Chapter 15: XV – Furry(?) Companions

[Shepherd of the Lost]

Unique Skill

Level 1

Tend to those who had been lost, and bring them back to the herd, o Shepherd.

For what is a shepherd without their loyal companions? Grants the ability to summon 0/2 canine companions. Companions are soulbound to the shepherd and will always return to life as long as the shepherd themselves still draws breath. Level 1: Companion level: 10.

 

“Oldies. Does that skill mean what I think it said!?” asked Esperanza with obvious haste in her voice.

 

We fail to see the reason for your obvious excessive excitement, but that is correct. Why do you ask?

 

“Are keeping pets not a custom in this world?”

 

Only the ones that served some sort of use. From what the skill suggests, the sort of canines it mentioned would be much like what some shepherds or hunters keep to help them out.

 

“Guess it’s too much to expect the pet culture here to be the same. Either way, Doggies!”

 

We hate to have to quench your enthusiasm like this, but as the skill mentioned, the companion creatures you summoned will be anchored to your soul, and your soul has by now fully merged with your physical form. As such, they will likely take some influence from it, and might not appear the way you had hoped they would.

 

“... Bummer. They’d still be dogs of some sort, though, right?”

 

They would be, yes. We cannot say how much your soul would affect them, however.

 

“Oh well. Me da igual. Here goes nothing then,”

 

To use skills in this new world they had been brought to, was something that came instinctively to Esperanza. She merely had to think of activating the skill, coupled with the intent to do so – probably to prevent people from accidentally using their skills when they thought about it – and it was like her soul already knew what needed to be done.

 

She felt the power pulse through her soul, how it gathered around into a spot somewhere she could feel but could not discern the location of. That power coalesced, and Esperanza felt something touch her soul through the connection it formed. The touch was tentative, light, almost as if whatever was on the other side was timid and afraid.

 

In return she enveloped it in a warm, gentle embrace, in an attempt to assure whatever it was that it would be safe with her.

 

That it would be loved and cared for rather than be used as some disposable object.

 

The thing from the other side of the connection remained timid and tentative for a while, but eventually Esperanza’s accepting soul seemed to have won it over. She felt how the fabric of space itself seemed to rip apart for a brief instant and could feel the arrival of a presence from the other side, a presence that was somehow simultaneously frightening, yet also weak and small.

 

Her many eyes turned to see the thing that fell out from the rapidly disappearing spatial tear, and saw a sight that hurt her mind to process yet enraptured her at the same time. Whatever the thing was, it looked as if it was a mass of angles that felt completely at odds with everything she had known, angles that somehow slithered and jerked around almost like tentacles, with a hint of fangs that were set up in ways that would have made Euclid stammer in disbelief and wonderment both.

 

Before too long, however, the implausibility before her eyes seemed to shrink into itself and bunch together, the impossible angles settling into more plausible ones, the form coalescing into a four-legged silhouette that was simultaneously familiar yet also alien to her eyes.

 

It was far smaller than she had expected, a puppy rather than an adult dog, coated with a very short coat of ash-gray fur, or a facsimile of it. Its torso and limbs were extremely slender, giving the impression that it was malnourished at first glance, and it had visible whiskers on the end of its long snout that rose up to either side at an angle, much like the mustache of an impressionist painter of old.

 

“You’re Dali,” blurted Esperanza out as she turned one of her appendages into a human-like hand and gently touched the short fur of the companion she just summoned. At a glance it looked like an extra-slender Greyhound puppy, yet at times, if she focused power into her [Gaze Unto the Abyss] skill, she still caught glimpses of the mass of impossible angles that it truly was. “Your name is Dali.”

 

She was rewarded with a high-pitched cooing noise made by the puppy as it rubbed its head against her hand, clearly quite content with the name she gave to it. Dali’s tiny little tongue lapped against her makeshift hand, and felt wet, oddly hot and cold at the same time, though Esperanza attributed that to her companion’s unusual origin.

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It was clear that Dali’s power was limited by the level of her skill, and likely as the skill levels grew stronger, so would her companions. It was likely that they would be able to tap into abilities from their true forms or shift to those forms altogether as they grow stronger. Esperanza hoped that they would be able to retain their canine forms even then, though.

 

As Dali’s slender form laid down against the bulk of her form – Esperanza had shifted her shape into a more humanoid one and seated herself, with Dali lying against the outside of her “thigh” – she repeated the process once more. The power once again coalesced and formed a bridge to wherever these companions of hers came from, and once more she cast an invitation for them to come.

 

This time around, whatever came from the other side was large.

