Summoner: The Book of Dimension

16 Summoning of Sphinx

Zack and Ray checked the mantra again.

“What do you think? It just looks like it’s our guy.” Peter added, “Unlike the wannabe green goblin who faked he had fortune-telling ability, this creature could tell us whether Josh could be saved. And it could answer wondering questions. The mantra looks promising.”

“But there’s a note here. It requires offerings,” Ray said.

Surprised, Peter’s smile was wiped off of his face and replaced by utter confusion. He walked to Ray, took the Book Of Dimension, and read whatever was written under the mantra.

Peter read the note below, in a darer ink like it was written there recently.

Before it can provide knowledge, knowledge should also be offered upfront.

The offering will determine its personality. Answer its question and yours will be answered.

“I’ve never seen a mantra to have some note under it,” Peter said, feeling the bumps made by the handwritten note on the paper. “It looks like it was just recently written here.”

Zack nodded in agreement as he looked at the note. “It looks like Edgar wrote it himself,” Zack said. “His handwriting looks awful than the writings on the book, though,” he grimaced a little.

“But when you analyze the description of the mantra, it’s just like the Greek mythology, just a little complicated kind of sphinx,” Ray said.

Peter shivered to the thought of sphinx known that it could devour people. “If we fail to give the right answer to its question or riddle, we’ll be devoured.” he felt scared, but he had to. If he was stoned instead of Josh, he knew Josh would do as he would for Josh. Although one of them would chicken out, someone would still try to save him.

Or maybe he wouldn’t be saved. Josh was a bit indecisive, and he thought differently than the three.

Anyway, it didn’t matter who was stoned. He already had decided to save and bring Josh back.

“What if we summoned another thing?” Ray asked.

Peter checked the mantra again. “I don’t know, the mantra seems close to the description of the sphinx,”

Zack sighed. “Yeah, I agree. But we can’t be sure. Another creature we don’t know might fit the mantra.”

Peter paused to think, while the two checked the mantra again if there was a possibility another creature would fall into the description.

Although the creatures mentioned in fictional novels could be a little different from the actual creatures, the general comparison of their descriptions never differ that much. The only way to know if it would be of help was to summon it.

Peter suddenly thought if those who first introduced these creatures to the fictional books or movies knew or studied the creatures from summoning.

He could tell the possibility, as he wasn’t sure what was the real intention of why people summon. He could tell a lot of reasons, like, some people wanted to save someone, for personal gain, to change the world, for pure evil, or just for fun.

I guess, there were a lot of reasons for people to summon. He thought, and he couldn’t be hypocritical to judge them. He was here to summon to save Josh.

He nodded when he was sure of it. “If we successfully summoned the sphinx, we’ll know what to do best,” Peter said.

“Should we at least prepare something first?” Ray asked.

“Like what?” Peter asked back.

“The book we have to offer or the tools that could help us to answer the sphinx’s riddle or question,” Ray said and fished his mobile phone from his pocket. “We should be connected to the internet.”

Peter nodded and took his phone out, as well as Zack. “Make sure you guys have mobile data,” Peter said.

They left their phones near Josh and decided what to do next.

“Oh, one thing. The book. We should use an encyclopedia. Dictionary is kinda basic because it’s just a list of words. The encyclopedia contains a lot of topics and it would make us sure the sphinx we’ll summon knows a lot of things,” Peter said.

Ray insisted to get the encyclopedia upstairs and came back with one volume of it. Fortunately, Edgar still kept normal books aside from his occult and weird books.

Peter turned to Zack. “You should take the rest first. We’ll clean the basement first.”

Zack looked at them and nodded. “Thanks, dude,” he said and walked upstairs.

Peter and Ray were now left in the basement. “What should we do with Medusa’s body?” Peter asked.

Ray hummed, thinking. “Um, since we’re keeping the head, we should at least bury the body..”

Peter nodded. “Sure, then let’s clean the blood splatters.”

Grunting, Peter and Ray carried the lifeless body of Medusa outside the villa. While Ray was digging up the hole where Medusa’s body would be buried, Peter decided to move Medusa’s head on the big room on the second room, where Edgar’s traps and other stuff were. Peter assumed it was supposed to be a storage room.

He placed Medusa’s head there, keeping his old shirt over her head. He wouldn’t want to accidentally look at her eyes and be stoned like Josh.

He went back to the basement and took the destroyed wooden drawer and disposed it on the trash bin.

When he walked back to where Ray was, he was half-way through enough hole to bury Medusa’s body. To quicken the pace, Peter took another shovel and helped Ray bury Medusa’s body.

After that, they walked back down to the basement and mopped the messy blood there. Although there were still little stains there, no one would think it was blood and it was just a paint stain.

Peter sighed and placed the mop and pail on a corner. “It’s almost nine. We should stay the night here,” he said.

Ray agreed with a nod. “Yeah. I’m kinda tired of everything we did.”

They walked upstairs and took different rooms to sleep.

As Peter lied on the bed, he stared at the ceiling as he pondered. He couldn’t think of any other creature that moment that could be an alternative to the sphinx. A creature that could give assurance they’d be given a solution.

If they made a mistake on summoning the wrong creature, he didn’t know how hard it would be to even think of surviving. If the mantra was a little specific, then it wouldn’t be a problem for them.

He then suddenly thought of a good idea.

He’s a dream lord, and if he’d summon something, it would be an advantage for him because he had powers to defend himself. Besides, he could prepare a lot for the summoning.

He smiled confidently. “Should I try that?” he asked himself.

After thinking through with his plan, he decided to push the summoning in his dream.

Soon, he drifted shortly to sleep. When he arrived at his dream, he started the place should be an open and empty plane. He then created a big indoor pavilion, which similarly looked like the one on the villa.

He prepared weapons he could easily draw in one snap, like a flail weapon and war hammer. These were just options, in case the obsidian spear wouldn’t work.

He made sure the obsidian spear is sharpened that even if it’s stabbed few centimeters, it would be fatal for the sphinx.

It wasn’t his intent to kill the sphinx in his dream, it was just a defense saved in case the sphinx he summoned would be problematic and would kill him.

He then formed a summoning circle, this time, he used ignazzi circle, which shined a color of red light. It was used to summon intelligent and superior creatures, even the special ones.

A basic circle could be used as well, but since it would need much energy when summoning superior creatures, he thought he should opt for the ignazzi circle. Besides, he was alone there.

Peter stood in the ignazzi circle and created a copy of the encyclopedia that was an offering to the sphinx. He hoped it would work, and he wouldn’t be killed in his dream. He didn’t want to accidentally die in his sleep.

He then recalled the mantra he memorized from the book earlier.

The fortune-telling creature from the Nylathurow world;

Intelligent human head with a lion’s sturdy body, you soar high with your knowledge;

 I offer you a source of knowledge, so you must answer my wonders.

 In my name, Peter Cohen, I command you to appear in this world!

The encyclopedia started to levitate in the air, as each of the pages flipped in a quick motion. After that, the encyclopedia started to decrease in opacity as if it was dissolving in the air.

A whirl of wind force swirled around the circle, and a portal started to cloud up, a little bigger than him, around ten feet. Just as tall as the ceiling of the basement, if he could remember.

As he expected, a sphinx walked out on its glory. It had a man’s head, a lion’s body, and a huge pair of eagle-like wings. The claws and tails told how fierce and scary the sphinx was. He was huge that he was looking down at him. He estimated he was more than eight feet.

“Who dared to conjure me into this world?”