic, it would be worth it. You can still hear Brighid working at the forge outside, and it does not look like it is anywhere near noon yet, so you decide to go ahead and cast Call Soul's Familiar; your curiosity is killing you. You use the ashes from her fireplace to draw a complex circle about a meter across on the floor, then kneel in the middle and begin to chant words which your Trait doesn't translate but which you nonetheless know by heart. The ritual takes all but the smallest fraction of your Concentration and you are fully absorbed by it.

Four hours later, you chant the last phrase and you suddenly become aware of the world around you again. There is no more sound coming from the forge, and as you look around, you spot Brighid preparing lunch. Before you can say anything to her, though, a horrible ripping sound fills the air and what you can only describe as a tear in space opens directly in front of you, inside the circle. She whirls around, kitchen knife in her hand, searching for the threat. Through the tear, you see a steamy jungle, full of dense foliage and humming with life, although the only light on the scene is seemingly traveling through the portal from your home. You can feel the heat of the faraway place and hear the songs of birds and insects thrumming and chirping in the night. It is strangely beautiful, and you wonder just how far away this place is, whether you could ever visit in person. Something rustles in the bushes and many of the night sounds stop suddenly. The bushes shudder and rustle some more, and then from just out a view a tiny, frog-like creature jumps through the portal and lands just in front of you. You stare down at it, vaguely disappointed that your familiar isn't something cool like a dragonling or a firebird or even a much larger and more imposing frog. Then, suddenly, a sleek, dark shape leaps from the bushes and through the rift, pouncing on the frog and swallowing it whole in one swift bite.

You shout and scramble to your feet, and the rift swiftly closes with a sound like a massive zipper. There on the floor of Brighid's home is a small cat, bigger than a house cat but much smaller than any big cat from Earth; it is a between half and two thirds of a meter long from snout to the base of its tail, and its tail is roughly another quarter meter long. Its short fur is a rich, midnight black with just the faintest hint of blue, and it has faintly glowing silvery-white spots on its fur very much like a jaguar, although less wide-spread. It sits down and looks up at you, and you suddenly feel an intense feeling of <hungry>.

"Are you... my familiar?" You ask, tentatively. The only response is a silver-eyed stare and another pulse of <hungry>. "That cost me 5000 experience so you better be. Brighid? Can you hand me a few scraps of meat?" She does so, still clutching the kitchen knife. You take one of the scraps and hold it out to the cat, which rises from its haunches and snaps it out of your hand, narrowly missing your fingers as you jerk them back. You quickly feed it the rest of the meat and, seemingly satisfied, it begins to twine around your feet and purr. You reach down and very tentatively scratch it behind the ears, causing it to purr more loudly and push its head into your hand.

"Well, I guess I'm stuck with you either way. What should I call you, I wonder? Are you a boy or a girl cat?" The feline gives you a flat stare which is so distinctly disdainful that you can't help but laugh and say, "Well, something tells me that you will scratch the heck out of me if I try and lift your tail to check, so why don't we try it this way: how do you like the name Riama?" The cat tilts its head, at you, staring at you with feral intelligence, then headbutts your hand looking for more scratches and pets. "I'll take that as acceptance! Riama it is!" And with that, a new window opens in your mind.

Stolen Destiny: If a creature dies while under the effect of this debuff, the astral jaguar and its master gain a cumulative 1% bonus to earned experience for 12 hours.