Demons and Botched Rituals part 8 (Patreon)

“Congratulations, you’re the proud if temporary owner of a class granting item,” Jade said cheerfully as she tossed the rune etched silver bracers onto the bed next to Harry.

“Temporary?” Harry asked as he glanced up from reading Deckard’s book on identifying magical items and looked at Jade.

“Yeah, they’ll basically fall apart once you use them, which means you should put them on so you can teach everyone else the enchanting class,” Jade said, looking forward to having an actual class to help her increase her Enchanting.

“What class and are there any downsides?” Harry asked as he studied the vaguely familiar runes on the bracers, wishing Hermione was there to translate them as he was fairly sure he’d seen them in one of her homework projects. ‘I never should have let Ron talk me into taking Divination, what the hell was I thinking?’

“No idea and not that I know of,” Jade replied as she grabbed a ring from the pile of random magical items and flipped to the section in Deckard’s book on identifying magical rings. “I’m just matching the colors in the book with the aura, it doesn’t give me the specifics.”

Harry slipped the bracers on, half expecting them to burn the class information into his mind rather than just create a class window. “Runic Enchanter, it gives Art, Axe Mastery, Enchanting, Spear Mastery and Sword Mastery,” he mused as he read the skill list off the window.

“Can you share it?” Jade asked hopefully.

“Let me check.” Harry hit the accept button and watched the bracers vanish, a touch surprised that someone would create a work of art knowing the magic would destroy it the first time it was used. He opened his character sheet and looked at the class then opened his Wayfinder menu. “I don’t see anything preventing me from sharing it.”

“Good, do you have any patterns?” Jade asked hoping she could pick up a couple of new patterns.

“No idea.” He brought up his new enchanting menu and looked at his options. “It doesn’t look like it. Any idea why I have a Divine Runic Script button? It’s right over an empty box.”

“It probably lets you identify magical items,” Jade said as she tossed him the pair of boots that increased the distance a person could jump. “Toss these in the box and try it?”

Harry dropped the boots into the box then hit the Divine Runic Script button and stared as a vaguely familiar rune appeared above the boots and his pattern button went from being grey to green. “Huh, I think I just got a pattern.”

“How the hell?!” Jade blurted as she stared at Harry. “You’re seriously telling me that you managed to reverse engineer the boots just from identifying them?”

“Maybe?” Harry asked as he opened his patterns and looked at the movement enhancing rune. “Apparently, why?”

“Because it’s not supposed to work that way, you get patterns by trading them, through skills or by finding them in the dungeon, not reverse engineering patterns by pushing a button.”

“That just goes to prove that even I can’t be unlucky all the time,” Harry said thoughtfully.

Jade shook her head. “There’s luck and then there’s that. Where did you find the bracers?”.

“In the Warlock dungeon, in a chest with an animated statue that tried to kill anyone that opened or touched the chest.”

“How did you deal with the statue?” Jade asked, curious how he dealt with the golem considering they were usually immune to magic or at least heavily resistant.

“I didn’t,” Harry replied smugly. “I just stuffed the chest in my inventory so I didn’t have to touch it.”

“Yeah, that’s cheating,” Jade teased.

“I don’t remember signing anything that said I’d play fair and playing fair didn’t get me very far when I was human, so what’s the point?” Harry asked, thinking about the various adults in his life and his experiences at Hogwarts.

“No idea, I’m a demon,” Jade replied playfully. “What does it take to enchant the boots?”

“In this particular case, I just carve the rune into the boots and pour 500 mana into it,” Harry explained.

“So, it’s useless?” Jade asked, rather disappointed in the class that had seemed so promising before he’d told her the mana cost.

“No, I just pour mana into it,” Harry replied, not seeing why having to hide a rune somewhere on the leather would make it useless. “How many pairs of boots do you expect to need to enchant in a day?”

Jade blinked when she realized Harry was talking about enchanting multiple sets of gear in a day which implied that he had over 500 mana. “How much mana do you have?”

“Almost enough to do it three times…” Harry trailed off as he noticed the look of disbelief on her face. “I spent the last few years learning magic, what did you expect?”

