[Short Story] Unexpected Summoner (Patreon)

Dartl Eldgold sighed as the nearby magitechs set up the magitechnics. He was currently on-call to be summoned. This would normally be something someone from Heaven’s Host would cry tears of joy over.

The chance to venture into the mortal realms and assist those pure enough to summon one such as him is a great honor. That is unless you happen to gain the attention of a trickster God, Dartl thinks it was a spider based deity, and said God “Blesses” you. Then you find yourself in all the edge cases when it comes to summoning.

Worse yet, his Goddess determined that the “Blessing” would last a Grand Kulpa and a day. Oh, and that time was only ticking down if he was in active service and the heavenly bureaucracy wasn’t allowed to pass over him too much. Not that they wanted to.

Even before the “Blessing” he had been a good troubleshooter. So having him act as a lightning rod for the crazier stuff was perfect as far as they were concerned. In fact, at first Dartl savored the “Blessing”.

To find himself summoned into a situation where a villain has managed to force a good soul into calling him just meant another loophole filled. After that same scenario has happened a few million times though? The realization settles in that there is no perfect summoning that can be used in the mortal realms. There would always be loopholes and trickery.

Worse yet, he was only halfway though, having another 3 quadrillion years of this nonsense to deal with. Combine that with the fact that you can’t face true death from a summons and the near future looked pretty bleak to him. Then the magitechs with practiced ease jumped back as the ritual activated while it was only three-fourths complete.

Dartl sighed, he was at least happy with that improvement. The ritual never activated earlier than this anymore, though three-fourths seemed to be some kind of hard limit. What was odd, was the lack of the usual light show.

Even before Dartl’s “Blessing” the heavenly host had front loaded that part because it did more than just look pretty. Heavenly light happened to react a bit violently with the nastier sorts down in the mortal realm. One particular summoning had managed to wipe an entire kingdom’s worth of vampires because the summoner was clever enough to do the ritual on a flying carpet. The summoner almost didn’t survive as they had been a little too high for the atmosphere to be classified as breathable.

Of course, being one of the heavenly host, Dartl couldn’t show up to his summoning with a sword drawn. If the summoning was legit, it would be a major show of distrust. Angels could get away with it because they liked to cultivate a feeling of danger. They already tended towards shapes more inline with conceptual entities instead of mortals. Adding a sword to a wheel with eyes isn’t exactly going to make the mortals any less afraid.

Dartl regains his vision, having totally missed the moment of teleportation. Another big to report. The host is supposed to be able to come into a situation with at least a little forewarning. Though as he takes in the new environment that lack of any being settles him. It wouldn’t be the first time a summoner managed to get themselves killed right as the summoning goes through.

Of course, the lack of a body is slightly concerning, but more because it might mean the summoner got teleported away at the last moment. Which as time passed and he didn’t feel the return ritual activating seemed more and more likely. So with the first second having completely passed Dartl takes in the environment with an eye towards figuring out what happened.

There was a scent of herbs and decay. Not the dark stuff, though, the healthy scent of a normal if slightly magical swamp. That and the lingering rituals he could feel on the house pointed towards a white witch. Though the herbs smelled a little too old.

In fact, the whole house felt abandoned. The only area that felt maintained was right around the ritual and Dartl could feel the rapidly fading energies of a preservation ritual. Speaking of rituals, a closer look at the one which called him revealed that a small vial of what once was light energized mercury had spilled, completing the ritual. Except the mercury had lost most of its energy, as it had been set just outside of the preservation ritual.

That meant the vial was knocked over by something, likely a quake or a draft. Though he couldn’t sense an earth spirit in the land below or a wind spirit above. Strange as the ritual has a hard requirement of it being activated by one seen as good by whichever god the specific host being summoned belongs to.

Sure, Dartl’s Goddesses was a little more liberal in what she considered good, but there needed to be something to judge. Wind isn’t good or bad, it just is. Well, there needs to be something to judge now. The first few thousand years of the “Blessing” basically involved sealing up all those loopholes. Not being evil did not equal being good.

As Dartl tried to figure out who summoned him, a cat wandered in. This caught his attention for a moment as a witch’s familiar might have been able to summon him, but it was just a normal cat. She had a nice calico pattern going on admittedly, but that was it. She wasn’t even a descendant of a witch’s familiar.

Then she meowed about wanting dinner. Dartl sighed, people tended to think being able to understand animals was all upsides. Those fools lack critical thinking. What did they think animals talk about?

It’s all eating, fighting, mating, and so on. Though since he isn’t doing anything else, fixing the calico something to eat wouldn’t hurt. He didn’t have any mortal food in his inventory, but for someone in the heavenly host, creating a little food with magic is easy enough.

