Here is a fairy. With proper fairy wings and all.

"Hello, summoner. What do you need moved today?"

Temple drops the piece of chalk he was using to draw.

"Dude, not funny, this is private property... And butterfly wings? Seriously?"

"...Um. Your circle summoned me? By all means, dismiss me if it was an accident. Happens to the best of us."

Temple looks at him quizzically.

"Okay, I was going to just kick you out, but since you are keeping up with the joke, please tell me how to make wings? It is a nice exchange for interrupting my rune work."

"It's a certain potion, I don't have one on me and I'm not sure it'll even work on non-daeva, let alone safely. And I'm pretty sure there's some deeper misunderstanding going on here. I've never heard of any sort of magic involving runes. I can move some things if you'd like proof."

"Are you from a distant part of Elsewhere?" His irritation quickly melts away, leaving only curiosity behind. "What is a daeva? What principles your schools of magic follow that don't use runes?"

"A daeva is a kind of person who can do magic. Our, school, as it is, is summoning. Humans summon daeva and make deals, a daeva's services in exchange for whatever. Your rune circle has apparently masqueraded as a summoning circle, so I got to visit a new universe. Lucky me."

Temple looks suspicilously at the rune circe bellow him.

"Lucky me. What kind of deals daevas make? Should I be worried for my immortal soul?"

"If you had summoned a maker, maybe, but I'm just a fairy. I usually ask for food, clothes, tools, that kind of thing. And this terrible circle isn't strong enough to hold me to a deal, anyway."

"In my defense, I wasn't trying to do anything even close to a summon, this is a protection spell. An awesome protection spell of my own design."

"Oh? Well, I suggest you modify it at least slightly before writing it out again. Unfortunately, this exact configuration of runes summons a random fairy. Lucky you, you got a friendly and professional one and not some random jerk."

"Really? At least few people are willing to combine reformed and traditional Hermetic-Parker runes in a... At least people aren't likely to try this spell design" Temple sighs, so much research lost, he raises a hand.

A tiny cloud condenses and starts raining, melting the chalk away.

"So what else can you tell me about your kind of magic?"

"If you rearranged a few things it might work, just saying... I don't want to lay out summoning for you until I'm positive you'll be really damn careful with it, evil daeva are hideously dangerous. Fairies move things with a maximum size of approximately 'large hill' and a maximum speed of 'the speed of light'. There's two more kinds, one changes things. Like stone to metal, or a broken bone to a fixed one, or the reverse of that. The last makes things, from acid to bombs to worse but also food and medicine if you can convince them."

"I couldn't, the magic requires that specific layout. Being careful is reasonable, are daeva likely to be jerks?"

"Nnnot really. All three kinds of daeva are just people, and it turns out that once in a while people are jerks. And when you can make just about anything you want, the only reason to take summons is for things you can't just make. Like souls, or sex, or if you're lucky new stories, or if you're very lucky, altruism."

"And is only one thing per... race? Species? Do you spend lifeforce or something else while using your powers?"

The small cloud stops and localized wind helps the water to drain away.

"Species. And no, we can do it at our maximum all day and not feel any different than if we didn't use it at all."

Temple stares at him, then he stares back towards the city beyond the deep chasm.

"Sink. I mean, we really need to have that thing sunk." He points towards the city.

The city is vast, made of stone buildings and goes all the way to the horizon taking over all that side of the deep and wide chasm that separate two sides.

On this side, there is a small rural-looking village surrounded by a tall agressively green forest, the sky and filled with an absurdity of stars.

On the other side there is the city and nothing else, no people, no sound, even the sky above is completely black and now that Nick is paying attention to it, he can definitely feel a sense of uneasy just by looking at it that can't be just his imagination.

"Uh huh. That looks like a city. People live in cities. I invite you to convince me this is wrong for that particular city and that it ought to be destroyed."