“You realize that most mages start with like 10 to 20 magic before classes, right?” Jade asked dryly.

“Seriously, twenty?” Harry asked in surprise. “How do they expect to get anything done?”

“Their class usually gives them one or two points a level and they drink potions and use mana regeneration skills,” Jade explained.

“One or two?” Harry asked, thinking about his Daemon class and the fact that it gave him five points of magic a level. “How many stats points do demons normally get per level?”

“That depends on the demon. Demons generally have better stats than humans but they tend to make up the difference with classes. I get a point of strength, two points of Agility and Vitality and three points of magic every level. Azure probably gets more strength and vitality.”

“Wait, if enchanting costs a lot of mana, how did you make the wand?” Harry asked.

“The cost depends on what I make them out of…” she trailed off as she realized that wood cost nearly 500 which was why she never used it.

Harry grinned. “That looks like the ‘I had a thought’ face, spill.”

“It just occurred to me that I’ve probably been thinking about things backwards, there wasn’t a negative for making a wand out of wood, there was a price reduction for making things out of the bones of magical creatures.”

“And you didn’t realize that until now?” Harry asked.

“To be fair, I was a pleasure demon, people generally don’t haul us into dungeons which means my collection of enchants isn’t all that impressive,” Jade replied with a shrug that pulled Harry’s attention to her breasts. 

Harry turned his attention back to his inventory and grabbed a small branch from the lightning struck tree and handed it to her. “Can you check if this is better than normal wood?”

“Sure.” Jade opened her enchanting menu and dropped the piece of wood into the box then brought up her wand pattern. “It costs slightly less than the broken table leg I tried when I first got the skill.”

“How much is slightly?” Harry asked.

“It’s only 443 mana rather than 491,” Jade replied. “Of course, that was from a mundane tree.”

“In other words, it might just be the fact that the tree came from a hell dimension and nothing to do with the tree being struck by lightning,” Harry mused.

“You’ll have to run some tests. Can I get the pattern for the boots?” Jade asked, curious how his ability to teach people worked.

“Sure, let me check something,” Harry said as he selected the button to scribe the pattern.

Jade grinned when Harry conjured a flat shiny green stone with an unfamiliar rune carved into it in Harry’s hand. “That wasn’t your teaching ability, was it?”

“No, I just pushed the button to scribe the pattern,” Harry replied as he tossed the rune carved rock to Jade and swapped his holy wand for the boots, happy that learning the pattern didn’t require destructive testing. 

“Nice, that looks a lot easier than writing out the formulas,” Jade said cheerfully as she focused on the stone and used it. She looked at her new pattern, not terribly surprised that it involved carving an unfamiliar rune into boots as that fit the source of the enchantment. “We’re going to need to recruit someone with Leatherworking.”

“I’ll keep my eye out,” Harry replied cheerfully as he glanced down at Jade’s breasts.

“You’re sharing the class, right?” she asked hopefully.

“No reason not to,” Harry replied as he spent the 25 mana to teach Jade the Runic Enchanting class.

Jade quickly skimmed over the class description then gleefully hit accept before he could change his mind, opened her Enchanting menu and looked at the changes. She dropped the ring she’d been trying to identify into the box and pushed her new Divine Runic Script button. “Huh, Ring of Strength +6, Slashing Resistance +3.”

“That’s useful,” Harry agreed as he opened his character sheet and looked at his strength score.

Jade brought up the new pattern. “500 mana per 2 Strength and +1 Slashing Resistance, in other words, you could copy the ring in a couple of levels or make a less useful version right now.”

“If I’m reading the stats correctly, 6 points of strength would let you walk around with 30 extra pounds of gear for the same effort,” Harry said thoughtfully. “How many magical rings can we wear?”

“Just two, otherwise they start misbehaving,” Jade replied as she took the ring out of her box and tossed it to Harry.

“Good to know,” Harry replied as he dropped the ring in his box and hit the button. “Are there rings for boosting magic?”

“Yes, but I don’t have one and you only get 5 points of mana per point of magic, so I don’t think we’ll be able to use gear to avoid leveling.”

