Popular culture is filled with stories as to what happens when a careless summoner flubs her invocation. Contrary to popular belief, the nearest Prince of Hell does not use the open ended summoning as an excuse to enter the world and bring forth destruction. Unfortunately, the summoner usually ends up dead anyway.
Any summoning that is incorrectly performed (this does not include summonings that, due to using or mispronouncing a name, are accidently performed instead of the desired summoning) will call the spiritual creature that is spiritually closest to the summoner. While for some luck people this may be an imp or a dryad, most are not so lucky.
Any creature under contractual obligation to the summoner has the strongest ties, the exact strength varying by contract. As many summoners prefer to banish demons before paying them, such a summoning is usually fatal. The next strongest tie is that of death. A demon that killed an ancestor or fellow apprentice of the summoner's master would have such a bond. Other bonds likely exist, but those who found the bodies were unable to ascertain the relation between the deceased and the demon that killed them.
As one cannot know what promises have been made on one's behalf by parents, distant ancestors, or masters, it is impossible to anticipate what will respond to an open summoning. The only way to be absolutely certain is to marry, or promise to marry a spiritual creature, binding it closer to yourself than any other could become. While this course of action does reduce the danger of open summonings, it is not undertaken lightly. Marriage, or promises of marriage, once invoked by magical act, are difficult to break. It is almost as if there were some ultimate spiritual force that seeks their enforcement.
From How to Survive Your First Year as a Summoner
Blackmail was so easy now. Since Nabiki began using demons to spy for her, the money had come rolling in. Originally she had used nature spirits, but they often wanted to be paid in labor - cleaning parks, mulching shrubs, etc. - while the imps she summoned only insisted she actually use the information to blackmail people. Apparently Evil was its own reward.
Nabiki had no intention of losing her soul to demons; she was smart. She only summoned imps, and only to observe targets. Spirit summoning played no part in enforcement. Nabiki had also found ways of reducing the risks of the summoning itself. Magic circles still had to be drawn in chalk dust, but Nabiki glued those circles to sheets of paper, eliminating any chance that a stray step or errant wind could destroy its protection. Nabiki didn't take chances.
It was a pity that she could not have anticipated that a fragment of a cinder block her young sister destroyed acquired enough energy to fly out of the dojo, through Nabiki's window, and strike her on the face. It was even more unfortunate that Nabiki had been in the middle of summoning an imp, and the sudden blow made her pause mid-syllable. It was the utmost bad luck that the fragment rebounded off Nabiki's head and through the paper she'd draw her circle on, destroying one of the myriad lines that protected her from whatever appeared inside.
Staring at the tiny shard that most likely had killed her, Nabiki vowed that she would somehow take Akane with her.
At this point Nabiki's bad luck ran out. Instead of a hideous out to devour her body and drag her soul off to hell, a busty redheaded nature spirit appeared. Things were looking up immeasurable, she might only end up dead.
"What happened? Where the hell is this?" the redhead asked, settling into a ready stance. The girl sunk a little into the floor before pulling herself up again.
"Who are you?" Nabiki asked. True names didn't have much use other than as an easy way to designate who you were summoning, but if she was lucky, it would help her to research exactly how this spirit was connected to her. If she was unlucky, she'd recognize the name right off, just before she was punished for speaking to one of the beings whose names she knew right off.
"Don't freak out," the spirit said, "I'm not a ghost or anything like that."
"Of course not," Nabiki said. This was good; the spirit appeared to be friendly towards humans. "You're a nature spirit, and from your human shape, probably represent an emotion or other thing associated with man."
"Ah! You can see me?" the spirit yelled. "I'm naked!" The spirit moved to cover her groin
"Of course you're naked," Nabiki said with a touch of exasperation, "you're a nature spirit, of course." This was wonderful! The spirit didn't even know about summoners if she thought Nabiki shouldn't be able to see her. Nabiki would just claim ignorance of how the spirit got there and hopefully get out of all this scot free.
"No I'm not!" the spirit protested. "I mean, I am, but not really. Pop threw me into a stupid cursed pool, and now I turn into this when splashed with cold water. I'm Ranma Saotome, heir to the Saotome school of martial arts, and if you get me some hot water, I can turn back."
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(Posted Sun, 06 Mar 2005 22:21)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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