"Fair enough. No one lives there, that city is an horrible example of magic going wrong, it drains ambient lifeforce... it doesn't hurt to just stand there, but you can't heal, you can't sleep, nothing grows and the damn thing spreads like an infection and so far the only way to stop it is by cutting all the way through the bottom of the world."

"The... Bottom? This is a new thing for worlds to have, to me."

"Oh, yes. This world is basically a layer of rock, usually two miles thick. Atmosphere, gravity and light are done magically. The dead city subverts that magic into that."

"Sounds nasty, for sure. I hope you don't blame me if I check your claims by visiting. And do you mind telling me what else your magic can do?"

"Sure. It isn't that urgent actually, that was mostly my shocked reaction because having any kind of easy solution to the problem was... new." He sighs. "My magic is based on spending lifeforce, of which there are five sub-components. It can do moving, changing and creating things, not necessarily easy. It also can do healing, limited shapeshifting, teleportation, control over different kinds of energy, control over plants or animals... powers that influence the mind are rare but exist.. multiple kinds of protection and senses. Basically that."

"Are the effects permanent? Can you make a new kind of plant? Because if so, I want that as pay for removing the city-cancer."

"The lifeforce recovers over time, unless you spend Youth which is required to do any permanent magical things. What do you mean with new kind?"

"A new species of plant. Something useful that I could take home and have reproduce, that makes a useful thing we don't already get from plants."

"I could kiss you for giving me an excuse to do that! What exactly you don't get from plants? I can make something that is actively magical but the effect will only remain if the plant is alive and healthy, some of the stronger effects might require the lifeforce expenditure."

"Ah, please don't actually kiss me? I might be up for that if you were a woman, but you're not, that's just how it is. We get food, medicine, that sort of thing, from plants. I'll need to look at some notes to figure something we don't already have. Something actively magical sounds very interesting, as long as fairies can grow and use it. We might not have lifeforce."

"I will restrain from kissing." Temple says dryly. "Do you mind if I actually check if you have lifeforce?"

"Go ahead and check, sure."

"Okay, this will take a minute." Temple stars drawing a much simple set of runes on a piece of paper once he concludes that he rests his hand on the paper and looks at Nick. "That is weird... Your lifeforce is different and your Youth takes most of it... Are you immortal?!"

"Quite so. Fairies are indestructible. Destruction includes age and disease."

"I see, it's so interesting! Seeing your lifeforce is kinda like... dunno, seeing a person with a fleshy exterior and a steel core. Anyway, you are able to empower a magic plant through lifeforce... Some of the effects I can do for you: plants that glow as strongly as sunlight; plants that cast darkness; a plant that can change color by your intent so you can make ink or paint of any color you want; plants that float and support... at least four times their own weight, I might push that to seven times. I can add the ability to shape their growth to any of those effects, by the way. Plants that generate wind, cold, heat or electricity... maybe filtration. Anything of interest so far?"

"Colors and darkness are the most interesting ones listed so far. Maybe cold and heat."

"The color-changing: If you want to make ink with it I can make a berrybush where the berries change color by holding and concentrating, making glowing paint is an option. What do you want the darkness for? I can make a beach umbrella that casts a cover of darkness. Cold and Heat have more constraints, but they are manegeable, I can actually combine the two and have a plant that takes heat and directs somewhere else. Also, sinking the dead city might take a while... I would need to see you in action to be sure."

"Fairies can do big stuff. What I want is something I can sell back in Fairyland. Color-changing berrybush that can make glowing paint would be that. A heat-moving plant would also work, for people who want refrigerators without having to bother to install electricity. Even kinds of fruit or vegetables I've never heard of."

"Lets start with color-changing berrybush. How long are you willing to wait for it?"

"A few days would be... Acceptable. A few weeks would be annoying. I was planning to work on the dead city while you worked on the plant. Should I bring you along for a few minutes to see if I'm removing it correctly?"

"Color-changing berrybush will take less than week, two days if you only take a single plant, but that can go up to a dozen potted bushes if you wait for another day. I have a guest room if you are concerned with where you are staying. And bringing me along for a test run would be a good idea."

