Demons and Botched Rituals Part 19 (Patreon)

River scowled when she saw two ghosts with full health bars fly out of the swamp and join the rest of the army of ghosts chasing them. "Fifteen seconds on my death timer!"

Harry focused on the tunnel and apparated with his friends and the carpet. "No worries," he assured her as he worked on slowing the carpet down so he could stop without tossing everyone off the carpet.

"That was awesome!" Jessica said cheerfully as she let go of River's legs so she could climb off the carpet or at least stretch.

"Did you see the new ghosts? They're respawning faster than we're killing them," River complained as she climbed off the carpet, annoyed that they weren't going to be able to clear out the ghosts so they could search the swamp for the grail and trying to get her heart rate under control.

Harry glanced at his experience bar, rather happy with the steady if slow progress he was making towards his next level thanks to the flame turrets and the horde of zombies that crawled out of the swamp to attack anything they could sense. "Good, that means we can farm them for experience."

River turned to look at the blue film over the end of the tunnel. "I'm all for getting levels but how is that going to help if we can't find the grail because the ghosts swarm us? I doubt we can get enough levels to be immune to their life drain."

Harry opened his character sheet and checked his skills. "We don't need to be immune to their life drain, we just need to be able to survive a couple of hits."

"Do you remember the twisted and broken tree on the hill?" Jessica asked thoughtfully, wanting to make sure she hadn't just missed it.

"I wasn't paying attention, why?" River asked, having been more concerned with killing the ghosts than worrying about the trees.

"Because it wasn't there," Jessica said. "I think the swamp resets or changes every time we leave."

River glanced at the area she could see through the blue film. "Everything looks the same near the entrance."

Jessica nodded. "If I was screwing with people, I'd make the entrance look the same so people don't notice the changes until it's too late."

Harry frowned as he realized he hadn't seen the twisted tree on the last run. "She might have a point, the curse of doom would make searching the swamp in a single run nearly impossible."

River opened her character sheet and looked at her skills. "At least we get experience towards our Death Protection even if we're already cursed. I got another six points."

"Seven and three points in curse resistance," Jessica said cheerfully after checking her sheet, looking forward to being immune to death spells.

"Let's make sure our Death Protection skills are capped then we can worry about leveling the rest of our new skills," Harry suggested as he closed his character sheet and worked on turning the carpet around so he was ready to go.

River took a breath then let it out slowly as she tried to psych herself up for another round of flying like a lunatic while avoiding an army of ghosts. 'Screw it, the bitch uses curses, I might as well grind the skill while I can.'

Harry waited until the girls were set up then flew back into the swamp, trying to stay focused on the task at hand. 'At least the ghosts are worth experience.'

0o0o0

Hermione wrinkled her nose when the wind shifted and she caught the scent of death and rotten plants on the wind. "That's foul."

"I wasn't joking about the stench," Selena replied as she watched some of the guild trainees that were near the rails of the barge tossing spells at the low level monsters on the bank of the river.

Hermione gestured and cast a bubble-head charm on Selena then herself so they didn't have to deal with the unpleasant stench that was only going to get worse, having already placed the spell on her new kitten. "That just means we'll make more on the bubble-head charm items."

"Hopefully," Selena replied as she turned her attention towards where her brother was gleefully shooting at monsters, trying to level his archery class and archery skill while he had a chance.

Hermione glanced at the front of the boat where Selena's mother was watching the shore for any signs of a dangerous monster. "I'm surprised your parents let him come with us."

"He's part of the guild," Selena replied as she went back to scanning the sparkling water. "Besides, I think they're actually proud that he's stuck with the bet this long and rare classes are useful."

Hermione absently scratched Tangles between her ears. "At least it's a nice day."

Selena glanced up at the cloudless sky. "Could be worse."

Winston walked over and leaned up against the rail next to his daughter. "I'd forgotten just how much the area stinks and it's only going to get worse."

Hermione gestured and cast a bubble-head charm on Selena's father. "Better?"

Winston took a breath and sighed in relief when he found the air didn't have a hint of death. "Yes!"

Selena mock pouted at Hermione. "You're supposed to wait until he offers you gold."

Hermione shook her head. "I'm not charging family."

Winston laughed as he pulled a handful of coins out of his coin purse. "I see how it is, I hire a barge to help you get to the dungeon and you try to fleece me."

Selena smiled at her father. "Mom would be disappointed if I didn't."

