Power came with a cost. 

This was a universal truth in all magic, however with summoning it was perhaps the case more than any other discipline of magic. There was nothing free in trafficking with the beings of other planes. An exchange was always required, be it blood, wealth, or other valuables. The more power being offered the greater the cost to the person. There were few people that were walking examples of the cost of power than Dionna. 

Oh certainly. She had power so many would dream of. At her beck and call were beings considered unto gods by others, vast and powerful beings that could end armies or nations if she willed it. Dionna was not blind to this and indeed there were times she enjoyed it, enjoyed the rush of power at such incredible beings answering her call. Yet there was always a cost she was constantly reminded of. Like when she couldn’t see something on her left side. Or when she felt a pang of something missing inside of her. Or…

“Ack! Sorry.” She grunted as her right hand reached clumsily for the glass of wine put before her. There was no hand to grab it, just a useless glove tied around a stump so she knocked the glass from the table. It shattered on the floor. 

“Ah it is no matter, Lady Kendet. Another glass for our guest.” Came the genteel voice of her host. 

Dionna frowned at her right hand as her host, a rather bookish elven nobleman by the name of Lord Foris Talin, had his servants replace her wine. Even after all these years it was hard to get over the phantom limb thing at times. The glove was on her limb mostly for appearances but also because occasionally when the redhead looked at herself in the mirror she saw a body not her own there. An illusion of wholeness in a way. 

Another glass was placed before her and she nodded her thanks to the nobleman, lifting the glass to her lips. A rather lovely velvety red wine. “Your hospitality is appreciated, my lord. Has been a while since I was so warmly welcomed.” The so-called Grand Contractor remarked. 

The dark haired elven nobleman waved a hand in dismissal of the thanks. “Oh, please, after your constant work to handle the monsters of the land and cults to Elementals it's the least I can do.” He replied. He was a good bit taller than she as most elves were, as well as eternally beautiful in a way any human would envy.

The redhead chuckled. “Helps when one halfway enjoys their work and has passion for it. Still, I’ll not turn aside hearth and bed in a winter such as this. Despite the company I call upon, I am still rather human.” 

As the plates of food were brought out there was the slightest despair that it was mostly greens and vegetables. Expected because of what her host was but still she had halfway been wanting to enjoy some steaks or something like that. Ah well. Food was food. She nibbled at what was offered to her and sipped at her wine. It was a pleasant little dinner all told and Lord Talin was a gracious host. The elves tended to lack the innate superstition that plagues some of the human kingdoms. Then again, she couldn’t exactly blame some of those human kingdoms. 

“So, you must regale me with one of your tales. It is one thing to hear them secondhand but you are rather a primary source.” The lord stated. 

“If you insist. Lets see here… ah. There was that time I had been invited to a noble’s castle much like tonight. I was on the trail of a cult devoted to the Fire Elemental Vasara. The noble in question had been quite cooperative in my search, though as I quickly found out was also devoted to the cult as well.” Dionna’s eye took on a distant look as she started recalling the memory. 

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It had been a rather pleasant evening all told. Her host, a rather well aged Count, had offered her a bed and fine food. Indeed it was a lovely spread until a blade was pressed to her throat from behind by one of the servants. At that point it turned from lovely to a bit more irksome. Of course. Of course the cult would have taken hold here as well. She didn’t even need the inevitable monologue from the Count that was coming to tell her that much. So she didn’t wait. 

As soon as steel kissed her throat she spoke a simple word. “Tsuki.”

“Cut her throat, quickly! Whatever witchcraft she’s calling must not be permitted!” The Count suddenly called in alarm. 

The man behind her remained frozen as slowly all color drained from his face. His body was slack and paralyzed as extending from his chest was a slightly curved blade. Not a single drop of blood spilled forth as the man’s body went cold and his eyes glazed over. The blade slid out easily and he toppled over, revealing a figure standing behind him that could strike fear in many. A pale and cold figure. 

