The next morning we were woken up by a knock at the door. I used the implant to check the time and found it was only 6 AM. I thought that I left behind early morning wakeups when I got down here, but it seems that training still counts as school. When I got up, I found it was one of the inn staff letting us know that Tabby would be by in thirty minutes so if we wanted to eat we would need to come down soon.

We both went down and ordered some breakfast and waited for Tabby to arrive. When she did, she provided us with our instructions for the day. “Xiantha you need to go to the physical training course. They will give you objectives and how you go about accomplishing them will tell us a lot about what type of fighter you are and help decide what training would suit you both. If you are up in your face rip them apart, then it would be best for Alex to learn to keep you healed and provide you with various buffs that would help you do more damage, or cause enemies to take damage when they hit you. On the other hand, if you like to sneak up on things and quickly knock them out, then Alex would be better off learning things to increase his own sturdiness like spell shields and life draining attacks. Eventually, you can learn to do it all, I mean you have a long life ahead of you, but when young it’s better to specialize and know your strengths and weaknesses. The other reason is that with a willing bond, instead of a forced one, Xiantha will be able to evolve based on her what she does the most. This is a specialized form so unlike staying imp, she could not say go from a front-line fighter such a fiend, to deceptive succubus.”

Then Tabby turned to me, “For you, we will start off learning the summoning ritual. Once we find out what your partner does best, starting tomorrow, we will start teaching you the spells that will work best with her while she learns how to fight while wearing armor and using weapons instead of skin and claw.”

I started to turn down Tabby on learning the ritual, but Xiantha spoke in my mind “ Stop, I have an idea that might work. Thousands of my kind die daily while hunting and just living. Instead of targeting a demon that is thriving and removing them against their will, maybe we can find one that is about to die and save it. Then you offer the choice of bonding or allowing them to die as they would have if we didn’t intervene. If it works, maybe we can get other warlocks to do the same thing, instead of the slavery that is currently happening.”

I thought about it for a minute and decided that maybe she was right. Not only would it actually save demons, but it would also help to stop the slavery going on now. I told Tabby that we agreed, and she had Xiantha go to the training course waypoint, while I followed her back to the academy building.

We went into a classroom in the basement, and she told me that normally summoning rituals are conducted in this room, what I had run across was actually against the rules and considered torture. It was not in any way condoned, and as a result, David had been ejected from the community, and his backups could no longer connect to the core. Essentially a death sentence for him the next time he got killed.

Tabby then asked me “You were going to turn down the summoning training weren’t you?”

I nodded and said “They are sentient beings and it feels too much like slavery. We steal them from their homes and force them to call us master.”

She gave a rueful smile and said “In a way, I agree with you, but we need their help. They are some of the best fighters around. Their world is so rough that, violence is all they know. Demons dominate each other all the time, it’s really the same thing here. Regardless, I guess your demon talked you into doing it, what did she say?”

I responded “She told me that thousands of her kind die each day. What if I can target a demon that for some reason is about to die, be it from a hunt gone bad or some other reason? If I can summon that demon that would have died anyway, I would be saving them, not abducting them. She also said that I give them a choice, I can allow them to die like they would have, or they can bond with me and live. With saving them and giving them a choice they may agree to the partnership. If that is the case and it works for me, then she thinks that others may come to this new way of thinking to get willing partners instead of binding them like currently is done.”

She was silent for a minute while thinking about it, then she smiled at me and said “Not all demons will accept a bond, even under those circumstances. However, if it works, and we can get more people with evolving demons, it’s worth looking into. If you can learn the ritual today, then I would like to get Xiantha in here tonight to try it if you are both willing. Honestly, if it works then you will have to train to work well with two demons.”

It took about 6 hours to learn the ritual mainly because it was three parts. First, was the physical, the drawing of the pentagram and placement of candles. Second, there was the spell to help you see into the demon realm to target the third phase of the ritual, the actual summoning. I could practice the first two parts, but the third needed a target and could only be cast the one time, and after the ritual was completed you were no longer able to see into the demon realm either. I got my first visual of Xiantha’s realm after lunch, I happened to see inside a jungle area and the creatures there were highly varied. Some of them were very well armored, others had camouflage. I saw some demons too, imps, fiends, succubus, even one that resembled Tabby’s balrog demon.

Once Tabby was sure that I had everything down pat it was nearly 6PM, it had been a terribly long day, but I was excited too. Tabby was willing to allow me to attempt it tonight if Xiantha was willing to come and help me out to try to make sure that it would be a success. I called her, and she was willing to try, as she said every day we waited would mean more enslaved of her race.

