Demons and Botched Rituals Part 3 (Patreon)

Hermione selected the Ogre’s Blunt Mastery skill and the Conjure Blunt Arrows skill and set it to eat the Ogre’s Blunt Mastery skill then dropped a gold coin in the box and hit create. She was slightly surprised that she didn’t get an error message or cause the club to vanish. She looked at the resulting skill token. “Conjure Silver Weapon (Blunt): Conjures a blunt silver melee weapon for 20 mana, lasts an hour per level and it gets cheaper every level.”

“Did you break the mace?” Selena asked as she went back to work on the lock, hoping that her demon hadn’t broken something they could sell for a decent amount.

Hermione glanced at her skill list, not surprised to find the Orge’s skill missing. She set the mace down then picked it back up and started smirking when she saw the skill was back in her list of skills. “No, I just had to set it down and I got the skill back.” She grabbed the skill token from the box and licked it, picking up the new skill. “Which means we should be able to acquire some really nice blunt skills with a bit of luck.”

“Sounds good,” Selena replied as she unlocked and opened the door. She smiled when she saw the EXIT sign across the gladiatorial arena. “That makes things slightly easier, I found the exit.”

“What’s the bad news?” Hermione asked as she walked over to look through the door at the sand covered arena. “Let me guess, deathmatch?”

“It’s better than having to answer a bunch of idiotic riddles or deal with an entire room filled with complex puzzles.”

“You’d rather fight a deathmatch than answer some riddles?” Hermione asked in disbelief.

“At least I have a chance of getting loot with the death match, dragons like twisted riddles and puzzle rooms are worse even if the loot is decent. Of the three possibilities I much prefer the one I can bludgeon.”

“You’re telling me, we could have had to fight a dragon?” Hermione asked warily.

“Nah, the dragon doesn’t care if you leave, as long as you haven’t tried to steal his hoard or wasted your three guesses. Generally no one can figure out the riddles, so people just take two guesses and leave.”

“How bad are the riddles?” Hermione asked, thinking about Ravenclaw’s door knocker that required the students to solve riddles before they could access their house. 

“Let me give you an example. What is red and green during the day and purple on a blood moon?” Selena asked, curious if her new friend would have more luck than the rest of the guild.

Hermione opened her mouth to reply then closed it when she realized she had no idea how to answer that. “On second thought, I can see your point. What’s so bad about the puzzle room?”

“Some of the puzzles are a bit twitchy and if you do things wrong, you get to watch some of the prize boxes get crushed, which is always a bit depressing.”

“Considering the cases in the first room, that’s probably intentional.” Hermione turned towards the sandy section of the room. “Conjure Makeshift Lab,” she chanted as she poured mana into her temporary skill. She glanced at the makeshift looking potions equipment on the rickety looking card table that she’d conjured out of thin air. “I’m going to have to work on that.”

“Just a bit,” Selena said sarcastically. “How much mana?”

“Fifty,” Hermione replied absently as she opened her alchemy menu and looked over her choices. “It also lasts for an hour which means it’s not a big deal.”

Selena shook her head. “Most of us don’t regenerate mana that quickly which means most casters tend to burn through mana potions.”

“Isn’t that expensive?” Hermione asked as she grabbed a pair of rusted tongs and one of the dirty test tubes.

“It’s not the best habit to get into, the price spikes after the second tier of mana potions and you can only use so many in a short window before they lose effectiveness, but most casters have more mana by that point so it’s not as big a deal,” Selena explained as Hermione carefully filled the test tube from the pool.

“Are there skills for increasing your mana regeneration?” Hermione asked as she selected the liquid identification option.

“Most casting classes pick up some type of mana regeneration skill around level five, warlocks get the ability to drain mana from our enemies while wizards get Meditation which drastically increases their mana regeneration outside of combat,” Selena explained as she watched Hermione run some tests on the sample with the questionable equipment. “Anything?”

“Just some experience and a contaminated sample,” Hermione said as she set the sample in the rusty rack then grabbed another test tube so that she could get a new sample. “Worst case, I should get a level in less than ten minutes.”

“Are you getting any experience toward your Warped Alchemy skill?” Selena asked eagerly, knowing that skill or at least a variation of it was their ticket to riches and eternal fame.

Hermione filled up the empty test tube then glanced at the progress bar for her other temporary skill. “Just a sliver.”

“The progress should improve once you start crafting things,” Selena said as she walked over to a clear spot of sand well away from the pool and sat down. “In that case, I might as well take a nap, it speeds up mana regeneration as well and I want to have enough for the arena.”

