Demons and Botched Rituals Part 11 (Patreon)

Harry used the time the sphinx was mulling over the question to glance around the chamber filled with bones and glittering treasures half hidden under piles of bones. 'No obvious exit other than the way we came, no chest I can just inventory and apparate, let's hope my idea works.'

Franklin pulled his attention off her breasts as she turned to look at Harry, not wanting to give her a reason to rip him apart or choose a particularly difficult riddle.

"Technically speaking a candle serves you by burning but it's probably close enough," she grinned when Harry's expression grew slightly tighter. "You're a candle, yes?" the sphinx asked, wondering if he'd try to lie.

"I'm a wizard but yes, the answer to the riddle was a candle, which means the riddle has been answered and you're free to go, right?" Harry asked, hoping his idea worked as he wasn't particularly good at answering riddles.

"I'm afraid that's not how it works," the sphinx said.

"Are you sure?" Harry asked before the sphinx could ask a riddle. "A riddle was asked and a riddle was answered. What normally happens when someone answers a riddle?"

"Normally people get the riddle wrong and I rip them apart but in the unlikely event that they answer the riddle correctly, I'm compelled to give them a gift and they're free to go."

"Which means I need to give you a gift and you're free to leave, right?" Harry asked as he pulled Randel's wizard hat out of his inventory and tossed it to the sphinx.

"I don't…" the sphinx trailed off as the door behind Harry opened and the archway in the wall lit up with blue flames. "Huh, that's new."

"Has anyone ever asked you a riddle before?" Harry asked.

She shook her head. "Only occasionally and never before failing to answer mine."

"There you go," Harry stated more matter of factly than he actually felt. "A riddle was answered and you're free to go."

"In that case, best of luck with the rest of the dungeon," the sphinx said as she walked over to one of the bone piles and pulled out a well worn leather backpack. "I'm going hiking."

"Hiking?" Franklin asked in surprise.

"I've been stuck here for years, I want to stretch my legs a bit." The sphinx smiled at both of the young men then walked through the archway.

Franklin shook his head as the flames in the archway flickered and died, revealing a stone wall. "I'm fairly sure that shouldn't have worked."

"Welcome to my life," Harry replied as he walked over to the archway so that he could try to figure out how it worked.

"How much of the gold do you think is cursed or poisoned?" Franklin asked as he looked around at the treasure scattered around the room.

"No idea, we'll just have to test everything," Harry replied as he worked on reverse engineering the portal.

"Point." Franklin gestured and levitated a coin out of the pile of bones. "Huh, I was half expecting the bones to animate or explode."

Harry scowled as he realized the enchantment was far too complicated to learn at his current level of Enchanting skill. "Damn it!"

"What's the matter?" Franklin asked as he turned to look at Harry.

"I don't have a high enough enchanting skill to duplicate the portal enchantment," Harry complained.

"I'm not surprised, it would probably take an entire team of master enchanters weeks to duplicate it," Franklin replied as he floated the coin over to Harry. "Do you want to test the coin for curses?"

Harry focused on the coin with his identification ability then grabbed it out of the air. "It's not magic though it could still be poisoned. Or not," he admitted after rubbing his thumb over the face on the coin and having nothing happen. "On that note, I'm going to see if I can get the chest open, be ready to run."

"Into the fire?" Franklin asked dryly.

"Sorry, I forgot you couldn't a-teleport," Harry admitted as he opened the chest he'd rescued from the exploding disco ball, surprised that it wasn't locked or even trapped. "Huh, it wasn't locked."

"Probably because it was going to get destroyed," Franklin mused. "Anything interesting?"

"A black tophat with a faded orange ribbon, a nasty looking brown elbow length leather glove that looks like it was made out of troll skin, and a red crystal marble." Harry identified the hat then stuck it on his head, looked at the description for the temporary class it gave him then quickly pulled the hat off his head. "What is it with cursed gear?"

"What does it do?" Franklin asked as he studied the slightly worn tophat that had a collection of silver pins and needles sticking out of the ribbon.

"It gives you the Mad Haberdasher class while you're wearing it, which gives you a hat focused Tailoring skill, a spell that summons a white rabbit and a skill for making and brewing tea. Unfortunately, doing any crafting while wearing the hat will quickly send you around the bend which is a bit annoying considering the skills look decently useful."

"Just crafting?" Franklin asked.

Harry double checked the class description on the class he could teach then stuck the hat on and looked at the class description. "Yes, which means we can probably learn the rabbit summoning skill without going insane."

"It might be good for a distraction," Franklin mused. "What about the glove and marble?"

Harry frowned as he identified the glove and read the description. "The glove basically turns your arm into a troll's arm, complete with claws, horrible looking skin, natural armor and localized regeneration and a vulnerability to fire. It also gives you a 10% reduction to the cost of 'dark' magic while you're 'wearing' it."