A kimono of black and white adorned the body of a woman pale as the moon. She was tall, twice the size of a human with long hair that seemed to flow as though she were underwater. Her tabi sock clad feet hovered off of the ground as well, her whole appearance almost ghostly as a pair of pale blue eyes gazed around the room. Her blade was the length of a man’s body and flickered in the candlelight. 

Tsuki no Shi, a shinigami bound and contracted to Dionna in exchange for the eye that had once been upon the left side of her face. “I take it your dinner plans have proven less than satisfactory, Dionna?” The woman asked with a lifted brow. 

Dionna for her part shrugged. “Would have been fine if not for the assassination attempt. We’re going to work under the assumption the whole keep is compromised as well as the town. We can’t risk an elemental being evoked.” The summoner said grimly. 

“Quickly, kill the bitch and her demon!” The Count bellowed to the rest of the servants in the room. They all bore knives and rushed toward Dionna. 

Tsuki let out a tsk. “To be so bold as to attempt to slay the contractor of an agent of death.” 

Her blade flashed out and cut all those in the room. The gleam of the metal flashed out as though hitting many places at once and those that were struck simply fell over limp, cold, and death. Among them was the Count with an expression of naked shock on his face. Dionna stood up and started brushing herself off. No reason to touch the food now, might well be poisoned. She had also lost her appetite tonight. 

Tiny spheres of light were pulled up from the bodies of those slain by Tsuki. The flickered in the air, frantic and stunned by their sudden deaths no doubt. Tsuki pursed her lips and slowly inhaled, the spheres drawn toward her slowly but surely across the whole of the room. They were aware they were moving towards something they should have tried to escape. Yet it was futile for in their current states there was no way to meaningfully move or affect the world around them. Their spirits were drawn toward her lovely pale lips all the same. 

The lights passed her lips one by one, sucked into the mouth of the shinigami before being swallowed in a small cluster of light that pulsed down her throat. The woman let out a pleased sound as she patted her stomach. “Ahhh… fresh souls are never something that should go to waste.” 

“I’ll take your word for it. In any event let’s get moving. I want this keep and the whole town little more than a memory on the world.” Dionna ordered. 

“Klava would be better suited to that, no?” She remarked. 

“Klava would also probably get a bloodlust from so much killing and rampage to the next couple towns over. No reason to do any more damage than necessary.” The woman remarked. 

“In that case…” 

Glowing bars appeared around Dionna very suddenly and she blinked at the appearance. “Hey, whats the big idea- ack!” Inside the cage a set of shackles sprung and fixed themselves to her wrists and ankles and one looped around her neck. 

“For your safety, Mistress. After all. I wouldn’t want you to be caught underfoot. Would be a terribly embarrassing end for a Grand Contractor no?” The summoned being said with a chuckle into her rather voluminous sleeve. 

“There are other ways of doing that!” The Summoner protested as the cage started to shrink. As it shrunk, Dionna found herself shrinking with it. 

“True, but none quite so amusing.” The shinigami shrugged. 

More and more the glowing cage shrank away. As it shrank Dionna found her perspective getting smaller and smaller as well, the whole of the room getting quite large and frightening. Furniture became less household objects and more grand structures that towered over all. The room itself was vast enough that a town of people her scale could have probably fit comfortably here. It was around when she herself was about half an inch tall that the cage stopped shrinking. 

At that point the ghostly summoned being floated across the floor. Unlike others there was no rumble or shaking that heralded her approach. Indeed it was silent as the graves she guided others into. She could walk normally certainly and Dionna had no doubt the town outside would soon enough learn the weight of her steps. Her shadow fell over the cage and it shook as it started to float up and up into the air to hover before the vast face of Tsuki. She chuckled at the sight of a very grumpy looking Dionna inside. 

“Oh don’t be so put out, Dionna. You are my beloved Contractor. I would never see you come to harm.” She said, her voice quite a bit more loud and booming. 

“Funny way of showing it.” The redhead groused as a chain appeared around the tip and the cage settled at Tsuki’s neck. Oh, joy, she was not only trapped in a cage but was being used as jewelry by her own summoned being. 