"True," Winston agreed as he handed Hermione the coins. "Speaking of your mother, you should probably reassure her that you're not going to do anything crazy."

"I'm not Vivian," Selena argued, thinking of her sister's tendency to wander off on adventures.

"Vivian is a combat monster, you're," he hesitated as he tried to find the right words that wouldn't hurt her feelings, "just getting started."

"I'm aware," Selena assured her father. "I'm not setting foot outside the town without an escort and I'm not planning on stepping foot outside of my shop without Hermione. At the first sign of trouble, I'm using my guild seal and teleporting back to the guild, nothing in that shop is worth dying for."

"Good," Winston stated, relieved that he didn't have to worry about her exploring the swamp without proper backup. "Do you want me to send Vivian once she's done with the new dungeon?"

"Sure," Selena replied, looking forward to having a decent source of monster parts. "How far into the dungeon are you planning on going?"

Winston glanced at the group of trainees that were tossing spells or shooting arrows at the monsters watching the barge float down the river. "Some of the trainees are pretty green, so we'll probably only get to the second or third level today. I'm hoping we can clear the boss on the fifth floor at least once by the end of the week."

"How dangerous is the dungeon?" Hermione asked.

Winston turned and focused on Hermione. "It's officially a silver ranked dungeon but that's only because of the later levels, the first ten levels can be done by a team of bronze ranked adventurers though the last two levels are a bit dicey unless you're ready to challenge for silver and you have a decent team. It never quite hits gold but some of the wandering monsters make things feel like it if you don't have the right team."

"Can people run the dungeon by themselves?" Hermione asked, curious if her plans to harvest monsters was viable.

"A silver ranked meatshield with decent disease resistance or enough potions could probably bash his way through the first five levels without too much trouble," Winston said after a couple of seconds of thought. "He'd run into issues with the traps and ambushes after that. A bronze ranked rogue with decent skills could sneak through the first couple of levels but they'd have trouble killing the first boss without a magic weapon. It gets worse from there."

"Unless you have the exact right skills," Selena pointed out. "There are a couple of rogues that make a decent living sneaking into dungeons and looting chests."

"It's also a good way to die when something goes wrong or someone decides they want your gear," Winston argued. "Typically speaking, if you can run a dungeon solo, you should probably find a group and a dungeon that has better loot."

"Makes…" Hermione trailed off as one of the monsters on the bank exploded in a massive ball of fire.

"Red Monster!" Wendy called out as she tossed another fireball at the vaguely humanoid lizard-like monster that was already sprinting away from the banks, flesh only partially burned. "Kill it!"

Winston raised his hands and called down a lightning bolt as all of the trainees turned and started shooting arrows or spells at the monster. He sighed in relief as his lightning bolt caught the creature and made it seize up long enough for his wife's fireball to catch it and obliterate it. "Lovely, mistwalkers."

"What are they?" Hermione asked since it seemed the danger was past.

Winston scowled as he thought about the dangerous creature. "They're a semi sentient lizardfolk offshoot with the ability to turn into vapor. Unfortunately, they have the ability to change back inside of people which generally rips them apart from the inside, leaving a lot of fleshy bits for the creature to eat."

"Lovely," Hermione lied. "Are they common?"

"Not really, every couple of months one of them slips out of the dungeon," Winston explained. "I should go make sure it's dead."

"Stay safe," Selena told her father as he used a flight spell and headed towards shore, making sure to stay at least sixty feet above the water.

"Cease fire!" Wendy ordered, not seeing a reason to let the trainees get into bad habits, like shooting in their commander's general direction without explicit orders, despite the fact that none of them should have the stats or gear to scratch her husband's mana shield.

Hermione absently scratched between her kitten's ears. "Do you think they're in the Monstrous Grimoire of Monsters?"

"It's worth a look," Selena replied without taking her eyes off her father.

Hermione pulled the monster book out of her bag. "Shouldn't the king have someone watching the dungeon for monsters?"

"You'd have to pay someone to watch the place and you'd need someone that the monsters wouldn't eat," Selena replied as she watched the trees change into types more suited for swamps as they floated down the river.

"In other words, they're cheap?" Hermione asked warily as she looked through the book, thinking about her issues with the Ministry of Magic.

"Basically," Selena admitted. "It's cheaper to place the occasional bounty or leave it to the surrounding towns to deal with. If things get too bad, they'll send a team but most of the time offering some bounties or spreading rumors of the monster being valuable to alchemists does the trick."

