Summoner's Conundrum

~~~ Series Notes ~~~

New world. New hero. New dilemmas. New battles. New adventures.

This story started with a single premise: How would you feel if you summoned a magical companion who just happened to look like your mother? What if she was sexy and insatiable? How long could you resist her? Would you send her away and never summon her again?

All of my usual twists and turns are here. There's a lot of foreshadowing. If you're paying attention, you shouldn't be caught off-guard. It should be a comfortable read - but I did try to keep things interesting.

As with all of my recent offerings, all episodes in this story series have been written before you see the first chapter. The story consists of six chapters. All of them have been posted *en masse* to Literotica. If thing work like usual, the next segment will drop every day or so. Thanks for reading.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Miles Wildebren accepted a hug and a kiss on the cheek from his mother.

He would be turning 18 the next day. Since the trip to the nearest village that had an Oracle Stone was a day's travel away, he was gearing up to set out so that he would arrive on his Gift Day.

"Whatever you get," his mother told him, "I just know it will be good. I'm so proud of you, Miles."

Tears filled her eyes and she clung to him.

"I'll be back," he promised.

She shook her head. He didn't see it. His eyes were closed - trying to keep from crying himself. He felt her head move against his neck, where her face was tucked into his body.

"Find a master to apprentice yourself to," she told him. "I'd love to send you to magic school - but we can't afford it."

"Can't I just come back here and study on my own?" he asked her.

"Unless you get [Hedge Witch] or something that I can teach you, I think you're just harming your future by holding onto your past," she told him. "You can come visit me once you're strong enough - but you need to set out on your own."

"I need to?"

"You can't stay here, with me, forever," she told him. "When I grow old and pass, how will you support yourself if you haven't advanced your skill?"

"I can feed and clothe myself now...," he argued.

"Miles," she sighed, "your father left the village to join me and look at what it got him. He's lying in a solitary grave under the Spike Elm down by the river. Do this for me. Please...," she begged him. "Your place isn't here. Your father was destined for greater things..."

"He loved you. I love you," Miles argued.

"Please don't force me to become disagreeable with you, son," his mother told him. "Go make something of yourself. Find you a decent woman and start a family. Make a place for yourself in this big, broad world and I will come visit you - and bounce my grandchildren on my knee..."

After another half-hour of the boy clinging to her, his mother finally pushed him away and told him to go. She warned him that the morning was already passing quickly. As it was, he was going to have to spend the night in the woods on his way to the village. She didn't want him delaying so long that he'd have to camp twice in the wilds - and risk himself even more.

Miles slung the handmade cloth satchel that held all of his worldly possessions onto his shoulder and finally stepped through the door of the shack where his mother lived.

He walked past her gardens - filled with as many healing herbs and spell components as they were with vegetables and root crops. At the twin gateposts that marked the little oasis of protection around his mother's quaint hovel, he turned back - one last time - to look at the place that he had called home for the last almost-18 years.

Miles reached to his right flank to assure himself that the dirk was there - an overlarge dagger that would serve as his only means of defending himself. It had belonged to his pap. He had a few other supplies in his pack - in addition to some food and his clothes - but not much. He and his mother had never had much.

As he took the first step on the journey to discover what profession the Oracle Stone would grant him on his Gift Day, he silently prayed to the upper gods that they would watch over his mother while the two of them were apart. Miles didn't ask for protection for himself as he journeyed through the wilds. It wasn't that he was overly confident of his ability to defeat anything that might attack him, he was just more worried about his mother than he was about his own safety.

After his father had died - when he was only 10 years old - Miles had been the only one around to help his mother. Now that he was leaving, she would be alone.

Mum had told him about her childhood - growing up not far from where they lived now. Her mother had passed shortly after Miles had been born. Miles didn't remember her. Miles' mother had no memories of her father. She also couldn't tell him much about his father's parents. She presumed that they still lived in the village - the same little town to which he was traveling.

As he walked, Miles constantly checked his bearings against the sun as it passed overhead - steering himself slightly east of north. His mother had told him that - once he traveled far enough north - he would find the road that led to the village.

When midday came and Miles' stomach complained, he dug a small loaf of bread from his pack and chewed on it. He also broke a piece of cheese off of the block that his mother had given him. He had two hard-boiled chicken eggs in his bag - but decided to save those for his dinner and breakfast. He washed down his meager meal with a few swallows of tepid water from the waterskin that hung from the left side of his belt.

Miles was startled as a rabbit broke cover and raced across the path in front of him. He had his dirk out in a moment, ready to use it to defend himself against whatever was chasing the wild hare. He waited, quiet and unmoving, to see what would appear. After a couple minutes of hearing and seeing nothing, he had just started to relax when a wolf prowled from between the bushes and stopped in the middle of the game trail that Miles had been following. The beast stared at him from the very moment it stepped out of the brush. It had known that he was there.

