<div class="floatright">(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6e/d8/b9/6ed8b9f3845aad9f70bc1007b8aedee1.jpg)</div>The Particii's many-chambered citadel spread out for as far as the eye could see through the cascading waters of the ocean, crashing in mighty falls over the Edge of the World.  The architecture here was imposing, all tall arches and rooms that seemed to great in scale to make sense even for giants.  Vestibules, bathing halls, studies, nooks and crannies all sorts festooned its lower layers.  The vast winding stairways that took one beneath the waves were always thrumming with an echo of falling waves, near or far, crashing across rock or sliding down into nothingness.  The rooms closer to the Void always had massive cutouts in the wall, if there was wall at all on that side of the room, to peer out through the cascading waters into the nothingness beyond.<br/><br/>At just below sea level, these rooms were reserved for the Grand Summoning rituals.  The Particii scoured the globe for those capable for performing it, ever the bridesmaid but never the bride themselves, and brought them here to train.  Then in one of these vaulted, marbled halls bedecked with anything from vibrant fresco to intricate carving in what seemed natural cut rock to blank nothingness or webs of suggestive meaning in otherwise normal granite, the act would transpire:<br/><br/>First a room was chosen, cordoned off, and a vast circle large enough to house a manor within its bounds was drawn.  The process took two dozen Particii days to complete for an exactingly precise series of lines needed to be drawn onto the floor.  Grand-masters checked and double-checked the process with redraws ordered at any section with even a hint of improper line work.  Then, all but the Summoner vacated the room, and vast doors inlaid with silver and lead.  Using all of their power and focusing their mind, body, and soul: standing at the center of the massive summoning circle they let out a hue and cry as their Summoner's Mark alights with a profound energy.  It may spread, glow, or otherwise react volatiley.  The boiling of skin and singeing of fur is not unheard of.<br/><br/>The Summoner is drawn "shallowly" into another plane of existence, often a place of pure energy where they will experience hallucinations and experiences that defy later understanding by means of human perceptions. Other times they will appear in a place very much like our own world.  The consistent element is that another entity comes into being, over the course of minutes or hours or days (a Summoning is not considered a definitive failure until two weeks have passed by the Particii's reckoning), and communes with them.  This is their Guardian Spirit.  It is the only one they will or can ever Summon, though they may be bound to others later should their Summoners perish or otherwise unforeseen events come to pass.  First meetings between Summoner and Spirit are sometimes the subject of ribald jest or deepest secret that neither Summoner nor Guardian would reveal, even on pain of death or worse fates.<br/><br/>Some fight, some fuck, some dance, and some merely pace about one another.  Both usually have a surreal experience where their senses change, especially the Guardian Spirit that is materializing.  After this initial encounter concludes, known to the Particii as the<em>Terminal Exchange</em>, the shallow world around the Summoner and Guardian Spirit fades, returning them to the Edge of the World.