Demons and Botched Rituals Part 4 (Patreon)

Azure pulled her attention off the sealed over entrance to the stone chamber they’d gotten stuck in and focused on Jade who was sitting in front of the fireplace putting the last finishing touches on the bone wand she was working on. “How can you be so calm? We’re trapped.”

The stone chamber featured a good size fireplace of rough design, and a pair of wooden chairs that looked like they would fall apart if a small child sat on them. Azure would have tried crawling up the flue, but the fireplace was lit by the same blue flames as the torches on the walls, despite the lack of fuel, and she could see no way to extinguish it. 

“More like safe,” Jade replied as she finished the last rune on her new wand and started feeding it mana. “Take a second and relax, it should be obvious that we’re not in Hell anymore.”

“How do you figure?” Azure asked in surprise.

Ruby pulled her attention off the blocked off stairs and focused on the blue skinned demon girl with the silver sword. “The various layers of Hell have different flavors, sort of like an aftertaste, just take a second and stick out your tongue.”

Azure sighed then stuck out her tongue, not sure what she was talking about then blinked when she realized that she couldn’t taste anything or rather she could ‘taste’ a faint hint of mint rather than the rancid aftertaste she’d been dealing with since she’d gotten dragged to hell. “If we’re not in Hell, where are we?”

“From the scent, I’m guessing one of the neutral afterlives or limbo,” Jade mused thoughtfully. “Either way, it’s a step up from Hell.”

“Is it rude to ask how long you’ve been a demon?” Azure asked, not sure what the ‘rules’ were, as she’d only been a demon for a couple of hours.

“Not particularly. We were succubi for almost three years then we got demoted and sent to the meat grinder where you found us,” Ruby said as she walked over to the fireplace and warmed her hands.

“You don’t have to answer but how did you get... demoted?” Azure asked, trying to take her mind off her situation.

“We killed a priest when he burst in and tried to beat our summoner to death,” Jade complained.

“You got fired for killing a priest?” Azure asked in surprise. “Shouldn’t you have gotten a reward?”

“You’d think,” Ruby replied sarcastically. 

“Unfortunately the slimy bastard was actually a powerful warlock that was using the church to find enough virgins to summon one of the greater demons in a large and messy ritual. So, we got blamed for screwing things up despite the fact that none of the rest of the demons filed the correct paperwork,” Jade complained as she finished her enchanting, the blood stained bone reshaping itself into a comfortable ten inch wand that looked like polished ivory.

Ruby snorted. “Meh, we’d have screwed him over anyways even if he’d filed the proper paperwork, we’d just have been a lot more careful and not gotten caught, we liked our summoner. What about you, how did you end up a demon?”

“I died in battle, fighting a dragon...” Azure shivered as she remembered charging the house sized dragon despite the fact that she’d wanted to run. “I should have ended up in Valhalla, but it cursed me with its dying breath and I woke up in Hell, looking like a miniature frost giant.”

“You attacked a dragon?” Jade asked in disbelief.

Ruby stared at Azure. “Willingly?”

“It was coming for my village, what was I supposed to do?” Azure asked.

“Most people generally run away from dragons.” Jade pointed at the fire with her wand and sent forth a stream of sickly green energy into the fireplace that caused the fire to flare for a second before she stopped. “Blah, that’s nearly useless against demons.”

“That’s unpleasant,” Azure complained as she rubbed her arms, not liking the feel of that spell. “I don’t suppose you know how to get to Valhalla from here?”

“Not a clue,” Jade replied. “We used a special teleport platform every time we got summoned to Olympus for a party and that’s the only afterlife we’ve visited other than a couple of Hell dimensions.”

“So… what did you normally do once you got summoned?” Azure asked, not sure where or even what Olympus was.

“Generally speaking, we got summoned for sex or relationship advice, though there was that one time we got summoned to help get a kitten out of a tree.” Jade smiled as she remembered the fluffy orange blender of death she’d rescued from the tree.

Azure stared at Jade in disbelief. “Someone risked their soul for a kitten?”

