Sadie has grown up. Baco has armor. I have horns.

  Congratulations!

  You are the first person in the world to have joined with one of your summoned minions. You have gained the permanent Horns of Conviction, reducing your passive vitality loss with your summoned creatures by 50%.

  There is way too much to digest in this notification. How many did I brush away that had info in them I really needed? I leave this one up and reread it. As I’m rereading for the third time, it fades.

  The first line says I am the first person in the world yada yada yada. This has the massive implication that there are other people in my situation. Did everyone in my class get quantum yeeted to this place? Where are they all? The fact that it seems to verify that I’m not alone is monumental. How far is the next person? Do we team up or duel? Can we rebuild our world here, starting with a camp and then a growing society?

  Even better is the side fact that I got an achievement for being first to do something cool. The bad part is that it required me dying.

  “Sadie, I have a lot questions.”

  She’s busy striking poses and looking at her own tail. “Dom, I might have a few answers.”

  “How many other people are there like me?”

  “Summoners? Men? Guys with satyrs? Trapped in the labyrinth?”

  Maybe not the best question. “From where I’m from,” I specify.

  “I have no idea,” she says apologetically.

  I run my hands over my horns. They start over my temple, curling up a bit, then end pointing down at the back of my head. I scratch the surface. Can’t really feel it.

  “What’s with this?” I ask.

  She comes close and looks with a sniff. She leans back, folds her arms and nods. “Suits you.”

  “I got a notification that I was first from my world to merge with a summon and now I got these horns. Lessens my vitality loss.”

  “That’s great,” she says. “Now, less vitality will be converted to pneuma to support your bondlings. If it used to cost you forty units of vitality to create forty units of pneuma to create me, and now you will spend only twenty units of vitality. I think it’s twenty.”

  She looks down and away, suddenly shy or upset.

  “Sadie?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t actually understand math very well. Beyond counting, satyrs don’t really need math.”

  “I get that. From now on I get less weak creating and maintaining you. You know what I don’t get? How am I alive? She… She swallowed me.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  I go to the lamia’s body. My corpse is not there. I look around. I find the shattered third of what was her golden scimitar, but no Dom.

  Sadie rolls her eyes. “You did it.”

  “Make believe I’m stupid and need it explained.”

  She sucks her lips in.

  “Thank you for holding in whatever comment you were about to make. Now, explain.”

  “I’m a portion of your pneuma, which cost you vitality. Your life breath. Your old container of your vitality, the original Dom, well, you know, that one…” she mimes choking herself and sticks out her tongue.

  “Yes, I get that part.”

  “Then you used psychic translocation to transmit your psyche to another portion of your pneuma. Me. But I was still there, and it was getting crowded.”

  “I do apologize,” I mumble.

  “Thank you. Without a psyche to sustain the form of your original body, the old Dom faded away.”

  “So, I teleported by thoughts to you for temporary holding, then rebuilt my body, then teleported my mind back into that one.”

  “See,” she smiles. “You know exactly what happened. You can merge with any bondling. Sometimes, you’ll be way stronger than either alone.”

  “I can merge with Baco?”

  “Sure.”

  “And doing this gave me horns?”

  “No. The system gave you horns for doing it.”

  “If I merge with Baco, do I get the Stinky tail of Summoning or something? What if I don’t want horns?”

  She shakes her silvery hair. Her horns have grown. They were little bumps but now they curve back a bit along her hair.

  “No offense,” I say quickly. “Horns look great on you. Really. Super stylish. But I’m a human.”

  She squints and leans forward. “Are you, Dom?”

  That’s a great question. I lend parts of my body to control and create other bodies, and now I have horns. What defines human? Then there’s the paradox that this technically isn’t my body, but a replacement model. What the heck am I?

  I am a freaking cool horned summoner with a shape shifting spear.

  I’m not a philosophy student. I’m not even sure I’m a history student anymore. With these horns… Welcome to the new me. The new me feels pretty good. I stretch and flex a little. I’m stronger. I wonder if that’s my new vitality boost from the horns.

  “Did we beat a boss monster?” I ask, more to myself than my bondlings.

  “She was the boss of several sirens,” Sadie says.

  Literally, yes, she was their boss, so I guess I can say we defeated a boss monster. I pick up the hilt and shattered bit of blade from the golden scimitar. I don’t know why, but when you beat a boss monster, you’re really supposed to get something cool from it.

  Oh, yeah, horns. But where’s my Cloak of Invisibility? My Sandals of Stomping?

  And, I almost forgot. I hold out my spear to check out the latest form. The tip is now this cruel looking multi-barbed arrowhead shape with a delicate engraved design on it.

  The system may call it an eviscerating spear. I call it badass. I wonder what the next weapon level up is. I should start fighting with other weapons and get other skills. That would require other weapons. I remove the lamia’s woven golden belt. It has a few loops hanging from it. I put it on and cinch it. After I size it, the extra length is simply gone. It’s like tightening a belt and cutting off the excess. I slip the splintered golden scimitar in a loop over my hip and push the stake into another loop. As I’m doing this, gearing up and getting ready, Sadie points at my right shoulder. Crawlers again? I really need a decent shirt to keep these things off. I’m not even getting a much needed tan, running around underground.

  No, this isn’t crawlers. I have a tattoo, or maybe a brand. On the outside of my shoulder is now a symbol, a Greek letter that resembles a U with a tail.

  “Sadie? Can you read this?”

  “Mu,” she says. “That’s a Mu.”

  Mu? I check the rest of my body. I don’t see anything else. I guess the horns were enough of a shock. I don’t recall seeing the mark before, so that must be part of my new body.

  “We all rested up and ready to roll?” I ask.

  Sadie adjusts her toga. “Let’s get kraken.”

  I can’t suppress my smile. I start marching to the far end of the arena room, Sadie and Baco in step behind me.

  “Why do you think I have this new mark?” I ask, running my fingers over it. It’s slightly raised.

  “Mu,” she says simply. “For Mageia. You’re a master of magic.”

  I have horns. And a Mu.

  This describes a cow.

  The system has a weird sense of humor.