“Thank to gods none of those stuck up fools I attended the Academy with are here to see me now.” The woman grumbled to herself. 

Tsuki snorted. “As though they matter. Now then. One elimination of a town coming right up.” The woman boomed. 

There was a pale glow that came over the whole of her body, the cage and Dionna herself as Tsuki started to swell in scale. The funny thing about dealing with beings with other planes, those planes had different default scales than the mortal plane. It was what made travel between the two extremely difficult. Usually to come here, summoned beings had to lower themselves and adjust to the state of the mortal plane. However certain contracts could make it so they could access all of their scale here.

Which was why within moments the top of the keep shook and rumbled and shattered as a dark haired maiden smashed through the roof. Rocks and debris were cast out around from where she burst forth, falling upon the ground as she swelled. The cage and its occupant were scale locked to Tsuki so thankfully Dionna was spared the fate of being a microbe caught dangling from Tsuki’s neck. It also made it so she could breathe even at higher altitudes. That made her situation less irksome, but only just so. 

The crescent moon was high in the night sky above the town and castle keep and its light was blocked out as Tsuki grew. And grew. A grew further still. She let out a soft moan through her lips as her form could no longer be contained by the keep at all and the walls of it were shattered. People had to start running to avoid the wall of debris falling for them. As well as the expansion of her tabi clad feet. 

Tsuki had set foot upon the ground itself and this led to a wall of pure white fabric expanding outward, grinding the debris of the keep and the surviving servants and people underfoot like they were little more than dust. The shinigami’s eyes shone with amusement as the ground shook and buckled beneath her incredible power. To say nothing of the people in the town watching in abject terror as the keep of their lord was completely demolished just by the force of the dark haired woman’s expansion. 

She did stop eventually. At a height of ten miles tall. She was so hilariously large it was not inaccurate to call her an eclipse to the moon behind her. Its light shone around her form, granting her an even further ethereal light. Dionna had summoned her tonight for a reason. Tsuki’s power grew with the phases of the moon. The size she was at right now was nothing compared to what she could reach when the moon was full. 

“Ahhh… Motes of dust like you should bow your heads and wait. Wait for your lives to be claimed by your God.” The Shinigami boomed, her voice like thunder in the dark skies above. 

If anyone had been sleeping prior to this they most certainly weren’t now as the black specks of people filled the night streets of the town from the sight of the ten mile tall woman. She lifted her sleeve to her mouth and let out a very haughty chuckle, yet more booming thunder that echoed across the land. What most people likely didn’t understand about summoning, was that Dionna could evoke her summons. She could even use her magic to compel them if necessary. However she couldn’t not dominate or control them. They were higher beings. They did her bidding because of their contract and because it amused them to do so. It was not something she shared with many because it tended to make others feel less safe. 

“Fleeing across the carpet of this world. How utterly pitiful. I could wait for hours and yet you’d not cross the distance it takes for me to cross in a single step. You all thought yourselves fit to summon an Elemental. How laughable.” She remarked. 

She lifted her blade up and sliced out, slicing through the middle of the town. The ground had a fissure cut deep within it. Her blade sliced out again and cut a circle around the town, carving it deep and to the degree there was no way they could have possibly escaped. At this point Dionna was rather just along for Tsuki’s whims. She almost pitied those in the town. There were no doubt those that were simply held hostage by the cultists. However, she couldn’t afford to let methods of summoning Elementals to escape from this place. 

“Let us play a game, mortals. There are two sides with equal numbers of souls. Within ten minutes the one that culls their numbers the most will enjoy a quick and painless end. The side that fails to will languish and suffer before their end.” Tsuki said. 

The populace of the town faced death either way, yet her booming words and the look in her pale eyes promised she meant everything she said. It was likely hard to imagine just how much suffering this god could bring to them, but the dust motes of the population didn’t stop to try and find out. Slowly but surely they turned on each other and Tsuki watched from on high as they butchered each other. Men and women setting upon one another with whatever they had on hand in a vicious display. 