"I don't need to sleep, if I can get coffee. I'll take a dozen potted bushes over the single plant. How hard will it be to raise new ones?"

"I'm getting jealous of your fairiness. And the plant I'm going to use as a base is pretty adaptable, low maintenance, and is a great apartment plant if you like the overly sweet smell, which can be get rid off if you want."

"Might as well leave the smell. I can fly us over to the dead city now, let's test whether I can actually scrap it."

"Okay, just a moment..." Temple stores some of his supplies. "Done."

"Brace yourself for vertigo."

And then they are high above the surface, speeding towards the dead city faster than any bird could.

Temple is somewhere between vertigo and joy.

The chasm that devides the village and the dead city is wide, maybe hundreds feet and goes down into a pitch-black darkness. When they are about half-way through the chasm... something changes in the air itself, it feels stale and still, even while they move this fast, a sensation crawls over Nick's skin that is hard to ignore. Temple's joy stops, he shivers but not from cold.

The city architecture is pretty regular and organized, but the place is very definitely empty, looking more like a stone model of a city than an actual city.

"Try to sink it down a few miles? God, I hate this feeling."

It makes his skin crawl. "I can only push so much at once."

Still, he forces a sizable block down at barely subsonic speeds.

The blocks make the expected sounds of uncountable tons of earth and stone tearing off, several buildings tople but that is hardly a problem. It sinks, sinks, and sinks...

...The wrongness is not gone, but it is definitely ameliorating. Temple turns his eyes skyward.

"The stars are already returning!" Temple says pointing up.

"Great, it's working. I should just do that for the entire Dead City? ...How many people will be grateful I'm trashing the place?"

"Honestly, easily on the scale of hundreds of millions? This thing is a huge disaster, not many deaths lately but relocation is a major problem."

"Glad I can do something good on a big scale. Any chance I could get more than one or two plants out of this? Or learn the magic, can I do that?"

He's so excited he's forgetting to be sarcastic.

"Honestly? You can get a dozen. Can't promise I can make those all that fast but I can get some contacts to help with that. I need to know you for a bit longer before considering teaching you magic, it would require some adaptations anyway. I think you can't spend a lot of lifeforce."

"I'd think excising your world-cancer is a good demonstration of character, but I haven't volunteered to teach you summoning, fair. I'll just put you back at your house and get started on this, then."

Temple might be a little afraid of giving a lifeforce based magic to a person with that kind of lifeforce. Not that he is going to comment that.

"Thanks! I will be researching and contacting people... and we completely forgot to introduce each other. I'm Temple Grayward."

"Nick, and I don't have a last name, sorry." He starts flying back to where he came.

"I'm called Temple, I can relate."

Temple is asked to be left on the terrace and informs Nick that he can just come in when he needs a break.

"I'll keep that in mind, thanks."

And he whooshes off and starts sinking large sections of the dead city. It makes a terrible clatter and noise. He miiiight be having fun with the chance to be destructive on a large scale.

The dead city passively sinks into the darkness and the wrongness crawling on his skin diminishes progressively, the place continues being devoid of life no matter where he goes. For a long time there is no change in color with the exception of a red-blue kite hanging from a roof.

If Nick does this long enough he might eventually find the edge of the dead city, hundreds feets of dead forest. A tall and majestic oak literally crumbles and falls while he is watching. Blocky buildings slowly rise from the ground.

The dead forest is, apparently, infected. It'll have to go too. He does this after making sure no people are in the affected area, of course.

Not a single soul. Not even animals, if Nick looks over to the other side of Chasm he might catch sight of a person or two, all passing by, most consistently avoiding towards the other side of the chasm.

When the dying forest goes down Nick is hit by something... hail? No, glowing crystals with lights that fizz out quickly.

Those can stop hitting him, thank you very much. He is a fairy and doesn't have to let things hit him.

