“What do you mean you don’t know?” The goblin was on the verge of tears.

  “I just don’t.” The angel repeated, “We have been trying to figure out how to descend to the mortal plane for millennia now. You as a dungeon master are closer to the mundane world than we can ever hope.”

  “Shame I wasted my question then.” Armand mumbled under his breath.

  “I will refund your question; after all, I failed to answer your question.” Uriel reassured the goblin. What should I ask then? the goblin thought to himself. After a moment he decided on a question.

  “Who is likely to know the answer then?” He asked the angel.

  “I assume you meant in regard to your previous question.” The delivery was deadpan; if Armand didn’t know any better, he would assume that the angel was mocking him. But in the end he dismissed the thought.

  “Yes indeed.” The goblin was still on the verge of waterworks but was holding it together for now.

  “There is no single answer to that question, but I promised to answer. Beings with such knowledge are ancient and long forgotten to history.” The angel looked to the downtrodden goblin. “While I cannot give you an answer, I know who may. The oldest planes are the elemental planes, since the elements have existed as long as the material plane.”

  “Thoth suggested I try summoning them as well.” Armand confirmed

  “The lords of the planes of earth, wind, fire, and water may have the knowledge you are looking for.” The angel nodded in response to his comment. “Knowing Astaroth, or how you refer to him now Thoth, he chose to summon me in some attempt to bring me injury.”

  “I foiled his original plan, hence his recent sulking.” The goblin replied.

  “It is not like we talked too much anyhow.” Uriel closed the book he was reading and slotted it back onto the shelf. “I had in my library a book that contained the contact information for said elemental lords.”

  The goblin had already primed the readers to search for said books through library content. “What is the name of the book?”

  “The Primordial Elements.” The angel seemed satisfied and went back to searching through the books, and just as Armand was about to send the Readers to search, the angel said, “That was technically two questions.” He then went back to looking through the shelves.

  Armand finally figured out the angel was trying to be sarcastic, which was confusing and humorous in its own right.

  It took several hours to search the library and find said book; the process was significantly sped up by the goblin. He summoned in and replaced the missing Readers that had been destroyed in Thoth’s little tantrum.

  He finally found the grimoire in question. It was rather simple; it was leather-bound with minimal decoration. He quickly collected it before his familiar decided to gift him another years-long ‘favor.’

  The Reader quickly flew back to Armand and handed it off to him. This was something that he wanted to read himself. The goblin went to his leather armchair and sat on it; he looked over to the hearth; the dungeon core had grown once again.

  The ball had grown larger than his torso and now occupied a lot of the hearth; the goblin waved his hand and expanded the hearth to better accommodate the growing core.

  With that distraction managed, he opened the book to the first page. The text was rugged and seemingly jagged; he had a feeling this might have been the language of the elementals.

  The book roughly described that before life rose on the material plane, the elements took the form of the first sentient creatures. They, in turn, ruled the world; eventually organic life came into being sometime later

  They theorized that it was by accident; some say it was intentional. All that mattered was the result. The organic life became enslaved to the inorganic lifeforms because of how quickly they populated; they became a sustainable farming source of soul energy.

  This is also when the gods came into existence; many of the elemental lords became gods by accident. The organic lifeforms had taken some of the elemental lords to be gods, and that is when the power of faith was discovered.

  The elemental lords gorged upon the power of faith and became transformed into all-powerful beings but this had a dramatic side effect. As the faith permeated their being, they became bound to the faithful. Essentially enslaved to the whims of their worshippers.

  The organic life sought freedom from their elemental lords so the gods did as they were asked, banishing those beings from the material plane. The gods lived upon the material plane for a long time but their worshipers began to war amongst themselves and caused the gods to battle.

  The mundane world was nearly destroyed in the conflict; that is when the gods used the last of their strength to sever themselves from the mortal world. That was just the forward and Armand was already heavily invested.

  The book then went into the true nature of elemental magic. From what he previously read, mana was converted into the elements but that was not the truth; it was an exchange.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Mana was sent to the elemental plane in exchange for providing said element, so evocation was actually a branch of conjuration. He didn’t really need to know this but maybe it would be beneficial for future projects so he kept flipping through it.

  Why did elementals want mana? The only source of mana was the mundane plane and after being severed from it, that is the only way to get hold of it.

  He eventually got to the section for conjuration, the ability to summon elementals to serve in the material plane. This was also beneficial to the elemental since it gave them access to mana of the world.

  How are they able to return after being banished? the goblin wondered. This book was mainly theory anyhow, but a lot of it made sense with the hints of information he had acquired in his readings.

