I awoke the next morning peacefully. My bed only had two occupants and the twins were on the floor pulling themselves together. Apparently, the punishment she had chosen was to rip off their arms and legs and rub fresh garlic in their wounds to drastically slow their vampiric regeneration and at this point, they were trying to reattach the discarded limbs on the floor as they writhe about as worms not even permitted to make noise as they'd been gagged as well.
Since they'll probably regenerate given enough time, I'm not too worried but out of pity I help them put themselves back together and send them home. Perhaps their father still hasn't noticed his daughters are nightwalking abominations that can live for a bit without a head.
Either way I sent them back to their rooms and tucked them in. "You reattached the wrong arms and legs"
"I know." We whispered back and forth before I returned to my bed. That day at school I spent a good bit of time talking to my friends in and between classes. "I think the twins are afraid of your girlfriend."
"Makes sense." I replied. I was content to leave it there, but they weren't and started regaling me with how the twins were now avoiding my girlfriend. When they passed each other in the halls the twins would duck into another room to hide. When they were both in the same bathroom together the twins jumped out the window despite it being 10 feet off the ground and too small for a normal person to fit through.
The twins opting not to go to lunch to avoid her… though that last one may just be because they're vampires now and while they can eat normal food, they could sustain themselves off of blood if they needed to. But they didn't know that. Eventually they got to the point they were trying to make in the conversation. "What did your girlfriend do to the twins."
"She caught them trying to wedge themselves between us and gave them what she thought was a just punishment."
"… Ok… but what did she do?"
"She ripped off their arms and legs and left them to suffer until morning when I fixed them and sent them home."
"…"
"What?" My friends looked at me like what I just said couldn't possibly be the truth. It amused me to see them like this, so I cracked a grin and began to laugh, they suddenly joined in and began laughing with me. "Yeah, right. No way that's true."
It's a good thing I can be honest with my friends and suffer no consequences. They see my morbid sense of humour and think the truths I occasionally share with them are jokes and laugh to humour me when in all honesty I'm just laughing at their reactions to my brutal honesty.
Sometimes the best laughs are garnered from the reactions of others. There are people who think my jokes are in poor taste and tell me it's not funny when I start laughing so I usually remind them that if it made me laugh it's funny enough.
One of them bumped into me and suddenly started groping at my arms and chest. "Oh, no way you're actually buff now."
"Yeah, the yearlong training in a day worked and I never want to do it again."
"What? But it worked so well."
"You ever had a pain so bad you wished you were dead, and it just doesn't stop hurting until a few days after because a soreness sets in unlike any you'd ever experienced before?"
"Is this another one of your jokes?"
They looked at my face but the usual joy on my face at seeing their fearful reactions to my hyperbolic questions wasn't there. Instead they were met with glass eyes recalling great suffering, a forced smile and a dry chuckle, the kind you see on a war veteran who tries to convince himself it's ok his entire battalion was killed because they were doing something stupid and preventable. He tried to warn them about it in advance and now all he can do is laugh because to acknowledge the events that transpired as anything more than a joke would be too painful to permit oneself to feel.
"I went through such pain twice; it was worse the second time. It's not an experience worth repeating."
"Oh… I'm sorry to hear that." The mood died shortly after that and they tried frantically to change the subject to try and get me out of that headspace. By the time school was over and it was time for club to start I was back to normal.
I immediately went back to the club advisor. "Did you give me an incomplete version of the spell?"
"Hm? …oh so you noticed?"
"It'd be hard not to notice I am a necromancer after all." I was lying but I could tell that the spell she'd taught me was based on a necromancy spell, just I thought it was animate dead what she told me next was quite the shock.
"If you knew the necromancy version of the spell you'd have no need of the Infernal one."
"What do you mean?"
"Did you think this spell's name was Clone?"
"Yes?"
"No, this spell is a copy of the clone spell. It offers up a piece of the flesh of the person it's cloning to give a miscarried daemon a second chance at life by offering up the soulless husk in exchange for your offer. This is not a cloning spell but a summoning spell… did you manage to create a new spell by mistake?"
"I thought the spell was based off animate dead so when I cast it it recreated the bodies… or at least they're in the process of developing now. They should be done forming in about a month, but they don't have the effect of taking the souls of the person copied when they die so it's fairly pointless for anyone but a necromancer. I might be able to make some fairly quality undead with the lifeless bodies once they're done."
"Amazing. You truly are worthy of your marks."
"Perhaps they also correct one's mistakes as they make them to help in the casting or creation of spells."
"Most people with marks of mastery tend to keep the secrets of the marks to themselves to try and ensure they have the strongest control over magic… here" she quickly scribbled a drawing of the magic circle for the spell. "This is what you're supposed to use to cast this spell."
The gears began turning in my head. "Hold on that looks familiar."
I opened my grandfathers grimoire for the first time in a while. As I looked through I couldn't find a spell marked clone but sure enough I found similarities between the circles shown and the one she presented me with.
"These components are much easier to get than the infernal components."
"What do you need?"
"The chunk of flesh is consistent with the spells though animate dead just needs a piece of matter that was once living so any matter separated from a living host could be used for animate dead. But the necromancy spell needs very few components, a container filled with saltwater big enough to facilitate the growth of the clone, a chunk of flesh and a diamond."
