"Our old eleventh grade English teacher is a bugbear," mentions Phix. "She got us home after we fought a lava monster and also once chased a demon out of Savannah."
"... Tiny, brunette, fair skin, likes debates, disturbingly utilitarian about how far she will go to stop demons?"
"I don't actually remember her first name off the top of my head, we just called her Mrs. Adams - why, are there more of her too?"
"I don't feel particularly harrowed, but perhaps you're drawing the line differently."
"Yes, good, congratulations, speaking of which I want my mom back if it works on sphinxes."
"She died a couple years ago, car crash, I've been living with Charlie since then."
"Wow, yeah, I can give it a try, but - can't promise about the sphinx thing, unless you want to go stand in Chamomile, acquire a daemon in so doing, and let the alethiometer look at you."
"Hmm. We try it first without that, and if it doesn't work we - hear the pros and cons of getting a daemon and decide from there?"
"I found having a daemon to be extremely beneficial," shrugs Cypress. "And I recommend them despite the risks."
"... Okay but the fact that you added 'despite the risks' to that statement, that makes me nervous."
"Yeah, me too, and I notice that nobody else has collected one besides Cypress."
"In a world where everybody has them, they're great unless you get a really inconvenient species. Everyone knows what they are and what they're for and how to treat them. In worlds where not everyone has them - well, you'd probably look really strange if you had to be followed around by a lemur or something, not that you come off as a lemur person, just as an example - and no one would know not to touch him."