Shrug. Why does this demon want to know so many things. Is that a good strategy wherever he's from.

The cleric of Asmodeus looks over the circle to understand the mistake before healing the most critical of the student's injuries and leaving him there. Carissa is relieved the situation was handled so reasonably; presumably the demon will not be able to generate more questions about that.

"I could patch him up the rest of the way if your healers can't improve on that. Or, uh, won't as a - disciplinary matter?"

She nods at that last bit. "If you just fix it how's he going to learn. If he'd screwed up that badly and hadn't gotten hurt somehow they'd have to whip him."

"He has already been bitten! A lot! By a bat monster! I don't think not dripping additional blood on the floor today will prevent learning from taking place!"

"You have a lot of opinions!"

"You have an abusive educational system! Are you going to, what, fail your test if you let me make him some replacement skin??"

"Fail my test? If I make a deal with a demon who claims to have medical abilities to heal a student a cleric already saw because I am feeling squeamish about all the blood on the floor? I will not just fail my test for that, I'll get seen for whether I've lost my mind! I would report someone for even being tempted!"

"It's me who's concerned, you evidently are perfectly at ease with the decision to let him twitch there marinating in his own plasma! If you're that worried about being tempted why did you even let me talk?"

"...it seems like it'd be pretty hard to negotiate with demons while pointedly not speaking their language. I think good summoners in fact aim to establish rapport, which, I'm getting a sense of why that's hard with Chaotic creatures."

"Is that another word for 'prefers people be uninjured'?"

"...no. Uh, Law and Chaos are forces the gods see in the world, and humans don't understand them perfectly, but punishment is part of Law, and obedience to hierarchy, and not having a lot of opinions.  Thinking you should just personally do whatever you like is Chaos. I guess it might just be you. I haven't interacted with any demons before. At the Worldwound we just fight them."

"Is the bat monster," says Cam, "a 'demon'?"

"Yes."

"Interesting. Uh, I'm not sure you're going to do very well on your test, because I'm not the same thing as the bat monster."

"There are lots of different kinds." But her eyes anxiously dart down to read her circle.

"When I'm at home some people around me go in for, like, digitigrade legs, antelope horns, claws, designer color schemes, but not 'being a bat monster', that's a little too out there."

"...the Abyss is infinite, mostly cliffs and valleys of rock and sludge, there are also infinite demons but they tend towards...developmental stages, recently dead people are kind of larval worm things...does that sound like the place you are from."

"Nope. Hell is infinite, mostly vacuum, there are a few billion demons, most occupants aren't dead people to begin with and the ones who are look like they did in life plus anything they add on like wings."

"Hell is a different place, not infinite, nine layers, ruled by Asmodeus, devils do look more human than demons. I don't know what share of them are dead people but I think it's got to be most of them, if you go back far enough." Despite all these differences she relaxes slightly; she will fail her test for somehow summoning a devil when she meant to get a demon but she won't be suspicious.

"That doesn't sound like an infinite layerless vacuum of anarchy to me."

"....no. Uh, the Maelstrom is an infinite layerless vacuum of anarchy but its inhabitants are even less human looking..... I still think you might be from the Abyss, just some weird pocket of it that doesn't know about the rest of it?"

"That would be hard since we have some very aggressive media curators conjuring for all the recorded media across the dimensions we've heard of, which is why I was so startled I hadn't heard of this place."

"Okay, I don't have a theory, then. Probably the planar studies people will." She looks unhappy; glances over at the teacher to see if he's busy.

"What do people normally want bat-monster-type demons for? - you can call me an apsel to distinguish."

"Demons can't be poisoned or harmed by lightning so they're useful if you're going up against that, and they're easier to pay than devils because a lot of them just want slaves or magic weapons or to eat a sacrifice alive or whatever."