“Now you’re being a bit dramatic,” Ruby replied with amusement. “There’s nothing inherently evil about summoning demons, though most demons have no issues with trying to corrupt people or cause senseless mayhem.”

“Don’t succubi drain life energy from the people they have sex with?” Azure asked.

“Barely, it amounts to about ten to twenty percent more than just having sex which isn’t remotely fatal, unless there is already something wrong with you,” Jade explained as she started carving on another section of demon bone for her twin. “Of course, there are spells and certain abilities that can increase the drain to a lethal level, but I’ve never seen the point.”

Ruby gestured toward an empty spot in the room and conjured a large canopied bed, easily large enough for half a dozen people, covered in pillows and fluffy blankets. “I’m going to get some sleep, you’re welcome to join me.”

Azure yawned. “I shouldn’t, but it has been a long day.”

“Don’t worry, I only bite if you ask nicely,” Ruby teased as she crawled onto the bed and sprawled out with a smile on her face.

Azure let her sword vanish then sat down on the other side of the bed, fairly sure that letting her guard down was a horrible idea, but at the same time, she was dead on her feet and really after being turned into a demon and banished to hell she was pretty sure things couldn’t get any worse. 

0o0o0

Harry did his best to ignore the whispers in the back of his mind telling him that he should hurry, that he needed every last coin to be his before someone else stole them, mostly because he also knew that he wasn’t going to be able to keep the shiny gold coins.

‘If you just killed him, you’d be able to keep the coins,’ whispered a voice in the back of his mind that sounded a bit like Dudley.

“Yeah, except for the part where I literally can’t attack him directly,” Harry argued as he continued calmly filling the bag with coins, trying to set a pace that wouldn’t exhaust him as his hands were starting to shake and his stamina regeneration was already cut in half from the curse and he knew it would get worse before he finished. ‘I wonder if this was how Frodo felt when he finally got to Mount Doom?’

‘No, you’re stronger than the halfling, there is nothing wrong with a bit of greed, how else are you going to buy me the largest library in the world?’ argued a voice that sounded like Hermione.

‘Or dresses and jewels,’ Ginny’s voice whispered gleefully.

‘Or a chocolate covered astronomy professor,’ Luna suggested, her voice sounding startlingly clear.

“What?” Harry’s asked, not sure how her suggestion connected to anything.

‘Have you seen her in the rain? And chocolate is always tasty,’ Luna said then giggled. ‘Oops sorry, I’ve got to go, bye Mr. Nargle.’

‘Don’t worry mate, I’ll take your gold from you, that way, you won’t have to worry about it,’ Ron’s voice said in a sickly sweet whisper.

‘Don’t listen to the sniveling little shit,’ argued a voice that sounded like Ron’s mother. ‘He wouldn’t know what to do with a galleon, let alone thousands of gold coins.’

“Which is mostly your fault,” Harry replied as he forced himself back to tossing coins into the bag, not realizing that he was moving faster than his previous pace.

‘How dare you, we took you in, we gave you food and you won’t share?’ Molly’s voice complained shrewishly.

‘Of course not, he’s an ungrateful shit, he never gave us any of his gold,’ another whisper complained in Vernon’s voice.

Harry laughed at the idea of Vernon having anything to do with the wizarding world or knowing jack or shit about his account. “You’re just a figment, you’re not real.”

‘Even in the wizarding world, hearing voices is bad,’ a voice that sounded like Hermione whispered cautiously.

“Yeah, no shit,” Harry muttered as he absentmindedly scrubbed at one of the coins that had a spot of gunk on it and wasn’t as shiny as the rest. He blinked as he realized what he was doing. ‘Merlin, I’m not Draco,’ he complained as he went back to tossing the coins in the bag, wishing he was already done as his fingers and toes were starting to tingle like they were falling asleep.

‘Nah, I’m so much better and Pansy shines my knob any time I ask,’ the whisper that sounded like Draco said proudly.