"Is that permanent?" Franklin asked warily.

"No, you just grab the skin at the elbow and pull, it comes right off," Harry replied as he identified the marble. 

"Yeah, I'm not sure that's much better," Franklin mused as he worked on collecting the gold from the piles of bone. "Using dark magic around here won't get you a lot of friends."

Harry grinned as he thought about Fred and George's reaction to finding something that let them freak people out and took the place of a wand. "It should work as a focus and it doesn't increase the cost of everything else which means it's probably the best I'm going to get for a while."

"You're welcome to keep it," Franklin offered. "What about the marble?"

"It's basically a music box that flies around your head," Harry replied as he pulled the marble out of his inventory and tossed it up in the air where it started spinning around his hat. "This would be easier if I knew any of the songs."

"Three Maidens of Grimsong?" Franklin suggested.

Harry focused on the list of songs and grinned when a voice started singing in a girl's voice, "As I rode out one morning down the Grimsong road, I cast my gaze around me looking for trouble, never did I suspect the lass with crimson hair, her cheeks red and rosy."

Franklin stumbled back as the piles of bone started shifting and forming into four legged and vaguely wolf-like monsters made of bone and fragments of blades. "Shit!"

"Would cause me more trouble than any monster you could name." Harry reached up and caught the marble and stuck it in his inventory as the skeletal monsters charged across the chambers at him.

Franklin signed in relief when the bones collapsed and stopped moving. "I'm starting to think the guild might be lying about the number of dead adventurers."

"I wouldn't put it past them," Harry replied as he scanned the piles of gold coins that had been uncovered. "At least they made collecting everything easier."

"There's that. I don't suppose you have a bag?" Franklin asked as he edged around the pile of bones so that he could grab the gold.

"I have a couple," Harry replied as he pulled a bag of holding out of his inventory and tossed it to Franklin.

"Should we test the rabbit summoning spell or wait until we're out of the dungeon?" Franklin asked as he started tossing gold coins into the bag.

"Give me a second to check the bones," Harry said as he walked over and dropped a leg bone into his enchanting box and hit the Divine Script button. "Shit," he cursed as he looked at the enchantment on the bones. "We got lucky, they're enchanted so they absorb fire, if we'd been up top when we used the marble they'd have probably walked through the fire and picked up a decent amount of regeneration."

"Fun," Franklin muttered sarcastically as he continued tossing coins into the bag.

Harry pulled the trollskin glove out of his inventory and slipped it on. He shivered as the magic in the glove changed his arm into a slender green arm with boils and warts. 'Yeah, because that's not creepy.' He paused and considered the arm, it was giving him a similar feeling to when he was holding someone else’s wand. He held his troll-like hand up. "Lumos." 

Franklin turned to look at the glowing ball of light that Harry was holding in a troll-like hand. "What does it feel like?"

"It's sort of like wearing a glove or having calluses," Harry replied, with a grin, happy to be able to use his magic again, as he walked over to the stone wall. "Diffindo!"

Franklin stared as Harry managed to cut a line in the stone with some type of stone cutting spell. "Just be careful you don't cause the ceiling to collapse."

"I'm not planning on it, I just want to take the arch with me so I can study it later," Harry replied as he walked over to the stone arch and started cutting through the wall.

"How are you going to inventory something that large?" Franklin asked.

"I was planning on shrinking it after I cut it free," Harry replied as he continued cutting into the stone with his severing charm.

"Fair enough." Franklin shook his head then went back to looting, fairly sure Harry wouldn't be able to cut the arch free without breaking it but not willing to argue on the off chance that he could.

0o0o0

'Suspect Hybridization: Allows additional breeding options at a high chance of failure and increases the success rate of all breeding attempts by 2% per level,' Hermione skimmed the description a second time then used her new skill token, causing the blank 'book' to vanish.

"Mom! She destroyed a book!" a little girl in a red mage's robe and a witch's hat a bit too large for her shouted as she pointed at Hermione, sounding much like the world was on fire and her mother was supposed to instantly fix it.

"It's not polite to point unless you're setting people on fire," the girl's mother informed her daughter as she turned to look at the demon and her collection of books laid out on the stone bench she was sitting on.

"But she's destroying books!" the girl complained with a look of horror on her little face.

Hermione shook her head, feeling more than a little sympathy for the girl. "I'm not destroying books, I'm destroying lab journals."

"Why?" the girl asked, not quite sure if she should believe her.

"I'm working on my book conjuration skill," Hermione explained, seeing no reason to admit to being able to create skill tokens or any of the rest of her skills to a random stranger.

"See, no actual books were harmed," the mother assured her daughter. "They're like the flowers your father conjures."