“It was worth a thought,” Harry said as he looked at the gear slots he had on his character sheet, curious what type of magical items he could find and if he could find something to duplicate his cloak. “What about mana regeneration?”

Jade shook her head. “Most of the enchants I’ve seen are in the mana per minute range, which is great if you’re a human with shit regeneration but magic using demons are better off grabbing a skill to increase our natural regeneration. Meditation speeds up mana regeneration by a factor of 10 per point of mediation which means you shouldn’t have mana issues at that point, at least not outside of combat.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for it,” Harry replied as he slipped the strength boosting ring onto his finger. “When do we normally get skills from our demonic classes?”

“Every ten levels, which is why most demons with any sense work on acquiring classes when they can.”

“Makes sense. If I drop a class will I lose the stat points from the class?” he asked, thinking of the strength and agility he’d gotten from his Edgelord class.

“Only if they’re guaranteed. Some classes have a chance for extra stats every level, those are more like training boosts and stick around when you drop the class,” Jade explained as she picked up a bracelet and dropped it into her box and hit the button.

“Good to know,” Harry replied as he dropped his holy wand into the box and hit the button to get the pattern. “Now if I just had a pattern for an actual wand,” he grumbled as he looked at the patterns for wands. “This lets me make wands based on the material and apparently unicorn hair makes holy wands, not surprising.”

“What type of wand are you looking for?” Jade asked as she looked over the pattern for the defensive bracelet.

“The type that you can use to cast spells,” Harry grumbled, wishing he’d picked up a book on creating wands in Diagon Alley or actually looked it up in the library rather than waste time playing chess with Ron.

“You mean like a magical focus?” Jade asked, not sure why Harry needed a focus considering his mana pool was monstrous.

“Sure, we can go with that,” Harry agreed as he stuck his ivory wand back in his inventory. 

“I used to have a nice one before I lost all of my stuff, stupid backstabbing boss.” Jade shook her head. “Still, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a magical focus in a magic shop.”

“That’s good,” Harry replied as he turned to look at the stairs. “I should probably head back and pick up the Blacksmith class before I get too distracted and never want to leave.”

Jade laughed as she tossed Harry the defensive bracelet. “Put that on, it should help keep the blood on the inside.”

“Thanks,” Harry replied as he tossed the bracelet into his Enchanting box and hit the button to get the pattern. “Bonus strength and defense, I’m going to have to make some of these for everyone.”

“Yet another reason to fix your blacksmithing,” Jade said as Harry slipped off the bed and headed for the exit. “Are you sure trapping Fred here with us is a good idea?”

“No but you’re probably the closest thing this dimension has to a counselor and I don’t want to keep Salaxiz or Sin waiting.”

“Don’t get yourself killed,” Jade commanded.

“I haven’t yet,” Harry replied as he left.

“That’s not saying much,” Jade muttered as the door vanished. ‘Stay safe, Harry.’

0o0o0

Hermione sighed as a red haired girl with fox ears and a bushy red tail sticking out of her shorts danced into the forge with almost supernatural grace and headed over towards the aprons. ‘Blast, a couple more minutes and I could have learned something else.’

Windle put the finishing touches on the arcane smithing hammer that he’d crafted for Hermione then looked at his apprentice who was putting on a pair of leather gloves. “Let me guess, you were talking to a pretty lass and lost track of time?”

“Technically, guilty as charged,” the fox girl replied as she slipped the apron on over her head. “Though to be fair, I was trying to get a better deal on the ore,” the apprentice replied as she worked on trying the apron strings.

“Right, I’m not going to ask how much was actual work and how much was flirting,” Windle teased as he handed Hermione the hammer. “Best of luck with your hammer, if you ever find more adamantite ore to sell, I’ll be around.”

“I’ll keep you in mind,” Hermione agreed.

“Please tell me I didn’t miss anything,” the fox girl begged.

“Like my hammer of ultimate power or a Hammer of Thunderbolts?” Windle asked with amusement.

The fox shook her head. “So, nothing?”

Windle raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying that I can’t make a hammer of ultimate power?”

