Demons and Botched Rituals Part 2 (Patreon)

“Any time!” Selena ordered as she continued taking pop shots at the hobgoblins peeking around the corner at the end of the hallway.

“I’m not a rogue,” Hermione complained as her lockpick slipped and she lost her progress. “Damn it!”

“Sorry, I’m just running out of arrows and they’re throwing rocks,” Selena complained as she shot the hobgoblin that had just tried to hit her with a chunk of crystal, blowing a fist sized hole in his chest. “At least the bow hits like a pissed off giant tossing spears.”

Hermione focused on the quiver’s temporary arrow creation skill and burned the mana to duplicate the explosive arrow in the quiver. “Here, don’t drop it, it’s explosive.”

Selena took the bulb shaped arrow and shot it into the wall next to the hobgoblins when two of the hobgoblins poked their heads out to toss rocks at her. “Die!” She blinked when the arrow exploded, turning into a rather large fireball and obliterating a decent number of hobgoblins and filling the end of the hallway with fire. “Please tell me you can make more?” she asked hopefully.

Hermione frowned slightly as the explosion continued burning without any apparent source of fuel. “Not right now, that used most of my mana.”

“How about more normal arrows?” Selena asked hopefully, wishing the hobgoblins weren’t heavily resistant to her shadow spells even if using the insanely powerful bow was a lot of fun.

Hermione conjured another dozen adamantine arrows, burning through the rest of her mana. “Just hold them off,” she ordered as she set the arrows against the wall then went back to working on the lock.

“I doubt they’re getting through that fire,” Selena said as she grabbed another arrow and knocked it so that she’d be ready if they tried. “Do you want me to pick the lock?”

Hermione handed Selena the lockpicks. “Sure, knock yourself out.”

“Shouldn’t take that long,” Selena said as she handed Hermione the bow then started working on picking the lock.

“Right…” Hermione trailed off when she heard the lock click open. “Let me guess, you’ve done this before?”

“No, I just have more agility,” Selena said smugly as she opened the door and revealed a purple haired pale skinned busty woman with a crimson loincloth in the middle of a dusty shop. “Hello?”

“Welcome to my shop,” the woman said cheerfully as she glanced between Hermione and Selena with a smile on her lips that didn’t reach her ice blue eyes.

Hermione pulled her gaze off the shopkeeper’s bare breasts and studied the crystal wand the shopkeeper was holding. “What do you have to sell?” she asked, a touch surprised to see a shopkeeper in a dungeon.

“A bit of this and that,” the shopkeeper replied as she gestured around the dusty shop. “As you can see, we have pickled gnome eyes, broiled dragon, fantastic gems and books filled with ancient spells... for those that can afford them.”

Selena collected the adamantine arrows then walked into the shop. “What will you give me for these adamantine arrows?”

“Nice try,” the shopkeeper replied with a laugh. “I don’t buy conjured material.”

“How much for the staff that shoots fire?” Selena asked, hoping she could buy a rare book or something.

“How about a bag of near worthless gems?” the shopkeeper asked with a smirk.

“It’s worth more than that,” Selena argued.

“Not to me,” the shopkeeper replied. “Perhaps you should come back when you’ve found enough wealth to tempt me into parting with some of my treasures.”

“Fine, let’s go,” Selena complained as she turned and left the shop.

Hermione pulled her gaze away from the collection of ancient looking tomes on one of the shelves. “How much for the books?”

“More than you have,” the shopkeeper replied with amusement.

‘Great, it’s one of those shops.’ Hermione followed Selena out of the shop. “Now what?”

Selena glanced at the flickering flames at the end of the hallway. “Now we go looking for enough treasure to tempt the shopkeeper.”

0o0o0

‘I just have to time this right.’ Harry reached out and touched the treasure chest next to him then jumped and rolled over the top of it as the stone statue lurched into motion and swung its sword at him. He rolled off the chest and shoved it with all his might, barely managing to move it a fraction of an inch for his effort. 

‘Damn it!’ he cursed silently as he willed the damned chest to move. ‘You are not profiting off my pain!’ He stumbled and fell forward as the chest vanished, leaving him pushing against empty air. He tossed himself to the side in a pointless attempt to avoid the strike... that wasn’t coming.

Harry laughed as he realized he’d managed to get the chest into his inventory and the statue wasn’t trying to kill him anymore. ‘Okay, there’s no way I moved that enough to matter, which means there is probably a mental component.’

