A horn was blown, signaling for everyone to begin the Conjuration Exam.

“Phaedra!” Shaya invoked, drawing in Jade as fast as she could and tracing the first of her spells without waiting to have sufficient aether to cast it.

Before her esper had finished manifesting with a snap of her angelic wings, Shaya slapped a palm against the ground to complete her spell. A portal opened and a familiar inky black shape shot through it and into the air. The primal crow cawed its excitement at seeing her again, especially when Shaya tossed it a bit of jerky.

“Scout around the building!” She commanded with a smile, not waiting to assemble her full group before starting the challenges. “Squawk twice if you think there’s something I should see!”

With Amber, she conjured her next creature and smiled as a heavily plated and spiked animal crawled out of the portal. The porcudillo looked up at her as she offered it a chirping box, then tore into it with a happy chortle. It would have made for a terrifying scene if the porcudillo was more than three feet long. Once it had finished snacking on the crickets, Shaya pointed to the side of the entrance: “Get burrowing under the wall!”

With a push of its large forelimbs, the little creature somersaulted forward, turning into a ball and rolling towards the building with a speed she hoped would surprise her enemies as much as it did her.

A chimcoon climbed out of the next Jade portal Shaya opened, the fuzzy little biped looking at her with its black-circled eyes. She handed the criminal-looking creature an apple and her lockpicks, which it accepted with a cool nod. It chomped on the apple as it waited for her instructions. “Follow our friend under the wall and open the door.”

It eyed the porcudillo then turned back to her, cocking its head as if unimpressed.

“Don’t worry, I’m conjuring some muscle to watch your back next.”

With that, it nodded and sauntered to where its ally was easily digging through the rock-hard ground, leisurely eating its apple while twirling the lock picks between the nimble fingers of its other hand.

“Always with the attitude,” Shaya grumbled and the chimcoon shot her a sassy glance.

Shaya’s next portal was larger than the others. A long, crystalline leg stretched through the portal and stabbed into the ground with a crunch and a tink. Seven more followed as a giant, stocky spider the size of a house cat emerged from the portal, composed entirely of quartz. Its multi-faceted, gem-like eyes turned to regard her, sharp mandibles scraping against one another hungrily.

Shaya dumped a handful of small garnets before it, and the quartz spider lunged for them almost before she could get her hand out of the way. Powerful jaws crushed the gems into dust, which coated the monster’s face and gave its misty quartz a blood-red hue.

“Follow the others into the building and defend them until the front door is open, then start making traps throughout the building.”

Crystalline claws tinked against the hard ground as the heavy creature skittered towards the building. Through its translucent exterior, Shaya could see silk sloshing around within the creature, still in its liquid state prior to being spun into webs. The sight of it made her shudder.

Two squawks pulled Shaya’s attention to the back of the building, where her primal crow hovered. She closed her eyes and looked within herself, following her spell circuits until she identified the one which bound the primal crow to her. With a bit of aether, she followed the string of energy that connected them and sent her own senses through that link.

Shaya fought off a wave of nausea as she looked at the world from the eyes of her crow. While she considered her eye-sight keen, it paled in comparison to the detail the crow was able to pick up. A small stream ran into the back of the building through a grate, offering another entrance with the right summon. A sense of urgency from her companion made her focus, however, and the creature pivoted its head to one of the windows. Looking down its beak, Shaya made out a large lizard-like shape through the window, crouched behind a railing atop a catwalk and blending into its surroundings.

Looks like the combat encounter is at the back of the warehouse, Shaya thought with a smile, I think we should turn that ambush around.

With a force of will, she sent a rudimentary command to her crow to return to her side – no more than an empathic desire to see it – and cut her link to it.

Given the watery entrance and possibility of amphibious assault, Shaya knew what she had to conjure next. She grimaced in distaste, but mentally thanked Ren for teaching her how to summon primal mongoose. As the large predator slinked out of her portal, Shaya pulled out a small box of mixed berries as an offering.

“Head to the back and enter through the stream,” she instructed, knowing the lithe creature would be able to squeeze through the grate, “then lie in wait until you hear the sounds of combat.”

