The Arcane Archer - Chapter 43 Ritual Casting

Author’s Note- Wasn’t in the writing mood the writing the last 3 chapters within 24 hours so I took a small extra 1-2-day break to make sure I didn’t get burned out. I’m all good and still here! Now back to the chapter!

After taking a small rest and just relaxing in general from battle with the hobgoblin, we eventually got back up and started collecting the loot from the battle. One of the most obvious things to do as well was to grab the last three remaining arrows that I had left.

I gave a deep sigh as I tried thinking of a good way to conserve my mana and still fight properly but couldn’t think of anything as mana arrow and a majority of my good spells consumed a whole bunch of my mana.

Once that was done, we made out way to the opposite end of the arena from where we first entered from and opened the giant doors like the ones before entering here. Once we did, we entered a 10ft by 10ft room that had nothing but a chest in the center of it with a smack brazier next to it.
for visiting.

Ava walked up to the chest and without even checking to see if it was a mimic or anything, just opened it up immediately.

“Man, all that hard work and we didn’t even get any good loot.” She said while shaking her head. “All we got was some expensive looking charcoal, incense, and some random herbs.”

My eyes lit up upon realizing what they might be used for.

“Can I have everything in that chest?” I asked quickly.

She raised an eyebrow but gave me the go ahead to take them all. Upon seeing that it was okay, I quickly picked up everything and kicked the chest away from me and back into the arena. Using my foot, I then moved the brazier into the center of the room where the chest was previously.

“You think we have about an hour or so for me to do something.” I asked while already dropping everything on the floor and using the charcoal to draw something on the ground.

“We have enough time but what are you going to do for an entire hour and with all that random junk loot?”

“Making a ritual of course!” I said while continuing to draw.

She gave me a weird look, one that told me that she thought it was some sort of dark magic ritual or something. I quickly told her that it wasn’t that type of ritual, but she just put her hands up next to her head as if to defend herself.

As time quickly passed by for me, I continued to constantly draw the magic circle until I used nothing but the remaining dust on my fingers to draw the last bit of it. With that done, I threw the herbs into the brass brazier that I previously put into the center of the room and lit them on fire.

With the incense stick in hand, I stood in front of the brazier and started burning it. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath before starting the last bit of the ritual.

“You who are not from this world,” I started saying in the ancient language, “Adhere to the laws of this realm and become a familiar of my own soul.

The incense stick in hand started burning rapidly and the charcoal circle on the ground started moving forwards to the center of the brazier, slowly climbing up it and into it.

“Become a being that I may watch through, become a being that I may hear through, become a being that I may act through, and become a being that is independent but still listens.”

The incense stick in my hand was now fully burned and the smoke from it had moved towards the center of the brazier as well. Slowly it merged with the charcoal, slowly become into a single puddle inside the brazier that had no form.

“May you come from the lands of the fey and help me in what I desire. Become a form in which you’ll be a Familiar Friend.”

As the spell finished, the previously puddle like sludge inside the brazier started moving and changing color. After a minute passed, the previous puddle like sludge became a magnificent creature.

The creature was something that had the body shape and size of a hawk, but its beak was shorter and wider, much like that of an owls. Its wings appeared to be a hybridization of a birds and bad wings I noted as it stretched them out before releasing a cry. The cry sounded odd as it sounded more like a kettle coming to a boil, a low whistle that increased in volume and pitch over a few seconds before coming to an abrupt stop.

From behind me, Ava was clapping her hands and slowly walking over to me.

“So, it was a summoning ritual the entire time. Though you were able to cast magic without needing the components?” She asked.

“I am.” I replied simply as my new familiar flew onto my shoulder, “But rituals are different. Rituals don’t cast that much mana but have actual rituals components that I need to fulfill to get it to work. This ritual was the {Find Familiar} ritual which would classify as a first level spell. The needed components for this spell are 10 gold coins worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed in a brazier fire.

The ritual gives me the service of a familiar, a spirit that takes the form of an animal that it deems suitable for itself. I am however able to deem what kind of spirit it is among 3 choices. A celestial, a fiend, or a fey. This guy right here is a fey.

Familiars cannot be killed as if they’re just stabbed or hit with something damaging, they instead just disappear as they have no actual physical form, which I should probably note that I can change to whatever I want within reason as long as I’m able to recast this ritual. I’m also able to resummons the same familiar with this ritual as well.

The benefits of having this familiar is that if it’s within 100 feet of me, I can communicate with it telepathically. Additionally, I can see through its eyes and hear whatever it hears but to do this, I must disregard my own senses which can leave me blind and deaf to what is normally happening around me.

If needed, I can also temporarily dismiss it. By doing so, it goes to a pocket dimension inside my soul and awaits there for my summon. Alternatively, I can dismiss it forever, but I probably won’t do that. Anyways, I can resummons it anytime and can have only 1 familiar at a time. The familiar itself is unable to attack but I can cast my magic through it which gives me some fun new tricks!”

She just whistled upon hearing all the cool stuff that it could do.

“So, what’s it name?” She asked while reaching out to pet it.

“I’m not sure yet, maybe when I find out its species, I’ll be able to give it a good name.”

“You don’t know? I can tell you if you want.” I quickly nodded at her offer, “This is a Blink Hawk. It is a fast flying bird that can teleport up to 50 ft every 6 seconds or so. There are normally two types of colors for a Blink Hawk, a bright one and a dark one. Yours however is special as it is the same color as your eyes whenever you cast a spell which is dark purple. While these types of birds aren’t particularly territorial, they are ferociously protective of what they hold precious and repeatedly attack any creatures that come near enough to their so called precious. When fighting, they most commonly dive directly at their target before teleporting away to regain altitude.”

I thought about everything she just said to think up of a name for it. I wanted to combine the words Blinken and Vogel which were both blink and bird respectively in German. I decided to keep the B from Blinken and keep the last part of Vogel, creating the name “Bell” for the blink hawk. I may have added another L to the name but hey, I like that it created an actual word.

“His name is Bell.” I said while petting his head.

Telepathically, I could feel that it was happy for the name and that it appreciated the kinds gesture.

Earlier when I said it could talk to me telepathically, I really meant that it could convey feelings and thoughts. I’m not actually able to talk with him with words, but I get what he’s saying to me.

“Think I might be able to summon one of them?” She asked.

“Maybe? I only learned most of the spells and I know through some really weird methods, so I have no clue how to teach someone else them or even if they have any other requirements for other people then what I know.” I then smirked. “And I would probably like to keep them to myself so that they can’t be used against me.”

“Fair point. Now you ready to head down to the second floor and then go back to Chance to pay off your debt!”

The smirk wiped off my face as I turned pale.

“Shit I forgot about the debt.”