Demons and Botched Rituals Part 10 (Patreon)

“Yeah, that’s nearly pointless,” Hermione muttered as she watched the rust quickly cover the patch of iron that her scouring spell had cleaned. ‘They must have screwed up something when they enchanted it or maybe they started with a rusty pot,’ she mused as she stuck the rusty pot back in her bag and opened her Synthesis window. ‘Even if I can see the magic, I need something to bridge the gaps,’ she mused as she selected her Libromancy and her Conjure Blunt Arrows skills then tossed a silver coin into the catalyst slot and hit the button. 

“Merlin!” Hermione blurted when she saw the description of the resulting skill token and realized that it allowed her to conjure permanent books. She quickly grabbed the silver coin, licked it and hit accept then opened her skill page and read the description, ‘Twenty five mana for a blank journal, double cost for a hardbound journal.’

“So much for conjuring random books filled with lost lore,” Hermione muttered as she spent the mana and conjured a leather bound journal that looked like it had been put together by a seven year old or Ron and some spell-o-tape. “Yeah, that’s embarrassing,” she muttered as she flipped through the journal, wanting to make sure it was actually empty before she destroyed it. 

‘At least I’ll have a way to keep notes,’ she thought as she tossed the journal into the catalyst box and added her new Book Conjuration skill with her Mad Alchemy skill. She pushed the button, causing the book to sparkle and glow for a couple of seconds. She grinned as she glanced at the description. ‘Mystic Binder: Allows the creation of books, both magical and mundane.’ 

Hermione carefully pulled the journal out of the catalyst box and opened it, her lips curving into a slight frown when she realized the book was blank. ‘So much for making actual books.’ She hit the accept button and smiled slightly as the book vanished. ‘At least I’m not destroying books, just empty journals.’ 

She opened her new crafting page and looked over her options. ‘A greyed out enchanting section, a window that shows the finished book and a window for reverse engineering magical books, nice!’ Hermione bounced to her feet and headed towards the bookstore then paused as she realized she might be able to make her own magical books.

She walked back over and sat down on the stone bench she’d been sitting on and focused on her book conjuration skill, paying the fifty mana to conjure a hardback journal. ‘Yeah, that’s going to need work.” She pointed at the crumpled corner of the book. “Repairo.” She smiled as the corner of the book filled out, making the journal slightly more presentable though it still wasn’t square. ‘At least Ron isn’t here to laugh.’ She set the journal in her lap then waved her finger at the book while whispering the charm for protecting books against water damage.

‘Hopefully this works.’ She tossed the newly charmed book into her crafting box and hit the button to reverse engineer it. She watched the book sparkle then selected the tab for magic books and grinned when she saw the waterproof enchantment. ‘100 mana for a waterproof journal.’

Hermione pulled the book out of her crafting menu and charmed it against fire with another whispered incantation then put it back in the box and hit the button, curious what she’d get. She glanced at her new flame resistant enchant for books then selected both Flame Resistance and Waterproof. ‘I guess that explains why I didn’t get a combination enchant.’

Hermione looked through the list of ingredients. ‘Cover, covering, paper, string and glue, nothing unexpected. I should be able to take the conjured books apart and I have glue in the cabinet.’ She glanced around the slightly crowded square. ‘Yeah, I should probably wait until later for that.’

Hermione closed her eyes and thought about the process required to enchant the book with the local magic, having a vague idea how everything worked thanks to her skill even if the details escaped her. She spent a couple of minutes comparing the two methods and trying to shake some details loose before admitting that she’d never learned them and that she was basically a kid playing with a chemistry set. ‘Great, I’m Ron in Potions, I can follow the recipe but I don’t understand.’

She closed her book crafting window and tossed the charmed book into her catalyst window then added Time Warped Alchemy with her Mystic Binding skill and hit the button. ‘Time Warped Alchemy. Great, I’m going to need a larger bag.’ She glanced at her mana bar then conjured another journal and tried again, unsurprised when she got the same token. She set the journals on the bench then conjured another journal and tossed it into her crafting menu. “Flip the other way,” she muttered as she tried the skill combination a third time. 

Hermione grinned as she read the description on her new skill token, ‘Time Warped Book Binding: Reduces the time it takes to make any part of a book by 5% per level.’ She used the token and hit accept after looking over the full description. ‘Third time's the charm I guess.’ She conjured a hardbound book, bringing her mana pool down to twenty seven and increasing her book conjuring skill to two. ‘That’s another thing I need to figure out, why are wizarding spells dirt cheap compared to the local spells?’

She tossed the bland looking journal into her catalyst box then selected her temporary Suspect Substitution skill and her Monster Breeding skill then hit the button.

