"Behold, my demonic boar!" professor Toadweather shouted, before cackling like an old witch. Rather than a warp in the air, there was a boiling up of shadows that seeped from the ground. Moments later, the chrysaor appeared.

It was a boar, on the larger side, probably weighing around three hundred pounds and coming up to my waist. Wild boars were all over the white sands region, so I wasn't too shocked by the size of the creature, but several other students seemed surprised, taking steps back and muttering about how huge it was.

Its tusks were on the large side, even for a boar of its size, and they were deadly sharp, to the point it almost looked like someone had taken a file to them and shaved them into blades and spear heads. The wings stretching off the boar were shaped rather like goose wings, but they were a blood red color and speckled with dark spots that didn't quite match any bird I knew of.

I was a little surprised that it had bird wings. I mentally associated demons with bat wings, while angelus had bird wings. It just felt wrong for a demon to have bird wings, but here it stood before me, so it was clearly possible.

Its bloodline was rich and powerful, but infinitely weaker than the wadjetktt that she'd summoned. I was guessing that, while she'd known the wadjetktt, she'd simply summoned the first chrysaor to answer the call, which made sense if she was summoning up completely unhinged demons.

It stamped the ground and spoke in the bloodline tongue of demons. I wasn't quite as fluent in that as I was in the language of the celestials, but my time working in the Charm and Fable had done well to round out most of my planar languages, so I was able to make it out.

"Little witch woman, you stand before the seven hundred and sixty third soldier within the Butchers of the Moonless Night," the boar grunted, its voice somewhere between a squeal and a grunt. "What violence have you called me to bless this peaceful world with?"

He spat the word peaceful with so much hate and vitriol that it sounded worse than most actual swears I'd heard people say, and it caused me to stare in confusion. He considered the world to be a peaceful place? I made a mental note to do my best to avoid any sort of visits to its home plane, even if I one day developed the spellcraft to allow me to step between planes in an instant.

"I have called you to demonstrate the art of summoning you and your kin to these young witches," professor Toadweather responded smoothly. "While there is no violence to bless the world with today, your mere presence will allow much more to be brought into the world."

"I see. That is… acceptable," the demon said. "I will use the power and time to rest, so I might butcher even more when I return."

It wrapped itself in its wings, curled onto the floor, and shut its eyes then. Within an instant, a loud, rumbling snore echoed out from its massive body. Professor Toadweather placed her hand on its head, and it shifted slightly. It was actually oddly cute, now that it was asleep, in an incredibly violent sort of way.

"I recommend summoning chrysaor for combat," she said. "While they vary depending on which realm's essence birthed their power, they are almost always created by planes linked to violence. It makes them oddly innocent and easy to trick, in a way, as even though they have higher cognition, it's entirely focused on killing. They often wouldn't even consider someone capable of lying outside of a combat situation, where one might hide their strength."

"Is that safe?" the treefolk next to me asked. "To put your hand on it like that, I mean."

"Oh, perfectly," she responded, patting its head. "As a part of the magic it agrees to, it's incapable of harming me without a direct order sent by me with the intention of self-harm. Binding summoning spells of this sort are incredibly useful, though they also have their limitations. What's the biggest one?"

"Time," I said. "Each summoning spell costs a big chunk of ether, and it only provides enough power to summon a creature here for around an hour. Some longer, some shorter, but none last forever."

Professor Toadweather snapped and pointed at me.

"Yes, exactly! So, how does a summoner get around this?"

"You mentioned a planar contract spell at one point," the woman behind me said, "is that how? Also, do we have to keep the demon in the room with us?"

Professor Toadweather looked down at the sleeping boar, then waved her hand and dismissed it back to its home plane, before looking up and causing another spell to draw itself out on the board. It was absolutely massive and complex, maybe even more difficult than water to wine, and clearly a powerful ritual spell of some sort.

"Yes! This is lesser planar contract, a third circle ritual spell, and the start of the most powerful tools you will be able to get your hands on as a mage," she said, a wicked smile on her face. "It allows you to create a, well, planar contract. You cast the spell, and it creates a binding circle, which you can summon a creature into using any of your normal summoning spells. You then negotiate a contract."

She whipped her head around, staring intently at every single one of us one at a time.

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"I want you to listen closely to me, because this is where the danger of summoning comes in. The binding is a two way agreement, wherein you offer something in exchange for their service. There are a few rules that you must always, always follow. I don't care if you're getting a great deal to break one of them, unless you have a strong relationship with the creature, it is too dangerous. Rule one is to keep the power limited to what can be contained by the spell."

She tapped the sections of the spell that interacted with a creature's bloodline.

"If you summon up something too powerful for the spell to bind, it can limit the power its vessel on this plane exerts down to the power being bound by the spell. If you allow it to express more power than what's bound by this spell, though, the binding is held by the summoned being's magic, not by the spell's magic. This is incredibly dangerous. The planar contract spells are all bound using the summoner's intention. If it's bound by their magic, it's bound by their intention."