“Sounds good,” Hermione replied absently as she worked on identifying her sample. She was looking forward to leveling her temporary Alchemy skill before she tried to get a permanent version.

0o0o0

Azure gripped her sword tightly as the twelve foot tall, muscle bound, rage filled demon with glowing red tattoos charged across the uneven ground towards their group screaming something about ripping them apart and eating them. “No one lives forever.”

“I’ve fought worse,” Harry replied as he focused on the back of the annoyingly shallow and narrow crevasse they’d been hoping to use as shelter from the Hulk’s more savage cousin. He activated his Shadow Home ability and ripped open a shadowy door to his pocket dimension inside the crevasse. “I found a cave, let’s go!”

“Better than getting ripped apart by green skins,” Ruby said as she quickly slipped inside the crevasse and headed for the cave she was fairly sure hadn’t been there when she’d checked ten seconds ago. “Hurry!”

“I can help,” Azure offered, not sure how much of a chance they had, but willing to try, mostly because she still had her honor.

“I’ve got this, you can deal with the next one,” Harry replied as he turned and focused on the green skinned demon charging towards them as he tried to figure out how he was going to kill something that would probably give Hagrid a decent fight. He waited until almost the last moment then apparated twenty feet behind the large demon as the demon swung his dark metal axe at Harry’s neck.

Harry watched in disbelief as the demon managed to rip a six foot long three foot wide gash in the cavern wall with his axe. ‘Shit!’ he cursed as he realized he didn’t have a chance of dealing with the demon in anything approaching a fair fight. He closed the door to his Shadow Home then apparated back to the ledge he’d used earlier and ducked down, wishing he had his cloak and hoping the insane demon wouldn’t find him.

“Face me!” the demon shouted, his voice echoing through the massive cavern, momentarily causing all of the fighting to stop as the various groups of demons scattered like cockroaches hoping they hadn’t drawn its attention.

‘How thick do you think I am?’ Harry sighed in relief when he saw another portal form on top of a broken pillar that had partially fallen over. He jumped off the ledge and apparated next to the portal, letting his momentum carry him through the portal as a green skinned demon scampered up the pillar toward the portal. ‘Too slow.’

Randel studied the purple skinned demon in the summoning circle, who looked like a messy haired, pointy eared child of around six or seven. “Damn, I was hoping for a green skinned demon, they make better meatshields.”

Harry glanced between the familiar professor and the fat, dark haired teenager, dressed in an expensive looking black robe and carrying what looked suspiciously like a unicorn horn that someone had carved a handle into, in order to make a wand. ‘Great, I’ve got a magical version of Dudley as a master.’

“You can always try to swap when you get out of the dungeon,” Grimbane assured the idiot, not sure why anyone would want one of the green skinned idiots, considering their gluttonous behavior. ‘At least we got a generous donation out of this idiot’s family.’

“Walk into the dungeon first,” Randel ordered as he gestured toward the glowing portal that led to the dungeon.

Professor Grimbane briefly considered warning the young man that he shouldn’t let his demon set the difficulty of the dungeon by going first, then decided that stupidity shouldn’t be rewarded, and stepped on the silver circle so that the boy’s demon could actually follow his orders. “Best of luck,” he lied as he watched the demon head towards the dungeon.

Randel followed Harry through the portal then glanced around the dusty looking entrance hall with disdain. “They should send a maid,” he muttered absently as he pulled a leather bag out of his pocket then tossed it at Harry.

Harry plastered a blank look on his face and kept his mouth shut.

“Collect the loot in the dungeon and stick it in the bag, if the bag gets full come back, if you reach the end of the dungeon come back and get me. Don’t break any of the loot.” He gestured negligently and conjured a comfortable looking chair then sat down and pulled a book out of his pocket.

Harry nodded then headed for the door, fairly sure even Crabbe and Goyle would have closed the dragon sized holes in the warlock’s orders. ‘I’m starting to think they set up the dungeon to kill idiots.’

He glanced around the poorly lit dusty stone chamber. ‘I’m fairly sure even Draco could figure this one out, three symbols on the door, three objects on the pedestals, two of them swapped which means there is probably a trick.’ He studied the cheap looking tin crown sitting innocently on the pedestal then glanced at the dusty toy wooden sword on the second pedestal. ‘At least they’re not worth taking.’