“I’m saying you’re not heartless enough to deprive your poor little fuzzy apprentice of the experience and pattern,” the fox girl replied then mock pouted. “Of course, I could be wrong.”

Windle shook his head. “Why do I put up with you?”

“Because I’m adorable, cute, and fuzzy?” the fox girl asked with amusement.

“And here it was because I thought you were an excellent smith with talent, I guess I was wrong,” Windle teased. “Honestly, nothing you don’t already have. Hermione picked up the Apprentice class and got a bad collection of starting patterns, so I figured I’d make her a set of fireproof tongs, a durable chisel and an arcane smithing hammer to get her started.”

“Thank you again for the help,” Hermione said as she moved away from the forge so that the fox girl could take her place.

Windle shook his head. “Don’t worry, every smith needs a decent set of tools.”

“Now I don’t feel nearly as bad for being late,” the fox girl said with a grin.

“Speaking of magical tools, do you know where I can get a magical focus for spells?” Hermione asked, figuring it was easier to ask directions than to just wander around.

“You’re going to want the magical district,” Windle said as he grabbed the crucible of adamantite he’d been melting in the forge. “The Second Chalice is a secondhand and low end shop that is willing to do business with apprentice enchanters. It’s remarkably honest about the item appraisals even if the items available for sale aren’t always the best.”

“That’s better than the Mystic Orb,” the fox girl complained. “They like to pretend that everything is created by masters rather than apprentices or journeymen and their labeling is creative at best,” the fox girl said.

“Thanks, I’ll check out the Second Chalice shop,” Hermione replied as she took off the gloves and apron she’d been wearing. 

“Don’t be afraid to shop around.” The fox girl turned to look at Windle as Hermione headed for the street. “So what are we working on?”

“The baron wants an adamantite blade for his son, I have the adamantite and I have a desire to empty his coffers, let’s get started,” Windle said cheerfully.

Hermione forced herself not to step back into the shop to get away from the noise as she was hit with a wall of sound. “It’s no worse than a quidditch game,” she muttered under her breath as she headed towards the magical district, keeping a tight grip on her new tongs and hammer as she didn’t want to lose either and they were too large to stick in her pockets unlike the chisel.

Hermione grinned when she stepped out of the Blacksmith Quarter and the noise dropped to a dull roar. She glanced over the stops that lined the cobblestone street, a bit surprised that the shops actually looked sturdy and well made rather than held up with magic and hope like various parts of Diagon Alley. “Morrigan’s Weapons, Vigor’s Stomping Boots, Velcore’s Demon Pies…” she trailed off, not sure if the pies were made by a demon or out of demons. “Yeah, it probably just has a demonic cook,” she muttered as she continued walking down the street and scanning the shop’s various signs.

Hermione tightened her fingers around her hammer and scowled when she saw a black robed man in his late teens walk out of the store she was approaching with a naked busty, pink skinned, demonic woman on a leash that connected to the man’s bracer.

“You should have bought the rope,” the demon complained. “Your sister needs to be tied to a bed and fucked until someone can pull the stick out of her ass.” She smiled when she saw Hermione. “Back me up here, a bit of recreational fucking is good for the soul.”

The man shook his head. “Sorry, you’ll have to forgive her, that’s her answer for just about everything.”

“Is that why you keep her on a leash?” Hermione asked, doing her best not to snap at the stranger.

“No, she’s on a leash because she’s a perverted demon and I lost a bet,” he explained as his demon reached over, grabbed his hand and moved it to her head.

“He bet that I couldn’t behave myself during lunch and he lost which means he has to walk me around like a pet,” she said smugly as he ‘scratched’ her head.

Hermione opened her mouth then closed it, her words failing her as she realized the demon was more than happy with her embarrassed summoner. “Do you know where to find the Second Chalice shop?” she asked, trying to change the subject and figure out where the shop was without having to waste time wandering around.

“Sure, it’s a block up and on the left,” the man replied as he pointed down the street.

“Thank you, I’d rather not be late,” Hermione replied as she started walking, happy that she’d ended up with a decently sane summoner.

“Good point,” the demon woman agreed. “Your summoner might not spank you, you’d better hurry.”

