Heinrich Tablos

Archmage Heinrich Tablos studied the ritual. He sighed, it was a complex piece of spellware. It was still inside the skill, to perform the ritual, of a second-year student like Elise, but only barely.

The real problem was the power needed to execute the ritual. He knew that she had a relatively high amount of natural mana, but this was absurd.

He thought about it and then put it into his calendar to speak at the next staff meeting about it. She should get much more help than she is getting and most of her teachers mispresented her power. He remembered that Mage Fizzlewood had tried to tell him how powerful she really was, but the other mage was just too junior to take seriously if every other mage said that her power was less.

That would teach him, he thought, in not looking into things. But how could he have known that some of his subordinates would not tell him something this important.

But now he must go back to his task, figuring out what exactly the summoning spell did. And while he was at it, he could also task someone with finding out how the hell this spell was in the public part of the library.

He called his secretary, Ione Geron, a non-mage to him and gave her the task to investigate this as well as to take the spell book out of circulation, at least for now.

Afterwards, Archmage Tablos continued with his work. The first thing that he realized was that while this was in the binding parts a normal familiar summon spell, in the part that summoned the being it was far, far away from being normal. It first reached into the void, so far it was normal.

But then it did something strange. Many, if not most, worlds had small, natural portals into the void. Normal summoning spells either used these portals to get access to beings on other worlds or took denizens of the void itself.

But this one forced a portal into a different world, than the one where it was cast, open, and even scanned something before it did this. The scan searched for something Tablos could not identify, and only if this something was found the portal was opened to a useful size.

One thing the scan did was clear. It detected if on the other side, practically in the portal was a usable being. There was some evidence of the portal being able to move. This being would not be able to flee and would instantly be sucked into the void.

Shortly thereafter another portal would open into the void, near the exit point of the first, the endpoint of this one would be in the middle of the ritual.

The summon would see a subtle compulsion to move into the new portal, after which the bindings of the spell would properly engage.

While the bindings were done the spell did at least two additional things. The first one was already known to the Archmage and relatively standard for summoning spells. It was checking if the summon could even survive in this world and if no, using the energy of the void, still clinging to the summoned being to change the being to be able to survive in its new world.

The second also used the same energy to do more changes. What these changes did precisely was unknown to Heinrich Tablos, but they did seem harmless, and likely were in some part helpful to the summoned being or its summoner.

The bond was pretty much standard, but some parts were a bit stricter or looser than normal. The summon was forced to be near the summoner, so far so standard. But the definition of near for the spell was more than a distance of around 40000 km, and for the imperial nutjobs 24854,85 miles, as Jonathan's old world defines things. Certainly an extremely loose binding.

The summon also did not lose free will, something that was wildly used because of the advantages it gave to have a summons that could do things without the direction of the summoner, even if it did cause the odd little problem sometimes.

To circumvent most of the possible problems a few restrictions were normally included in the spell. The restrictions, in this case, were that while the summon could argue as much as it wanted and it was impossible for the summoner to forbid this, the summon could not go against orders that told him to do physical things like moving from one end of a room to another.

Funnily enough, Jonathan could either use magic or not use magic, as the Elise in this situation wished, but specific magics were beyond the spell to affect.

Also, the summon was not forced to always tell the truth to its summoner, but the summoner could force the issue, if only for a short period of time per day. How long exactly this period of forced truthfulness would last, Tablos could not say.

He realized that Elise would need the cooperation of Jonathan, without it things would get difficult quickly. Also, it would be for the best if Jonathan would learn to trust Elise fast, as well as getting a good foundation for magic so that he could understand what he was seeing.

It would also be a good idea to find a way to bring him the cultural and basic political landscape of his new home nearer.

After he worked for a bit longer on the problem, he decided that it was enough and he gleaned everything he could from the spell, at least for now. That did not mean his work was finished right now.

Now Tablos must organize what will happen with Jonathan and prevent any stupid ideas by some of the more decadent nobles. Those could be really unbearable and thought that because of their status they were entitled to really everything.

Some of them would want the control of Jonathan, which was luckily impossible, but a few of them would not take a no as an answer and simply not believe him.

He thought for a bit what to do now. After a while, he began composing a list of what must be done. The first thing on this list was the need for Jonathan’s education.

Also, Elise would need a bit of education on how to work with a familiar in general and how to work with Jonathan in specific terms as well.

Secondly, the need to protect Elise from pressure from the nobles. This would need a few words to Elise and maybe the Kings assistance. At least King Eduard III would likely be at least a bit sympathetic.

But he would want to meet Elise and Jonathan before he endorses the bond officially. Maybe Jonathan could give him something he wanted?

If Tablos remembered correctly, the King wanted to increase the scientific knowledge and Jonathan came from a world without magic, maybe he had a few insights into the topic.

His backpack was made out of such a finely woven material, only magic could do something like it. But it was nearly certain that his world had not enough magic to create something like this. Maybe he could tell the king the secret of this?

This could be potentially dangerous, the noble family of Tangren would not want to lose its dominance in the trade with clothes, and if such good cloth could be produced by non-mages, this would hurt them dearly, but maybe it would not come to that.

Maybe he knew a secret that did not infringe on any of the noble families fields of competence. Maybe he knew of a way to get power that those would not assume possible… Archmage Heinrich Tablos chastised himself, he divagated already. This really happened to easy, he thought. After this episode, he continued making plans.

In the end, it came down to first speaking with Jonathan and getting him an education in the things he would need in this world and after that speaking with the king.

He began to work on this plan, at least his secretary was back. After a short question, he found out that she could not finish the task today, but set everything in motion. He entrusted her in building a schedule for Jonathan to get his education. Afterwards, he called it a day and went to bed.