Lady of Curses

''So how does this work?'' They were back in June's room, and right now Aella was staring at the six paper sheets that were laid down on the table.

''You just need to put your hand on it and use your spell, and it should automatically engrave into the paper.'' June was standing next to Aella while she explained what to do.

''Ok.'' Aella put her open palm on one of the six paper sheets and then used [Curse of weakness]. It didn't take long before something happened, the usual black smoke came out and slowly enveloped the paper, but before the curse could fully materialize they got sucked in, yes all the black smoke that was flying around got suddenly sucked in the direction of the middle of the paper as if the paper had turned in a black hole.

Pretty quickly all the smoke was sucked in and there was none left in the air. When Aella pulled her hand away from the paper she saw a black magical circle in the middle of the paper. It looked unsettling, the circle itself was pitch black, it had smoky lines and it looked like it was wriggling around, but at the same time, it held its shape and stayed in the middle.

Seeing the magic circle Aella was stunned for a moment before she regained her senses. It was the first time she had seen something like that and it was quite interesting for her. And while Aella was admiring the magic circle June didn't say anything, because she herself when she saw a magic circle for the first time was stunned a little bit.

After she had enough Aella moved on, she made another two similar magic circles, and then she made three with [Curse of madness]. They looked similar to the first one but instead of black they were crimson in color and the smokey line made small spikes from time to time. 

''So with this, the deal is done.'' After finishing Aella turned to June and announced the deal being finalized from both sides.

''Indeed.'' June herself was happy about it too because it wasn't easy to come across pure curses, and now she had two with three copies of each. 

''Well now that we are done I should be leaving.'' Aella stretched a little before announcing her intention to return to her realm. ''Say hi to others.'' 

''Sure.'' Hering that June just smiled and didn't say anything else, she just waved as Aella left. This time there wasn't any magical circle or anything, Aella just turned into a cluster of dark smoke and after a few moments, she disappeared, as did the smoke.

''Hm...'' June heard Grefured make a sound as he lifted his head while still sleeping on the carpet with a questioning gaze.

''She just left.'' June walked towards Grefured and petted him on his head. ''But we will see her another time.'' Aella had left a good impression of herself to June, so the elf was sure that she will summon Aella more in the future, and the blood she got from the dark lady will help with that.

After the blue-eyed elf finished petting Grefured, she walked to where all the sheets of paper with curses were and started rolling them up one by one. After she was done with that, she put those scrolls away and decided to spend some time reading a book. 

***

''Fuuuu...'' Slowly her vision came back to her, as the black smoke cleared from her vision and she let out a sigh. Aella looked a little bit around and saw that she was back in the library near the spot where she was before she got summoned.

''Welcome back.'' From the back, she heard someone welcoming her back with a calm and chilly tone. Aella was a little surprised by that so she quickly turned around.

''I'm back?'' Still confused Aella looked at the person the voice came from. As there was only one person besides her around here she instantly locked her gaze to the sitting woman.

The unexpected greater was sitting down with a book in her hands, she was wearing something that looked like a kimono silvery-blue in color. The lady herself had nice long, straight silver hair, her eyes that looked like two shimmering moons were slowly moving as she read the book, her skin was pale as if she never had seen the sun. 

Aella was captivated by her beauty and had frozen for a moment. She only regained her senses when the sitting lady put down the book she was reading and turned her head and gaze in Aella's direction, where Aella could see a crescent moon ornament that was put in the lady's hair as it shimmered with each head movement.

''I presume your first summoning was good.'' 

''Yes... wait who are you?'' Aella almost got sucked into the mysterious woman's rhythm, but she fortunately didn't, and she wanted to know who this woman was.

''Right, you haven't met me.'' The lady looked down as if she was inspecting herself. ''Well at least this me, or this form of mine.'' 

''But let's keep that a secret for a little bit longer, and return to how it went in your first summoning.'' Aella wasn't satisfied with that answer as she wasn't too comfortable talking with a person she had no idea who it was, but she still decided to talk to this woman, because what could possibly go wrong.

''Well as I said earlier it went great and I'm sure I will be summoned again.'' Aella was still standing and she had no intentions of sitting down, while the woman on the other hand was still sitting down and had already turned away from Aella and again was impressed in her book.

''That's good to hear because the first summoning is quite important because if you don't leave a positive impression you can be stuck unsummoned for many years.'' The woman turned the next page as she talked. ''After all, everyone gets their first summoning but not all of us gets the second.'' 

''Not getting summoned second is quite bad, but I didn't think that leaving a bad first impression would result in not getting summoned again.'' Aella was starting to get a little curious about this woman.

''You're right, usually if you mess up in the first summoning you will get a second chance even a third, but you need to remember the more times you're successful the more those people will summon you again.'' The woman slowly let her eyes glide over the book's pages. ''But if you leave a bad impression you have one less customer. And you have to remember although a second chance is highly likely to happen there are some that don't get it ever or those who it arrives only after decades. After all, there is always that 1 in 100 unlucky person.''

While the lady was talking Aella took a look at the book she was reading, the cover read <Improving your social skills>. The book she was reading now wasn't the only book that caught Aella's interest, there were a few more books lying on the desk in front of the woman. All of them were similar to what she was reading, there were few she couldn't read but those that she could were all about how to interact with others and how to make a good impression on others.