Jin shook out her hand as soon as the wall released it. It had felt like putting her hand in some kind of cold gel that hardened when the rumbling began. Her bracelet was updated with the new Map rune now, but like Hadia's, it didn't show anything beyond the treasure room currently. She had purchased the pack of glowstones for ten points, which included ten small round orbs that would give off a soft glow with a bit of mana fed into them. She gave one to each of her teammates, then had the interesting experience of trying out her newly cultivated Talent: [Treasure Hoard].

As soon as she focused on wanting to see her new inventory, it was like a hologram of a room with empty shelves was overlaid on top of the world. She could walk around it, or even through the semi-transparent shelves. Focusing on repositioning the room would move the entire thing as she willed it.

Testing out actually putting things into it, she placed the bag with the remaining glowstones onto one of the shelves. As soon as she released it, the bag gained that semi-translucent appearance, and the others confirmed they couldn't see it anymore. Picking up the bag was just as easy, and she was fairly pleased with how it all behaved so intuitively.

Turning back towards the others, she signed while asking, "I still have ninety-eight points left. Should I spend them now on more stuff or wait to see what the next biome is and try to grab something from the rotating shop we might need instead?"

"I vote wait," Alim signed back.

"I agree," Hadia answered, pointing a thumb toward Alim. Karam and Liraz both nodded as well, so Jin didn't press further, trusting in their experience with watching past Seasons.

"So all we have left then is the Familiar summonings?" Jin clarified as she shifted from foot to foot, getting used to the feeling of her new boots.

"I can go first," Liraz offered shyly. Jin merely nodded and followed as Liraz moved back to the center of the room, where the pillar that had given them their winnings had disappeared into the floor to offer a larger area to work with.

Liraz pulled out her wand straight from her palm and began drawing the ritual lines she would need in a soft blue light. As she drew various runes, circles, and connecting lines in a pattern that seemed much more intricate than any of the rituals Jin had seen so far, Liraz would periodically place a few of the ingredients she had received to perform this.

While the smaller girl was working with the others watching, Jin turned to Hadia and asked, "So are you going to do yours next?"

Hadia shook her head, "I don't have a Familiar, I have a Summon."

"Aren't those basically the same thing?"

"Not exactly," Hadia tried to explain, scratching at her hair. "I don't need to do a ritual like this to summon mine; I just need mana. Mine also will only last about an hour or until it dies or gets banished somehow. I'm also not guaranteed to get the same being each time. Yours and Liraz's Familiars will be a permanent bond unless one of you decides to break that contract for some reason, but that's really rare. Supposedly, the soul that agrees to be your summoned Familiar is a really solid match for a lifelong bond of support and companionship. I think I've only heard of one Champion in the past ever changing their Familiar during a Season, and a lot of the information surrounding that has been permanently archived and is unavailable to the public."

"Huh," Jin responded thoughtfully. "Just to make sure I'm understanding, if our Familiars die, we can still resummon them and it'll be the same… being or soul or whatever, right?"

"Yeah. Again, unless they don't want to continue the contract, but I doubt you'll need to worry about that. You'll be getting a badass dragon. Way better than a Terram… whatever that even is."

Jin snapped her head to look at her friend with a furrowed brow. "You don't know already?"

Hadia shrugged like it wasn't a huge deal. "There are probably millions—if not more—creatures out in the greater cosmos. While most of us might have a decent knowledge of what could show up here in the tower, that changes when it comes to Summons or Familiars that can pull from anywhere, including beyond our reality. As far as I know, Dragons don't actually exist on this planet. They only appear when summoned. I'm guessing my Terram is some kind of goat or sheep just based on the fact that it's tied to my Ram Aspect."

Jin nodded in understanding before turning her attention back to the ritual circle that Liraz was just finishing up. With her brow scrunching further, she remembered reading Liraz's ability and asked, "So what's a Terror Mimic?"

Instead of answering, Liraz began incanting, "From dungeons deep and treasures hidden, I summon you to devour our enemies and spoils alike. Hide and seek, bite and lick; come and eat, it's you I pick!"

The lines of the ritual diagram began to glow brighter as mana infused the ley lines connecting the runes, and the ground trembled softly. Cracks began to form near the center, and just when Jin started thinking something must have gone wrong, a loud crack! Rang out through the room as marble appeared to splinter and shatter, rubble flying everywhere as a large wooden chest burst from the floor like someone had shoved buried treasure to the surface.

When the dust and debris settled, all five of them were staring at the plain storage container, and Hadia answered Jin's earlier question, "I guess it's just a box?"

Jin gave her a flat look. "That's what a person says before the box eats them whole because it's a freaking mimic."

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Liraz tilted her head to the side slightly, looking it over for only a moment before smiling brightly and bouncing towards it. As if in response to her closer proximity, the chest opened on its own accord, and a giant purple tongue lolled out of it. Before Jin could stop the inevitable death, the tongue lapped up Liraz's entire body, eliciting childish giggles from the girl who seemed more than willing to help the mimic eat her—the upper half of her body disappearing into the maw.

With a strangled noise of terror escaping her throat, Jin moved to try and save Liraz from becoming monster food. "Let her go!" she cried out, grabbing Liraz by the sash around her waist and putting a foot against the mimic's… face? Did that even count as a face with only a mouth?

With a solid yank, she managed to dislodge the girl from the bowels of the mimicry beast but fell back on her butt as Liraz laughed hysterically while holding a sack in one hand. The mimic, on the other hand, looked just as happy as it wiggled from side to side and kept licking Liraz.