Harry stared at the bleached wooden wand resting innocently on the third pedestal then shook his head and swapped the crown and the toy sword, causing the first two doors to open. “That was easier than I thought.” He frowned as he looked at the crown wearing skeleton sitting on a throne surrounded by piles of gold coins. ‘There’s no way that’s not a trap.’ 

He took a couple of steps to the right and looked through the door into the second room, fairly sure the practice dummy in the middle of the room would spring to life as soon as he walked through the door.’ He picked up the wooden sword and frowned when the door to the practice room started slowly closing and the second door in the practice room started opening. ‘Just enough time to get through the door if you’re quick about it.’ 

Harry wasn’t terribly surprised when the door stopped closing and reversed direction as soon as he set the wooden toy back on the pedestal. “This is going to suck,” he muttered as he walked into the room with the gold coins and started tossing the coins into the bag as unlike the keys, the coins certainly counted as loot.

He scowled at the blue popup window that appeared in front of him after the fifth coin. “Stealing from Edwin, Lord of the Black Marsh has invoked the Curse of Greed.” He stared in horror at the Cursed Bones of Copper skill the damned curse had just given him. ‘Your bones have been laced with copper, increasing the amount of electrical damage dealt by hostile magic while improving your own electrical attacks by 2% per level. Due to issues with your blood, you may experience hallucinations and or dry mouth, your disease resistance and stamina regeneration are dropped by 5% per level of the skill.’

He glared at his new skill’s progress meter, less than happy that every coin he picked up was giving him experience towards his new cursed skill. ‘Where’s Bill when you need him, hopefully someone has a way to break curses.’

0o0o0

Selena yawned as she sat up and looked at the strange collection of potion bottles laid out in neat lines on the sand. “You’ve been busy.”

“I’m trying,” Hermione replied as she capped the health potion she’d just finished pouring into a bottle. ‘It keeps me from worrying about Harry.’

“Is it supposed to be glowing?” Selena asked as she studied the glowing bottle of green liquid Hermione was holding.

“Yes and no,” Hermione replied as she set the potion near the other glowing potions she’d created with her new recipe. “I’m fairly sure the original potion isn’t supposed to glow, but I’m not actually sure what Bloodshrooms look like, so I had to make some substitutions.”

“How much do they heal?” Selena asked as she got to her feet.

Hermione flashed Selena a smile. “60 points which is ten points more than the original recipe and with less components.”

“Nice. What’s your alchemy level at?” Selena asked as she walked over.

“Technically, I don’t have an Alchemy skill, I leveled the temporary skill up to five then burned it to create my Mad Alchemy skill after I made notes and copied down all of the recipes. My version is at seven.”

“What’s the difference?” Selena asked as she glanced over the conjured alchemy table, noticing that the tongs were less rusty and the glassware quite a bit cleaner than the first time she’d seen it, which probably meant she’d increased a couple of levels in it. 

“Mad Alchemy has the ability to reverse engineer substances, but it doesn’t give me free recipes like Alchemy. How much of a liability is that?” Hermione asked, hoping she could buy recipes and hadn’t completely screwed herself over.

Selena shrugged. “Less than you’d think, considering Alchemists can trade recipes and the basic recipes are decently cheap and the skill only rarely gives anything new.”

“In other words, no point losing sleep over it,” Hermione said thoughtfully, relieved that a bit of work would solve the only real flaw in an otherwise excellent skill. “I’d rather be able to reverse engineer my warped potions for improved recipes.”

“Considering your glowing healing potion, I don’t blame you. We should probably see if we can tempt the shopkeeper into trading any of her wares for something useful.”

“I was waiting until you woke up on the off chance that we missed some monsters,” Hermione said as she held out her hand. “Grab my hand and I’ll apparate us there.”

“Is that like teleportation?” Selena asked as she grabbed Hermione’s hand, curious how Hermione had been teleporting around without running out of mana.

“It’s a form of transportation magic that allows me to instantly disappear and reappear elsewhere,” Hermione explained then apparated outside of the shop.

Selena lurched and almost vomited as she felt like her insides were being squeezed through a pipe before reappearing elsewhere.

“Sorry, I don’t normally take people with me,” Hermione admitted.

Selena took a couple of shallow breaths until the urge to vomit had passed. “Are you sure that isn’t a demonic method of torture with a useful side effect?” 

“Don’t worry, it gets easier with practice,” Hermione assured her summoner then walked into the shop to see what they could get.

“That’s not a no,” Selena grumbled as she followed her familiar into the shop.