I already had everything set up and ready to go from all my practice today, so when Xiantha got there, we sat in the center of the pentagram. I wanted to see if she could see what I was seeing to help me find a good candidate. We performed the vision part of the ritual, and she told me “I can see my world.” I looked at her face and saw tears rolling down her cheeks and immediately felt shame for what my race had done to her. She seemed to know what I was feeling and squeezed my hand and said, “ It’s not your fault, I will be OK.”

She directed my view to head north from where I was currently looking as she thought she recognized some landmarks. She said there was a nesting area for game birds near a cliff in that direction. Usually, demons would hunt there, but if something happened the birds would swarm and quickly overwhelm and eat the unfortunate demon. I started moving my sight north, and before I got to the cliff, she told me to stop and go back south a little bit. I did as she asked and noticed a couple of demon imps hiding behind a group of trees. We watched them while backing away our view and found that what they were hiding from was a group of well, to me they looked like dragons, except they kept tasting the air like a snake would, plus they were smooth scaled without horns you would see on dragons. Xiantha said to me “ Get ready to cast the ritual just in case. Those lizards can outfly the demons, and they can taste them on the air. You will have to be very quick though, the lizards have a poison that will kill the imps very quickly.”

I moved the view in closer and watched the two imps, one was male, the other female. The female was taller by a few inches, and I felt horrible that I could not save them both. The lizards were about 100 yards away when the female imp seemed to come to a decision of some sort. She started talking to the smaller imp, and both of them had tears on their faces. She then picked up a stick off the ground and running off towards the west. The lizards started to move towards her more quickly as if they detected her movement, then she hit a tree with her branch and ran some more. The lizards started running after her, and it was clear that she would not get very far. The smaller male demon took the opportunity to use his wings to fly the other direction away from the girl and the lizards. It looks like she sacrificed herself to save him. Xiantha said, “ She acts with honor, she should be saved!”

I agreed wholeheartedly, so I quickly started casting the third part of the ritual. It felt like something inside of me was being sucked out. I felt pain like I have never felt before and my head throbbed as a portal appeared in front of me. It pulsated, and it seemed my head would throb in time with the pulsation of the portal. After about 10 seconds an unconscious imp fell from the portal into my lap in the center of the pentagram then the portal snapped shut.

I still felt wrung out but was slowly recovering. While I waited, I held the demon in my arms and stroked her back. She was a very brave soul, and I was proud of her, even if she did not choose to join me. I looked at Tabby and told her what we had seen and just from her imagination of the event she had tears on her cheeks too. I then asked her how long it would take for the demon to wake up. She said around 5 minutes give or take and she recommended that I put the demon down and step outside the circle until after we talked.

I waited until the demon regained consciousness. When she did Xiantha called out “Easy sister, you are safe, and the male got away.”

The demon called out “Where am I, what happened.”

Xiantha looked to me to explain, so I stepped forward, and the little demon looked shocked.

“What are you?” she asked.

“You are in a different world, and I am what is called a human. I and some others like me have an ability to call one demon from your realm and ask them to bind with us. I was watching you and saw what you did for the younger one. I was impressed as was my friend Xiantha here, so I wanted to save your life. Unfortunately, there is a side effect of this magic. It is namely what once I have summoned you here, you must bind your soul with mine, or you will die of a condition called mana thirst. You would have died in your world to those lizards so I gave you the chance to join with me or to allow you to die as you should have in your own world. I cannot send you back, and I cannot prevent the mana thirst condition. I warn you it is possible to force a bond on you demons, but I am not willing to force you to bind with me. I am going to sit over there by my teacher to let you decide. I will abide by your decision. If you wish to talk, Xiantha here is also bound to me and can fill you in on anything you want to know.”

I backed away and sat down. I then watched as Xiantha, and the demon quietly spoke for a few minutes. There were some nodding and head shaking, then tears. I patiently waited. They talked for almost 15 minutes, and Xiantha called me back over. She had me enter the circle next to the demon. Now that I was closer I could see that she was a bit different than Xiantha even though they were both imps. This one was a bit shorter but had more defined muscles. Their colorations were different as well. The new imp was a light blue in color with markings on her body that were red in color, while Xiantha was a golden color with barely visible markings the colors were so similar. Xiantha also stepped inside the pentagram with us for what was about to happen.

The demon then took my hand and whispered the words out loud “I Etalia acknowledge Alex Johnson as my bond partner.”

While the words were different than when Xanitha called me master, I guess they worked just as well. The pentagram flared to life around us, and all three of us lost consciousness.