He skirts along the spreading edge, dropping infected areas before they spread further. He makes a full circuit around the border of the thing to make sure.

He doesn't complete circuit even after several hours.

Once he finds an infected area on the other side of the chasm, small but easily identifiable by the half-risen stone house near a circle of dead trees.

Yikes. He blasts that and several hundred feet around it.

He can fly much faster than he can drop things. When he wants to take a break it takes only minutes to return to Temple's house. Since he was invited to do so earlier, he walks right in, muttering, "That place is unnerving."

"You don't need to tell me! I can still feel it in my bones. How did it went?"

Temple's house is ecletically decorated and he is currently in his studio, with several charts and diagrams on the walls and desks.

"I think it's a lot bigger than I thought. It'll take weeks to clear properly, unless I contrive to have you summon more fairies and pay them whatever they want. Food, trinkets, copies of your magic plants."

"Weeks is good enough for me. The people here took the thing as a horrible fact of life. How likely is the plan to summon multiple fairies?"

"I'd have to check whether summoning even works properly here, it could be that getting me was a once-in-a-lifetime fluke. But if it works once, it probably works however many times you want it to. A small army of fairies could sink the dead city in days and be paid by the output of one particularly busy cupcake bakery. There's a risk of getting a jerk who figures out a loophole in their bindings, but if I'm careful with those it's a small risk I think."

"How do you stop a fairy if that is necessary? I can actually get an army-worth of food if that is what it takes. Do you want exclusivity for magic plants?"

"Exclusivity with magic plants would be nice, yes... You stop a fairy by unsummoning them, which you do by wanting them gone very hard until it takes."

"Good to know. I can't promise other won't design plants for themselves and this kind of work requires review by the High-Library of Magic even if is never used again, but they are amicable to special arragements if it is what it takes to destroy the dead city. Oh, sorry. Are you hungry? Or tired?"

"I don't need a guarantee of exclusivity, I just want the things you're making for me to be only for me. I'll be selling them soon enough, anyway. I could use something to eat, but I'd just as soon have lots of coffee or tea and get back to sinking the dead city instead of sleeping."

"Fair enough." Temple says and he leads Nick to his kitchen and presents offers of coffee and teas, including two kinds he never heard before, plus snacks.

He tries one of the new kinds. And eats snacks. And casually looks around the house, because it's actually pretty interesting to see new kinds of magic. "What other kinds of things does your magic make?"

The new kind is delicious. The home actually has signs of technology, from early 21th century. But everything is mixed with things that might be magic. There is an garishly blue cactus next to the small tv. The lights are crystals (quite similar to the ones that fell on Nick) and the lightswitches have arcane symbols on them. There is no visible ventilation system, but the air is comfortable and cool. There is a microwave siting right next to a wooden closet that works as a fridge. In hindsight, a lot of the decorative things might be magical, given that they are covered with symbols, but it's hard to tell what they do if they do anything at all.

"Besides what I already told? A variety of things, usually better than what plants can do, like shaping living things, ilusions, influence the weather, calming animals, creating portals. I'm a sorcerer and we have extra lifeforce and gifts and one of mine is the ability to create portals through water."

Temple demonstrates this ability, half emptying a plant vase into a pot and submerging his hand... which then exits through the vase, thumbs up.

The portals thing gets an eyebrow-raise and an appreciative whistle. "That's extremely cool. I'm used to higher technology than what you're using, and I have to wonder what you could make by combining higher tech with magic."

"How much higher is your technology? There had been some efforts to combine technology with magic, but most people from Elsewhere don't care much about anything from Earth. And the High-Library is even more so."

"Oh, so you do have an Earth. Have you heard of computers?" He pulls out his computer and opens a search engine. "This is a good example of our tech. Tell me something and I'll say it in English and it will find information about the thing."

"I actually grew up on Earth." He says switching to English, "But Elsewhere is the best and only place to learn magic. There is no wi-fi signal for miles, but I have a laptop." Temple looks closer. "I'm not familiar with this model or brand."

