Jason had made it to his apartment and was sitting on his couch, eyes wide, thinking about the fight he just experienced. It had been intense. He had never really considered himself a fighter, but that didn’t seem to matter now did it. He had accepted the prompt to be summoned by a squirrel.

  He was having a hard time coming to terms with it. To make things even stranger, he was being teleported back and forth between worlds. He couldn’t help but wonder what that cop had thought. He had just vanished. Although it probably wasn’t as crazy as it would have been before, the so-called rapture happened.

  Taking a deep breath, Jason looked at the bottle of Jameson on the counter. That could help him while he was here, but he hated drinking it. The buzz was what he was after and when he was summoned away; it vanished and all he was left with was the aftertaste.

  “I’m at the beck and call of a damned squirrel and rabbit.”

  At least the squirrel didn’t look at him with murder in its eyes. The rabbit seemed to have something against him. Or maybe that was just all in his head. Suddenly, he had an idea.

  Turning on his tv he went over to YouTube. If he could learn about squirrels and rabbits, maybe that would somehow give him an edge and help him survive.

  The experience of dying was terrible. However, the second time was not nearly as bad as the first, but it was still best avoided. If he could learn to communicate even a little, the squirrel seemed intelligent enough he could reason with it.

  No sooner than Jason typed in squirrels, he was engulfed by a green light. “Shit! Here we go again.”

  Jason was summoned back to the place where he had died. This time, his mace was still in his hand. He had remembered gripping the handle as he fell. He would never forget his first encounter with the skeletons with nothing but his fists.

  “Thats good. I was hoping you still had that.” The squirrel said. “We had looked everywhere for the mace. All we could find was the sword from the skeleton you killed and slashing don’t work great against skeletons.”

  Jason glanced at the rabbit that was still giving him a death glare.

  “Okay. There are only two of them left now.” The squirrel began, “The archer, and the one you have crippled. We need to hurry and get in there before it’s dark. The wolves will come out soon, so don’t die, okay? Now let’s go.”

  Jason began heading back up the path. The rabbit cast some sort of strengthening spell on him again as he walked. Strength surged through him, and a half smile formed onto his face.

  As Jason crept up the path, he wondered what the squirrel meant by wolves. Fighting a pack of skeletal wolves seemed less than ideal and was best avoided. However, wolves couldn’t shoot arrows. Or could they? This world was bizarre.

  Crouching down right outside of the archer’s sight, he saw the other skeleton laying down next to the entrance. He noticed it crawling towards him last time, so he knew it wasn’t completely out of the fight. He wanted to take that damned archer out, but the squirrel told him to not charge at it. Then he paused, glancing back at the dark furred squirrel.

  Actually, the squirrel had not given him any orders this time. The thought of killing the squirrel and stopping this madness crept into his mind and a sharp pain shot through his head, causing him to nearly pass out. It quickly passed, and Jason took a calming breath. Right, don’t think about killing your summoner.

  Forcing himself to move, Jason charged at the bow wielding skeleton. Ignoring the little green bar that appeared, he swung his mace with all his might right at its head before the archer could even raise its bow.

  A red health bar appeared, though he paid this no mind. He had seen it the last time he was fighting. It just let him know he nearly killed the archer with that one attack. One more attack and the bar vanished. The skeleton dropped to the ground in a pile of bones.

  Turning to face the last remaining skeleton, Jason waited for his green bar to refill. It filled quickly but also drained quickly. When it ran out last time, he became immobile for a crucial couple of seconds.

  The bar filled, and he darted forward, smashing the skull of the skeleton that was crawling towards him. He hit it over and over till its health bar dropped to nothing. Jason looked up at the darkening sky, both hands raised. “Hell yeah!” A sense of accomplishment like nothing he had ever felt washed over him. He surprised himself. He didn’t really think, he had just acted, the fear of dying had been pushed to the back of his mind.

  “You did good, Jason. But keep your voice down. I’m unsure what’s inside.”

  Jason’s mood dropped considerably when he remembered he was just a familiar to a squirrel. He had gotten so caught up in his victory he had forgotten for a brief moment that he was this squirrel’s lackey, though maybe it wasn’t so bad.

  Jason nearly spoke, but held his tongue. It’s not like they could even understand him. He was peering into the dark entrance trying to make out if there were anymore enemies when a white light shot from the rabbit and stuck to the wall inside. Then more began shooting into the room, lighting it up.

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  “How long will those last?” The squirrel asked.

  “About an hour.”

  “Awesome. Aright Jason, go in and look for enemies.”

  “Oh, come on, really.” He didn’t even know why he spoke. Of course, the squirrel would send him in first. He was disposable. But sort of immortal at the same time. Something that he was unsure about. If not for the pain of dying it wasn’t too bad.

  I watched as my familiar searched the room. It was getting dark, and we needed to get as far away from the wolves as possible. I was still worried the wolves would come in after me. And there were no trees to hide inside this dungeon. I had even received a notification saying my racial boost was no longer active when I was halfway up on the cliff’s path. And I doubted my familiar would be a lot of help against a pack of wolves. Once we were in deeper, I was going to level him up. Well, that was if he didn’t get killed again.

