Quill was transported directly into an explosion.

He winced as his reflex save failed, and he took 4 damage directly to the face. On the one hand, he had just suffered an attack that could have mortally wounded most commoners. On the other, commoners die in a stiff breeze, and this made for a hell of an entrance. Quill resolved to see if he could pick up a scroll or two of this exploding portal spell for Renard at some point. Right now, it was more important to look cool. As the smoke was clearing, he did just that, assuming a dashing smile and triumphant pose which would allow his cloak to flutter in the wind.

He seemed to be in a grassy and well-lit courtyard. It was midday, suggesting he'd moved across the entire continent, or further (geography was never his strong suit). Fortunately, his current company seemed to be human. He looked across a gaggle of adolescents in mage's robes (Students? Cultists? Cultists generally wore less white and worked in the dark, but you can't really rule anything out…), quickly zeroing in on the most important of them. A tanned redheaded girl with generous assets and a fiery lizard. An effeminate blond man holding a rose like a weapon. A blue-haired girl with a dragon at her side, and seemingly the only one who was not currently staring at Quill. (Quill was suddenly very aware of how stupid his pose looked, and considered trying either to tone it down or emphasize it for parody. He decided that unless provoked by the situation, doing either would draw too much attention.)

And of course, there was the girl in front of him. A slight figure, a shocked expression, hair so pink the fey would envy it, and a wand held out toward him. He had his summoner – even if, by the look of it, she wasn't necessarily expecting him.

Quill slipped into an easy half-bow. "Well met," he said. "Might I have the name of the one who called me here?" The question seemed to snap the girl out of her thoughts.

"I'm… I'm Louise. Louise de la Valliere," said Louise de la Valliere. "You're a human."

"Yep!" Quill replied cheerfully. "Qilavar Lelavana, but you can call me Quill. You're a human as well, if I'm not mistaken?"

"Yes," she said, seeming a little dazed, or at least dazzled. "I'm sorry, can you speak Tristainian? My Albionese is a bit rusty."

"I'm afraid I don't know either of those languages," said Quill in what happened to be perfect Albionese. Crap, I'm not human, am I? I mean I… Maybe half-elves have the human subtype? I should really know this. "Would you happen to prefer Elven, maybe, or Draconic?"

"Draconic? Wait, Elven? Wait, Draconic? I mean, you don't… that is… where are you from?"

"Faerûn, and I'm afraid I can't give you much more in the way of specifics than that." I should check to see if I count as human at some point, but it would be embarrassing to correct myself now. "You know us adventurers, can't seem to stay in one place for more than a week."

"I really don't," said Louise bemusedly. What is going on? I was… the ritual… is he my familiar? Is that even possible?

Louise gave the strange youth an appraising look. He didn't cut a very impressive figure. His tone suggested confidence, but his body was, well… scrawny. He stood barely taller than Louise, and looked thin enough that she could lift him over her head. His cheerful expression and youthful features clashed with the presence of more healed-over scars on his face than one would expect from a war veteran. His garb was a strange mismatch, a fancy wide-brimmed silk hat and a spiky, impractical- and expensive-looking armor shirt worn with a patched and dusty cloak and shoddy woolen breeches. His boots, strangely, didn't seem to have a speck of dirt on them. He seemed to have a hooked polearm of some sort, a longbow (strung, in disregard for proper maintenance), and a worn leather haversack slung over his back, in a way that would make it quite impossible for him to access at least one of his weapons, though from her current angle Louise could not tell which. Too wealthy to be a commoner, but with no effort to look like proper nobility. Was he a bounty hunter, possibly a disgraced noble of some sort? He described himself as an "adventurer," which would imply the former…

"Excuse me," Louise said cautiously. "But what is your class? I mean, are you an aristocrat?"

"I'm certainly not!" said Quill, sounding somehow proud of it. "I'm a Paladin and a Warblade."

Louise, and some of the other students who could understand Albionese, gasped. The term "war blade" was probably just some Albionese nonsense title (or, she reminded herself, an artifact of her poor grasp of the language), but a Paladin – a knight of the Church? To have reached such status from being a mere commoner, and at such a young age… no wonder he was proud. It would explain his aesthetic as well; the worn clothes could be a deliberate choice to showcase humility and ascetic virtue. "A Paladin? Really?"

"Well, of a sort," he said rather sheepishly. "I'm not, uh… a very high level Paladin." That made sense, though it was still an impressive accomplishment. It raised a rather important question, though, now that she considered it: could he become her familiar given his existing ties to the church? And for that matter, would he? She looked to Professor Colbert for guidance.

The aging magus stepped forward and cleared his throat softly. "I'm sorry about any inconvenience we might have caused you. You're probably wondering why you're here right now."

"It was no trouble at all," he replied evenly. "And yes, the thought had crossed my mind."

"This is the Tristain Academy of magic," Colbert explained. "Our students have been summoning their familiars…" Quill nodded. "And Louise seems to have summoned you."

"Instead of a familiar?" Quill asked, frowning. "I've never heard of that happening before."

"As a familiar, near as we can tell," Colbert said. "And no, it's completely unheard of as far as I know."

"Odd," said Quill. "I suppose she'll have to try again. I'm sorry for the inconvenience," he added in recollection of the man's earlier statement.