"...Wi-Fi? Not an extranet connection? No, I think this thing's probably more advanced than yours. It has two hundred terabytes of storage, for example."

"Extranet?" Temple looks at the size of Nick's computer suprised. "My laptop's storage is one terabyte and is a fairly new model."

"Extranet is what they call the internet in 2180."

"Are you a future fairy? What kind of anime has my life turned into?"

"I'm from the present, your rune circle brought me into the past. And I'm pretty sure my eyes are normal-sized."

"And your hair is a naturally-occurring color... and you are not cute girl, unless you turn into one under the right circumstances, maybe it's one of those animes. But seriously, 2180! Tell me more about it? Do you have FTL-travel?"

"Not unless you count summoning. It's mostly just more advanced computing, industry, medicine, space colonies. Fairies make space travel cheap. And fairies aren't very technopathic on average, I'm just a big nerd."

"Just space colonies!" Temple says in disbelief. "Why aren't fairies technopathic?"

"I more meant they're not huge nerds, like me, they just play video games if they get a computer instead of deciding to learn to code. Daeva don't really need to do much if they don't want to. And fairyland is a pretty chaotic place, compared to Earth or wherever. There's not really a government, I think that's part of it. The other kinds, probably about the same."

"A similar situation to mine, but with magic. Fairyland sounds like an interesting place to live. Is there anyway to travel there?

"No known way to visit unless you're a fairy, sorry. I have pictures, though."

"Too bad there isn't an entirely new kind of magic that we could try. Oh, wait."

"...If you can make portals between the realms, you could fix the concordances! We have to try it."

"Fix the what now? Remember, I'm extremely newbie to your world magic."

"Concordances are temporary... Joinings between the realms for the three kinds of daeva, and to Limbo. Their biggest problem is they they are temporary, and don't come very often. If people can visit whenever they want it would fix the mail system, at the very least... The angels and demons will definitely have a little war if you let them visit each other whenever, though."

"Hold on! Limbo? Angels? Demons?"

"...Limbo contains dead humans, or at least dead humans from my Earth. Angels and demons are just people and do not necessarily fulfill the theological expectations."

"I don't know what to make of this information, except that finding a way to gate between those worlds is an interesting project." Temple says before adding. "Minus between angels and demons."

"Yeah, culture is a thing even if the average member of those categories is perfectly pacifistic... I think I'd want something that works like concordances just more often if we make the things public access, and if it can be done at all. To keep an angel or a demon from sneaking into the other kind's domain and causing havoc."

"Sadly gates are pretty hard to aim here. As in 'we can aim to this side of the city' hard. Which is still pretty useful and studying a concordance might give some sort of insight to both problems."

"...Well, the next one is in seven years. Might be a bit of a problem there."

"That sounds extremely inconvenient, yes. I'm still not sold on teaching you magic, or at least not until I have put you under a better divination spell. Your lifeforce is... harder? Like Youth, which is hard but brittle, most of your lifeforce is like youth but also more resistant. It is entirely possible it could result in a bad reaction, where bad reaction includes things like the dead city."

"I was imagining you doing the actual development, since as you said you aren't sold on teaching me magic." He noms up the last of the snacks, and drains his tea. "I'll try to sink the rest of the dead city's borders, come back in another few hours, give you time to decide whether mass-summoning fairies to do it in a reasonable amount of time is a good idea."

"Cooperation with someone that actually goes there would be good. Anyway, I will think about it. Oh, and remember that while the disturbing sensation you feel in the dead city is real, any sense of being watched or seeing ghosts are purely imaginary."

"I haven't felt watched or seen ghosts, but I'll remember that, thanks."

Aaaand he's off. He flies high enough to take video to feed to his tablet's mapping software along the way, this time.

Dead city: Be sunk, piece by piece. Wanton destruction is still fun.

In that case, Nick will have an extremely fun destructive/productive time. He finds two more cases of across-the-chasm infections, but those can be dealt with easily

...Just how big is this thing? He flies up continuously until he can tell, or it gets obscured.