“Ahhh… gaze upon it, mine contractor. This is the power you bought with your offering to me so long ago. Is it not rapturous? Is it not perfection to watch them scramble over each other at the promise of a quick death?” She chuckled. 

There was a rush of course, gazing down from within her cage. There was always a rush. A feeling of pleasure that she couldn’t rightly describe. It wasn’t like a sexual bliss, but rather an intoxicating feeling like being drunk almost. A high that buzzed at her mind and urged her onward. It was immoral of course, but that hardly mattered to Dionna by this point. She had done many screwed up things. 

Across ten minutes dozens died at the hands of their fellow below. However once ten minutes passed everyone frozen in place, gripped by a power beyond their ken. “Time. My my, you do kill each other wonderfully. However it would appear the right side had more blood lust.” She smirked. 

A sphere of energy appeared around the left side, sealing it off. As this happened Tsuki slow lifted her right foot up. The ground trembled and dirt and rocks fell from the bottom of the vast underside of her tabi clad foot. The agent of death curled her toes in the night air as the white fabric marred ever so with dirt and debris moved to hover over the right side of the town, her lips tugged up in a cruel smirk. 

“As promised, a swift death.” She boomed. 

Her foot came down upon the right side abruptly. The town barely had time to know what hit them before foot smashed upon them and ground them into the dirt. It was sudden and violent and quaked the world for miles out. Those on the left side watched it all in frozen naked horror as she arched her foot up. Tsuki flushed deeply and let out a sound halfway through a moan and a sigh of bliss as she ground the earth under her, cracking the ground as her eyes were alight with glee. 

Dionna felt her heart skip a beat as she watched and felt the impact through Tsuki. It was truly as though a god had ended them. Technically Tsuki was a minor deity so she supposed in a way that was indeed what happened. Many might have expected a being like her to be emotionless and cold. That was not the case as Tsuki quite clearly enjoyed her work. Enjoyed bringing death to those beneath her. 

She dragged her foot back, scarring the earth and leaving nothing behind from her step. “Ahhh… delightful. Of course while I promised a swift death… I said nothing about afterward.” She smirked. 

Hundreds of flickering lights had risen up from where she had stepped, the spirits of the dead flickering wildly like stars. Tsuki pursed her vast lips and inhaled, drawing them all up slowly toward her maw. Dionna watched them as they passed by, their ethereal screams echoing out as Tsuki drew them into her vast mouth. The agent of death sucked them all up from the earth below and closed her lips. 

She sampled their collective taste for a moment before swallowing. Dionna’s cage was shifted around as her throat muscles flexed and a frantic glow passed down her neck and vanished down her collarbone. Dionna had no idea what happened to souls Tsuki consumed but she also knew she didn’t want to ever find out. The shinigami let out a sigh of bliss, patting along her belly again as her eyes turned toward the left side. 

“As for you all.” She snapped her fingers. 

There was a flash of light and everyone there seemed to vanish. Simply gone from the space. “Ah, your mortal perceptions are so very limited, mine contractor. I shall grant you the view of one of theirs.” 

With that Dionna found her perspective shift to that of someone else. She was in an utterly vast and endless place. A canyon that went on as far as the eye could see and looking up she could see the smallest sliver of light of a world beyond. There was no one else around and it was then that a divine voice forced her to her knees, echoing out around her forever. It was enough it could have split her skull open really. 

“You shall know hunger yet not die of it. You shall know thirst yet never succumb to it. You will languish and wander upon the lowest part of me for one hundred years. Only then will you know death. Scramble endlessly for you will never escape.” 

It rang out and was almost maddening. It was then that Dionna was drawn out from the woman she saw through and slowly had her perceptions expand. She lifted up from the canyon and saw a strangely patterned series of them. Then it all became clear. The whole of the left side of the town was trapped at the bottom of a single line of Tsuki’s smallest toeprint. It was enough that even Dionna found herself staggered in shock before she found herself back in her body once again. 

The rumbling chuckle from on high echoed through her brain even as she relayed this story to an increasingly horrified audience. It was hardly the worst either. Simply an example of the power she had gained from her cost paid.