Offered a career move

This week has been peculiar. Peculiarities, of course, always come nestled with normality, like cuckoo eggs in a bluebird nest. In the same way, my harmless, every day work of organising death ritual licenses, organising the library rota, and working on the escape tunnel under my desk were punctuated with odd things. At one juncture, for example, I was offered an opportunity to teach the arcane art of mathematics to children - subject of course to the normal checks.

Intrigued, I went along to the place where this education happens. I bought myself new robes in midnight black, planned a lesson around the appropriate size and use of pentagrams in summoning, and naturally brought a small animal to sacrifice to the Governors. Overall, it appeared I did well - the students all summoned a small nether demon and, in an improvised twist, we moved onto percentages to calculate how much of Zaynah was left after the incident.

As I am always eager to improve myself - through self-learning, cybernetic enhancements, or the sale of small-to-medium sized bites of my soul - I sought feedback on the lesson. I was pleased that the assessors thought it went well overall, although since they presented only as silent hovering robes with no discernible faces it is difficult to explain how I know this.

Exactly like that. You can sense the approval.

However, one did comment in a tone of extreme disappointment that my professionalism had been sorely lacking. On one occasion, I had referred to the 3rd Circle of Hell as "no worse than the playing fields"; further, I had described the sight of Zaynah's left arm being torn off by a demon as "cool". Finally it noted that my robes were midnight black, and not the school's regulation sin, pit, or feline black. I made a note of the assessor's comments, thanked them, and then ran screaming from the room. Some people might not have screamed all the way, but I was raised in the correct manner.

Despite this enjoyable segue into the Dark Arts, and the great time I had sharing my limited knowledge with the young people who will inevitably usher us into our graves, I think I will remain where I am for the moment. There is still so much more to learn of the vague yet menacing government agency; so many different areas to investigate - and of course, to report back to you.

Besides - pit black makes me look deathly pale.