"I see..." Helix ran a hand through his hair while he looked through a clipboard full of pages he'd pulled out of thin air. "That is a bit of a conundrum. There aren't any individuals that I have on roll that would be interested in a contract with a Contractor who's so new while the contract is also..." He glanced awkwardly at Dryth, "...So binding. I have some that might be open to either or, but not to both." They'd explained Dryth's position with his unique twist to his Soul Card to the demon and he was trying his best to help find someone for Dryth to contract with.

  "I wasn't hoping very hard, but that is disappointing," Ewan said with a small sigh. "But I wouldn't have such a good relationship with your company if that's all you had to offer."

  "Of course it isn't!" Helix tucked the clipboard inside his suit jacket, which was much too small to hold the clipboard but it vanished anyways, and smiled winningly at Dryth. "We're able to offer something very few of our competitors can, personally tuned summonings that can find the best possible match for you!"

  "Their founder got access to a rare card at some point and built the entire business on the back of it." Ewan leaned in close to stage whisper, "Keep an eye on him when he's doing the summonings, I've been trying to get him or one of the other people at his company to make a contract with me for ages, just so I can get a copy of that card."

  Helix shook his head mournfully as he chided Ewan, "Of course none of us are going to take a contract with you, you won't do business with us if we give you our trade secrets!"

  "But you won't even tell me the name of the card so I can find it myself!" Ewan exclaimed dramatically with an exaggerated groan.

  They both grinned at each other, the whole performance obviously a long running joke.

  "Alright, my young new friend and hopefully future client," Helix said to Dryth, "What I'm going to do is use a card to create a special magical circle that you'll activate, which will search through the planes for a person that matches what you're looking for. Thanks to our company's card, the circle will be able to find a person that matches the kind of criteria you're looking for."

  "Do I tell you what I think I'm looking for first?"

  Helix scoffed. "No! If that's all that we were doing we wouldn't be at the level we are as a company. No the card takes care of that for us."

  "...Can it read my mind?" Dryth asked cautiously.

  "Not quite, it reads your intent more like. When you activate the circle you'll be giving the magic access to you and your, how to put it, your sense of being. It can read that, not your thoughts or your memories, and then uses that to gauge who it will contact with your offer."

  "My offer?"

  "Yes, the magic is quite nice, it gives the kind of information that most people who've been summoned would need to ask after the summoning about in a concentrated information packet that they get if they're willing to consider the offer at all. It saves a lot of time and effort for everyone involved." Helix grinned smugly. "We're at the forefront of our industry for a reason."

  "You can give him the speech on why he should be one of your customers later on in his training." Ewan told the demon lackadaisically, "This won't be the only time we use your services while he's still one of my students, do get on with it."

  "Yes alright," The Helix flicked his hand forward like he was handing out his business card, and an actual magical card appeared between his fingers. He tilted it down and away so that neither Dryth nor Ewan could see what the card was, and Dryth noticed out of the corner of his eye that Ewan was trying to nonchalantly lean so he could catch a glimpse. Apparently there was some truth present in the little joking spat they'd had earlier. A line of pinkish energy struck the ground next to the circle Helix was in and in a flash of energy the same color there was suddenly another, different looking circle drawn on the flat stone ground.

  "How did he do that?" Dryth asked, taking a precautionary step back. "We're being friendly, but shouldn't the circle have prevented him frost casting outside of it?"

  "Oh, I built in some allowances for him when I made the circle. I was hoping just a little that there'd be someone on Helix's roster that would be perfect, but I was pretty sure we'd end up using this card," Ewan reassured him, "If I'd made the circle as tight as a normal one it wouldn't have allowed the card to work outside the circle he's in."

  "Which would have been a real problem! Imagine me all squished up against the side of the circle when another person pops up. What if you end up summoning a dragon? I'd be crushed!" Helix mimed being pushed up against the side of the circle, hitting an edge that made him look like a mime leaning on mid-air but Dryth knew there was actually a magical wall there, then threw his arm over his forehead dramatically. "Oh, what a way to go!"

  Ewan chuckled and shook his head. "Alright, alright. Dryth, you see that portion of the circle that protrudes from the main section? You touch the end of that line and think really hard about what you're looking for. It helps the circle read you if you have the idea of whop you'd like to summon at the forefront of your mind. Then it'll do the rest."

  Dryth crouched down to touch the right spot, then stopped. He stared at the circle for a moment, really processing everything that was happening. "Isn't this... aren't we going to fast?"

  "Huh? What do you mean?"

  "Anyone I contract with is going to be stuck with me until we both die, right? And the other way around too. Should I really just be summoning someone and trying to get a contract with them this quickly, no matter who they are?"

  "No, of course you shouldn't."

  "What?" Dryth turned to look back at Ewan.

  Ewan made a face at him. "What? I'm trying to teach you how to be a good Contractor, part of that is making smart decisions. We're not going to have you make a contract right this instant."

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  "But earlier, you said-"

  "I know what I said, I didn't mean that the lesson would be actually finalizing a contract today. You're in a position where finding someone to even consider a contract with you will be difficult. What we're doing today is trying to find someone that might be willing to be stuck with you forever and then let the two of you get to know each other. We are not having you agree to a contract right now if things go anything like I think they will."

  "Oh, alright." Since getting to know someone before they were going to become part of his life until it ended sounded a lot more reasonable, Dryth went ahead and touched the circle. He didn't have anything specific in mind about who he wanted to contract with, so he just thought about the conditions that were in place and that whoever agreed to be contracted to him would need to be ready for them to be soulbonded to each other. The circle began to glow with a shimmering light that reminded Dryth of the prismatic text outlining his unique twist on his Soul Card. He liked how Ewan described it and was debating taking it for his own.

  "Huh." Helix grunted, sounding intrigued.