Miles felt the breeze on the back of his neck and realized that the wind was behind him. The wolf had scented him. That was how it knew he was there and hadn't chased the rabbit across his path.

At that point, the beast had forgotten about the little rabbit. Its eyes were fixed on Miles now. Miles knew that he only had a few moments before the thing would charge him. With his eyes still fixed on his foe, he searched the periphery of his vision - to the left and the right - to see if there was a tree that he could climb quickly. Nothing suitable was close enough for him to use.

He rolled the blade of the dirk in his fingers. The movement attracted the eyes of the wolf. It studied the knife for a moment and then fixed its gaze back on his eyes again.

"Come on, already," Miles called to it - tired of waiting.

Still, it hesitated. Miles began to worry that the wolf was not a lone hunter. He had just started trying to cast his senses around himself - to see if he was being flanked - when the wolf tensed its legs and raced towards him - opening its fearsome maw to prepare to bite him.

Miles lowered himself slightly, forcing the wolf to consider a smaller target. That also made Miles better prepared to jump to the side - to evade the wolf's charging attack. When the wolf got close enough, it leapt into the air - hoping to tackle Miles at the throat. That leap gave Miles the ability to reposition himself while limiting the wolf's ability to react.

Miles tucked himself into a ball and rolled forward - hoping to pass beneath the wolf as it sailed through the air. As Miles finished his roll, the boy stuck the dirk in the air and sliced at the wolf's belly. Its thick matted fur protected it to a degree from his blade - but the beast's undercoat was thinner than the rest of its hide. The tip of the dirk dug a cubit-long gash in the belly of the monster.

The wound wasn't deep enough to cause the beast's guts to spill out but - if Will could kick it or get it to twist wrong - there was a chance that the thin bit of flesh that still held the wound closed might rupture and end the fight.

The wolf gave an angry snarl as it landed. It attempted to turn immediately - to face Miles again but - as it tried to twist its body to quickly turn around - the tensing of muscles and the tugging on the wolf's hide caused the long gash along its underside to rip and tear. The drops of blood turned into more of a spurting drizzle. The wolf staggered as it tried to reorient itself. By the time it got turned fully, to face its foe again, the wound had ruptured badly enough that its intestines were beginning to spill through the growing gaps in the bloody gash.

The thing tried to roar, defiantly, at Miles - but that effort made the rupture even worse. The roar petered off into a moan and then a whine - and then silence. The beast tried to take a step towards the young man - but collapsed to the ground. By the time Miles had steeled himself to go finish the thing off, it was taking its final breath.

Miles' mother had trained him to field dress the creatures of the wilds. He set about removing the wolf's hide from the body. It would fetch him a few coins when he got to town. He tried to remember which body parts his mother had told him were useful for spells or potions. He had no bag to put the messy things in. He searched through his satchel and selected a tattered shirt that would suffice. He collected the eyes, tongue, heart, stomach, and other vital organs that he thought he remembered as being valuable.

When he had finished that work, he carved a few steaks from the carcass as well. They wouldn't be the tastiest meal - but they were still food. Miles stacked the meat onto the pile of body parts, hoping that none of the stuff would make the meat taste worse than he already knew that it would. There wasn't much to be done for it, regardless. He was limited on how he could store the stuff - but it was all useful to him - so he didn't want to leave any of it behind.

The half-hour that he had spent dealing with the wolf slowed his progress a little. By the time the sun was dropping close to the horizon, Miles began to start looking around for a place to make camp for the night. There was a rocky overhang that looked promising if there was rain - but the skies were clear - and there was a little pile of bones nearby that suggested that something might already have claimed that spot. Miles continued on.

As dusk began to fall, Miles picked a little clearing, quickly made a fire, and roasted the wolf steaks. He skewered them on small sticks and kept turning them over the thin flames, waiting for the blood and grease to stop flowing and the meat to look like he could choke it down.

Miles took one of the small loaves of bread that his mother had sent with him, split it in half with his dirk, and put half of the meat between the slices. He bit a chunk of cheese from his block and chewed on his coarse, dry sandwich. Once the rest of the meat had cooled, he rolled it into the scrap of cloth that had held the little loaves of bread. He still had one of those left - but decided that the cloth was better used to hold the meat instead.

He tucked away the rest of his things, kicked dust and dirt onto the dying embers, and stamped out the coals. Miles looked around, found a small tree that he could climb easily, and got himself off of the ground for the night.

Sleeping in the tree was not the most restful way to spend the night. The tree that Miles had selected was young enough that there were more branches than were useful to him. Those branches, however, had made it easier for him to climb the thing. Miles settled himself into place and made himself as comfortable as he could.

During the long night, he heard some howls in the distance - and he thought something had come along to check the area around his little campfire - but nothing ever tried to climb the tree - so he just went back to sleep again.