It nodded and scurried off, muzzle and paws stained red, purple and blue from its berry feast.

Her last conjuration took longer than the rest, Shaya pouring Amber into a larger spell circuit that took up the rest of her capacity. The next portal to open was the largest yet, almost five feet across, and from it emerged a child-sized statue of dark granite. Rubies served as the earth elementals eyes and coppery veins ran through its body, reminding her of a miniature verson of Auric.

For her strongest ally, she offered a dice-sized topaz that glittered a warm yellow or orange, depending on how the sun struck it. It marveled at the gem for a moment before taking it delicately between two fingers and placing it in a cavity that formed in its chest. The hole sealed over and the gem disappeared, the elemental nodding at her.

“Your offer is accepted and worthy of three minor tasks” it grated, “what would you have of me?”

“First, I want you to burrow underground and scout each room until you find a chest. Then, create a path to it in the most expedient fashion you can. We’ll figure out a third task later.”

“I understand,” it said, then melted into the earth as if it were water.

As her crow returned, picking at some of the waste left behind by the other summons with a clicking tsk of its beak, the front doors of the building swung open and Shaya’s chimcoon gave her a thumbs up. With the job done, she sent an empathic command to her porcudillo to return to her as well and started walking to the warehouse.

“Take our little friend here and land on the roof of the building,” Shaya ordered her crow, who looked from the large, spiky burrower back to her dubiously, “You’ll find a way, don’t give me that look. Then wait for my command and be ready to throw him at the enemy you showed me.”

The crow barked a laugh and hopped into the air, circling the nervous porcudillo a few times before settling on a way to airlift it. The huge bird flapped its wings furiously to ascend with its passenger. It looked impossible, the bird struggling to lift the heavy critter, but eventually managed. The poor ground-dweller covered its eyes with huge claws before curling up into a tight a ball, shivering in fright from the experience.

“I’ll get you some more treats for next time,” Shaya promised, “Thank you for putting up with me!”

The mastermind surveyed her surroundings before entering the building. The students on either side of her were still busily conjuring creatures, clearly working to create stronger, sharper circuits than what Shaya had bothered with. She shook her head as she saw the first of their creatures just sitting around and waiting for orders. Plumes of smoke in the distance told her that at least one other student wasn’t wasting any time, which brought a smile to her face.

Hands behind her back, Shaya walked into the building like a conquering general and surveyed the area. The room was relatively small, with another set of doors directly before her, chained shut and locked. To one side of the room was a crate, which had already been opened, and above her was a hole in the ceiling where her quartz spider had clearly disappeared to. The chimcoon, chewing on her lockpicks like they were straw, held up a key with a bored expression, then unlocked the next set of doors for her.

The next puzzles were equally simple for her: she helped her creature solve a puzzle through its senses, recalled her quartz spider to have them stand on multiple pressure plates, and saved time hunting for another key by having her chimcoon pick a lock. In the third room, she caught an ambush through the eyes of her quartz spider, baiting the viper out with her chimcoon and having the spider fall atop it, splattering it under its shocking weight.

Once that was done, she sent the chimcoon off to rendezvous with her earth elemental.

She strode through the final doors and into the final challenge of her exam, hands shoved casually into her pant pockets. A teaching assistant stood before a reinforced iron door, separated from Shaya by a small stream that ran between them. Shaya nodded as she recognized the four summoned creatures fanned out before her opponent: a fire-breathing, baby salamander; a miniature dragon tortoise; a tiny topiary dinosaur, and a spiny hedgehog covered in static electricity.

The camouflaged lizard on the catwalk made five, and Shaya didn’t dare assume that the snake in the last room counted as her opponent’s sixth.

“You got here quickly... but I’m not seeing any summoned creatures. Did you cast them too fast and lose control over them? Get drained too quickly by sloppy circuits?” The teaching assistant asked, voice full of snark. “You can only engage in the combat challenge with summoned creatures, so do you have any or do you have to waste time summoning creatures properly?”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem.” Shaya’s smile rivaled Rea’s in mischievousness. “They’re right where I want them to be...”