It is hard to tell, but a combination of his computer, observation and guessing leads him to believe it covers about ten thousand square miles. It's shape is semi-regular, shaped away by the creation of chasms. Near the "center" he might see dead remains left behind, decades old.

He's definitely far too high to see that. But wow, that is a big disaster zone/world cancer. More fairies are going to be necessary, or he'll be at this for a month.

He goes back to Temple's place.

Temple has since acquired a potted berrybush and even more arcane charts.

"Ooh, shiny."

"...I ran the numbers, and it will take me a month, perhaps two, to sink the dead city by myself. I think a small army of fairies is your best bet."

"How many is an army? And how much it would cost per fairy?"

"You'd have to negotiate with the individual fairies, but some medium quantity of food and trinkets are usually enough for your average fairy. I asked for a magic plant because I knew it'd take a lot longer than normal. A hundred or so could do it in a day. A dozen could do it in two or three."

"I prefer a dozen, sounds more manageable. Any reason why I couldn't rotate them? Use fairies in turns and take a week total or so?"

"You could do that, sure. I've already smashed out a wider chasm around the entire border of the dead city - there were a few spots where the infection had crossed the chasm, by the way. But there's a lot of dead city."

"No need to tell me that." Temple snorts. "Do you want to take a nap or another snack break? Or summon the other fairies? I need to finish my train of thought if we do the latter."

"I'd just as soon have more tea than a nap, but if you need to protect your supply I understand. And we may as well hash out the summoning plan now."

"I'm going to need to resupply anyway. Let me finish this first." Temple makes notes and re-organizing charts, it doesn't take long.

More tea is made, more snacks are served as needed.

Tea is delicious. Snacks are delicious. Nick looks up a few things on his tablet. His notes on fairy-summoning circles.

Temple is curious about these notes, also about angel and demon summoning.

"Hm, not sure I should explain it fully. You said my lifeforce is a potential disaster. Less than ideally competent summoning is, too. You already know it involves drawing circles then negotiating deals. Usually the circles have bindings, defining things the summoned daeva cannot do. The summoner and daeva work out a deal, when it's agreed to the bindings relax enough to let the daeva do their part, then the daeva cannot be unsummoned until the summoner's part of the deal is fulfilled. I decline to explain how to design summoning circles at this time."

Temple nods along that explanation. "I understand. I grew up with the dead city story - it was an acident caused by a research team - nineteen people got their lifeforce completely drained out and the magic spit that city out. You should wait until a better lifeforce analyzes before deciding if you really want to learn."

"Nasty stuff. I'm pretty sure about wanting to learn, but caution is definitely the order of the day."

"Indeed. How is the fairy summoning going to take place? Remembering diagrams is one of my fundamental work skills. Do I need to be blindfolded?"

"Seeing one valid diagram does not necessarily lead you to figuring out how to make more. But I was thinking invisible ink if you have any."

"I will have it if you give me two minutes to cast the spell."

"By all means. I still have to find a binding that fits the task at hand." Read, read, read. If Temple does sneak a look at the notes they're not in any language he recognizes.

Temple is good enough at body language (and basic politiness) to figure out that Nick doesn't want someone reading over their shoulder. He is busy casting with the invisible-ink spell. This one actually involves speaking in broken latin and making complicated gestures. The ink changes by the end of it.

Nick can't help but think they he only has Temple's word the ink will stay invisible. But mistrust is impolite, and he seems sensible enough.

"Right, I'll draw the diagrams and mark out a spot for you to complete the circle. Don't say 'yeah' or 'okay' in front of anyone you've summoned until you're done negotiating, they can take it as acceptance of a deal. For a big job like this most fairies will probably want something significant. Either a lot of food, a nice decoration, or some kind of electronics. But your laptop is unlikely to interest them, so the first two will have to be it."

"I will be careful. And I can get a literal truckload of food in less than a day."