"It certainly is less but it's bound to cost more."
"Not necessarily."
"What do you mean?"
"I used a space time spell to create a labyrinth. Within the labyrinth I can make whatever I can imagine. Plants and very specifically detailed things may be outside my scope of imagination but a diamond, salt water and a container are no problem."
"Would the clone be able to exist outside the dungeon if those are its components though?" she seemed to find a fault with it.
"Right you are. As it stands unless I upgrade my dungeon to the rank of a true dungeon that spawns monsters and treasure that can actively be removed. Unless I make it dangerous to myself and others. Unless I completely anchor my labyrinth to a set time snd place in this reality nothing I make in it will have substance outside the dungeon, but as components that are consumed to cast a spell, so long as the spell activated it should be fine."
"How are you going to test that theory."
I began to ponder her question for a second. "You want to summon a devil with me?"
She looked at me as if I were a fool. "You realize that they only keep their word in word and not spirit right? They'll follow their deals to the letter but not keep the spirit of the deal. Say you ask him to save a village and he throws the village into an alternate plane where no harm can come to them but now, they're in utter isolation. He kept his word but not like you wanted."
"I understand that."
"And they usually want something out of the deal."
"What do you think they'd want?"
"It's usually something eccentric. Some devils have asked to be freed of century old bindings that they may once again walk the mortal realm unbound. Some seek simpler things like rare and exotic teas in exchange for their services. It entirely depends on the personality of the devil you summon."
"So, it could be incredibly dangerous or incredibly mundane?"
"I've heard of a devil who made a man try to make a mermaid laugh on order to fulfil his end of the deal. He never succeeded but the devil had enough fun forcing the man into his Sisyphean task that he granted him half his request."
"All my request was going to be was walk out of the labyrinth with me though."
"Oh? What will you do if the devil dies because of your summoning them like this?"
"I'll know that components made in the labyrinth don't work outside the labyrinth and make a note not to try it again."
"Fine, but if the task given by the devil you summon proves impossible just tell them no."
"Fine by me."
I then teleported my teacher into the labyrinth where my pet seemed to have been waiting for me. "Master, if it's not too much trouble could I ask for a bath and some candles?"
"I don't even want to know." I snapped my fingers and made a map for her which led to a room I'd designated in the dungeon for the purposes requested and the items she wanted, and she left me. "Who was that?"
"Just a newborn lich no more than a month old, barely a master of three domains." I'd teleported us into my personal study in the labyrinth. The room with the false clones was connected to this one though it was currently sealed off. "What are the components we'll be needing?"
"We need fifty feet of 1" thick chain, the blood of a ram an infernal spell circle and the skulls of four humans. And a pile of gold relating to how powerful you want them to be."
"Wonderful, I can make most of those here and know where to get the last one." I set to work creating the things we'd need and teleported off to borrow a ram for the spell. I set the items around the circle as she dictated and at the end topped off the circle with the gold. I expanded the room and flooded he ground with as much gold as I could think to make. "Are you sure about this?"
"What could go wrong?" She seemed not to care much, and we began casting the spell together. It was a spell written in the grimoire she let me learn from, so I knew the chant I just never used it before. While casting the spell the components on the ground began to shift, shrink, and compile themselves together into a humanoid shape. It began growing smaller and smaller until a form about half my height stood wearing nothing but chains and skulls in a thin red dress. The chains for the most part changed into what appeared to be the type of chains one would use in jewelry except they were used to link the skulls together. The thin red fabric was fairly transparent and only lightly covered the arms and legs.
The body began to take on a feminine form and the hair lengthened down to her waist and turned red, her eyes were still closed, and her proportions seemed off. She didn't look like a child, rather she looked like if an adult had been shrunk to a child's height. She stretched her limbs and opened her heterochromatic eyes. "Oh? It seems a fairly interesting individual has awoken me."
In a moment she was behind me even though there were chains that bound her arms and legs they made no sound even though she'd moved so suddenly. "What dark desired might you have to need to call on me?" she whispered into my ear. I turned around suddenly and saw that she was floating effortlessly in the air. A feathered wing poking out of one side of her back as a demonic wing stuck out the other, every time she blinked her eyes changed color.
"I'd like to hear your side of the deal first."
"Ah, someone who's not an idiot has summoned me. Interesting. I like you." She floated over and gently pressed her finger to my nose. I frowned but she just laughed and floated around the room. "Hmm… what to ask. You're clearly a prodigy to be so young and yet call upon me. There's bound to be interesting things in your future and it'd be a shame to miss out… hm… oh! I know what I want."
From the aether she produced a piece of parchment a quill and an ink well, "form a contract with me."
"You want to be my subordinate?" I asked with a raised brow.
"No, no, no. I want to acknowledge you as an equal. I want to see the things you do, I want to be involved in the interesting life I assume someone who's had to learn as many domains as you so soon would lead."
"I am currently being hunted."
"wha- that's the first I'm hearing it" the club advisor said.
"I tend not to advertise my problems." I replied. She just laughed. "So then do we have a deal?"