"Is that where the stories of demons and faeries finding tricky ways to get around their summoner's commands come from?" the treefolk asked.

"It's one of them, yes," the professor agreed, bobbing her head. "Not the only reason, but a big one. It's all too common for people to believe that they can outfox a faerie, and only pay for the power of lesser planar contract while getting the services of a greater sidhe. And you know what – maybe you can."

I blinked, not having expected her to say that, but before I could raise my hand or ask a question, she continued speaking.

"Maybe you can do it a second time. And a third. And a fourth. But all it takes is a single time that your oh-so-clever rules are outwitted by them for you to wind up on the wrong part of a barbeque spit. Maybe literally, since mortal flesh is quite tasty to many creatures. Which brings us to my second rule: limit the contract clearly, simply, and fairly. Yes, if you keep its power limited to what's expressed by the contract, your intentions are the binding factor. But that doesn't mean it cannot turn things around."

She tapped her chest, right over where her heart was.

"The summoner who bound me within the planar contract spell used a quite complex set of rules to keep me obedient. It even worked for quite a while, roughly five decades, but I eventually found a case where the intentions and rules he had set into the bindings would let me turn on him. If you request someone to protect your sanctum from any threats for three decades in exchange for, say, two million silver worth of ether crystals, that's nice and simple. Using pages of rules to try and turn someone into a slave without coming out and saying it? That's where errors start to slip in. I suggest you keep any contract to five clauses or less, and barter in good faith. Which brings us to rule three: payment. The standard payment for any summoner is half up front, and half after the service is completed. It helps keep everyone honest."

"What if you can't split whatever it is that you've offered in half?" someone asked.

"Then you must use your best judgement," she responded. "This is where your knowledge and intuition comes in, and why I don't recommend you bind a creature with this sort of contract until you know who it is you're summoning, or at the very least, the sort of being and its home plane. Those are the three rules."

"What about respect?" the treefolk asked. "You said that was important, so that beings would be willing to continue to work with you. Shouldn't that have been one of the rules?"

"That's a rule for summoning in general, not just for binding spells," professor Toadweather rebutted. "But if you'd like, consider that rule zero. The things that you're contracting with are all every bit as intelligent as you, even if their minds are fundamentally different. If you build solid relationships with individuals from across the planes, you can find fair services surprisingly cheap. Take advantage of them, and you'll find enemies."

She puffed out a sigh and shook her head.

"Really, you should consider it not entirely unlike entering an agreement with a student here at the university. If you know them well, they might help for very little. If you don't, then they'll want payment. Keep everything fair and even keel, and they'll work with you again in exchange for more payments. Does anyone have any questions?"

"What components are needed for the planar contract spell?" I asked.

"Salt and powdered ether crystals mixed together. The mix for each casting usually costs around five hundred silver?"

"What is the power limit of this spell?" the treefolk asked, rustling his leaves. "You said to keep it bound, and I understand that. But what does that really mean? Can we expect to bind a chrysaor? Or should we expect to retain the service of a single celestial rat?"

"Oh! It's usually good for what you can summon with up to fourth circle direct summoning spells, though some especially powerful fourth circle summons will need their power limited. A wadjett, chrysaor, or lesser elemental are all perfectly within the spells' capacity to bind."

"How will we be judged for the exams at the end of the year?" the girl who thought she was part dragon asked.

"I'll expect you to create a planar contract with a summon of your choice, for the purposes of locating and defeating a rogue hellspitter worm that I'll place somewhere in the shadesilk forest."

I jotted that down in my notes, wondering if I would be able to contract some things to assist me in fighting Gerhard. Probably not – the cost was simply too high, and as a ritual spell, I wouldn't be able to pay for it using my blood price spell.

When the questions were done, professor Toadweather had her chalk start to draw out another spell array on the board. This one was a fourth circle spell, and it bore a resemblance to the etherstep spell, causing me to internally groan. I just hoped this wasn't yet another expensive spell I couldn't use.

"Arcane passage," she said, nodding proudly. "Not quite the best teleportation spell, but still not a bad one either. It uses a nugget of teleportation alloy as well, but unlike etherstep, it doesn't consume it."

That caused me to perk up at least a little bit as she continued talking.

"Casting a fourth circle spell is a large ask, I understand, but it's going to be the other thing we spend a good bit of time on. This spell allows you to shift through the local currents of Etherius, creating a passage that you can bring yourself and roughly two hundred pounds of additional stuff through. Its range is limited to a tenth of a mile, which puts it in an awkward spot – teleport is a fifth circle spell, better for long range transport, and etherstep is second circle, making it cost much less ether. Still, it's a useful option, and is only a one time investment, as opposed to the drain of etherstep."

She checked the wall and sighed.

"We are running low on time, so for right now, we'll get started with breaking down the spell array for conjure lesser storm. If you just look here..."

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