‘I’m not sure bragging about your dog licking your junk is an accomplishment,’ Ginny’s voice suggested with amusement.

‘Who’s side are you on?’ Draco’s voice complained.

‘Harry’s, how else do you think I’m going to get him to fuck me silly?’ she replied with amusement.

‘Can I take pictures?’ a voice that sounded like Colin’s asked with excitement, completely ruining Harry’s happy mental image.

“No,” Harry complained as he picked up the pace and did his best to ignore the voices in his head.

0o0o0

“Do we have a plan?” Selena asked as they walked down the hallway, heading back towards the arena.

“I have a couple ideas but nothing I’d call a plan,” Hermione replied as she tried to get her thoughts in order.

“Considering my current plan involves looking through the cabinet and skimming the contents of the alchemy book to see if there is anything we can use to survive the arena while you work on leveling your temporary arrow conjuration skill, I’m all ears if you have something better.”

“Not particularly, that was more or less what I was planning on doing,” Hermione said as they walked into the room with the acid. “I only have a couple of silver coins left, so I’d like to make them count.”

“Which means you should make every attempt count,” Selena said as she walked over to the wall. 

“Do you want me to apparate us across?” Hermione offered.

“No thanks.” Selena cast her spider climb spell then started crawling along the wall. “Have you tried using the conjured arrows as catalysts?”

Hermione pulled her attention off her friend and opened her Synthesis skill. “No, I was just assuming it wouldn’t work because the arrows are conjured,” she replied as she grabbed one of the adamantite arrows from her quiver and dropped it into the box.

“Any trouble?” Selena asked as she jumped down off the wall on the other side of the pool of acid.

“No, which is weird,” Hermione muttered as she selected her two arrow conjuration abilities and read the text in the box. “It gives a 10% chance to upgrade the resulting skill.” She hit the creation button, happy that she had a decent alternate for silver coins. “Okay…” she trailed off as she read the details on her new skill token and realized that she was looking at a very useful if slightly expensive skill. “I wasn’t expecting that to work on the first try.”

“Permanent adamantite arrows?” Selena asked hopefully.

“Blunt ones but I’m not going to complain,” Hermione said as she pulled the arrow out of her catalyst box and snapped the wooden shaft over her knee, giving her the skill and causing the arrow to flash and vanish.

“How much mana, and how much metal do they have?” Selena asked excitedly.

Hermione focused and conjured a blunt adamantite arrow then bounced the blunt tip in her hand a couple of times. “It’s probably about a fourth of a pound of metal which isn’t all that bad for 50 mana.”

“Could be worse,” Selena mused, trying to think of the cost in terms of conjuring metal rather than conjuring arrows. “This should make getting the last few levels of blacksmithing easier.”

Hermione pulled her new ring out of her pocket and slipped it on her ring finger then apparated across the pool of acid. “Let’s see what we have to work with. Summon Cabinet.”

Selena grinned when a well crafted, large, dark wooden cabinet with silver hinges and knobs appeared on the sand. “Nice workmanship.”

Hermione reached out and opened the cabinet, revealing dozens of wooden boxes of herbs and over a hundred old fashioned bottles filled with spices or strange liquids. “That’s much better than I was expecting.”

“Mint, rose petals, liferoot, mountain ash, silver filings…” Selena trailed off as she looked over the rest of the labels on the containers. “Nothing exceptionally expensive or even rare, but this should cover the basics.”

“It’s a start.” Hermione pulled her attention off the ingredients and focused on conjuring razor sharp adamantite arrows with her quiver’s skill. “With any luck, I’ll be able to increase the quiver’s skill enough that I’ll get to keep it.”

“Hopefully,” Selena said as she retrieved the alchemy book from her backpack. “With any luck, we’ll find a potion of giant strength or something to keep us from being hit.”

“I wouldn’t object,” Hermione replied absently as she continued conjuring arrows.