“Best of luck,” the mage offered, knowing some summoners weren’t all that nice.

‘At least the blacksmith wasn’t insane,’ Hermione thought as she continued walking down the cobblestone street glancing at the windows filled with magical gear and the signs over the doors or windows that proudly proclaimed the shop name. “Barney’s Destructive Spells, Tolvan’s Shaky Brooms, Larry’s Suits of Questionable Quality, Borkman’s Work Robes, Queen’s Dresses of Horror…” Hermione trailed off as she noticed the handwritten sign on the door of the dress shop as she walked past it, “Discount on dresses made from disobedient apprentices!”

“Yeah, I’m not touching that,” she muttered when she glanced in the window and saw someone that resembled a gender swapped Snape. She pulled her attention off the shops and looked over the people wandering around, pointing at various shops or talking about various deals or sales. 

“At least everyone looks like they’re having fun, or not,” she muttered the last part when she noticed a blond haired boy in black robes sitting on the back of a half naked green skinned demon girl that was on her hands and knees providing a bench for the blond haired kid eating an ice cream cone that reminded her far too much of Draco back in first year. ‘Hopefully he’s smart enough to ignore me.’

Hermione forced herself not to glare at the kid as he started amusing himself by flicking the demon’s ears, something that was causing the demonic woman to scowl and glare at the ground in a way that she was a touch surprised didn’t cause it to burst into flames. ‘Don’t start trouble, you don’t have a wand,’ she repeated in her head, trying not to glare at the little shit as she walked past.

“Don’t glare at me bitch!” the kid shouted at Hermione, having noticed the way she was glaring at him.

Hermione ignored the ill behaved child and walked into the shop. She paused as she realized there were thousands of trinkets locked behind glass cabinets and hundreds of figurines on shelves behind the counter. ‘At least he looks nicer than Borgins.’

The white haired man behind the counter looked at Hermione’s hammer with a raised eyebrow as she walked up to the counter. “Welcome to Second Chalice, is there something I can help you with?”

“I need a magical focus,” Hermione replied as the door opened and the ill behaved boy stalked into the shop.

“What type of focus are you looking for?” the old man asked as he studied the magical tongs in her left hand. “I mostly deal in rings, gloves, and orbs.”

“Is there a difference?” Hermione asked as she shifted slightly so that she could keep an eye on the boy without looking like she was paying him any attention.

“How stupid are you?” the boy asked sarcastically. “Everyone knows that demon skin gloves give the most power.”

‘Don’t hit him, it’s not worth it,’ Hermione reminded herself as she tried to figure out what type of focus to try.

The shopkeeper looked down his nose at the boy that was trying to upset one of his customers. “While it’s true that using the skin of magical creatures or demons will boost spells of a related nature, orbs have less drawbacks.”

“What about rings?” Hermione asked, doing her best to ignore the mini Draco.

“They’re far easier to walk around with than orbs but they’re generally more expensive because of the material cost,” the shopkeeper explained.

“How much are we talking?” Hermione asked.

“Anywhere from 5 gold for silver rings made by apprentices just learning their trade to hundreds or thousands of gold crowns for the rings made by true masters.” He smiled as he pulled a pair of red gloves out from under the counter. “These reduce the cost of fire magic by 4% and increase the cost of everything else by 8%.”

“That’s stupid,” the boy complained. “Why would anyone do that?”

“If you mean the Enchanter, he just wanted the experience so there wasn’t a point in wasting mana crystals on cheap leather and a weak boost when he could get a discount for the negative trait.”

Hermione set the tongs on the counter. “May I touch them?”

“Sure,” the shopkeeper replied, not remotely worried about the cheap gloves.

Hermione grinned when she touched the gloves and they sparked with magic. “How much?”

“I’ll let them go for a gold,” the shopkeeper said thoughtfully, rather amused that the demon girl wanted them.

“Deal,” Hermione said as she pulled out a gold coin and set it on the table. She quickly put the gloves on and gestured at the tongs, moving her index finger like it was a wand. “Wingardium Leviosa,” she ordered and smiled smugly as the tongs floated off the counter. “They’re not a perfect match but they’ll work.”