Hermione shivered when she saw a swarm of flying rat sized bugs dart out of a tree and crackle with lightning when they hit a ward on the barge. "Is that common?"

"Yes," Selena replied with a grin, looking forward to seeing how much they could make off of Hermione's anti bug talismans.

"How much longer?" Hermione asked, wishing she had a map of the area.

"About fifteen minutes," Loki offered as he walked over. "Can I get a bubble-head charm? The stench is getting bad."

Hermione glanced up from her monster book, wishing it had a decent index. She waved her hand and cast the charm at Loki. "Better?"

"Much," Loki admitted as he turned his attention towards the water, wanting to make sure nothing snuck up on them. "Don't let the adventurers walk over you."

"I wasn't planning on it," Selena replied with a grin, not particularly concerned with making money on the project as long as they leveled up their alchemy.

"Good," Loki replied as he turned and headed back to the group of adventurers.

Hermione closed her book and put it back in her bag then turned her attention to the swamp, trying to get a better sense of the area so that she wouldn't get lost when she went exploring.

0o0o0

"Fifty six pieces of junk on the wall, take one down, pass it around, fifty five…" Harry trailed off as he dropped the tarnished silver chalice in his enchanting box and saw the label for the chalice. "So much for being on a wild goose chase."

"Does that mean we found it?" Jessica asked hopefully, tired of grinding the ghosts and the zombies because the zombies wouldn't stop crawling out of the swamp unless you froze the water solid and if you did that, you had a hard time getting the loot.

"Probably," Harry replied as he read the rest of the description. "I can see why the dragon doesn't care about the chalice, it's cursed."

"Let me guess, it ages anyone that isn't worthy until they turn to dust?" Jessica asked, thinking about some of the stories she'd heard about the Holy Grail.

"Nothing that drastic, it's just cursed so the chalice won't hold liquid," Harry replied as hit the button and tried to reverse engineer the enchantment and curse, not particularly surprised that his enchanting skill wasn't high enough to pick up the enchantment for eternal youth.

"How long do you think it will take River to finish grinding her herbalism?" Jessica asked as she glanced over at where River was picking a glowing flower.

"No clue," Harry admitted as he checked the price of the enchantment. "Less time than it's going to take me to grind my enchanting skill up high enough to copy the chalice."

"You can copy the Holy Grail?" Jessica asked in surprise.

Harry frowned when he tried to put the chalice in his inventory and got a popup note informing him that he couldn't stick that particular quest item in his inventory. He closed the popup notice. "Not yet but I'll get there."

Jessica glanced up where she could see the ghosts flying around. "I'd squeal but the ghosts would probably notice."

"Probably," Harry replied, not particularly interested in getting the ghost's attention since they'd left the flying carpet in the tunnel and snuck in using Death Stealth so they could search for the grail without being mobbed.

"Do you want me to stick around or can I work on herbalism?" Jessica asked.

Harry glanced up at the ghosts that were flying around ignoring them. "Stick around for the first couple in case they notice."

"Sure," Jessica replied, ready to grab him and sprint for the exit.

"Hold this." Harry handed Jessica the chalice then pulled the Mad Hermit Staff out of his inventory so he'd get the boost to his magic and mana pool.

"You could have just stuck it in your inventory," Jessica pointed out.

"Not so much," Harry replied as he opened his enchanting window. He reached down and grabbed the pair of waterlogged boots he'd found in the swamp from the pile of junk and dropped them into his enchanting box.

Jessica glanced towards the entrance to the tunnel. "In other words, the knight is probably going to jump us when we get back."

"Or Merlin," Harry complained as he selected the Boots of Jumping enchantment. He pushed the sliders all the way up then hit the button, creating waterlogged Boots of Jumping.

"Boots of jumping?" Jessica asked, fairly sure that was the only enchantment Harry had for boots.

"Yeah, they boost your maximum jump by three feet," Harry replied as he used his mana tap skill.

Jessica kept her attention on the ghosts while Harry worked on recovering his mana, a touch surprised that tapping into the local mana to recharge didn't count as a disruptive act for their Death Stealth considering raising your voice counted depending on how close the undead were.

Harry waited until his mana pool finished filling up then canceled the spell and gestured at the boots. "Gemino," he whispered, creating a mundane copy of the waterlogged and slimy boots.

"You should be fine, I'm going to pick flowers and moss and everything else, can you copy my bag a couple of times?" Jessica asked, pulling a large cloth bag out of her inventory. "I don't want to fill up my slots when I can just stick everything in the bag."