"Oh. Sorry?" the girl offered, suddenly feeling bad about accusing the lady of destroying books.

"Don't worry about it, I'd feel the same way if I saw someone destroying something that looked like a book," Hermione assured her as she turned to look at Selena as she walked across the street with a smile on her face.

"Thanks, she loves to read," the mother said as she patted her daughter on her head.

"Same," Hermione agreed.

"Let's get our shopping done, then we can have ice cream," the mother offered, knowing ice cream solved a number of problems.

"Chocolate?" the girl asked hopefully.

"Of course," the mother replied as she started walking.

Hermione grinned as the girl quickly followed her mother down the street. 'At least most of the people seem nice enough.' She shrunk her stacks of books and put them in her pockets then turned and smiled at Selena as she walked over. "Any luck?"

"Sure, I'm just not sure if it's good or bad luck yet. Either way, we're the new owners of an alchemy shop, in the Swamp of Stench," Selena muttered the last part.

"Don't worry, we'll be fine, I know several ways to deal with the stench and I picked up some gloves so I can use my old magic," Hermione assured her.

"Nice. Did you learn anything interesting at the blacksmith's?" Selena asked as she glanced at Hermione's 'new' bag.

"A couple of things," Hermione replied as she stood up and stretched. "I'll tell you about it while we shop. Where are we going first?"

"Considering I already picked up a couple of self adjusting outfits and dealt with the alchemy supplies, we should probably pick up the wine before shopping for books," Selena suggested as she started walking towards a shop that sold 'reasonably' priced wine that her mother liked.

"Sounds good," Hermione agreed as she followed Selena, wishing she knew where Harry was and how to get back to him.

0o0o0

Franklin pulled his attention off the missing section of wall where Harry had cut out the stone arch and turned to look at the piles of bones that Harry was busy pulverizing with yet another unknown spell. "I don't suppose you have any idea where we're supposed to go next considering there aren't any new doors?"

"Assuming we didn't screw ourselves over by letting the sphinx leave, we should probably check the previous rooms to see if something changed," Harry suggested as he held out his hand.

Franklin reluctantly grabbed Harry's hand. "Just do it before-" he cut off as Harry activated his weird form of teleportation and returned them to the previous room, "I change my mind."

Harry ignored Franklin's discomfort as he studied the silvery metal door in the wall that hadn't been there before they'd talked to the sphinx. "That's new."

"You should probably check it for traps," Franklin said as he walked over to check the door they'd originally used to enter the room and found an unfamiliar hallway.

"Already on it," Harry said cheerfully as he pointed his troll-like hand at the rune etched into the door and backed up a couple of steps. "Finite Incantatem!"

Franklin twitched as several hidden runes on the door glowed brightly for a second then exploded into a large ball of fire and shrapnel that almost reached Harry despite him jumping backwards and tossing up some type of shield. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Not a clue," Harry replied cheerfully as he looked down the dark hallway he could see through the holes in the silvery metal door. "How much magic would it take to blow holes in mithril?"

"A hell of a lot more than I really want to get hit with, I'm starting to think this place is trying to kill us," Franklin said dryly as he opened the door with telekinesis, not terribly surprised to see an unfamiliar hallway made out of a grey stone. 

"Why is that?" Harry asked as he poked the wrecked door with his troll-like fingernail, causing it to swing slightly on its hinge.

"The dungeon shifted on us, probably when we finished the slimes which means your door is probably the harder path."

"In that case, it's time to use some expendable trap detectors. Rabbit time..." Harry trailed off as he activated his rabbit summoning spell and a tall girl with fluffy white rabbit ears sticking out of her messy crimson hair appeared out of thin air, her gothic black velvet waistcoat that came down to her knees doing nothing to disguise her curves. "Hello?"

"You got lost again, didn't you?" The girl spun around and smiled at Harry then blinked when she actually saw him. "Oh."

Harry's gaze dropped to the girl's crotch when he realized she wasn't wearing anything other than the coat and vest combination besides her socks and boots which didn't really count. "Huh…"

"Great, he's completely lost his marbles, first day on the job and my hatter is already broken and not in a good way," the girl complained.

Harry pulled his attention off her crotch and pulled his gaze up to her face, taking a second to appreciate her generous bust. He looked at her unfamiliar and yet familiar features for a second before he realized she looked a lot like Hermione with a bit of his mother tossed in for good measure if someone had bleached her eyebrows white. "Sorry, I was just expecting an actual rabbit."

"I'm a Rabbit, Jessica Rabbit, at your service," she replied with a bow that caused her ears to flop over her eyes.

"I'm going to want that spell," Franklin muttered as he walked over for a closer look and because he wasn't sure which door they should check first.

"I'm Harry Potter," Harry offered his hand.

