[Short Story] Dungeon Fae Reverse Summoning

“Mmmkay”, The Sphinx secretary, now finished looking over the filled out forms, sets the system print outs down before releasing her telekinetic grasp. “Soooo uh, everything looks fine, Ms.–”, she glances at the top of the paperwork, “–Viola Fireflyer. Mmhm. Paperwork’s all filled out and we have your transcript.”

The Sphinx bows her head towards the small figure, half as tall as the paper, that is floating just below eye level without flapping her butterfly wings. “Let me congratulate you on gaining your bachelor’s degree in Core Companionship with a minor in Child Psychology. We are always short on personnel for such positions, despite the prestige attached to guiding a dungeon. Expect to be assigned to your dungeon within five to eight business weeks.”

The now-blushing fairy nods, “Yes um, that um, sounds wonderful! That will be amazing, I can’t wait. So, uh, I guess that means I filled all the paperwork out, and now if it isn’t too much to ask. Um, well, why does the paperwork have to be printed out and then filled out? That’s uh, kind of weird. Made really hard for me, especially when it requires the standardized paper size for the printout.”

The Sphinx telekinetically grabs her reading glasses and lowers them so she can look over them at Viola. “You think I want the paperwork this small? These reading glasses”, she takes them off with a flourish, “have been enchanted with an adaptive eagle eye spell to let me read these papers.

“My eyesight is 20/20 and yet I need these”, she taps the glasses on the tap, “because compared to me? The papers are tiny. Look at this!”, she holds out her front paw and extends a single claw, which has been painted a lovely shade of green, “The papers are smaller than one of my nails! Sadly, when dealing with dungeons, everything will be human-sized barring very special circumstances. Now move along, everything looked fine and we’ll be submitting the papers to the system later today.”

Viola nods her head and leaves the system office. Thankfully, this one is located close to her apartment at the moment. Distances can be a bit wonky in the Faewild, but here in The City De Cornucopia, said changes have been restricted to the outskirts and slums. A required change given most people living here aren’t Fae. If only the stability could be pushed further out!

Viola sighs, that would be amazing. Right now, the place looks more like a tech city with skyscrapers and everything. Nevermind that the general look of everything is still somewhat normal for the Faewilds, most things being made of wood, clay, and living plants. A shame that despite what most people expect, giant living trees don’t actually work very well for a city building. The root systems alone would destroy any chance of them being used as they limit how close you can pack them and will damage the underground infrastructure.

Viola makes a quick stop at the corner store a block before her apartment and buys a new soda flavor from the kindly elder lamia man who runs the shop. She hasn’t yet tried “passion fruit and pomegranate pizzazz” and it seemed like a nice reward to treat herself with. Even if the pixy variety costs the same despite being smaller. The company makes up for it by supersaturating it with sugar somehow .

And while no, the Fae don’t require sugar, not even pixies. It is good for them and so unlike for most species, this sugarbomb of a drink could be considered a health food.

Viola enjoys the drink, though has to admit that while she enjoys pomegranate, she prefers the flavor combos that include mango.

And so time begins to pass for her. The neighbors are the same as always. Upstairs the thruple continues to argue like clockwork. Three apartments over the one guy continues to have his weekly hookah session with his friends and despite the police being called regularly, they’re never caught with buzz weed despite the distinct scent of celery and pineapple.

Honestly, sometimes Viola is worried the stuff will show up in a drug test because even with the air purifier running with the best enchantment she could manage, the magical smoke is notorious for forcing itself on others. Viola had seen it literally coil into small cyclones of smoke and jam itself up someone’s nose! The drug isn’t even that bad, but it is illegal to smoke in the city for reasons of consent.

Then three business weeks had passed and still no word. A holiday week breaks things up, but also means further delays. Business week four passes calmly with only a new neighbor moving in on a lower floor. Until finally at the end of the fifth business week, six weeks after submitting the paperwork, Viola receives notification that she has a letter.