“Are you done yet?” Ralph demanded, his voice rather muffled from the door.

“Not the face!” Harry shouted as he stood up and hurried over to the next chest. ‘Just like flying, don’t think about it, just make it work.’ He stuck his hand on the chest and mentally moved it into his inventory, causing the statue to animate for a second then stop. ‘Nice, that actually worked.’

“Kill it!” Ralph shouted.

‘You can’t kill something that isn’t alive,’ Harry replied mentally as he shoved the third chest into his inventory and jumped back on the off chance that removing all of the chests caused the statues to permanently activate. He missed the doors swinging open, thanks to the notice that popped up informing him that his Inventory skill had just increased to level 2 and the fact that his available inventory slots had just doubled, going from five to ten.

“Where is my loot!” Ralph demanded as he stalked into the room.

“It vanished. Touching the chests activated the statues,” Harry volunteered before Ralph could demand an explanation. “The statues stopped moving when the chests vanished.”

“Worthless fucking dungeon,” Ralph cursed as he angerly summoned a shadowbolt and tossed it at the closest statue.

Harry felt more than a little disappointed when the shadowbolt merely washed over the statue without damaging it or causing it to activate. ‘So much for that idea.’ 

“Seriously, nothing?” Ralph demanded as he stalked over to see if he could pry the nasty looking sword out of its hand as the blade was obviously part of the loot.

‘How stupid… Yeah, screw it, I don’t care.’ Harry waited for Ralph to walk over to look at the closest statue then reached into his inventory and opened the chest, surprised that it wasn’t locked, at least until the statue animated and moved like greased lightning, hacking Ralph’s head off almost before he could blink.

Harry frantically shut the chest as the statue turned and charged him, closing half the distance before the chest snapped shut and the statue froze, overbalanced and tumbled toward him fast enough that he barely managed to apparate out of the way. He forced himself to ignore the feeling of being submerged in an ice cold lake as he dashed over, grabbed Ralph’s body, and shoved it into his inventory.

Harry sprinted toward the hallway, hoping that he could find something useful before he was pulled back to the cavern with the demons, which he instinctively knew was happening. His vision was going black around the edges and his breath came in stolen gasps by the time he made it down the hall and into the next room. He ignored the three sets of stairs that led down into sunken walkways filled with hazy screaming monsters and glanced between the three glowing tools that were floating in the air above three identical stone pedestals.

“Choose your profession!” a deep voice announced.

Harry glanced at the floating whip then looked at the sickle floating in the middle then ran towards the dagger floating over the right pedestal, figuring he could use it, as even without training stabbing people was vastly simpler to learn than the other two weapons. He’d barely wrapped his hands around the dagger when whatever invisible barrier holding back the monsters on the nearest walkway shattered, letting the monsters pour forth.

Harry ignored the popup as he shoved his dagger into his inventory then jumped toward the no longer glowing sickle. He sighed as he found himself back in the cavern with the brightly colored demons before he could touch it. 

One of the green skinned demons roared as he leapt at Harry.

Harry reflexively grabbed the dagger from his inventory and stabbed the larger demon, managing to land a decent hit on the demon’s thigh as he ducked to the side, causing it to bleed a rather nasty looking green fluid. He quickly pulled the dagger back and stabbed the shrieking demon in the throat as it bent over to clutch at its wound.

“Bad touch!” a femine voice shouted behind him.

Harry spun around and made a snap decision as he saw a group of seven green skinned demons harassing a pair of cute, identical mauve skinned demons that were backed up against the cavern walls, one of the green demons on its knees holding itself. He apparated behind the largest green skinned demon and drove his dagger into the larger demon’s back.

“Death Bubbles!” one of the twins shouted as she cast her bubble cantrip, causing a cascade of perfectly harmless bubbles to fly out of her hands at the green skinned demons, distracting them from the purple skinned demon that just stabbed their leader in the back. “Burn!”

Harry stabbed the larger demon a second time, happy when the demon collapsed. He stabbed another one of the green skinned demons in the eye as it turned to him then another in the shoulder as it twisted at the last second then stepped back as one of the mauve girls’ shadowbolt finished it off. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” the demon girl that had conjured the bubbles replied as she dropped her spell now that the rest of the demons had fled. “I’m Jade.”

“And I’m Ruby,” the other demon girl offered. “Yes, I know, I don’t actually have red skin.”

