Summoning

Lore & Background

In the magical academies and guild halls that orbit the Great Dungeon, summoning is taught alongside the elemental schools but is regarded as a more demanding path. Where a fire mage shapes a flame already present in the air, a summoner must project an entire being—its form, its instincts, its hunger—into a world that did not ask for it. The theoretical texts describe the bond as a continuous channel of mana: the caster is simultaneously the anchor, the sustenance, and the leash. Drop the channel, and the entity unravels back into raw aetheric residue, leaving behind nothing but a faint ozone smell and a cold patch on the stone floor. This dependency creates a tactical paradox that guild tacticians have long debated. A summoned golem can hold a corridor against a pack of cave-lurkers, buying the party time to set up a cooking pit or retreat to a safer floor. But the moment the summoner's MP runs low, the golem's stone joints crack and it collapses, potentially crushing the very allies it was protecting. Experienced summoners therefore carry mana-restoring draughts—often brewed from dungeon herbs on the lower floors—and rotate the summoning duty between party members so no single caster is drained to zero. The relationship between summoned entities and the dungeon's native ecology is a subject of quiet unease among the more scholarly adventurers. Some lower-floor creatures appear to be *residual* summonings: entities whose original casters died mid-link, leaving the being half-anchored, half-wild, feeding on ambient mana seeping from the dungeon walls. These 'orphan summons' do not appear in standard floor bestiaries because they are not native fauna, yet they hunt, they bleed, and their meat—though it does curdle as quickly as a freshly called spirit—carries a strange, metallic sweetness that a few bold cooks have noted. Whether this is a culinary curiosity or an ecological warning remains a topic for the guild's theoretical mages to argue over over cold stew.

In Their Own Story

The corridor on the ninth floor was narrow, damp, and reeked of rust. Marcille pressed her palm flat against the mossy wall, feeling the mana threads in the stone hum like a plucked string, and whispered the binding words her instructor had drilled into her until they tasted like copper on her tongue. The air before the corridor's mouth shivered. A shape assembled itself from motes of pale light—first the broad shoulders, then the long arms, then the flat, featureless face. A clay golem, no taller than her, its joints clicking as mana poured into it in a steady, aching stream. She could feel it leaving her, a warm thread pulled from the center of her chest. "Stay," she murmured, and the golem stepped forward, blocking the passage. Behind it, the sound of something wet and many-legged was already rounding the bend. Marcille turned to the others. "I'll hold it for two minutes. Maybe three if I'm lucky. Then I need a mana draught. Now."

Laios was already unscrewing the small vial from his pack, the liquid inside glowing a faint amber. He set it in her hand without a word. She swallowed it in one gulp, felt the warmth flood back, and turned to watch the golem's fists meet the first of the things that poured into the corridor. Stone cracked. Something hissed. The golem's left arm splintered, and Marcille gasped, pouring more of herself into the wound. "Two minutes," she reminded them, teeth clenched. "Start the fire."

Behind her, the smell of rendered fat and black pepper began to fill the air, and for a moment the horror of the corridor felt almost manageable.

Reader's Guide

Properties: Summoning draws on the caster's mana to project a non-native entity into the material world. The called being has no independent existence; it is sustained entirely by the caster's MP output. Form, size, and duration scale with the caster's skill and available mana. The bond is a continuous channel—sever it and the entity dissipates into inert aetheric residue. Known casters: Summoning is a discipline studied in the magical academies that serve the adventurer guild. Any mage with sufficient theoretical training and mana capacity can attempt it, though the sustained-output requirement means it favors casters with large MP pools. In the party dynamics of the story, it is a utility role often shared or rotated so no single member is drained. Limitations: The caster is anchored to the entity's position; moving far away weakens the link. MP depletion causes the summon to degrade—joints crack, form thins, instincts fail. A dead or incapacitated caster's summon collapses immediately. Summoned entities cannot be 'harvested' for cooking in any meaningful sense: their flesh curdles within seconds of the link breaking, leaving only a faint metallic residue. They also do not appear in floor-specific bestiaries because they are not native fauna. Combat use: Area denial (a golem or wall of summoned matter blocking a corridor), scouting (small spirit-entities sent ahead to probe traps), and supplementary damage (a summoned blade or beast delivering a single strike). The tactical value is in buying time for the party to reposition, set up, or cook. Cooking-adjacent use: Summoning itself does not produce food, but it can be used to create a stable platform for a cooking station in an otherwise unstable corridor, or to hold back a predator while the party prepares a meal. The 'orphan summon' creatures—residual entities whose casters died—do leave edible (if faintly metallic) residue, but this is a grey-area practice and not a reliable ingredient source.

Did You Know?

• A summoned entity's flesh curdles within seconds of the mana link breaking, making it fundamentally different from a native dungeon monster in any culinary context.
• Orphan summons—entities whose original casters died mid-link—can become semi-permanent fixtures on a dungeon floor, feeding on ambient mana and sometimes mistaken for native fauna by untrained adventurers.
• Because the caster's MP is the entity's lifeblood, experienced summoners carry mana-restoring draughts and rotate the duty to avoid a catastrophic mid-fight collapse.
• The distinction between a summoned creature and a naturally occurring dungeon monster is a matter of arcane theory, not appearance; two beings can look identical yet have entirely different ecological and culinary proper