"A literal truckload of food will probably do it."

"Perfect. Lets get started."

"You'll probably want a down payment on top of your literal truck for later, coffee, teas, cookies are old stand-bys. I'll go prepare the circle."

Temple gets the down payment, he lives alone but it is a sizeable quantity of assorted snacks and beverages. The summoning can begin.

There is a little spot marked out for Temple to draw in the invisible ink. "Remember, don't agree to anything until you're done negotiating. They won't be able to use their powers destructively until the deal to destroy things is in effect, I chose an elegantly minimal but still safe binding."

Temple nods solemnly and then he draws with the invisible ink.

And another fairy appears. This one is an asian-looking woman with incongruously blonde hair, dressed in what looks like leaves. It does seem well-made, just aesthetically odd. "Summoner." She glances at Nick and asks hopefully, "Big job?"

"Very big job, but simple. This world is flat and two miles thick, there is a part of it that is magically infected with a cursed city. I need to sink the infected parts."

Temple might be trying to get a reaction.

"...This isn't Earth?"

"Nope. I did some math and it'll take, mm, about 800 fairy-hours in total."

"Huh, this is new. Alright, I'm probably in. What're you paying, Summoner?"

"My name is Temple. Payment in food, I can get you a lot of it. And I'm open to other forms of payment including casting a spell."

"...You two had better not be having me on."

Temple raises his hands theatrically and a small cloud forms between them, tiny lighting sparks inside it.

"That could be a weather machine, I dunno tech... But whatever, I'll play along for one kilo of tea, good stuff, chai or something, per hour. Or a few kilos of other stuff. I prefer to work in no more than six hour shifts. Would you like me to begin immediately, summoner?"

"What do you think, Nick?"

"Okay, so. The job is to sink parts of the dead city for six hours starting when I show you the place, you get your food at the end. I'll show you the place then come back and help Temple summon more of us. What's your name?"

"Kara-xie. That would be acceptable. Summoner?"

"That is acceptable." Temple says writing down the terms.

So she steps out of the circle and asks Nick, "Where to?"

Nick flies out the front door and points her, and demonstrates a section of city-sinking, and comes back.

"Next one?"

While Nick was showing the dead city to the fairy, Temple retrieved a couple of large plates and filled them with water.

"Next."

"I'll need to redraw the circle. Two or three minutes."

Temple waits patiently in the other room. He doesn't even have to be told to do so.

"Done."

This time when Temple completes the circle, the fairy that appears is a short man with red hair. "Good day, summoner, fellow Fairy, what needs movin' today?"

Temple repeats the explanation he gave Kara.

This fairy is more excited and less skeptical, and agrees to broadly the same deal as the first one after a little haggling.

Temple accepts this deal. Next fairy?

This fairy wants a spell of some kind applied to her person, but what can he even do?

Temple doesn't feel confident on casting a spell directly on a fairy yet. He wants to research the possibility, but Nick's deal take precedence.

In that case, this fairy is annoyed and convinced he's a fraud and wants to be unsummoned now, please.

Temple does the water-portal trick, he sticks his hand through one of the plates and it sticks out from the other.

"Nick could you levitate the other plate closer to our guest? Maybe closer enough that he can high-five it or something."

He levitates the thing, as asked.

"Do you still wanna go?"

"...Fine, I'll help, but for the food thing not a spell. Don't want to wait around for you to figure it out."

"I wouldn't you expect to. Sorry, for the incovenience, but my magic is serious business. You will understand once you see the dead city."

Nick shows this fairy to the dead city as well.

The pattern continues for however many fairies Temple wants to summon, with two who declined the job and asked to be send home even after a demonstration. Nick will comment that it's probably enough for now at around two dozen.

Temple writes down each specific deal and otherwises behaves as Nick told him to. He accepts Nick's suggestion to stick at two dozen.

"Do you have that 'better analysis spell' ready yet? Because if not I think I'll just go join the rest of them in trashing the dead city for you."