“Harry,” Harry offered, seeing nothing wrong with their names after spending time in the Wizarding World. “What’s the deal with the green skinned demons?”

Jade tilted her head a bit as she studied Harry, trying to figure out if he was faking being clueless or if he was actually that new. “What do you know about demons?”

“Not much,” Harry admitted.

“Most demons are either the offspring of demons or the corrupted souls of mortals.” Jade gestured around the cavern. “We’re basically in a meat grinder pocket dimension created by one of the Demonic Overlords to turn corrupted souls into experienced demons. The demons that survive grow stronger and the demons that don’t are recycled or destroyed. The green demons are basically gluttons that want to devour everything.”

“Except each other,” Ruby grumbled, fairly sure the green demons were some powerful demon lord’s endless spawn it was trying to toughen up on the random souls the pocket dimension pulled in.

“What about the other colors?” Harry asked, curious about the other colors he’d seen.

Jade glanced at the blue skinned demon she could see in the distance that was enthusiastically bashing in a green skinned demon’s face in with a club made from a larger demon’s horn. “Blue skinned demons radiate rage and seem to have innate counterattack abilities.”

“Of course, that only really holds true for the demons created by this particular Hell,” Ruby warned, not wanting him to get the wrong idea since he’d helped them.

Jade nodded. “The local orange demons reek of greed and envy while the red demons are most likely going to end up as lust demons.”

“Which isn’t a bad gig,” Ruby said cheerfully. “A bit of a wiggle here and a touch there and they practically corrupt themselves. Seriously, they’re almost as easy as humans.”

Harry shivered slightly despite the heat as he was reminded that he was dealing with demons rather than people. “What about purple?”

“I’ve only seen a couple of them,” Jade said as she watched a group of four green skinned demons give them a wary look as they noticed the corpses surrounding them before they stalked off looking for easier prey. “The couple I’ve seen had a lot of magic.”

“Is that uncommon?” Harry asked as he opened his character sheet and looked at his Wayfinder ability. ‘Sweet, skill sharing.’ He looked at his Shadow Home ability. ‘Your Shadow Home will grow as you master various skills. Yeah, that’s a bit short on the details.’

Ruby shrugged. “Most starting demons have a magic rating of 20 to 30 from what we’ve seen which means they only have 100 to 150 mana on average. The other purple demons I’ve seen had at least 75 points of magic.”

“Can I borrow your dagger?” Jade asked hopefully.

“Why?” Harry asked warily, unwilling to give up his weapon without a good reason.

Jade gestured at one of the dead green skinned demons. “I can make magic wands out of demon bone, it’s a bit macabre but my collection of offensive spells isn’t going to cut it and I’d rather not get torn apart.”

“That’s a nice starting skill.” Harry handed her the dagger, figuring he could apparate up to the ledge if she tried to stab him. “I’m going to want that back.”

Jade examined the magical dagger. “Where did you get a demon bane weapon?”

“From the dungeon I got summoned into, my warlock was an idiot,” Harry replied as he opened his inventory and looked through the first chest, seeing no reason to leave it closed now that he was nowhere near the statue. ‘Deckard Cain’s Guide to Identifying Enchanted Objects, glowing boots and a set of rune etched bracers.’

“I’m not surprised, you have to be a little insane to summon demons, most demons aren’t particularly nice,” Ruby explained as her twin worked on hacking through one of the dead demon’s legs.

“You seem nice enough,” Harry offered as he looked through the second chest, noting a decent collection of interesting gear that might come in useful if he could figure out what everything was.

“We’re lust demons, it’s sort of our job to be nice and have fun,” Jade muttered the last part under her breath, “or at least it used to be.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Harry replied as he looked through strange looking ingredients in the third chest. ‘Potion supplies?’ He sighed as he noticed a group of a dozen green skinned demons stalking their way carrying bone clubs. “How long is it going to take you to make the wand?”

“At least ten minutes,” Jade said as she finished cutting through the demon’s leg and looked up at the group of angry looking demons coming their way. “Shit!”

A half naked, blue skinned, teenage demon girl appeared in an explosion of flames in the middle of the group of demons. “Die demon scum!” she shouted as she ripped into the demons with a rune carved silver sword.

“She does realize she’s a demon, right?” Harry asked as he moved everything in his first chest to empty inventory slots then started stuffing the demons they’d killed into the chest.