0o0o0

“Just a little more,” Harry muttered as he stretched his fingers so that he could reach the cursed coin that had fallen behind the throne. He grinned when he managed to catch the edge of the coin with his fingertip and pull it closer. “Gotcha! Stupid bloody orders…” he trailed off as he managed to grab the coin and a blue popup window appeared in front of his face informing him that he’d unlocked a new skill thanks to maxing out his Cursed Bones skill. 

He pulled his attention away from his new Electrical Affinity skill when the stone door slammed shut. “I wonder if Bill has to deal with this type of crap,” he muttered as he stood up and examined the stone door that showed no sign of a door handle or other means of opening it from the inside.

‘Of course, this and worse,’ Bill’s voice replied.

“That explains the dead guy,” Harry muttered as he reached over and poked the crown with his finger then jerked his hand away when it zapped him. “Merlin!” he cursed as the skeleton fell apart and the skull landed on the seat of the throne.

‘Be careful of the eckeltricity,’ Mr. Weasley’s voice said helpfully.

“Funny, not,” Harry grumbled as he poked the skull with his finger, relieved when it didn’t shock him. He stuffed the skull and the crown into Randel’s bag then apparated back to the pedestals and made his way back to Randel, trying not to stumble or move too fast as he didn’t want to tire himself out. He wouldn’t have bothered returning, except he’d been ordered to return when he filled up the magically expanded bag and he’d more or less filled it. “I’m going to need another bag, I filled this one with gold,” he said as he walked over, trying not to give him a reason to ask for details. 

Randel didn’t bother to look up from his book as he pulled another bag of holding out of his pocket and absently tossed it at Harry. “Leave the gold, loot the rest of the dungeon, same rules as before.”

Harry bit down on his tongue to keep himself from blurting anything out about the curse so that he could keep the cursed coins and forced his fingers to release the bag of gold, mostly because he refused to be blinded by greed like Ron.

Cursed Copper Bones Skill Lost!

Lesser Resistance (Curses) Unlocked!

Harry skimmed over the notice that informed him that he’d lost his cursed skill because he’d willingly given up the cursed gold as he turned and walked back toward the exit, already feeling loads better. He’d almost made it out of the room when Randel started screaming, “No! I will not, it’s mine! You can’t have it, I’ll kill you, you ungrateful bitch!”

Harry spun around and stared as his master, who was screaming and thrashing on the floor while arcs of lightning played over his skin, leaving horrible black burns everywhere they touched. “Bloody hell…” he trailed off as he watched Randel’s flesh ignite and his screams took on a banshee like quality for several seconds before the lightning stopped pouring out of the cursed crown on his head and he felt Hell’s pull on his soul.

“Yeah, that’s cursed to high hell,” Harry grumbled as he walked over and stuck the man in his inventory after tapping him with his foot to make sure he wasn’t going to get shocked. He ignored the discarded skull on the ground as he focused on the bag of cursed gold, trying to figure out a decent method to reclaim the bag without getting cursed by the gold. “I’m not stealing your gold, I’m just taking the bag.”

He reached down and upended the bag then started walking backwards as gold coins poured out of the bag and spilled onto the stone floor. Once the gold stopped pouring out he turned the bag inside out then stuck it into his inventory and let Hell pull him out of the dungeon.

Harry glanced around the cavern then blinked when he saw a tall and skinny neon orange skinned demon dressed in green leather about ten feet away, using both hands to beat the crap out of a large green skinned demon with a walking stick.

“Steal my gold ye bastard, not on my watch!” the orange skilled demon shouted as he pummeled the green skinned demon, making sure each shot hurt.

Harry reached into his inventory, pulled out Ralph’s wand and pointed it at a group of green skinned teenage looking demons trying to ‘sneak’ up on the orange skinned demon. “Reducto…” he trailed off as he pushed magic through the wand and a beam of warm sunlight poured out of the wand, causing one of the three green skinned demons to catch fire where the light hit it in the chest. “That’s new,” he muttered as the beam of light burned a hole through the screaming demon.

