The summoner supreme

John sighed softly, then started to run after the hedgehog that was rolling away from the mage chasing it. The creature called Steven made a few peeping noises and started to pick up speed, only to get cut off by John who, after jumping from branch to branch for a bit, landed in front of him. “Got you,” John said with a smirk, casting entangle on the ground, the tendrils winding around the hedgehog, not tightly, just enough to keep him in place.

The hedgehog unrolled, looking angry at John as he took the rolled up parchment out of his mouth. “No stealing things. Bad hedgehog,” John chastised him, looking at the scroll out of curiosity. The contents took him aback slightly, something about a certain guy, sharing his name, fucking a dryad while being called ‘my king’.

“That’s weird; I never fucked any dryads,” he mumbled to himself as the mage finally caught up to them. “Mr Paxas, I think this is yours?” John politely said as he offered the scroll back. Still confused as to why the man would write about him, but hey, as stated before, the Abyss was full of weirdo’s.

“Ah, thanks young man. Call me Des,” the mage said offhandedly as his eyes locked on Steven. “That does it, Steven, no more cake for you tonight.” The hedgehog gave a remorseful look as the tendrils stopped binding him, the little critter sniffling slightly as he nibbled on Des’ robe. “No. You won’t get off by acting all sad. You stole my chapter! Bad spiky pupper!” The hedgehog looked up at him, with beady eyes, small tears forming. “Oooh, alright then, you can get a tiny piece of cake tonight.” Des picked up the hedgehog, placing him on his shoulder and putting the parchment away inside of his robes. Only then did he look at John.

“Ah, John Newman, I’ve had visions of you. Or, one of you, I think, how many of you are there now? thirteen? Fourteen? Doesn’t matter.” He ran a hand through his pointy beard before looking up into the trees and muttering to himself about Annas and Vespas, then shaking his head, correcting himself. Vestas.

By the time the mumbling mage looked up again, Arnold and Cynthia had joined a very confused looking John. Arnold cleared his throat as Des managed to find a bit of food to feed to Steven, the hedgehog munching on it contently.

“Hi there, Des, how are you doing?” Arnold asked politely. His hand stretched out to shake the mage’s.

“Good, good, very good. I finished a chapter, looking for feedbackeroonies. Always tasty, tasty, tasty feedback.” He shook Arnold’s hand with a wide smile.

“Des, can we come in? We need to talk to you about something, something serious. We might need to ask your little friends if they saw anything.”
“Sure! I have some noms on the stove, we’ll have a chat, a drink, and then you can tell me what you need to know,” the eccentric mage happily spoke, waving at them to follow him as he walked back to the tree, a spring in his step. The three hunters followed him with a bit of distance.

“He’s a bit… odd,” John whispered to Arnold, who gave him a knowing smile.

“Des is a sage and a summoner. Anyone that gets visions is at times a bit odd; he’s harmless though.”

John nodded and was the first of the three to enter the tree. It was a lot larger on the inside that it seemed to be from the outside. A large sprawling hall opened up for them, hedgehogs eating from large bowls here and there on the floor. On lines going from wall to wall, more parchments were hanging. John could spot a few words here and there, telling stories of junkyard rats, a pregnant Vanessa and stealing Frank’s quad. It was odd; he felt a shiver down his spine, but with a bit of self restraint, managed to stop himself from reading the texts. Des had walked on ahead of them, putting a few sandwiches on a plate and placing said plate on a table, gesturing at his guests to sit down.

Four hedgehogs walked to the table and put mugs next to the plate. A final hedgehog then used a zipline to deliver a thermos of coffee to the table. Des eagerly sat down and started to eat one of the sandwiches. “Come, sit!” he said between bites.

The three hunters did just that, sitting down, taking a sandwich and pouring themselves some coffee. “So, Des, I heard you are a summoner?” John tried to be polite, not wanting to dive right into business while they were so kindly offered food.

“Yes, I am. Someone said I was an odd one; apparently I could summon a demigod with my proficiency,” the dark haired mage said offhandedly.

“Did you ever try? Summoning a demigod?“ John asked clearly in awe.

“Nope. Never.”

“Why not?” John was clearly confused.

“Because I don’t want to summon a demigod, I want to summon hedgehogs,” was the simple answer, delivered so matter of factly that John had no idea how to respond to it; John thought: ’Not the weirdest reasoning i heard so far, odd, but understandable’

Laughing, Arnold patted John’s shoulder. “Well, with the pleasantries out of the way. Des, we need your help. Don’t worry, we do not want you to come out of seclusion, we just wonder if you saw or heard something a few hours ago. One of our hunters was brutally murdered in the forest, and we need to find out who did it.”

Thedespaxas’ eyes turned serious, and he put down his mug as he listened. “I heard nothing, but some of my friendos might have. Hmmm, let me check. Steven, go and ask around, will you?” he told the hedgehog still sitting on his shoulder. The hedgehog put his paw to his snout in some form of salute and then rushed off. Rolling across the table, down a slide, and disappeared into the groups of hedgehogs around the place.

“While you are here, there was something I wanted to talk to you about, funny you came here, really,” Des said as he looked at the three hunters. “A while back, I saw a walking tin can disappear somewhere nearby. Half an hour later he returned from the exact same spot. So I went to investigate. Did you know there are ruins in the forest? Hidden by cloaking magic?”

Arnold looked confused. “Ruins? Here? I didn’t know that, where was this?”

“Do you have a map?”

John produced the map he had gotten from Artemis before his hunt, the map being colored in for a part. The places he had been, he only realized this just now.

Des looked over it, then tapped at a white spot on the map. “There, it looks to be just another bit of forest, well, used to, I may or may not have destroyed the cloaking runes, don’t trust tin cans, always walking around, stomping the plants and stuff. I wanted to go and investigate, but I also don’t want to leave my home, so I am asking you to go and look, if you can? I’d appreciate it.”

Arnold looked concerned, a hidden ruin in their forest? That could spell trouble. “Alright, we will. John, Cyn, I think we need to go there and have a look soon, I don’t like the sound of this.”

“Did the tin can have anything like a badge or something?” Cynthia asked as she suddenly had an idea who it could be.

“Yes, it was a tulip, I think, I’m not a herbalist,” the puzzled mage answered. At this point, Steven rolled back onto the table, holding a piece of parchment in his mouth. He placed it down on the table. As it rolled out, a woman with four arms and dressed in a butler outfit was shown, each hand wielding a sword. Steven peeped at Des.

“Steven says that one of his brothers saw it happen; he conveys his condolences. He drew this picture of the one that killed your hunter. She was not nice,” Des explained, translating hedgehog to human.

“Alright, thanks, Des. I’m sorry, but I think we should leave right away. We will come by for another proper chat soon, but we need to follow up on these leads,” Arnold explained and got up, followed by Cyn and John.

“Of course! No problem! Next time, bring me a kebab, if you can, okay? If there is one thing I miss from the normal world, it’s tasty, tasty kebabs.”

“Promise. Thanks, Des,” Arnold conveyed their thanks as they headed for the door. However, just as Arnold, John and Cyn prepared to head out and investigate the ruins, a familiar sound of a horn echoed through the forest.