0o0o0

“If I find the bastard that warded the place against teleportation, I’m going to kill him, dead!” Harry swore as he ran along the curved wall, being careful to avoid the glowing blue field that took up a decent chunk of the area even though Franklin was near the opposite wall. He was less concerned about the negligible cold damage than he was the fact that he’d get slowed down and swarmed by the tide of slimes following him.

“Just because you shouldn’t teleport doesn’t mean you can’t. Swap!” Franklin replied as he dashed towards the group of red and green slimes that were chasing Harry, mostly because the blue slimes chasing him were getting uncomfortably close.

Harry jumped off the wall and rolled under a beam of fire. “You’re lucky I’m used to dodging shit!” he complained as he started tossing firebolts at the blue slimes that were trying to mob Franklin.

“I’m starting to hate this place,” Franklin complained as he tossed himself to the side and rolled to avoid a beam of fire, suddenly happy that his family had insisted that he get what they considered the ‘basics’ when it came to combat training and dancing as it had been surprisingly helpful.

“Starting to?” Harry asked as he jumped back, doing his best to avoid Franklin’s aura and stay on the sections of ground that were lit up and changed when the music shifted as not staying on the lit areas caused the beams of fire to converge on the person that wasn’t dancing.

“Keep moving!” Franklin shouted over the music as he dodged a cloud of noxious green gas that one of the green slimes farted in his general direction. “Die already!”

Harry danced backwards to avoid another beam of fire then continued tossing firebolts at the blue slimes, annoyed at the fact that his magic stat didn’t increase the shitty spell’s damage and that the areas he had to step seemed to be more or less random. “This would help if I had a damned focus!”

“If we live through this I’ll buy you one,” Franklin swore as he twisted and sidestepped onto the next spot on the ground that was lit up, finding the changing patterns easier to deal with than his aunt’s dancing lessons.

“Deal,” Harry replied as he went back to blasting the blue slimes, wishing the slimes weren’t immune to every other spell or type of magic Franklin had because the firebolt spell sucked. “Screw it!” he grumbled as he pulled his holy wand out of his inventory and sent a beam of energy into the group of blue slimes, scattering them and causing the one in the center to messily explode, sliming the general area.

“You realize that’s complete bullshit, right?” Franklin asked as he dodged another beam of fire as it darted towards Harry. He waited a second for the beat of the music to change then danced back towards the wall so he didn’t hit Harry with his cold aura.

“Yeah, I’m a demon, I’m supposed to cheat,” Harry replied as he finished off the blue slimes, dodging the spinning beams of fire that seemed to have stepped up their pace.

“Fair enough,” Franklin replied as he dodged yet another cloud of poison gas, happy the music was speeding up and giving him the dance to put some distance between himself and the poisonous cloud.

Harry frantically tossed himself out of the way as he missed a step and all of the beams of fire coming from the ceiling twisted and tried to burn him to ash at the same time. “Shit!”

“Kill the rest!” Franklin called out as he continued dodging the green clouds as the last of the fire slimes died thanks to the cold.

Harry screamed as one of the beams of fire caught him as he dodged out of the way, causing the skin on his arm to blister and char. A traitorous voice in the back of his mind thanked the Dursleys for ensuring he had a ridiculous pain tolerance as he blasted the last of the green slimes while frantically dodging the rest of the beams of fire and jumping on the various patches of light.

Franklin sighed in relief as the beams of fire cut out and a mithril bound treasure chest appeared under the large reflective ball as the music faded out. “That sucked.”

“Next time, I’m just going to skip wearing the hat and blast shit,” Harry complained as he walked over to look at the chest. “Also what type of an asshole charms something to shoot someone when they teleport?”

“Anyone that doesn’t want their stuff stolen,” Franklin replied as he glanced up at the disco ball that was right over the treasure chest. “That’s probably trapped.”

“Probably. It’s nice to have a decent summoner,” Harry replied as he stuffed the chest into his inventory then bolted for the edge of the room as the disco ball fell from the ceiling.

Franklin jumped backwards and stared in disbelief as the disco ball exploded in a blast of purple and blue energy, obliterating a twenty foot diameter globe where the chest used to be and nearly taking out Harry who teleported a second before the blast would have caught him. 

Harry spun around to look at the destruction as a three foot wide pillar of stone rose out of the newly created pit until it was level with the ground. “I’m starting to think that we might be trouble magnets,” he mused as he walked back over.

“I was expecting the place to try to kill us, but that’s just dirty,” Franklin complained as the two types of energy clashed with each other as they swirled around the pit. 

“Congratulations, you’ve passed the first test,” the voice said cheerfully as a mannequin appeared on the top of the pillar. “Place your hats on the mannequin and you will be rewarded.”

“Yeah, what are the odds that’s a bad fucking idea?” Harry asked as he carefully walked to the edge and looked down at the swirling vortex of energy filling the pit.

“At least the traps are amusing,” Franklin muttered sarcastically as he dropped his cold aura and walked over.