~~~

When the sun began to lighten the sky, Miles opened his eyes and checked his surroundings. One of the bushes near the base of the tree was covering more ground than he liked - and obscuring his vision - preventing Miles from being able to tell whether or not things were completely clear below him. The young man leaned out onto a branch over the thing, fished his penis out of his pants, and began relieving himself onto the bush.

Seconds later, an unhappy rabbit dashed out from under the thick bush, gave Miles an angry look, and took off to find somewhere else to shelter. Miles couldn't keep from chuckling at the poor thing. He felt a little badly about pissing on the creature but - at least now he was far more certain that there was nothing below him to worry about.

Miles fixed his pants, grabbed his satchel, and climbed down the tree. Once he was on the ground, he got his bearings and then set off for his destination once again. He had traveled for probably a mile before he realized that it was now his Gift Day. He was 18 years old.

As he walked through the wooded terrain, strolled across the rolling meadows, and clambered down (and then climbed up) the occasional ravine, Miles tried to decide if he felt his magic inside - waiting to be proclaimed by the Oracle Stone.

In some ways, Miles thought he could feel the pool of magical energy down in his belly - at least that's where his mother had told him that hers seemed to reside. There also seemed to be a thickness in his chest that didn't have anything to do with a cold or an illness. It wasn't quite a heaviness - more like a solidity that he hadn't noticed before.