The orange skinned demon glanced at the remaining two demons then brought his shillelagh down on the large green skinned demon’s head, causing it to explode like a watermelon shot from a catapult. “I had it under control, but thanks,” he said absently as he tossed a dagger at each of the two remaining demons, killing them instantly. “Where the fuck did you get a holy wand in Hell?”

Harry pulled his attention off the knives buried up to their hilts in the demons’ eye sockets and focused on the strange three horned orange demon, curious if the number of horns on his head meant something or if it was random. “I took it off a dead body, why?”

“It shouldn’t work,” the demon grumbled as he stared at the hole burned in the demon’s chest.

“Why not?” Harry asked, not sure why his spell hadn’t worked but hoping the other demon could provide a clue.

“Holy magic isn’t supposed to work in hell, you’d need to be a demigod or have magic pouring out of your ears,” the demon muttered the last part as he pulled a knife out of his belt pouch and started skinning the green skinned demon with the crushed head.

“No idea…” Harry trailed off as he realized the demon was skinning the other demon. “Why are you skinning him?”

“I’ve lost count of the number of demons I’ve skinned,” the demon replied absently as he continued skinning the demon. “Hell is mostly a barter economy, I give a witch I know leather, rib bones and vellum and she casts the occasional spell when I need something. I know a blue skinned shaman that makes excellent leather outfits and a knife maker that needs leather for her handles.”

“That sounds... useful,” Harry admitted, trying not to think about the green skinned demons as sentient creatures.

“If you want to learn, I’ll make you a deal,” the orange demon offered.

“What type of deal?” Harry asked warily.

“One that helps both of us,” the demon said as he continued skinning the green demon. “I’m a Class Instructor, mostly rogue classes. One of the classes has the skinning skill which means you can help me with an order I don’t want to deal with.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Harry asked warily, fairly sure there was some sort of trick.

The demon laughed. “Nothing and everything. One of the knife makers I normally sell leather to wants five skins worth of material of questionable quality for her apprentice. I’m a bit of a perfectionist and she’s offering one of her apprentice’s knives as payment which isn’t worth my time, except that she’s a valued associate.”

“In other words, if you teach me, I can get the leather for you and you don’t piss off your friend?” Harry asked, not really seeing a problem with that type of trade.

“Basically. Do we have a deal?” the demon asked.

“How long will it take?” Harry asked, not sure he wanted to stick around long enough to learn an entire class.

“I just spend twenty five mana and you get the class, it’s that easy. I’ll even let you borrow my extra skinning knife,” the demon offered. “If you don’t like the drawback, you can always drop the class after you find something better.”

“What’s the drawback?” Harry asked, wishing he had a manual for the classes and skills.

“The class comes with the Untrustworthy trait, there’s just something a bit off about Highwaymen even if no one can put their fingers on it. Of course, you’re a demon so I doubt you’d even notice, I certainly didn’t.”

“Fair enough, you have a deal,” Harry said, not seeing a problem with dropping the class later if he found something better.

The demon pointed at Harry. “System: Train Highwayman.”

Harry grinned as he looked over the popup that appeared in front of him, listing off the basic skills the class unlocked as well as a brief and mostly useless description of the Untrustworthy trait. “Appraise, Lock Picking, Skinning and Traps are a good start and the description for the Untrustworthy trait seems a bit vague.”

“As I said, you’re a demon, you probably won’t notice the difference,” the orange demon replied as he handed Harry his skinning knife. “Accept the class and get to work.”

Harry hit the accept button on the window and twitched as knowledge flowed into his head about the proper way to skin things, judge the value of valuable items and his knowledge of Picking Locks and dealing with traps expanded beyond the basics he’d picked up from dealing with the Weasley Twins. “Do I lose the skills if I drop the class?”

“If the class gave you the skill, you’ll probably lose it or at least have it crippled.” The demon gestured toward the demon with a hole burned through his chest. “You might as well start with the one you killed then work your way to the larger demon.”

“Alright.” Harry walked over and knelt down by the green skinned demon’s leg so that he could start skinning it. ‘Just think of them as rabid animals, they’re not people.’