Now, where is his summoner? He should be able to feel the temporary soul bridge. Without it he should in turn be sent back to the heavens, admittedly this wouldn’t be the first time he got stuck somewhere. Still, the previous times had involved nonsense, like having his summoner get stuck between life and death or being pulled into another dimension.

The cat had finished her salmon dinner at this point and was staring at him. A common enough reaction. Normal animals would feel a sort of attraction as the heavenly host wasn’t out to hunt animals. Manabeast? That would be a different story.

This little quirk caused more than enough trouble. After all, not all normal animals are quite as harmless as a cat or a bear. In all of creation, there are more than enough normal animals that break common sense without using a drop of magic or any other reality warping power. More than a few summoners have found their original requests turned down when it involved such beings. Though most of them eventually figured out they could ask the summoned host to move the threat instead of requiring it dead.

The calico meowed again, something about it being colder inside or some such? Dartl wasn’t the best judge of such things, mostly being immune to natural temperature variances. Though there was a bit of a draft so he felt it only made sense to fix things up a bit, especially with how easy it is for him. Just a quick repair spell and the house is good as new.

The cat meowed again, wanting a head scritch. Dartl at this point realizes something is up as he didn’t really want to, but did so anyway. The problem is part of receiving an order should include the order coming through the temporary soul link connecting him to the summoner.

Except the cat isn’t a magical beast, a familiar, or any other form of special exception. Dartl sighs as even with all the troubles he had faced over the millions of years under this “Blessing”, this was the first time something like this had happened. Though he does feel some relief in the fact that he has figured out what summoned him and how.

The white witch had set the ritual up so she could complete it at a moment’s notice. While there was some danger in that, the house wasn’t exactly in the middle of a town. Then something happened to her, leaving it abandoned. She might or might not have had a familiar, but if she did, it was brought with her. This left what must have been some normal pet cats to populate the area.

Then time passed and eventually the door to the ritual space got opened and a cat was able to squeeze in. That cat knocked over the vial of mercury and activated the summoning. The only question left was how the car was judged as being “good”.

After all, this isn’t the first time a ritual was completed by an animal. It was, however, the first time such a thing actually activated the ritual. So the cat must have done something “good”.

Not only that though, but it had to have been done somewhere close by as without a soul, such achievements would normally have nowhere to be stored. For lack of a better way to put it, the ritual circle would have to have witnessed the act itself.

And more food for the cat.

Then Dartl casts a couple detection spells until the one for extra dimensional threats goes off. Something from out of time and space had been in the area. So, following the spells tugging, he finds a small dead bug.

This would be completely normal if not for the rapidly decaying spatial flux energy and the two mini tentacles. Dartl wasn’t certain, but this was likely why the summoning worked. The cat had killed the extra dimensional big and the ritual counted that as a good deed. Not that it wasn’t, of course.

The bug was likely snooping around to find the ritual. After all, something must have happened to the witch. So, while it might have taken a bit of time, eventually whatever threat was out there found the house.

Well, maybe not found, the bug might not have had a chance to report back before being killed. After all, this wasn’t going to be the only abandoned house in this swamp. The bug’s controller likely had a ton of those things running around. Though Dartl isn’t going to have to worry about it.

While the white witch that lived here didn’t come back and complete the summoning, it is not like no one else could summon in help. Dartl wasn’t certain who was called in to handle the extra dimensional invasion, but he could feel someone from a higher realm of good. Not that evil wouldn’t help with this, no one wants horrors from beyond space and time to invade.

They’re like cancer, spreading from one realm to the next and growing as they steal resources from the present to fuel their realms outside of time. So without any overriding emergency, Dartl is at a bit of a loss.

The calico cat is a nice cat, but it isn’t exactly going to be giving Dartl any specific orders. In the normal swing of things on a summoning like this, the summoner would have a specific task for him and then send him back. Sure, there were summoning rituals for guardians to look after something or other for years.

Dartl isn’t one of those, instead being what is colloquially called a combat summon. You call him in, point him at your enemy, and then profit before sending him back. The cat will likely have him acting more like a butler.

Then the cat meows again, asking where its friends are with the intent that they should be back. Dartl does a quick targeted scan, notices six other cars nearby, and uses a telekinesis spell to pull them back to the house. This somewhat shocks the calico and annoys the other cats.

Of course, the new cats quickly calm down after noticing the partly eaten fish. This causes the calico to ask for even more food. Dartl sighs, though it isn’t a sad sigh. He moves into the living room, to the cats’ protest, and after sitting down on the stuffed rocking chair he creates some more fish. As he pets one of the friendlier cats, he thinks to himself, ‘Maybe this won’t be the worst way to spend a few years’.