The large courtyard was cleared of all debris. It was marked with chalk markings by the village acolytes in the ancient magical ways of dragons. The summoning circle was almost as large as the courtyard which was about 500 paces of an average-sized person.
On the Outside of the circle were four sacrificial alters at each of the cardinal points, north, south, east, and west. There was also the spot the elder would stand with his personal podium set up with his magical tools. The podium was set to face the magical pole in the east. Although people called it a magical pole, it wasn’t the same as the magnetic pole of the north. It was instead a point in the heavens that sat consistently to a spot in what was basically east for his community. Depending on where you were in the world it would be somewhere slightly different. Once an ancient wizard calculated the location of the magic pole. It was at a place that sat halfway between the world and the moon, always sitting basically at midnight on the equator as it’s the shortest distance. It was an invisible point in the night's sky unless on rare occasions the moon passed that point, then it looked like a tiny dot against the bright white of the moon. He handed the acolytes the sacrifices for each of the alters and walked to his position next to his podium.
To the north alter was a precious geode beautiful on the inside yet earthy textures on the outside, this was to represent the Earth.
To the south a fire red ruby, that shone brightly and fiercely in the light of the moon and thus a gorgeous offering for fire.
To the West a perfect pearl the size of a human heart, Water so did love the beauty of a pearl.
Last but not least, for the Air in the East, a hand-sized sapphire that was perfectly cut, airy and light.
Anyone of these sacrifices could feed the village for a year, he was glad that their community had magical wealth still after thousands of years guarding the gateway to the abyss.
He was ready, yet he was scared. He memorized the spell perfectly, it was the things not written that troubled him. Usually, spells of summoning contained names of the summon monsters and where the beings were found in the ether. This spell had no name, and the location of the summoned entity was said in words he didn’t understand. He learned them, as the spell did have a sidebar of notes that included the pronunciations, his last fear was nowhere in the spell was any compulsion of obedience included, in fact, there was a warning that any attempt at changing the spell to include one would cause everyone to be compelled to that which was summoned.
Still, this was his people's last chance spell, and it was one of the most powerful summonses they had. He remembered as a child when it was last used. The heroic being made of metal that roared with a massive sound and had four High Human’s as it’s master. The metal beast died shortly afterward. It still lay in the center of the village with its long metal trunk pointing towards the cavern entrance that overlooked the side of the village. The four High Humans left south after defeating their foes. That was almost a hundred years ago.
He wondered if the High Humans still lived, they were mysterious and amazing beings. Unlike the common human, High Humans had the potential to use magic like an elf and could fight in armor like an Orc. His people's written histories said that it was the Dragons who took the first High Humans and created all the mortal races around two million years ago. Each of the mortal races was excellent at one thing but was weak in others.
His kind was strong at raw magic and seduction, they could convince people to do things. Most of their kind that became adventurers became Bards, only a few like himself choose to follow pure Magic. However, as their village stood at the entrance of the great abyss, their village had an ancient tradition of Wizards. He was always proud of being talented with learned magic. His only regret was his mentor died before all the oral traditions were taught.
He walked slowly to the podium, looked at each of his tools. He took the colorful cross and draped it over his head. He only wore this necklace when he had to do spell work. It used all the elements as a focal point. It also made his intelligence increase, which was great for spell work, but bad for social interaction, which was also important as a village elder.
He then checked his wand which was made from a leg bone of a displacer beast. His knife was the claw tip of a gold dragon who gifted it to him as a young adventuring wizard.
The chalice was a simple cup given to the last village elder by the High Humans. It was a kidney-shaped metal cup with a hinged metal handle. The cup was made from a type of star metal, it turned out to be quite good for a magical ritual.
He then cleared his voice loudly so everyone in the valley could hear him. His use of Booming Voice was useful as a village elder, it was a rare upgraded version of the Bard Spell Amplify which had expanded range that could be heard by everyone in the valley. “Everyone to your places, we begin in a moment.”
The people not a part of the summons had moved to the tower portion of the Keep and a few faces were watching from the many windows and fighting holes dotting the tower. All two thousand of his people were in the tower beside the clan’s mages, wizards, and witches for the summoning and the few town guards watching the walls. The Bards and clerics of the clan were in the keep ready to heal and help any who were in trouble.
The elder seeing that everyone was in position started his work.
He held up the claw dagger that was gold inlaid with magic runes and gems representing each of the elements. He then closed the circle in the courtyard and cast a simple purifying spell. Once he was satisfied that the circle was properly charged. He called on the power of the moon goddess, his peoples' patron deity.
He then proceeded to call on each element and faced each cardinal direction calling on the guardian of each compass point. Facing the point of the magic pole, he started the summons.
It was now precisely Midnight at his location, it was time to harness the energies and powers of magic to their fullest. He started to glow with arcane power as he chanted the spell. Which in turn caused the summoning lines to change from chalk to magical barriers, filled with the light of the moon.
The alters glowed brightly in each of their elemental colors’ red for fire, blue for water, yellow for air, and green for the earth.
For those watching they could see the colored energy were in the shape of the runes that ruled the elements which looked like triangles. The offerings slowly vanished, and the elemental brightness increased until it was painful to look directly at the alters.
The acolytes standing in a semi-circle behind the elder were singing and chanting in harmony their part of the incantation. The village elder in a firm a powerful voice recited the incantation perfectly. His words sounded as if a Dragon was speaking, as the language of magic was also the ancient language of Dragons.
At the crescendo of their voices, the elemental energies had been absorbed into the center of the circle and started to spin and merge. Everything inside the summoning circle started to look like a multi-colored tornado of air, earth, fire, and water reaching far into the night's sky.
And then it stopped in the sudden silence. The incantation was done. The tornado vanished. The energies had vanished in a blink of an eye. Only the outside circle had any power left as the barrier was still visible.
The village elder started to panic, as nothing was there. He was worried that they did it wrong somehow. He was about to move from his position when he saw a rip in spacetime, the entire center of the circle was replaced by a bright flash. Causing him to fall down.