This is for the confirmation letter, it simply could not be delivered because of size constraints. As even this letter ended up being too big. It wouldn’t have even been able to fit in her apartment without needing to be folded up, let alone make it through the mail slot. And sure, part of that is because her apartment is kind of small, even for a Fae of her stature. But still.

Though what was almost more hilarious is how little was written on the letter. A single line about her paperwork being accepted and an address and time to show up. Not that she needed the address, most people knew where the summoner’s plaza was, even if you didn’t deal with summoning or being summoned.

Anyway, the time to show was actually quite soon, only a few days away and so Viola had to rush around a little with her final preparation. Simple stuff like tossing everything she wants to keep in one of the complimentary storage pouches prospective dungeon Fae received. Free only because the space needed for a Fae’s stuff is quite small and it was a pouch, not the higher quality ring option.

Soon she is ready though and finds herself at a giant expanse of flat dirt with not even a single blade of grass. Not a century goes by without some nimby group getting up in arms about where the field is, but summoners and those signed up to be summoned are a major part of the city’s GDP. You don’t set yourself up in one of the more stable parts of the Faewild and not make use of it to industrialize summoning.

Viola hovers over to the check in desk where an overworked brownie sits on a tall stool and shuffles between stacks of paper. “Uhm, excuse me. Sir, I’m here to be summoned as a dungeon Fae.”

The brownie puts down the papers he is currently looking at and rubs his face with one hand. “Yeah, okay, I’m awake. Let me, let me get the paperwork. Eugh, easy to find at least.”

And they reach over to a small stack of familiarly sized paper. A quick browse through and the brownie pulls out two sheets. “Okay, can you confirm your name and birthdate? Also, I need one form of oath-backed identification and your graduation cert.”

Viola stumbles despite hovering as she mumbles she’ll have them in just a second. Somehow, despite them being on top of everything else in her storage pouch, they managed to get mixed in with everything else. “Ah, here we go. My guild membership card with the Summoned Union. And just a second.”

It takes her another moment before she pulls a piece of vellum. “My bachelor’s degree!”

The brownie pulls the two documents over and puts them under an enchanted orb that both confirms their legitimacy and records a copy of them, which prints out on another sheet of human-sized paper. “Name and birth?”

Viola stammers, “Oh, um, right! My first name is Viola; Vee, Eye, Ooh, El, Aye. And last name Fireflyer; one word, and flyer as in one who flies. My birthday is Spring Court Calendar 20,130 of Queen Elisander DazzleGem reign, First of her line, ruler of the blossoming peach tree sector in the month of heavenly tears on the third day, which was a Wednesday.”

The brownie grumbles about certain Fae naming conventions. Though they don’t even bother mentioning the calendar nonsense, seeing as time doesn’t work the same between the various lands, especially between areas ruled by different courts. “Okay, I’ve confirmed your identity and it looks like you’ll be over on pad 121. Your ritual will start in a day. Yes, I know that’s a bit long to wait, but there was some sort of bureaucratic nonsense which delayed a bunch of people and you’re just another in a long line of people who have been affected. Don’t worry, where you’re assigned hasn’t been hard-linked to the city and no one else is going there between now and then so you’ll arrive right in time no matter the delay.”

Viola musters a weak smile, “That will be fine.”

The brownie nods, “Not like either of us have a choice in this. Now, I’ve seen this happen more than a few times in my last century of work here. My advice? Go get yourself some rock candy fruit. The stall selling them over there”, they point at a small gathering of buildings built between three of the bigger nearby summoning platforms, “got in a batch of fresh Elysium raspberries. They hand-separate the drupelets so their candies are small enough you’ll actually be able to crunch into them instead of being forced to eat it like a lollipop.”

Viola smiles, “That does sound nice.” And so she does end up stopping by there. Raspberries always were one of her favorite fruits to eat fresh and these were particularly good examples of their type. Then, she finds herself slowly crunching them as she waits her turn. 

