Demons and Botched Rituals Part 21 (Patreon)

Eric looked up from his book when the portal activated and deposited Harry and three girls in the exit room. "Welcome back, perfect timing."

Harry laughed when he realized that Eric had obviously placed a bet that he'd return. "How much did you win?"

Eric glanced at his pocket watch that he had on the counter. "Forty seven gold, it would have been less if you'd been twenty seven minutes later."

Guinevere glanced around the stone room then focused on Eric. "Do you bet on everyone surviving?"

"Nah, just the people I think have a chance," Eric replied as he gestured towards the ledger on the counter. "I need you to sign the ledger."

"Sure," River replied as she stepped forward and signed the ledger next to her name and the time and date she'd returned. "Do you need anything else?"

Eric shook his head. "Officially you're good to go, but Professor Grimbane would like a word before you leave campus, he should be in his office."

"Thanks," River replied and headed out of the portal room, still not quite sure how to deal with her stepmother. She hadn't come up with a solution by the time she'd walked to the end of the hallway and reached the professor's door. She knocked on the doorframe as the door was open. "You wanted to see me?"

The professor sighed in relief when he looked up from the notes he was writing and saw River standing in the doorway, looking healthy and a fair bit more powerful than when she'd stepped through the portal. "Congratulations on surviving the dungeon, do you want help dealing with your step mother?"

"I wouldn't mind some-" River cut off what she was going to say as something shook the building, causing her to grab the doorframe to avoid falling over. "What the hell?!"

"Strange," Professor Grimbane mused as he reached over and grabbed a crystal ball from the shelf next to his desk, curious about the blast of magic he'd felt wash over the guild's wards.

"Does that happen often?" Jessica asked, not taking her hand off the wall in case everything continued shaking.

"No," Grimbane replied as he set the crystal ball on his desk and tried scrying for the source of the blast. His eyebrows rose in surprise when his crystal ball refused to activate. 'What about the results?' he mused as he adjusted what he was looking for, causing the crystal ball to show a still smoking crater.

"That's my house!" River blurted when the view expanded in the crystal ball and she recognized her family tower.

Harry turned to look at Guinevere. "And this is why you don't piss off archmages."

"Yeah…" Guinevere trailed off with a shiver, suddenly glad that Harry had talked her out of walking off with Merlin's library.

Professor Grimbane glanced between Harry, River and Guinevere. "Archmage? Is there something you'd like to share about your time in the dungeon?"

"Ghosts are annoying…" River tailed off as she saw the door to the tower in the crystal ball open and saw her father and step sister looking at the crater in horror. "Dad's going to be a mess, I should probably let him know that I'm alive before does something crazy."

Grimbane focused on his crystal ball and scried for River's stepmother, not particularly surprised when the crystal ball clouded over as most mages eventually picked up defenses against scrying, most of which caused the crystal ball to react like they were dead. He shifted the focus to the site of her death, trying to tease more information out of the crystal ball as most people didn't bother to fake that aspect. 'And we're back to the crater,' he mused as he scried on Stella's life tablet, half expecting the wards on her guild to stop his crystal ball but figuring it was worth a try.

Harry stared when the crystal ball changed, showing a stone room filled with broken metal tablets that looked to have been tossed in a giant blender. "Looks like they tossed everything in a blender."

"Probably voided the warranty," Jessica agreed.

Harry frowned slightly when one of the fragments of metal crackled with lightning exploded, sending shards of metal everywhere. "What are we looking at?"

Grimbane glanced between Harry and Jessicia as the image in the crystal ball faded. "That would be the remains of her stepmother's guild or at least their resurrection vault, most major guilds store enchanted tablets which make it cheaper to resurrect their members."

"Does that mean she's actually dead?" River asked hopefully, knowing she'd be a lot safer if her stepmother wasn't around to make sure she had another accident.

"While it's certainly harder to bring someone back without a body or a life tablet, it's not impossible. Unofficially, I'll have a word with the temples and her guildmaster and make sure they understand that she pissed off an archmage and that she's better off dead," Grimbane promised, still annoyed at the bitch for trying to screw over one of his more promising students. "You should probably take a couple of days off and get some rest."

"That's the plan," River admitted, not looking forward to dealing with her father or step sister because they were going to be emotional wrecks. 'At least I don't have to figure out how to permanently kill the bitch.'

Grimbane focused on Harry. "Thank you for keeping her safe."

"It was my pleasure," Harry replied, happy that River was a reasonable summoner, unlike the first two idiots. "Can I make a request?"

Grimbane glanced between River and Harry. "You can ask, no guarantees that I'll be able or willing to help, but I'm grateful that you managed to keep River safe."

"I'm looking for a friend of mine, do you have a way to find a location with your crystal ball?" Harry asked hopefully.