“It certainly beats the giant three headed dog I had to deal with back in my first year of schooling,” Harry mused as he looked for a way to get to the mannequin on the pillar.

“Suddenly my combat teacher doesn’t seem so bad,” Franklin replied as he glanced around the room, looking for another way out. “So, are you seeing a door?”

Harry frowned as he noticed a barely visible door in the bottom of the pit. “Does the door in the bottom of the pit count?” he asked drly.

“That sounds like a good way to die horribly,” Franklin replied as he levitated his blue hat over to the mannequin. “Drop it?”

“Might as well,” Harry agreed, not seeing another way to proceed and wishing he had a healing potion as his arm was in serious need of some burn cream and was starting to throb.

Franklin dropped the hat on the Mannequin’s head, causing the hat to gain a handful of sparkling stars. “It didn’t try to eat us.”

“Beats the alternative,” Harry replied as the hat floated back over the pit, suddenly picturing the Sorting Hat chewing on Ron’s head.

“You should probably check it,” Franklin said as he floated the hat over to Harry.

“Sure, I can take a look.” Harry stuck his wand back in his inventory and grabbed the hat, ready to drop it if it burned or froze his hand. “At least it’s not cold to the touch,” he grumbled as he dropped it in his enchanting box and pushed the button to reverse engineer the hat. “No elemental penalties and it teaches three skills…” he trailed off as he read the details on the new cold aura spell.

Franklin winced as he noticed Harry’s scowl. “Let me guess, the curse got worse?”

“Technically no, but the Heart of Winter skill that replaced the Cold Aura deals 10% of the damage you inflict to you as cold damage and costs 98 mana a second to maintain which is less useful than the Cold Aura.”

Franklin stared at Harry. “That’s more than most apprentices have, how much of a discount do we get per level?”

“Two points a level and a 50 point reduction in the cost for wearing the hat which means it shouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to use in combat if you put the work in and keep the hat, which you’re probably going to want to do anyways,” Harry said as he looked over his new cost reduction enchant. ‘It’s per spell, but using it for a couple of signature spells wouldn’t be a bad idea.’

“Why, how much damage does it do?” Franklin asked, hoping it was a lot considering the insane cost to keep it running.

Harry checked the damage on the spell. “It does 10 plus a fifth of your magic stat as cold damage per second within an area of up to half your magic stat in feet.”

“In other words, you’d want a lot of resistance gear if you were going to use it,” Franklin said thoughtfully.

“Let’s see,” Harry checked the skill on his sheet. “Shit,” he cursed as he saw the skill’s full description. “Yeah, it says I take up to 6.74 damage per enemy, which would kill me in about three seconds if there were ten people.”

“That’s because you have a ridiculous amount of magic,” Franklin muttered as he levitated the red hat off Harry’s head and over to the mannequin. “We should be okay with something that reduces the cold damage by a set amount.”

“That would certainly help and helps explain the next skill,” Harry replied as he reread the next skill the hat taught. “The Ice Soul skill boosts your frost affinity at the cost of decreasing your fire affinity.”

“That makes using the hat slightly less problematic,” Franklin mused as he set the red hat on the mannequin, watching as the blank red color of the hat changed into a hellscape of falling meteors and swirling flames.

“It also sounds like a decent way to die screaming if someone lights a candle near you,” Harry grumbled as the hat floated up and towards him.

“It’s not quite that bad but yeah, I’d certainly want some protective gear to limit the damage considering fire is a common problem for adventurers. What’s the third skill?” Franklin asked as he tried to figure out a decent combination of gear that would let him use the hat effectively.

“It’s just a spell, it summons an ice golem that regenerates when hit with cold magic which should be brutally effective combined with your Heart of Winter ability,” Harry replied as he reached up and caught the hat.

“You can probably cover the vulnerability to fire with magic and with a high enough frost affinity, you’d be absorbing health and mana from your aura skill which means you could probably afford to keep the spell going for at least a couple of seconds,” Franklin mused.

“You’d still freeze your allies,” Harry replied as he dropped the red hat into his box and hit the button to reverse engineer it. “Are wizard hats in style?”

Franklin shrugged. “As much as anything else, wizards generally value function over form.”

“In other words, if you’re an archmage you can get away with wearing eye searing purple robes and no one will complain?” Harry asked with amusement, thinking about some of Dumbledore’s robes that he was fairly sure the man only wore to visually torture people.

“Pretty much,” Franklin agreed. “What does the red hat do?”

Harry pulled his attention back to the hat’s description. “It gives a 20% boost to fire damage while worn and drops the cost of Cloak of Falling Stars by half which is one of the skills it teaches. It also teaches you a Fire Guardian spell which summons a flame turret that will shoot firebolts at whatever you set it to shoot at.”

“What does the Cloak of Stars do?” Franklin asked, curious if it was as impressive as it sounded.