When the box gave a small yip that sounded more like a chihuahua and totally did not match the Mastiff-size of it, Jin finally realized what was happening, but it was too late to stop the new Familiar from coating her in mimic slobber as well.

"Oh gross! Li! Get it off!" Jin cried out as the massive purple tongue lapped at any surface it could reach on her. When she managed to turn to the other three teammates still standing, she felt horribly betrayed to see them all bent over laughing just as hysterically as Liraz had been. "It's not funny! It's gross and completely unhygienic!"

"It's hilarious, is what it is," Hadia managed to reply, pointing at Jin. "Your hair is sticking straight up!"

"Oh my gods, is there a shower in this place?" Jin begged, trying to look around for some door hidden in an alcove. "Did the shop sell portable showers?!"

Liraz had already stood again and reached into the bag to pull out a piece of monster meat that Hadia had salted to help preserve it. "Here, Boxey!" the girl called out in a sing-song voice that Jin recognized as someone talking to a pet instead of the slobber monster that this thing was.

As if to prove Jin's thoughts that this was indeed a terrible monster, rows of razor-sharp teeth seemed to suddenly jut out of the edges of the chest's "mouth" opening, and it jumped up to catch the meat as Liraz tossed it towards the creature.

Jin took that brief distraction as the blessed opening it was and scrambled away, putting much-needed distance between her and the beast.

"Are you okay, Miss Jin?" Karam asked her as he moved to help her regain her footing.

"Yeah," she grumbled. "I hated dogs back on Earth, too. I mean, most are either dumb or mean, and they always leave a mess everywhere."

"Boxey's not a dog," Liraz pointed out, tossing another treat into the air for the mimic to… fetch—the lid slamming shut on it with a bone-jarring slam as it devoured the snack.

"Yeah… It's basically a dog-monster until proven otherwise," Jin flatly stated. Trying not to let her shiver of disgust show further, she tried to redirect and asked, "So what can… 'Boxey' do for you? Is it going to hop around to follow you, or do we need to carry it or—"

"All summoned Familiars can merge into their summoners," Hadia interrupted, finally halting her laughter while holding her stomach to help refocus on explaining things for Jin. "So moving won't be a problem for anything. Hopefully, it's not going to eat all our rations, though. Even if we can survive off Crystal Mana Bits now, Crystal Caste food might be easier to come by for a while, and it's better not to burn through our Bit supply."

With a visible slump to her shoulders, Liraz closed the bag and practically climbed back into the mimic's mouth as she returned the bag into the dimensional storage within it.

Alim wrote his message in the air next. "Your turn next, Jin. Liraz can tell us what her Familiar does later once she's finished getting to know it a bit better."

Jin took a deep, steadying breath, that left her in a gasp a moment later when the mimic sprouted a dozen pointed spider legs from the bottom of it and began scuttling across the floor, chasing after Liraz who was moving out of the way and back to an alcove to play with Boxey more… or whatever kind of bonding activity she thought might be best. Jin wasn't sure how exactly one might get to know a monster-box better, but based on what she had seen so far, it felt like the group had gained a new puppy to care for.

"Here," Alim signed, getting Jin's attention again as he held out the bag that was normally tied around his waist. "I'm guessing you need salt for the diagram?"

Jin nodded but lifted her own bag she had gotten earlier. "It was included at the bottom of this," she said slowly so he could read her lips while she tried to clean up the area from the last ritual. Luckily, the floor hadn't actually been damaged by Liraz's Familiar, but it was covered in a fine white ash from the magic burning through the ingredients that had made up the ritual.

Hadia and Alim also bent to help her brush away the remnant ash, and Jin slowly began to place the salt in a tiny line, hoping to use up as little as possible and save more for a rainy day. They had no idea if salt would be easy to come by on the next floor, and she didn't want to waste points on more ritual materials if they could help it.

Using the salt instead of glowing light like Alim could from ritual work was a painstaking process, but Jin hoped she wouldn't need to do it that often. She wasn't a ritualist like Alim was, and it made sense for her powers to forgo quality of life perks like that. Once she finished placing all the Bits and Shards in their proper places, too, she stood at the edge of it and began incanting the words that had been seared into her mind upon unlocking the [Dragon Companion] ability.

"From root to sky, I call upon the one who will feast upon all of reality. From hovel to throne, we shall command all who witness our might. You are the end that births beginnings. Our bond heralds the terminus of an endless night. Come forward, that we may devour the cosmos!"

The ground didn't rumble this time. Instead, it was like a cloud of sickly pale green smoke began to form in the air above the center of the circle. It began to pulse with a soft light from its center, like a heartbeat about to burst free from the shadowy confines of the roiling mist.

Suddenly, a soft foreboding laugh echoed around the room, and a high-pitched voice spoke from the smoke, "BOW BEFORE ME, MORTALS! Your divinely appointed ruler has come to grace you with their presence!" A rush of wind swirled around the room and dramatically dispersed the cloud to reveal a small baby dragon about the size of a kitten with pale green scales sparkling all over its lithe body, with horns that seemed too big for its head sweeping back in a wave from its forehead. "I live and breathe again! My fabulousness shall enlighten this poor, abysmal world, and I regret NOTHING!"

"The fuck?" Jin replied with a raised eyebrow at the tiny creature with leathery wings stretched out as if to make itself appear more intimidating and grand at the same time.

The little dragon looked up at her with large emerald green eyes and sat back on its hind legs as it placed a tiny clawed paw on one hip and the other on its chest to strike a regal pose. "My dearest new minion, I am Clover! Short for 'Good Luck, You're Going to Need It to Handle All This Amazingness.'"

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