 

Dali’s presence through the magical connection had felt like someone prodded Esperanza with a finger, slowly, timidly, and very tentatively. Like a shy person attempting to initiate contact with another but entirely uncertain on how they should do it. The being that came this time was the opposite of that in many ways.

 

It was like a deluge that felt close to suffocating Esperanza with its presence, though it seemed to hold itself back when it noticed her discomfort. Rather than her welcoming it with an embrace, it was the being that embraced her entirely in its large form as it inspected her curiously. She felt as if something was sniffing at her from all around, then the pressure lessened and faded away.

 

Instead, it was replaced with a sensation that was akin to floating on clouds. Extremely fluffy clouds at that, as she felt a questioning gaze in her soul. Without any hesitation, she returned the gaze with a smile, followed by a firm nod. An affirmation that she would welcome the being, if it would deign to have her as its master. For a brief moment she felt as if something big and hairy rubbed itself against her, before the sensation vanished.

 

Once again, a tear in space opened in front of her, and Esperanza saw how something resembling a fog or mist seeped out from the opening. It felt like more and more mist just seeped out from the tear in space, as if it would never stop. The mist did not obscure her sight, but she noticed how it enveloped most of the surrounding area, save for a small part where she and Dali were sitting.

 

Clearly, the mist was aware, and it was likely the true form of her other companion.

 

She felt how what seemed to be gazes from all directions were fixated on her, then moved on to Dali, then went away after a while as if it seemed to have understood something. Moments later the fog or mist around her started to gather together and seemed to gain a solidity that was not there mere moments ago. As if something had just forced reality to acknowledge its existence without a care for what it might have in mind.

 

The fog continued to compress itself, until it formed an orb not much larger than an adult man’s head. Then it started to define itself in more detail, as the orb once again shifted slowly to a familiar four-legged silhouette, though one much plumper compared to what Dali’s had been like. In fact, she could almost call the silhouette rotund to an extent, as it too coalesced into the form of another puppy.

 

This time the puppy was one that resembled some sort of Mastiff breed looks wise, although where most Mastiffs have short fur, this one had a long and positively fluffy coat of fur that almost made it look like it had wool growing from it. Some of its fur even formed a shape that resembled a mane around the puppy’s neck as it looked at her with large, innocent eyes.

 

Esperanza was less hesitant this time and directly used both of her hands to lift up and wrap the puppy in a warm embrace against her body, which the puppy seemed to enjoy as it licked her “face” with its large, wet tongue. It too, looked at her with a look that felt far too innocent and adorable for something whose true form was a beastly abomination likely much stronger than she herself was, but at the moment she could care less about that.

 

“So you’re a girl, huh?” asked Esperanza to the puppy after she took a closer look at it. The puppy just leaned her head to the side and gave her a quizzical look in return, while Dali gave a small, high-pitched bark that sounded like agreement from below. “What do you think of the name… hmm… What about Gordita? Gordy for short?”

 

The enthusiastic bark that the puppy gave in reply signaled her agreement, and Gordita nuzzled her soft, nearly downy fur against Esperanza’s face. The action tickled, but she withstood it stoically as she gathered up the two puppies in her arms and hugged them warmly. If they were the companions she had for this journey in strange lands, then there were at least a few things to look forward to in her future.

 

Grants the ability to summon 2/2 canine companions.

 

A quick glance at her skill’s description confirmed to her that the two puppies were indeed her companions. Inspecting them with [Gaze Unto the Abyss] returned their names – the names she gave them – while their levels were at 10, much as she expected. She had hoped that actually performing the summoning would jump the level a bit, but that turned out to be wishful thinking.

 

She would likely need to take care of them for the time being. Level 10 was very weak, on par with the weakest creatures in the jungle she was in. While Oldies mentioned about guiding her to a settlement where they were still worshiped, Esperanza felt that she might need to delay that trip for a bit.

 

Instead, she would be looking for weaker beasts in the forest to sic her puppies at, as she assumed that would be the way to increase the level of her skill and thus the level of her companions. It was not that she wished for them to do the dirty work for her, but she was clear that in order to survive in this world, one needed power.

 

As such, her companions needed power, if only to defend themselves. That they could be of assistance to her if they had more power would naturally help, but Esperanza felt that she might not have the heart to have her companions brave dangers in her stead, even if the skill’s description ensured that they would exist as long as she was around.

 

Because of that, her agenda spontaneously changed from “heading for the settlement mentioned by Oldies” to “powerleveling her puppies until they could hold their own”. That decision would be something the many critters that called the jungle their home lamented in the near future.