"Not at all. But I'm afraid she cannot summon another familiar. A mage can only summon one."

"But… I'm not her familiar. I can't be a familiar," Quill said. "I have a class." Louise deflated slightly. Of course his existing life as a Paladin would take precedence over being a servant to her. She was silly to even hope otherwise. "Besides, I think I would know if I was. Familiars have an empathic link and stuff, right?"

Of course. He's not a Noble, so he wouldn't know. "The ritual isn't done yet," Louise interjected. She then withered back under his curious stare. "There's… there's another part," she muttered, face almost as pink as her hair.

"Really. Didn't know. Well, go ahead then."

Louise looked up, hardly daring to believe. "What? Are… are you sure?"

"Yeah," Quill said with a shrug. "No harm in trying. I would be fine with being a familiar, to be honest. I'm accustomed to being beholden to spellcasters anyways."

"This is not a decision to be taken lightly," Colbert warned. "If the ritual succeeds, you will be bound for life."

"Life is brief," Quill responded. "Hit me up."

Louise hesitated. This part would be much easier if she had summoned some beast. This guy was… fairly good-looking, she supposed… and if she… but she was engaged to…

But once again, she was too far in to go back.

Louise stepped up to the strange warrior she had summoned, her heart beating like a drum –

"So do I need to kneel, or –"

And quickly kissed him on the lips.

She stepped back just as rapidly. Oh founder, that was so embarrassing, everyone was watching, what will he think now? She desperately peered at his face, but it was unreadable.

-Then how did Renard do that with a raven? Quill's pondering was interrupted as he noticed a burning sensation in his hand. Not that it literally felt like it was on fire – Quill had been on fire a fair number of times, and it wasn't the worst thing ever at only 1d6 damage a round. While Quill wasn't actually losing hit points at the moment, this was quite possibly the worst pain he had ever felt in his life.

"Huh."

Quill could have, of course, fallen to the ground writhing, or some such display, but there were important things to consider right now. As glowing runes inscribed themselves on his hand, he felt a very tangible power flowing into him. His skin grew tougher, rendering him slightly more resilient to blows. His reflexes quickened, heightening his reactions to a level near automaticity. Through a newly forged empathic link, he could feel Louise's frayed nerves and ecstatic hope.

How was this possible? Did she take a feat specifically to –

Then an idea hit Quill, and as he looked around the courtyard, he noticed for the first time the kinds of creatures present. A giant (Medium-sized) mole, a salamander of similar proportion, was that a juvenile blue dragon? Quill cursed his poor perception skills, feeling like an idiot. Clearly, these weren't ordinary Wizards or Sorcererers, and they didn't have ordinary familiars. They probably had some sort of obscure third-party casting class which made more powerful creatures (and, presumably due to a poorly written rule, creatures with class levels) available as familiars.

A manic grin spread across Quill's face. If I can still gain experience normally, he thought – and it's entirely possible there would be no clause to preclude that from happening – I may have just stumbled into a significant benefits package which doesn't require the use of any character resources. The possible benefits of being somebody else's class feature began to race through his mind. He no longer counted toward his party's challenge rating… well, if he was still gaining XP normally, that wouldn't affect how it was earned or divided, and the Damn Monsters tended to provide a challenge just powerful enough regardless of how much the party optimized. Ah well. The ability to share in a caster's personal buffs and deliver touch spells was more than most full-BAB classes could dream of anyways. This was never meant to happen, and it was amazing.

Louise was feeling better than she had in years. Successful spells count: one, she thought smugly. In fact, not only had she summoned a familiar, it was an overwhelmingly good one. The intelligence of a familiar was usually enhanced somewhat from that of an animal of its type, but that was only to the extent of understanding simple orders and social customs. The possible benefits of a human familiar began to race through her mind. She could bring him places where servants weren't normally allowed, would never need to show up to a dance without a partner… Not that she would be lacking in interested parties for that, if the excited whispers and speculation running through the students now were any indication. Nobody had ever expected this to happen, and it was amazing.

"That was certainly something," said Mr. Colbert, staring at the newly branded runes on Quill's hand. "Hearty congratulations on your summoning, Miss Valliere. And Mister… Levanna, was it?"

"Lelavana," he corrected. "But you can just call me Quill."

"Well, Quill, welcome to Tristain Academy of Magic. Class is dismissed for today; I recommend you all spend the time off getting to know your familiars better."

As Louise prepared herself for the oncoming rush of questioning students, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and jumped as she saw Quill, who had at some point moved up next to her.

"Hey, Louise?" he said. "I just wanted to say how unbelievably cool this is, and to thank you for this opportunity."

"R-really?"

"There's nowhere I'd rather be right now," he said earnestly. "Paladin's honor."

Louise could somehow feel a sense of his sincerity through the familiar bond, and she knew in that moment that he was, for whatever reason, genuinely thrilled about this. Her grin widened. This was, quite literally, the best possible result of the ritual. From this point forward, she couldn't imagine a single thing going wrong.

o—o—o—o—o—o—o

Author's note: Ugh. Obligatory segments. I swear things start to get humorous around Chapter 4, I'll try to get there as quickly as possible.

FF seems to do weird things to URLs, so here's another attempt: Quill's character sheet can be found at myth-weavers*com/sheet*html#id=1135213 (replace asterisks with dots).