  Anyhow, hearing the truth from the horse's mouth was most important. Within the book were numerous magic circles for summoning various different elementals.

  These may be useful for additional guardians. thought the goblin for a moment but quickly shelved that idea. He could already see the disasterous results of the water elementals soaking the books, fire elementals burning the place down, and the wind elemental sending pages flying.

  Maybe an earth elemental would be okay, but then he thought of the endless dusting his Readers already had to engage in. Perhaps he would stick to just his constructs then.

  Deeper in the book, more complicated summoning circles appeared. "These must be the ones for summoning elemental lords," thought the goblin. From the plane of earth was King Terra; the grimoire said that he was pretty mellow and will happily answer questions for rare metals.

  Then there were the Lady Nixies of the plane of water. The fiery Madam Aprina, of the plane of fire. Finally, the madman, Zephyr, the wild lord of the wind plane.

  His best bet for getting the information that was needed was probably with the lord of earth. However, he had a minor worry; he thought he used mana to create the many materials he used but what if instead he was just conjuring them from the plane of earth?

  That would have to be a question for the lord of earth. Even though he had just summoned a literal angel, he still had questions that needed answering. So he got up and left the main room.

  Unfortunately, he would need to create another room but that was the easy task. He chuckled to himself, aware of the number of random rooms for summoning he would probably end up creating.

  He began to carve the summoning ritual. This one was different; angels and demons were purely soul-based lifeforms but elemental creatures had corporeal bodies that also were summoned.

  This ritual would only summon a fragment of said lord, but that fragment contained immense power. This is one time where the summoning could be dangerous.

  In addition to carving the summoning ritual. He additionally carved various protection magics on the room and fully intended to have sentinels present to assist in case this got dangerous.

  But that would be for another day; next he spent the remainder of his day summoning massive quantities of mithril and alchemical gold. He needed to bribe this ancient figure and even if he unintentionally summoned this metal from them, it was in exchange for mana.

  That is how he spent the next several days storing large amounts of the material near the ritual site. He also focused on getting all the damaged constructs repaired for the potential battle with an elemental lord and the inevitable intrusion of people seeking to destroy his home.

  The day fatefully came; he felt sufficiently prepared and began to initiate the summoning circle. The room shook as space literally tore open; from it came a dipyramid floating out. It was oblong, smooth, and a deep obsidian.

  The portal closed behind it as it floated there before the goblin. “It has been eons since a mortal has summoned me.” The voice sounded like a landslide, rumbling and deep. “You have a lot of nerve.”

  “I cannot disagree with you on that,” the goblin nodded in agreement. “But perhaps I should give you a gift before we continue.” Several sentinels came in with armfuls of mithril and alchemical gold.

  The floating rock made what sounded like a satisfied rumble. As the rare metals were pulled towards it, the metal formed around it, forming a ball covered in a smooth surface mostly of green/blue with veins of gold running through it.

  The ball began to transform and changed into a humanoid form; the figure was towering. The features were rather flat but overall looked like they were carved with rough hammer strikes.

  “This is far more suitable.” Terra stated, “What do you request, mortal?”

  “I seek some assistance with a question. I was told that you would know how I, as a dungeon master, can leave this space.” He finally asked.

  “Most curious so this is a dungeon.” The elemental lord took a fresh look at the environment around him. “I’m impressed; you’ve taken quite the precautions before our encounter. That was wise.”

  “I did not anticipate your current form, however. But we digress. My question?” The goblin redirected the conversation back on course.

  “I’m sorry but I am unable to answer your question.” The earth elemental's shoulders sagged as if sighing. “You are your dungeon, and your dungeon is you. You are tied to your plane, much like me.”

  “Then how did you get here?” The goblin felt like throttling something but knew with one wrong step he would be in a battle to the death.

  “The higher planes and the material plane are eternally separated except by the intrusions of mortals. In the ancient war it was decided that that would be the only way to bridge the connection between our worlds.”

  “So I just need to have a mortal summon me?” Armand asked.

  “If you lived in one of the two, yes, but as a dungeon master you are different; you live between the two. You have the attachment to the material world but also the control that those of the higher plane have.” The elemental tried to explain the concept.

  “Is there any way?” The goblin was becoming hopeless.

  “I may have a method, but it will cost you.” The elemental lord stated.

  “What are your requests?” The goblin was well aware of the nature of these deals.

  “I would like to leave this fragment of me here to passively absorb mana.” It would probably be a large drain on the dungeon but he could solve that problem when it came.

  “I only have one question and I’ll agree.” The goblin stated.

  “This is your second but very well, what is it?” Terra asked.

  “Why are extraplanar creatures obsessed with mana?”