One of two Micro May raffle rewards. This one was one by Noel Moogle, who wanted a story about his moogle character being shrunk to ride his carbuncle.
Carbuncle Mount
By CalexTheNeko
Noel was flipping through the pages of the new spell book he had bought. The peach furred Ivalice moogle had his usual blue robes and hat on, and he occasionally had to move his pom out of the way as he read His emerald carbuncle, a curious green creature with three tails that seemed to be part cat, part fox, part bunny and all adorable stared at him curiously. That was in large part because the carbuncle instead the book was about him.
It was a book used to unlock more of a carbuncle’s potential, intended for advanced arcanist after they had mastered the basic principals of summoning and fighting with their carbuncle. There were a number of different command spells in here that could impart new attacks onto a carbuncle, as well as a few utility spells. When Noel came across such a utility spell he stopped glancing and actually read. The spell was called Carbuncle Mount. When it was imparted onto the carbuncle, then the carbuncle would use a transformation to act as a mount and carry its master anywhere.
“That sounds like a good way to save on travel cost kupo.” Noel looked down to his carbuncle. “What do you say? Want to try it kupo?” The carbuncle squeaked eagerly in reply.
Noel took a few steps back, held the book open with one hand and held his other with palm outstretched facing carbuncle. The glyphs on the page that described the spell began to glow, and then for a brief moment a magic circle consisting of three different colored triangles, green, yellow and red interlinking inside of it, appeared floating in front of his outstretched paw. Right after, a larger version of the same circle appeared on the floor directly beneath carbuncle. The area around them grew darker as the glyphs and magic circles grew brighter, and then suddenly the magic vanished, and everything returned to normal.
“Did it work kupo?” Noel looked down at his carbuncle.
“Squeak.” Carbuncle tilted his head and looked back at him.
“Guess there’s only one way to find out.” Noel nodded. “Go ahead and use your new mount spell kupo!”
“SQUEAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!” Carbuncle let out a cry as the jewel in its head glowed with a bright light. Then right before Noel’s eyes the carbuncle started to grow larger… And then Noel’s hat fell over his eyes blocking his vision.
“Huh?” Noel lifted up the hat, and as he did noticed that all of his clothing was starting to feel a lot looser. And the bigger carbuncle got the looser his clothes became, until they were in danger of falling off. In fact, all the grass in the field outside Limsa Lominsa was also growing larger, as was well… Everything. Which meant…
The spell wasn’t making carbuncle bigger so he could be ridden, it was making Noel smaller so that he would fit onto carbuncle’s body at its current size.
“Wait that’s not what it was supposed to do kupo!” Noel panicked as he dropped the book it becoming too heavy to hold even with two hands. These spells always just had a name and then a bunch of glyphs, never a proper description. Noel’s pants fell to the ground and his robe was threatening to slip right off his shoulders. Meanwhile his hat had consumed his entire head blinding him from seeing the rest of the changes. And a few moments later the shrinking moogle vanished from sight completely beneath his hat preventing his cutting him off from his carbuncle’s vision.
“KUPOOOOOOOOO!” Noel let out an exasperated kupo. He was pretty sure the shrinking had stopped, but he was so small he was stuck underneath his own hat. It was completely dark in here, and he had no idea what his actual size was. Luckily, his loyal carbuncle came to his rescue, pawing at the hat and eventually pushing the hat off of the tiny moogle.
And this revealed to Noel that he was just slightly shorter than a single blade of grass in this field. That put him somewhere around the two to three inches mark. He looked up at his carbuncle, who was now a giant. The creature looked bigger than monsters Noel would find at the end of a dungeon.
“Squeak!” Carbuncle seemed mildly amused by the affect of the spell, and nuzzled his master with his nose. But, Noel being so small was easily knocked over by the impact causing carbuncle to whimper worried he had hurt the moogle.
“I’m fine kupo…” Noel stood back up. Being this small was going to make it hard to get around, but he supposed that’s why he was supposed to ride his carbuncle now. “Could you… Maybe crouch down a little bit?”
The carbuncle obeyed as Noel grabbed two handfuls of fur from carbuncle’s back leg and began to climb. He fluttered his wings helping him keep his balance and get up faster. Eventually, he was up on the carbuncle’s back, and from there he walked up and sat down atop carbuncles head directly between his ears. From this vantage he’d at least be able to see everything his carbuncle could see. Down on the ground he didn’t see much more than the grass.
“Squeak?” Carbuncle was acting playful. It was clear since the situation had happened, it was wanting to take its master for a ride.
“Alright… Sure.” Noel replied. “Need to get to Aleport anyway and I don’t think I’m walking on my own two feet kupo.”
“Squeak!” Carbuncle took off running full speed. Noel had to grab onto one of the creature’s long ears to hold himself steady and make sure he was in danger of falling off. But, carbuncle was fast and it looked like they were going to make good time. So the spell did make his familiar a viable form of transportation.
But it probably wasn’t going to save him any money since all of his gil got left behind with his clothing and the rest of his gear which were now way too large for him too carry.
“I wonder how long this last before it wears off kupo.” After about four days of riding around on carbuncle to get places, Noel would begin to suspect that the spell did not in fact wear off ever.
But, at least he had a reliable friend that could get him wherever he needed to go.