The shopkeeper smiled at Hermione and Selena. “Welcome back, have you found any interesting treasures to trade?”

“Several potions, if you’re interested,” Hermione said as she pulled several potions out of her pockets and set them on the table.

“Inferior quality,” the shopkeeper said absently as she examined the potions. “How many do you have?”

Hermione forced herself to smile rather than glare at the shopkeeper for calling her potions inferior. ‘Relax, you don’t have a proper lab and you’re using substandard ingredients, the fact that you managed to make anything work is amazing,’ she assured herself as she continued pulling potions out of the pockets of her robes. “Seventeen healing potions, eight vials of concentrated acid and three containers of burn cream.”

“Sounds like you need more recipes,” the shopkeeper said as she reached over and grabbed a thick leather bound book from one of her shelves and set it on the counter. “I’ll trade you the book for your collection of potions.”

“Deal,” Selena cut in before Hermione could object, recognizing the title of the book.

Hermione glanced at Selena then looked back at the shopkeeper. “Deal,” she agreed.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” the shopkeeper replied as she collected the potions. “Do you have anything else that you’d like to trade?”

Selena pulled several hobgoblin weapons out of her pack. “Anything?”

The shopkeeper snorted as she glanced at the iron weapons. “Sorry, I deal in magical items, unless the weapons are enchanted, it’s barely worth storing the scrap, let alone paying for it.”

“How much do you charge to identify a magical item?” Hermione asked, thinking about the unidentified loincloth in her pocket.

“The normal guild rate is five silver but that’s generally just to keep people from harassing the guild’s enchanters, I’ll identify your trinket for the hobgoblin weapons,” the shopkeeper offered.

“Deal,” Selena said as she set the weapons on the counter, knowing the iron in the weapons was only worth slightly more than it would cost to have the guild identify the loincloth and this way, they’d know before challenging the arena.

Hermione pulled the loincloth she’d gotten from the succubus out of her pocket and set it on the table, hoping it was actually useful.

“Identify,” the shopkeeper said as she gestured over the silk and mithral loincloth, causing a blue window to appear over the loincloth which showed its details. “Insect Ward, Everclean and Defense, two decent quirks and one modest enchant that should protect your legs as well as steel greaves, I’ve seen worse starting gear.”

“What’s the difference between quirks and enchantments?” Hermione asked, wishing she had a book on the subject.

“Quirks are generally minor magical extras whereas enchants are more impressive.” The shopkeeper glanced at the door. “Now, unless you have something else to trade, you should probably go back to exploring.”

Hermione pulled one of the skill tokens she’d created out of her pocket and set it on the desk. “How about a magical coin?”

The shopkeeper glanced at Selena then gestured over the coin. “Identify.” She stared at the coin as she read the description. “Curious.” 

“Perhaps we should wait, we might get more for that in the Fighter’s Guild,” Selena offered, playing her part to drive up the price.

“Nonsense.” The shopkeeper reached over, grabbed a silver ring from her shelf and set it on the counter. “The skill isn’t that impressive but the token is worth studying, the Guild would just waste it.”

Hermione studied the silver ring with celtic knotwork. “What does it do?”

“It’s linked to a storage cabinet on the ethereal plane. I’m sure the contents of the cabinet will help you in your studies,” the shopkeeper replied, knowing the ring and cabinet were worth less than the token but the supplies in the cabinet were useful for a starting alchemist even if none of them were particularly rare or valuable.

“Deal,” Selena agreed. “They’re great for storing alchemy components as time is frozen while the cabinet is on the ethereal plane.”

“You’ve seen rings like this before?” Hermione asked as she turned to look at Sabrina.

“Sure, they’re decently common, most professional alchemists and merchants that trade in expensive merchandise have similar items,” Selena explained as she picked up the alchemy book and put it in her backpack.

Hermione picked up the ring and studied the knotwork, curious if there was a clue to using it. ‘I guess it can’t be that easy.’ She looked at the shopkeeper. “How do I activate it?”

“Simple, just say summon cabinet while you’re wearing it and vanish when you’re done. Do you have any other curious trinkets?” the shopkeeper asked with a grin that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Hermione briefly considered admitting to having more tokens but the look in the shopkeeper’s eyes was a bit unnerving. “Sorry.” She grabbed the loincloth and headed for the door, wanting to leave before the shopkeeper decided to steal the rest of her stuff.

“Come back anytime dearies,” the shopkeeper said cheerfully as the girls left, looking forward to taking the token apart to see how it worked.