“Probably, but she has a point, they’re demon scum,” Ruby replied as she cast her dazzle spell on the group of green skinned demons, causing them to blink and flinch as sparkles appeared in their face. “Glitter Strike!”

“Do you need some help?” Harry called out as he finished stashing the dead demons in the chest in his inventory.

“I wouldn’t object,” the demon girl replied as she cut down another green skinned demon, her various scratches vanishing without a trace as her sword stole their life force, with every slash.

Harry pulled a double edged sword out of the second chest and charged the group of green skinned demons, figuring there was safety in numbers.

0o0o0

Hermione wrinkled her nose as she opened the door and was assaulted by a strange blend of perfume that couldn’t quite hide an unpleasant odor as steam poured out of the door and into the hallway. Her gaze jumped from the calf deep pool of steaming water that took up most of the room to the supernaturally gorgeous mostly naked young lady sprawled on a towel on the sand covered area on the other side of the pool.

“Oh,” Selena said as she walked towards the water, with a goofy look on her face staring at the naked beauty.

“None of that,” Hermione said as she reached out and grabbed Selena’s backpack. “You’re as bad as Ron.”

“What?” Selena complained, not sure why her demon didn’t want to have some fun with the gorgeous girl. 

“I could use a massage,” the girl called out with a sultry smile.

“Sure,” Selena said as she started walking forward, dragging Hermione with her as she refused to let go.

“Hey!” Hermione complained then slapped Selena on her rear. “Snap out of it!”

Selena blinked a couple of times. “What’s wrong with the water?”

“Nothing,” the girl said with a pout as she twisted so that her assets were on display, her crimson silk and silvery blue chain loincloth doing nothing to conceal her sex. “Your friend just doesn’t want to watch me fuck you silly.”

“More like stupid,” Hermione complained as she studied the other girl, fairly sure she was a demon. “Are you a succubus?”

“Of course, which is why I can show your friend a good time. You wouldn’t deny a fellow demon a little fun, would you?” the demoness asked with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

Hermione raised her bow and shot the demon in the throat before she could talk Selena into doing something stupid.

Selena blinked as the lovely woman she’d been talking to changed into a demonic red skinned demon with wings, claws and fangs then rolled to her feet looking ready for a fight despite the arrow sticking out of her throat. “Shit!”

“Die!” the demon shouted in a raspy voice as she conjured a ball of flames and tossed it at Hermione, wanting to kill the bitch for ruining her fun.

Hermione apparated behind the demon and shot her in the back then brought the bow down on her skull, knocking her back and giving her the chance to shoot her in the chest twice as the demon twisted around to cast a spell at her.

Selena blinked a couple of times as the demon vanished in a burst of flames, leaving behind a leather tome, a small green gem and a crimson silk loincloth. “How did you know?”

“We’re in a dungeon,” Hermione replied as she glanced at the notice informing her that she’d just hit level 3 and that all of her stats had jumped by 2 other than magic which had jumped by 5 points. “I’d expect a distraction if we were in a hurry but we have a day to clear out a dungeon that shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours, combine that with the sulfuric smell her perfume didn’t quite hide and she was obviously part of a trap,” she explained as she picked up the loincloth, book, and gem.

“Are you sure it’s not just because you want me all to yourself?” Selena asked as she walked over to the wall and cast her spider climb spell as she didn’t trust the narrow walkway that wasn’t covered with water, it looked a touch too convenient considering the rest of the room was a trap.

“Limited shapechange,” Hermione read the title of the book then watched as Selena sort of shuffled along the wall. “That’s useful.”

“It’s not as useful as being able to teleport but it’s cheap and easy,” Selena replied as she dropped off the wall and walked over to look at the door that led to the next area. “You should probably use the book, you’re the one with Synthesis.”

Hermione opened the book to check to see if she could even read it and blinked when a popup appeared asking her if she wanted to learn the Limited Shapechange (Humanoids) skill. ‘This world was obviously built for people like Ron, learning spells by simply picking up a book with no reading involved.’ She selected yes then twitched when the book vanished in a flash of light and information poured into her mind. ‘I wonder if I had picked no and figured out the language if I could have learned it without destroying it,’ she mentally grumbled.

“Anything useful?” Selena asked.

Hermione took a breath and let it out slowly so she didn’t start ranting about the world destroying books then opened her character sheet and looked at her new skill. “I’m limited to minor changes at level 1, including skin color and making my ears less pointy.”

