Chapter 17: Sixteen

“It’s okay,” You tell Abigail before wrapping her in a whole lot of tentacles and bringing her closer. Hugging fixes all problems. In fact, hugging is almost as good for fixing problems as tentacles are. Maybe there’s some long lost link between tentacles and hugs? More food for thought.

“D-Dreamer,” Abigail says as she fusses in your embrace. “We don’t have time for this, we need to run.”

You snort. No time for hugs? What a silly summoner. If being stuck in a fleshy mortal body has taught you anything it’s that there’s always time for more hugging and cuddling and other tentacle-summoner-based activities.

Still, Abigail looks kind of worried. She’s looking past you and towards the exit of the alleyway where the shopkeeper’s voice is coming from. He’s screaming a lot.

Maybe you can put aside the cuddling.

But only for a bit.

“Okay,” You say before you begin to walk deeper into the alley and past the Fleshcrafter’s store. You wanted to stop there to see if they could fix Abigail for you, but it’s clear that you don’t have time. There might be other solutions, better ones, even.

“Can you put me down?” Abigail asks as she pats the tentacles holding you up.

Since she’s asking nicely and since she’s pat-patting your tentacle, you decide to be nice and deposit her feet-first on the ground next to you. Then, while she’s still finding her balance, you strike!

Your soft, meaty hand slips into hers and latches on before she can so much as twitch. You have snared your summoner’s hand! A minor but important victory. “Where does Daphne live?” you ask.

“Huh?” she asks. “Oh, she lives.. A few blocks down from here, near the base of Academy Hill.”

“We should go see her then,” you say.

Abigail looks down at you, but another shout from the alley has her making up her mind. She shifts her back on her shoulder and pulls you along by the hand. “Okay, we’ll go see Daphne,” she says.

You exit onto the street and, after a bit of looking around, Abigail leads you uphill and along a road covered in splashy puddles that you make sure to stomp into whenever you pass near one.

You notice that the shops and stores around you stop between one street and the next and are replaced by big, tall buildings with wrought iron fences around them and stone towers at every corner. The farther Abigail brings you the fancier and bigger they become, almost as if they’re trying very hard to look like teeny tiny castles.

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Maybe Abigail would like to live in a small castle. Or a big castle. You could hollow out one of your older tentacles and plant it in the ground somewhere, like a giant fleshy pillar that would reach low orbit. Then all you’d need to do is add windows and some doors and make a crown for Abigail.

Your day dreaming ends when Abigail slows to a stop. “This is it,” she says, gesturing with a nod to the building before her.

Daphne’s place is a huge stone house. Three stories tall and really boxy except for the patio ringing the top floor and the two stubby towers on either end. Vines have crawled all across the building, hiding the grey stone in a layer of vibrant green that shines in thanks to the abundant rain.

“Pretty,” you say.

“Yeah,” Abigail agrees. She’s not looking at the home.

You turn to follow her gaze.

There’s a building on the hill. No, not quite a single building, more like a complex of buildings. All of them huge and castle-like, with crookedy towers that poke into the sky. There are big observatories poking out from the sides of copper-green roofs and bridges that span the length between one building and the next.

You would see more, but the area around the hill is dotted by forests that cling to the sharp hillside. “What’s that?”

“That’s the Academy,” Abigail says. “It’s where I want to go someday. Where I will go.”

“Oh, okay,” you say. Well, if she wants to you can go there after meeting Daphne and after eating something.

But for now the priority is fixing Abigail. You tug her along and skip across the stoney walkway to the massive front doors. “Why is this house so big?” you ask.

“Because Daphne’s the daughter of a Viscount, and it wouldn’t do for her family to let her live in a place like ours,” Abigail explains.

That’s silly. Abigail is the summoner of a you. By that same logic, it should mean that people are giving her the biggest place.

Abigail knocks on the door, and without even a squeak, it opens to reveal a tall man in a dark suit. “Hello Miss Abigail. A pleasure to see you again,” he says with a dull, monotonous voice. “Miss Daphne is in her sitting room. Please do come in.”

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