Miles jumped in surprise twice more during the day - startled by animals that broke cover as he approached along the newest game trail that he had been following. A quail leapt from one bush and took to the air, nearly causing him to have a heart-attack. Another time, a small lizard sprinted onto the trail, sighted him, turned, and raced through the brush - only to be chased down a few moments later by a small fox. The fox kept his paws on the trapped reptile and studied Miles as he passed by - making sure that the young man didn't intend to rob him of his meal - or to make a meal of him instead. Miles grimaced as he heard the small lizard's bones crunching behind him as the vulpine hunter began consuming his snack.

~~~

By the time Miles finally reached the edge of the village, the sun had set. The community was small enough that there was no wall around the place to protect it from bandits, raiders, or even wild beasts. It seemed to Miles that everyone that he encountered on the street had a weapon on their belt - just like he did.

Miles' mother had told him that he would find the Oracle Stone in the city's central plaza. He made his way along the broad packed-dirt street by which he had entered the village - assuming that it would eventually bring him to the place.

The street was barely wider than the road he had traveled to arrive at the quaint town. He'd finally stumbled onto the road about an hour before the sun had set. He'd been thankful to have the broader pathway to follow in the dark because it offered a bit more warning about what might be waiting to attack from the bushes that he was passing. Miles had breathed a sigh of relief when he'd finally sighted the small city.

Miles continued following the straight, if dusty, street. As he had hoped, it eventually brought him to a stone-paved plaza where a small assortment of people were standing around what could only be the Oracle Stone.

"There's still a line?" Miles asked, in amazement.

"I'm the end," a blonde girl told him, nodding. "Is it your Gift Day as well?"

"I'd thought there would be no one here by now," Miles told her. "I'm Miles."

"Hana," she said, grabbing the corners of her skirt to curtsy to him.

"I'm no lord," he told her, offering her a friendly smile.

"Mum says that it doesn't cost much to be kind," she stated bluntly, grinning.

Miles grinned back at her, tucked his hand to his belt, and bowed to the young blonde.

"A pleasure, young miss," he told her.

"Mine's the more," she replied, grinning more broadly.

"You come here often?" Miles asked her.

Hana giggled.

"It was busy at the inn today and they've just released me from my work," she told him. "Any idea what you'll get?"

"No clue," he told her. "You?"

"I'm hoping for [Cook] but likely [Housekeeper]," she told him. "It'll probably be [Washerwoman], knowing my luck."

Miles felt his face fall. He felt badly for the girl.

The boy standing at the Oracle Stone gave a quiet but enthusiastic whoop and turned to hug a woman who was likely his mother.

"Your mum didn't come with you?" Miles asked Hana.

The blonde shook her head and said, "I work days. She works nights."

Miles nodded.

The line moved up as the boy stepped away. The brown-haired girl in front of Hana stepped forward and placed her hands on the Oracle Stone. Hana and Miles stood just behind her, watching, to see what the girl would get.

"[Baker]," the girl grumbled, turning to Hana.

The blonde hugged her.

"[Baker]'s not bad, Kora," Hana told her.

"I don't want to work with father anymore," the brown-haired girl complained.

Hana elbowed her and offered her a conspiratorial smile.

"Find you a nice [Cook] or [Chef] and escape your father," she told the girl.

"I guess that will have to be my plan...," the sullen girl replied. "Go ahead, Hana. I'm praying you get something good."

"Not likely, Kora," Hana told her friend. "I haven't done anything interesting and my mum's just got [Housekeeper]."

"Fingers crossed," Kora told her, glancing at Miles. "You new?"

"From the wilds," Miles said, nodding. He gave her a little bow as well.

Hana giggled.

"Miles Wildebren, at your service," he told the pretty young woman.

"I'm no lady," Kora told him.

She gave him a soft smile.

"Hana's gotten to you already, I see."

Miles nodded. The two turned to watch as Hana stepped up and placed her hands on the Oracle Stone. She tensed for a moment and then took her hands from the stone and turned to face the other two.

"[Housekeeper]," the blonde said, quietly.

Kora hugged her and said, "At least it's not [Washerwoman] or [Dishwasher]."

"I know...," Hana said, her voice breaking.

She looked up at Miles with tears in her eyes. He didn't know her all that well - but he felt compelled to comfort her. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, enclosing Kora in the hug as well.

"Your boyfriend is hugging me, Hana," Kora teased her.

Hana gave a sobbing-cough-bark of laughter, her eyes sparkling.

"He's not my boyfriend," she protested. "I only just..."

She froze as Miles kissed her on the cheek. Her eyes widened and she touched her fingertips to the spot where his lips had pressed against her. Kora was giving her a wry smile.

"Not your boyfriend, huh?" Kora teased. "Do you suppose he makes a practice of kissing every new girl he meets? He hasn't tried to kiss me yet..."

Miles wasn't sure what possessed him to do it - but he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Kora's - just as she finished her sentence. The girl's eyes widened - and then she closed her eyes and kissed him back. She was breathing heavily when they separated.

"Kiss him, Hana," Kora ordered - her eyes still closed. "Kiss him before I claim him for myself."

Hana gave Miles a look that looked... well... not really angry... maybe just slightly hurt. Miles leaned close and pressed his lips to the blonde's, putting an arm around her to hold her close. Hana closed her eyes and melted into him. He reached his right arm around Kora and hugged her to himself as well.