"And so Morlo's Principal of Sex tells us what? Class?"
Instructor Valana's crimson eyes sweep over the class, stabbing at each student as if in a room-wide game of five-finger fillet. As she glances at you, you feel a sudden pang of shame at not knowing the answer, and look away from her. You can see that many of the other students are blushing, similarly afflicted. Julia, the girl sitting next to you, shifts uncomfortably in her seat.
"Nobody?" Valana's lips, painted the color of fresh blood, twist in a wry smile. "Well, it is only your first day, after all."
You always heard that instructors in demonology began to take on demonic characteristics as they traveled down the path, but your instructors seems quite human to you. Except for the eyes and the hints of sharp canines you occasionally catch, she looks like an ordinary woman in early middle age. Well--perhaps not entirely ordinary. Her skin is quite smooth and youthful, belying the streak of grey in her hair, and her body is enough to make many of the wizard boys keep their textbooks strategically positioned in their laps--pleasantly voluptuous, with a stunning hourglass figure just on the cusp of chubbiness without quite tipping over. Still, the demonic influence is subtle enough that if it wasn't for the red and black dress she's been poured into, you probably wouldn't notion.
"It's a bit of a trick question," she continues. "By 'sex', I'm not talking about that oh-so-fun after hours exercise--rather, it's merely an archaic form of the number 'six'. In Morlo's time--the age of sex--" She grinned. "--demon summoning was something of a crapshoot. You never knew quite what you would get. Apprentices would get ripped apart by archdemons. Master wizards would end up conjuring imps in the heat of battle. Morlo changed all that. He discerned and enumerated the demon hierarchy we still use today."
She swings her pointer at a diagram on the chalkboard. The little implet imprisoned on the end squeaks as she smacks into the collection of radiating lines and circles face-first.
"Six supreme archdemons--theoretical, these, no one has ever managed one--and six times six grand archdemons--only one was summoned once, and it took the entire Red College of Rhazinal, located in what is now Rhazinal Crater--and six time six times six archdemons--these you may summon one day, if you're very good--and so on. By understanding this framework, we can predict what we're going to get, and escape any nasty surprises in favor of nasty expecteds." Without looking, she draws a quick chalk circle on the slate in front of her. "Now, let's try one ourselves. A minor imp, if you please--though if you want to try for something more and let it knaw on your face a bit, be my guest."
Almost lazily, she snaps her fingers and another imp pops into existence in the middle of the circle. Their appearances differ greatly from imp to imp--this one looks like an angry middle-aged baby with horns.
Julia raises her hand. "Miss!" she says. "Once we have our imp, what do you want us to do with it?"
"Once I've seen it and confirmed you can do the spell, you may do whatever you want with it," Valana said cheerfully. "That's the wonderful thing about our School--the power it gives you over these delightful creatures is yours and yours alone to wield as you will. Personally, I find them wonderfully crunchy."
Without warning, a long tongue snakes out from her mouth and wraps around the imp, yanking it upwards. She swallows the shrieking creature whole. The illusion that she retains nearly all of her humanity is shattered as she smiles again, display that array of fangs. Her chest convulses in a silent hiccup.
You and Julia look at each other, then down at the slate summoning boards in front of you, black and clean, the chalk in the chalk cubby just waiting to be used.
"Do you want to work together?" she asks, pushing a strand of dark hair out of her face shyly. "I--I want to make sure I'm doing it right."
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