"Sure," Harry replied as he pointed at the bag. "Gemino," he whispered, creating another bag. "Gemino."

"Thanks," Jessica replied as stuffed the extra bags in her inventory and headed off to search for useful herbs or at least herbs that would increase her herbalism skill.

Harry glanced up at the ghosts to make sure they hadn't noticed anything weird then grabbed the duplicated pair of boots and dropped them in his enchanting box and hit the button, creating another pair of boots of jumping. He glanced at his experience bar for his enchanting skill. 'Could be worse,' he mused as he started looking through his list to see if he could find something that would give him more experience, mostly because he had a feeling that something that gave eternal youth was going to take a lot of skill.

0o0o0

Hermione was pleasantly surprised when they were directed to a three story solid stone building with stairs that went up to the bronze deck on the second floor with a spiral set of stairs that continued to the third floor.

"When you mentioned a shop in the swamp, I was expecting a wooden shack," Wendy admitted as they walked towards the alchemist shop.

"Same," Selena agreed. "Pretty sure the deck is worth half what we paid for it."

"Close," Wendy mused, noticing the enchantments that kept the bugs away from the deck and absorbed any lightning that struck the tower.

"Hopefully his lab wasn't trashed," Hermione said as she walked over and ducked under the wooden closed sign that was hanging across the solid looking bronze stairs, wondering when the other shoe was going to drop.

Wendy smiled as they walked up the covered stairs to the covered deck and she saw the rows of planters along the edge of the deck that looked to be a combination of herbs that you'd use in the kitchen and herbs that you'd use in alchemy. "Someone put a lot of care into this shop."

"Yeah," Selena agreed as she walked over to the brass door. She was half expecting to have a problem with the key but the lock was well oiled and the door opened without protest, revealing a nice looking shop with over a dozen mostly empty shelves and glass cabinets. "Looks like someone looted the place."

Hermione sighed in relief when she peeked in and realized that they'd left the books. "The books are safe."

"That's a relief," Selena agreed as she walked over to the marble countertop where someone had left a piece of parchment.

Wendy laughed as she followed the girls into the shop. "Could be worse."

Selena read the note on the counter. "Never mind, it wasn't looted. The old alchemist sold most of his stock to a guild that was passing through and was in the process of restocking when he got attacked by something nasty in the swamp, the rest of the potions went to the local innkeeper to keep the townsfolk supplied with essential potions until they could get a replacement alchemist as per the man's will."

"I'll ask around and see if anyone has any gathering skills," Wendy offered as she walked over the door that connected to the back room and smiled when she saw the well ventilated lab. "Nice lab, it would cost more than a hundred gold just for the lab. Give me a minute to check the stairs and I'll let you get settled in."

"Thanks," Selena replied, knowing the more ingredients they had to toss into the potions the better.

Wendy gestured and conjured an arcane eye that she sent down the spiral staircase, wondering if he'd gotten a good deal on the bronze. "I'm starting to get jealous, the basement is twice as large as it should be."

"Storage?" Selena asked.

"Twenty bins filled with mismatched potion vials, a couple of crates of bulk supplies and a magic door that probably opens a door through the wall so he can get deliveries without walking through the shop," Wendy suggested as she sent her arcane eye up the stairs into a bedroom, looking for curses, poison or monsters that would cause her daughter trouble. "The third floor is the living area, not a bad setup."

"Well worth the money," Hermione said cheerfully, looking forward to reading the books and getting settled in so they could start working on leveling up their alchemy.

Wendy took a quick look up and down the stairs in person to make sure she was seeing the same thing as her spell then headed for the door. "I'll let you know when we get back, we can swap stories."

"Thanks Mom," Selena replied, happy to have the help and looking forward to exploring the old alchemist's library.

"Stay safe," Wendy teased her daughter and Hermione then headed outside, glad that things had worked out as well as they had.

Selena smiled when the door shut. "Cleaning charms?"

Hermione glanced at the bookshelves filled with books she wanted to look through then looked at the empty cabinets that had a fair amount of dust on the glass. She set Tangles down on the counter so she'd have both hands free. "Probably needs a good clean."

"I'll get a rag…" Selena trailed off as Hermione gestured and the dust vanished from three of the cabinets. "Or you can cheat."

"Demon," Hermione replied with a grin then got to work cleaning the rest of the shop, knowing the sooner she finished, the sooner she'd get to read the books and get started.