"I do! Thank you for reminding me. The whole summoning business is distracting. Just give me a moment to be ready."

The moment is actually several minutes, but not enough for Nick to be bored about it. They have to move to the terrace to have enough space for the diagram.

Nick can be patient. He has a computer to read things on.

Temple casts the thing, it is wordlessly... Now Temple's eyes are glowing white-gold and he is looking... at his own chest.

"Nick...?" Temple asks slightly worried still staring at his own chest.

"...What happened, and can I fix it?"

"There is something new in my lifeforce, and looks awfully a lot like a piece of Daeva's lifeforce, not the same thing but obviously similar. Should I be worried?"

"I have no idea. Summoners aren't any different from non-summoners as far as I knew until ten seconds ago. But- I don't expect it to hurt you."

Temple rubs his forehead. "Sam Forst didn't expect to die. Yet he did and it resulted in that catastrophy." He points at the dead city, shaking nervously. "'I don't expect' is not good enough!" He is breathing with difficulty by the end of it.

"...The only solution I could offer you is to visit my world and find other summoners, see if they have the same thing. Summoners don't just keel over."

Temple doesn't reply... he is actually having trouble breathing.

Nick... Attempts a somewhat awkward reassuring pat on the shoulder.

Temple stays several minutes like this trying to control his breath...

...then he passes out.

This is alarming.

Nick doesn't have medical supplies. He doesn't know how to identify medical supplies. He checks whether Temple is breathing, preparing to bolt with him to the nearest populated area if the answer is 'no'.

Temple is breathing. They are at the edge of a small village, but no building looks like a hospital or even anything particularly official. At distance he can see people and movement, and if he squints there are a couple more settlements, one of which looks bigger than this one.

Well.

He moves Temple onto a comfortable-seeming piece of furniture, gets his computer back out, and glances nervously at temple every couple of minutes.

Temple wakes up, his eyes are still glowing. He sits but doesn't say anything.

"I don't know how or if I can help you, Temple."

"We have that in common!" Temple says suddenly raising his hands in the air. "Fuck! This could mean that I can't practice magic anymore! I would need to become a tutor or maybe a truck driver in my dad's shipping company! Twenty five years of studying magic down the drain!"

"...I'll give you some of my advanced technology, make up for the loss? Or, you seem responsible so far, I might teach you the rest of summoning. With plenty of safety precautions."

"Thank you. I mean, really. But it might not be necessary." Temple says not sounding particularly hopeful. "I mean, I don't know if it is necessary and... This kind of thing is completely unprecedented." He rubs his forehead. "I'm going to call one of my brothers to finish the plants for you, if that is okay."

Temple thinks, eyes still glowing.

"Is there a way to summon for... research purposes? I just need the daeva to sit there for a time while I stare at them."

"Most fairies will probably be willing to just sit there being magically stared at just as easily as if you want an actual job done. Changers and maker are harder to pay even if you just want a look at them, but music or books or something will do. Makers can get everything a person ever wrote from their name, though, so only pay them one name at a time. Changers will need the actual media physically present. Or did I already explain this? I forgot."

"You called them Angels and Demons, and I honestly don't remember if you mentioned payment at all." Temple says like a deflated ballon.

"Well, that's the classical way to call them, makers and changers is more descriptive. Makers are demons. Anyway. The first of those fairies is going to come back looking for their food soon, should I help you fetch it?"

"Do you mind fetch it yourself. I should call my brother now and set things up."

"Alright, where or from whom should I fetch it from and how will I explain myself?"

Temple directs him to his own pantry and then walks off to make the call in quiet tones.

Nick consults the list of fairies' food requests and arranges items.

He does have to bother Temple to get him to unsummon the first fairy to return.

Temple cooperates quietly, and not being very responsive, his eyes are still glowing.

"You could turn the sight thing off, if it unnerves you. Or are you too nervous to try it?"

"I'm too nervous to try it again and it is going to be necessary."