  Ewan waved off Dryth's questioning look. "Helix and his coworkers have a few different theories about what the color the circle turns when different people use it means. It's all very eccentric and theoretical so don't pay any attention to it."

  Helix didn't respond, he just kept staring at the circle with an interested look on his face.

  They waited a few minutes and the circle just sat there, glowing. After a bit of boredom it suddenly flashed once in the middle releasing a gentle light.

  "That means it found someone but they said no," Helix explained. "Don't worry about it, though, statistically there's loads of people that could meet the criteria you have in mind that just happen to have other things in their lives stopping them from accepting."

  There were another half dozen of the same flashes over the course of the next hour and Dryth ended up sitting in his chair watching the circle while Ewan and Helix chatted about people Dryth had never heard of. From the context of the conversation they were all people Helix had helped Ewan contract with.

  "By the way," Helix asked casually, "Are you still with that elf woman you told me about?"

  "As much as I am with anyone," Ewan answered with a shrug.

  "I see... We should get dinner some time. It's been a while since we've been able to spend some casual time together."

  "I'd like that, I'll figure out when and let you know."

  Dryth filtered out their chatter and went back to watching the circle. He was doing his best not to get disappointing that no one was answering positively, and his past life memories were helping keep himself centered and realistic. The people who had said no didn't know anything about Dryth, so they weren't rejecting him, just his circumstances, which was reasonable. Asking someone to tie themselves permanently to a stranger, or even talk about it, was a big ask and a lot to take in in the best of times. Having it come out of the blue through magic from another plane would make anyone's hair stand up and making them likely to reject the offer out of hand. Still, it was a little disheartening.

  The circle suddenly began to glow throughout its entirety, and that glow began to slowly grow brighter similar to how the circle that had summoned Helix did. Helix and Ewan snapped out of their chat and moved closer to the circle, Helix slightly farther away because he was still in his own circle.

  "That means someone's accepted the offer to be summoned," Helix explained. "They'll arrive momentarily."

  "Momentarily" was faster than Dryth thought because the circle flashed immediately after the demon stopped speaking and there was suddenly a woman standing there. She was floating a few inches off the floor, seemingly under her own power, and her long purple and black hair was drifting freely as if there was no gravity affecting her. Her features were gorgeous, making Dryth think of paintings by the old masters of Earth, where a woman was elevated into a figure or artistic beauty. Her eyes were a deep purple that matched her hair and glowed with their own internal light. Her skin was black like the night sky and motes of color drifted along her body like stars.

  Dryth goggled at the gorgeous, floating, naked woman that had appeared in front of him, completely lost for words.

  "Hello," She said in a deep, melodious voice that had faint echoes to it, like there was a distant choir copying her words. "I have come because the offer I was given intrigued me. But I must ask, what specific kind of tie is it that would bind me to the one offering this contract? It saddens me, but there are certain kinds of ties I cannot accept."

  Dryth forced down a desert dry swallow and managed to stammer out, "Um, uh... My... my Soul Card it, it soulbinds me to whoever I contract."

  A look of deep sadness flashed across the woman's face and the pure emotion she gave out with just her expression made Dryth's own heart pang. "I am sorry, but I must not pass on my curse in such a way. Farewell." The circle flashed again, and she was gone.

  All three of them stared at the empty space for a long time.

  "Damn." Ewan eventually managed to say. "I have absolutely no idea what she was. Helix?"

  The demon slowly shook his head, hes expression one of awe and excitement. "I've never even heard of such a being. It is much too bad that her curse meant she was unwilling to soulbond with anyone. Or perhaps with you specifically Dryth, there's no way to know now."

  "She was a looker too." Ewan muttered under his breath, "I'll have to see if I can find anything about her species and see if I can find some that aren't cursed. Anyway," He prodded Dryth in the back, "You have to touch the spot and think about what you want again once someone accepts and gets summoned. We'll keep going until dinner time or you meet someone worth having a conversation about contracts with."

  "Ah... right..." After a few more prods Dryth managed to shake himself out of his stupor and reactivate the circle.

  Three more hours passed and Helix and Ewan teamed up to tell Dryth interesting stories about beings the two of them had met while using the same card to summon people from across the planes, looking for people with specific traits or cards that Ewan was after or needed to fulfill other contracts he had. There were another dozen or so flashes of people declining the invitation as they talked about dragons, dryads, other demons, angels, a demigod, a kraken, and more.

  Right as Ewan was ending a story and was talking with Helix about when they could schedule another session to use the card when the circle glowed brightly, indicating another acceptance.

  "Oh, that's a good omen!" Ewan declared cheerfully, "Even if they don't end up being right, two in a day with the limitations you've got going on is a good hit rate!"

  The circle rose to it's maximum brightness again. When the light cleared the person sitting there didn't have a humanoid form. In the circle was a snake, with gold and white scales. The snake was about two feet long and stretched out in the circle, looking a little confined like they'd been in a larger spot and more spread out when they'd accepted. A pair of bright white wings with gold highlights on the ends of each feather rose from the snake's back, and a pair of shining silver eyes looked around curiously.

  The snake looked all around the room, twisting their head and body this way and that to see where they were. Their tongue flickered in and out as the looked, from Dryth's faint biology knowledge that meant they were smelling and detecting the area with their heat vision. After getting a look around the laboratory, they turned their eyes on the three other people there. They nodded politely at Helix after noticing that he too was in a summoning circle, then looked over Dryth and Ewan. After a moment the snake fixed their eyes directly on Dryth.

  "Hello," a sudden voice rang out in Dryth's head. It was perfectly understandable but it also had a faint undertone like the hissing of a snake. The voice was definitely male, but also sounded young. "You smell like that interesting message I just got. Are you the one I'm going to make a contract with?"