“It summons a swarm of firebolts that swirl around you waiting to be used until you fall unconscious.”

“That would have made dealing with the army of slimes a lot easier,” Franklin said as he watched the falling stars on the hat, fairly sure he wouldn’t be able to wear the hat in public without someone wanting to duel for it.

Harry put the red hat on his head and winced as he shifted his burned arm and it throbbed. “I don’t suppose you have a healing spell?”

“Sorry, I don’t have any potions and healing magic is heavily regulated by the church.” Franklin dropped the green hat on the mannequin. “How much does the Cloak of Falling Stars cost?”

Harry checked the new skill. “200 mana without the hat. Each level reduces the cost by 5.”

“So, 105 points at level 20 without the hat?” Franklin asked as he floated the hat back over the pit, not sure the sickly looking green cloud pattern on the hat was to his taste.

“Probably 100, it’s at zero,” Harry replied as he grabbed the green hat, tossed it in his enchanting box and pushed the button. “Someone needs their head examined,” he grumbled as he read over the hat’s description.

“What’s wrong with it?” Franklin asked.

“It teaches a Poison Cloak skill that gets nastier the higher you level it, which is bad because it damages the user and Essence of Venom which lets you regenerate mana via poison damage.”

“As in it changes the damage to mana?” Franklin asked hopefully, figuring there was no way they’d be that lucky.

“It changes 10% plus 2% of the damage per level of the skill to mana,” Harry replied as he put the hat on so that he could unlock the skills for teaching people. “It also teaches Esuna which removes status effects.”

“That’s better than I was expecting,” Franklin admitted. “So, any idea how we’re supposed to get out of here?”

Harry blinked as he looked around and saw a door in the wall that certainly hadn’t been there the last time he looked. “We could take the door or we could open the door in the pit.”

“Yeah, I’m not jumping down there,” Franklin replied as he stared at the swirling mess of energy.

“Do you think an ice golem is durable enough to get to the door?” Harry asked thoughtfully.

“It’s worth a try.” Franklin tossed Harry the blue hat. “Speaking of loot, did you find anything in the chest?”

“I haven’t checked,” Harry replied as he swapped hats. “I got distracted by the hats and the last time I touched a dungeon chest in the dungeon, my summoner got cut in half. I figured I’d at least wait until we reached the next room to see if I could pick the lock.”

“Good call,” Franklin admitted as Harry gestured and conjured an ice statue of an attractive, naked female with snowy hair that looked a bit bushy and was a touch over nine feet tall. “Yeah, I need to learn that spell.”

Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose, hoping that he could change the appearance of his golem before he got back, he didn’t need Hermione glaring at him. “Walk around the pit, drop down, then open the door,” he ordered as he pointed at the door in the pit on the far wall. He watched his Hermione shaped golem walk around the edge of the pit then jump down into the pit of swirling energy.

Franklin winced as the vortex of strange energy tore into Harry’s ice golem, causing it to fracture and crack as it pulled the door open, revealing a poorly lit passageway. “That still leaves the problem of getting down there without getting torn apart like your golem.”

“Hello? Is anyone there?” a female voice asked from somewhere deeper in the passage way.

“Yes, do you need help?” Franklin asked, fairly sure that it was a trap but not completely sure as the dungeon occasionally found or created innocents that needed saving.

“Yes,” she replied firmly. “I was trapped by an evil spell, if you rescue me, I’ll reward you.”.

“Trap?” Harry asked in a whisper.

“Most likely but there’s a chance it isn’t,” Franklin replied in a whisper.

“In that case, try not to throw up,” Harry said as he reached over and grabbed Franklin’s hand then apparated down to the poorly lit passageway.

Franklin shivered and stuck his hand on his stomach, feeling like he’d been squeezed through a pipe the size of a finger.

Harry forced himself to smile as he walked down the short passage and the familiar scent of old blood hit his nose and he saw a half naked young woman peeking out from behind one of the two large stone pillars that supported the domed ceiling. “What do we need to do…” he trailed off as she stepped out from behind the pillar and he realized that her lower half was the body of a lion. “Let me guess, it involves answering a riddle, yes?”

“Of course,” the voice practically purred as the door slammed shut behind them.

Franklin twitched as he saw the sphinx. “Why do the best breasts come with the most danger?”

The sphinx snickered. “The best dangers often come with the best rewards,” the sphinx replied with amusement as she glanced between the two young men, trying to figure out if she wanted to ask the mortal or the demon her first riddle.

“In that case, I have one for you,” Harry cut in before she could give him an impossible riddle then continued before she could interrupt, “You measure my life in hours and I serve you by expiring. I'm quick when I'm thin and slow when I'm fat. The wind is my enemy, what am I?”

“Interesting, I haven’t heard that one, but it can’t be that hard,” she mused as she considered the answer.