  The entrance led into a small cave room. There were two tunnels leading deeper into the dungeon. Without the rabbit’s lights, we would be hard pressed to see anything.

  I was pleasantly surprised to find no enemies in this room. I glance back towards the dungeon entrance. It was about to be dark and I wanted to get as far away from the entrance as possible.

  “Which one do you think we should go down?” I asked.

  “Hmm, how about the one to the right?” Ben said.

  “Sure sounds good to me.” I turned to Jason, who was looking down the other path. “We are going to go down this one.”

  My familiar seemed reluctant, but came over and started down the right path. Glancing at my mana, my eyes widened. “I won’t have him for much longer before my mana runs out.”

  “Eat more shrooms.”

  “I did. They don’t stack, do they?”

  “No.” Ben said as he shot some lights down the tunnel.

  The tunnel was long and had a slight downward slope to It. Jason made his way down the tunnel cautiously. This was for the best, but I wanted to hurry. I felt as the wolves would come after me. They knew what I smelt like after all, not to mention my mana was almost empty, even with the boost from the shrooms. My mana bar was also fifteen percent less in this dungeon due to losing my racial gift.

  I nearly told my familiar to hurry when I heard some sort of contraption go off and Jason stumbled back, holding his arm.

  My familiar had made it halfway down the tunnel when the trap triggered. Ben and I were still at the start of the tunnel. I started down the tunnel towards him.

  “Come on! You need to heal him. I need to level him up before he dies.”

  “Ahh fine. I hate wasting good magic on a human, though.”

  When we reached Jason, he was speaking gibberish again while holding his arm. He was clearly in pain, but the spike was small and I nearly told Ben to wait. But first I checked his stat page.

  His health points had only dropped by twenty-five and he had seventy-five left, though as I was looking at it, it dropped to seventy-four. A purple hue also surrounded his health bar.

  “Great, he has been poisoned. Can you heal that?”

  “No, I haven’t learned that spell yet. All I can do is heal some of his health points.” Ben said. “Aren’t you about out of mana? Why not let him just die and re-summon him later?”

  “I don’t want my familiar to die if I can help it. Besides, he loses all his essence when he dies, just heal him. I’ll level him up and dismiss him.”

  “Okay fine. First, he needs to pull out the spike.”

  Jason looked at me with wide-eyed horror. “I’m sorry, but you need to pull it out. Thats and order.”

  My familiar hesitated, then in a jerky motion, did as I asked, while wincing in pain. Ben then cast his lesser heal and Jason’s health bar completely filled and his arm looked a lot better. It had gotten him right above his elbow, going all the way through.

  “That’s all I can do. He will be sore till the poison wears off and I can heal him again.”

  Seeing that Jason dropped his mace, I had him pick it back up. He did so while using his left hand. “Okay, we need to finish going down the tunnel.”

  Jason turned to me with narrowed eyes and said something in gibberish again.

  “I still can’t understand you, but I’m assuming you don’t want to. However, we don’t have a choice. Though first I suppose I can level you up.”

  I had sent the fifty-five essence from the level two warrior to Jason and kept the two hundred and eleven essence from the archer. This nearly gave me enough for my next level. I then pulled up Jason’s stat page.

  Name: Jason Storgan

  Race: Human

  Class: locked

  Level- 1

  Available attributes: 0

  Essence to next level- 250

  Essence available- 254

  Health- 100

  Stamina-50

  Mana- 25

  Vitality: 10

  Endurance: 10

  Strength: 10

  Agility: 10

  Intelligence: 10

  Wisdom 10

  Luck: 11

  Charisma: 10

  Would you like to spend 250 essence to bring your familiar to level two Yess/No?

  Selecting yes, there was a quick flash of white light and the stat page closed, then I received another prompt.

  Congratulations: Through hard work, determination and just a dash of luck, your familiar has reached level 2.

  For reaching a new level, familiar Jason Storgan has been awarded with 1 attribute point. Due to familiar Jason Storgan being summoned by a unique race, he has been awarded 3 attribute points. And for the summoner being a contestant in the Primordial games, familiar Jason Storgan has been awarded 3 attribute points.

  7 free attribute points available.

  I was pleasantly surprised by this. I had been afraid Jason would have only been given a single point. Closing the prompt, I looked over the stat page, trying to see the best way to distribute the points, when I heard the howl of wolves in the distance. I immediately closed out the stat page and turned to look towards the entrance.

  “Go down the path and check for traps. Do it quickly.” I then turned to Ben, who was also looking down at the entrance. “Do you think they will come in here?”

  “There Is no way for them to know we are in here, and they haven’t come in here before or there wouldn’t be skeletons guarding the entrance.”

  “We killed the skeletons. And we have it lit up lite up with lights in here like it’s Christmas.”

  Ben looked confused, and I realized he had no idea what Christmas was.

  “I can’t turn the lights off, but they will expire before long. I still don’t think they will come in here.” Ben said, a bit less convincing than he had been.

  Turning back to the tunnel, I saw that Jason was now at the end of the tunnel. “Come on, let’s go, and only place one light this time.”