There were two other beings waiting to be summoned. A nasty-looking redcap whose cap is, well, there’s no polite way to put it, given what it represents. But suffice it to say, their hat isn’t very “fresh”. Which, on the one hand? That’s a good thing for other people. On the other hand, and pertinent to Voila, it means the hat looks really grody and has quite the rank odor. Thankfully, the other being waiting is between her and the redcap and works as quite a decent wall, what with them being a gargoyle.

A few hours pass and thankfully the redcap’s turn comes and they’re whisked away to whoever would be summoning a redcap. Which is none of her business and she can’t really comment given she’s about to be a dungeon Fae. If she couldn’t handle a little death, she was certainly in the wrong line of work. Still, there is a difference in her mind. Dungeons are things people get themselves into. Whereas an Unsellie like a redcap can just happen to someone.

At around the 16-hour mark, the silent gargoyle is finally ushered onto the small platform and their summoning goes off without a hitch. They hadn’t talked, but Viola felt a bit of kinship with the silent being. They’re in similar positions of sitting somewhere until others stumble upon them.

Then finally at the 24-hour mark since she got here, the unseen servant enchanted to the ritual site ushers her into the middle of the circle. Viola is a bundle of nerves, but does her best to put on a calm and cheerful face as the magic reaches up.

Except it doesn’t grab her. And Viola had been subjected to the summoning magic more than enough to recognize this is not going right. “Something is wrong! The magic isn’t grabbing me!”

She is worried, but not overly much. Her lessons did go over this possibility. While the veil between the Faewilds and other dimensions is shockingly thin, sometimes celestial arrangements will interfere. So when a trio of attendants rush over she is calmly sitting there waiting as the magic seems to just sit around her.

A dwarf with an enchanted monocle frowns, “I’m not seeing interference.”

Beside them, the kobel shrugs, “Es magic. Sometimes works, sometimes not. Rituals are stable but es dungeon magic. Always some chaos. Just need hook up, then poof! She summoned and out of hair.”

The last technician, a scarecrow-like figure that Viola isn’t quite sure the type of, shakes their head. “This just don’t feel right. Something’s up here. I mean, look at that symbol through ya viewer. Shouldn’t be facing towards that way.”

The dwarf and kobel both look closer at what the scarecrow pointed out and neither can quite make heads or tails of it either. It is at this point that Viola gets a sinking feeling in her gut.

Though nothing happens quick. Hours later, she’s stuck in the summoning ritual as a group of seven ritualists are arguing about what’s going on and off to the side, three people are going over the paperwork for her summoning.

Then, an idiot happens. It starts simple enough, “Oh, hey! Look at this. I think there’s an error in the paperwork. Going by what I can see, something got printed wrong? Not sure where, though it certainly was on our side. Which sucks.”

Others gather around that guy, though they keep a bit of distance. After all, he did just openly admit this was their fault, which you never want to do before talking to legal.

And of course, they don’t stop there. As the others are still reading over the problem he found, he goes a step further. “I think this should be easy enough to fix!” And before the others can stop him, he takes out a pen. “Just need to cross this out and confirm this!” While of course doing exactly that.

Everyone else scatters and Viola tries to stand up, but the magic goes into overdrive as whatever bureaucracy had been stopping was now gone. Except she still didn’t feel a pull. Instead, she felt quite anchored!

Then, with a pop, she is suddenly sitting on a crystal twice as wide as she is tall in the shape of a downward-facing pyramid. Around them are stone walls as is customary for a dungeon and she sighs in relief. Right up until she realizes she can still hear the ritual technicians.

She turns around towards where the doorway out of her dungeon’s core room is located. Something she can now instinctively feel. “Oh, that’s not good.”

Beyond she can still see the ever-shifting sky of the Faewilds and the dwarf with the monocle peeking in.