"Pleased to meet you," Jessica replied as she shook his hand, "Harry Hatter? Hatter Potter?" She shrugged. "Mr Hatter? No, that's like calling someone else Alice, it never really works."

"You're welcome to call me Harry," Harry offered.

"That works." Jessica turned to look at Franklin. "You're not Alice but you're not a Hatter either, curious and curiouser."

"I'm Franklin, nice to meet you," Franklin replied politely, doing his best to keep his eyes on her face. 'She looks a bit like Harry's golem.'

Harry pulled his attention off her sapphire eyes and glanced down the dark passageway. "Are you any good at scouting?"

"I'm willing to learn," Jessica offered cheerfully.

Harry glanced down at Jessica's soft leather boots and green and yellow socks. "Take a look down the hallway, run at the first sign of trouble."

"Don't worry, I'm quick as a bunny," Jessica said cheerfully as she headed down the dark hallway, doing her best not to step in anything nasty looking.

"Does she have a companion page?" Franklin asked, curious about Harry's new spell.

Harry opened his character sheet and stared at the new pet tab for a second before reaching up and swapping to Jessica's sheet. "Yeah, it says she can only pick up pet jobs and her stats are based on mine."

"Which makes sense for a pet. Can she use any weapons?" Franklin asked.

"Staffs, thrown weapons and wands," Harry mused as he glanced at her skill list. 'Summon Pocket Watch doesn't seem all that useful but at least she can use skills.'

"That's actually pretty good for a pet, especially one that you can just resummon if she dies," Franklin said thoughtfully.

'Crap!' Jessica complained mentally as she got to the end of the hallway and spotted the 'small' army of goblins in the arena.

"Dinner!" one of the goblins shouted.

"Uh oh!" Jessica exclaimed as she turned and sprinted back down the hallway, wishing she had a stealth skill. "Goblins, or at least some small green type of humanoids with hygiene problems and sharp objects!"

"So much for stealth," Harry grumbled as he raised his hands and started lining the floor, ceiling and walls of the hallway with fire guardians, hoping the massed fire would take out all of the goblins before they could close the distance.

"There’s far more of them than anyone needs to deal with, especially with my nose!" Jessica said as she ran out of the hallway and ducked behind Harry.

Harry moved his holy wand from his inventory to Jessica's equipment page. "Fire at will."

"Oh!" Jessica squealed gleefully as she carefully peeked around Harry. “You look like a Will, or at least a Bill which is close enough for me!” She started shooting beams of holy energy down the hallway as the collection of fire guardians filled the hallway with firebolts.

"This is why I don't want to be an adventurer," Franklin muttered as he watched the goblin army get torn apart, the stench of burned goblins hitting his nose and causing his stomach to churn.

Harry shrugged. "It could be worse, we could be fighting unkillable flying abominations that eat souls."

Franklin glanced at Harry. "That seems oddly specific."

"What can I say? My school had some issues," Harry replied dryly as the fire guardians obliterated the goblins. 'If I'd had a couple of these in the graveyard, there wouldn't have been enough Death Eaters left to break anyone out of Azkaban and Sirius would still be alive. Hell, if I'd just paid Dobby to kill some of them, things would have gone better,' he thought darkly as the last of the goblins died and the fire guardians stopped shooting, though Jessica kept on for a few seconds.

Franklin shook his head. "What else was down there?"

Jessica stepped out from behind Harry. "An arena with a suspicious door with an exit sign over it. I can tell it’s suspicious because it has two keyholes and anything that requires more than one form of identification is definitely planning something shady."

"Which means we're close. Do we want to check the other door or just head to the exit and leave?" Franklin asked. “I’m still hoping for a class, but I’d rather not die in the attempt and this has been a lot more dangerous than I’d been hoping.”

"We might have missed some easy loot, so we might as well at least check considering it should be the easier path," Harry said thoughtfully as he walked over and grabbed the broken silvery metal door. He used a severing charm on the hinges then dropped the door in his inventory. "The fire guardians should last the better part of an hour, we've got time."

"In that case, let's see what we have to deal with," Franklin said as they headed over to the other door. 

"What are we looking for?" Jessica asked as they walked down the hallway.

"Magical items, books of ancient lore, class items…" Harry trailed off as they walked around a corner and the hallway opened up into a massive chamber with a massive castle sized mound of gold coins with a house sized silvery blue dragon lounging on top.

"Hello Mr Dragon," Jessica said cheerfully as the dragon set down the book he was reading.

"Greetings," the dragon replied as he glanced over Harry's group, noticing the way Fredrick and Jessica were staring at his hoard. "I'm not sure I like the look in your eyes."

"Which look is that?" Franklin asked, trying not to cower in fear or bolt.

"The one that says, 'Why yes, I taste good with ketchup," the dragon replied dryly.