“I like your ears, they’re cute,” Selena said as she checked the door, unsurprised to find it locked. “This should just take a second.”

Hermione stuck the loincloth in her backpack, unwilling to risk using it before she washed it and checked it for curses then opened her Synthesis menu. “Do you mind if I use some of the loot to see if I can get my Synthesis ability to work?”

“Just don’t use any of the magical items until you’ve tested it with junk,” Selena replied as she worked on picking the lock.

Hermione selected her temporary Arrow Conjuration skill and her Wand Mastery skill then double checked to make sure the skills wouldn’t be consumed. ‘Good, not consuming the skills appears to be the default.’ She dropped a silver coin into the catalyst box and smiled when the Creation button turned green. “It looks like I can use silver coins for a catalyst.”

“Good, silver is decently cheap,” Selena said as she turned to look at Hermione, curious how her ability worked.

Hermione hit the button and watched as the coin started spinning and sparkling in the display box. ‘I need to find a library or a professor, someone that can explain why it feels like I’m in a video game.’ She pulled her attention back to her crafting interface when words appeared in the text box. “Skill token created: Licking the coin will teach Conjure Blunt Arrows: (Silver) which conjures blunted silver arrows. The quality and bonus damage against ghosts improves with level.”

“Blunt arrows?” Selena asked with amusement.

“If nothing else, we can use them against ghosts,” Hermione replied cheerfully, thinking about the number of times she’d wished she had a way to hit Peeves for his various pranks. “Any objection to me using the token?”

“Nope, you might be able to turn it into something useful.”

Hermione licked the coin, trying not to think about where it might have been as it turned into sparkles of light and vanished, giving her the new skill. “Let’s see what else I can get.”

“That’s the spirit.” Selena giggled as she thought about the mounds of gold they could get if they sold some of the more interesting skill tokens Hermione could create.

Hermione dropped another silver coin into the box and hit the button, watching the coin spin and sparkle like the last time. “Oh neat, I got a different skill. Conjure Arcane Arrow, for 50 mana you can conjure a magical arrow that deals bonus damage based on your magic stat, increasing the level should decrease the cost.”

“That’s a third of my mana. How long does the arrow last?” Selena asked, not sure it was actually worth using unless she could stockpile them, which seemed unlikely.

“It doesn’t say.“ Hermione pulled the token out of the box and licked it, instantly learning the skill. She focused and conjured an arcane arrow, not all that concerned with the cost as she had over five hundred mana thanks to her high magic stat. “Is an extra 58 damage decent?”

Selena blinked as she looked at the glowing arrow that Hermione was holding. “On second thought, that might be worth the mana.”

“Especially since I don’t see a duration on the arrow,” Hermione said as she stuck the magical arrow in her quiver. She grinned as she selected the Warped Alchemy skill from the hat and the basic Alchemy skill from the robes then tossed a gold coin into the box. “I have a 1% better chance of getting a superior result with a gold coin as the catalyst than a silver.”

“Which means using magical items might be worth it,” Selena mused, not sure how she felt about risking magical items for a small chance at better skills. “We should probably look into picking up enchanting when we get back to the guild.”

“Sounds good,” Hermione said as she swapped the gold coin for the magical staff. “The staff gives a +220% percent result related to fire.”

“Which probably means there are degrees of success,” Selena said as she went back to working on the door. “We should save that for a fire related skill.”

“Makes sense,” Hermione swapped the staff for the small green gem from the succubus. “The gem boosts the results when creating crafting skills…” she trailed off as she swapped things around to consume the warped Alchemy skill. “Permission to test consuming the Ogre skill to see if it breaks the mace I got it from?”

“Let me guess, you want to try my Synthesis ability with some of the temporary skills?” Selena asked as she unlocked the door.

“It’s the least useful skill item we have and consuming it gives the resulting token a boost in that direction. If it doesn’t actually damage the item, we should be able to use it multiple times,” Hermione explained.

“What if it slags the magical item?” Selena asked as she turned to look at Hermione, knowing that she could sell the mace for a lot of gold to some of the guilds even if the skill wasn’t all that useful personally.

“Then it’s better to find out with a piece of junk. With any luck, we’ll get some decent blunt weapon skills out of it.”

Selena sighed as she pulled the mace out of the backpack and handed it to Hermione. “Fine, do it before I change my mind,” she said, mentally saying goodbye to a large bag of gold.