"I have a couple of tricks I can use," Grimbane replied with a slight smile. "Who are you looking for?"

"Hermione Granger," Harry replied.

Grimbane focused on his crystal ball and smiled when he saw a purple skinned demon that looked a lot like the rabbit-eared girl standing behind Harry standing behind the counter in a familiar shop. "Ah, I don't even need any tricks. Give me a second to consult with the girl in question."

"Of course," Harry agreed.

Grimbane gestured and cast a spell on the crystal ball. "Selena Blackstone!" he announced in a deep voice, causing Selena to jump and nearly fall out of her chair when she heard her professor's voice. He snickered slightly. “She's in the Swamp of Stench with Selena Blackstone, they recently bought an alchemy shop, her father was bragging about it."

"That’s convenient," River mused, happy that she wasn't on the other side of the world or in a hell dimension. "Give me a couple of hours to make sure my father knows I'm still alive and we'll fly out there for a visit."

"That would be fantastic," Harry agreed.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I need to talk to some important and annoying people to make sure River's step mother stays dead," Grimbane told them, knowing it would be better to have the conversation in private.

"Right. Thanks again for the help." River turned and left, relieved that she didn't have to figure out how to kill her step mother and even more relieved that Merlin hadn’t been able to see through the glamour she’d used to impersonate her.

0o0o0

"Copper for your thoughts," Ruby offered when she noticed Willow daydreaming rather than actually meditating.

Willow blinked when Ruby's voice pulled her away from her daydreams about Ruby and Xander. "Sorry, I was drifting."

"I noticed," Ruby teased as Xander walked out of the forge with her sister. "Pretty sure you were about three seconds from falling over sideways."

"I got carried away reading last night," Willow admitted.

"You're in good company," Jade teased as she walked over to the bed, "you should see Ruby with a new magic book."

"You're just as bad," Ruby replied with amusement as her sister flopped down on the bed, managing to look more indecent than if she'd simply been naked.

'At least the demons don't have any modesty,' Xander thought as he pulled his attention away from where Jade's loincloth had failed to properly cover her privates, doing his best not to stare, if only because he didn't want to give Willow a reason to complain.

Willow's face went bright red when she realized she'd been staring. "Are we done with meditation?"

"There are better ways to get mana back," Jade replied with a smile.

"Better ways?" Xander asked, hearing Giles' voice in the back of his head warning him about getting his life force ripped out and Jesse's voice saying, 'Bro, do it for me!'

"My favorite method involves sex but I'm a lust demon," Jade teased. "You can also let your demon give you mana or steal it from your enemies with the right skill, but I'd probably avoid stealing mana on the hellmouth as the local mana is heavily tainted."

"Is there a way to purify the mana?" Willow asked.

Ruby shook her head. "You'd need an insane amount of power or an artifact to purify the nexus and you'd probably end up fracturing reality or breaking something, which would once more, probably be reality."

"What about your personal magic?" Xander asked, figuring that was easier and might keep them from ending up like Amy's mother.

"I know a tantric ritual for cleansing your personal mana," Jade offered. "It basically cleans the gunk out of your magic holes."

Xander stared at Jade for a couple of seconds then glanced at Ruby. "I can't tell if she's joking."

"Only sort of," Ruby replied with amusement. "Magic has a tendency to pick up traces of emotions and intent, especially if they're particularly strong or violent. Dark magic can have a negative effect on your emotions and mental stability by basically making you focus on the negative emotion more than you should."

"Which causes you to use more of it, right?" Willow asked, thinking of one of Giles' lectures on the subject.

"Basically," Ruby agreed.

"So you're basically saying we should have sex because of the hellmouth?" Xander asked, not seeing a problem with having sex with a drop dead gorgeous lady.

"Xander!" Willow complained, more out of reflex than any actual complaint about having sex, especially if Xander was part of it, other than the paralyzing fear that she'd do something wrong or the mental closet she had that was just filled with insecurities. "We haven't been using magic, I doubt it's that bad."

"Want to bet?" Ruby asked, half teasing and half serious, because since they lived on a Hellmouth they really needed help.

"Yeah…" Willow trailed off as her brain caught up with her mouth. "I mean, how would you prove it?"

"I have a ritual that will let people see the corruption in them as glowing colors," Ruby offered.

"What do we have to do?" Xander asked.

"Take your shirt off and flop on the bed, do you have a marker?" Ruby asked, happy that she didn't have to worry about the ink spilling or running.

"In my bag…" Xander trailed off as Willow bounced over to grab her bag for the markers. 'This is going to go wrong in so many ways,' he mused as he pulled his shirt off and lay down on the bed face first. "Now what?"

Ruby smiled as Willow handed her a market. "Now I draw symbols!"

"Don't worry, it shouldn't take her more than a minute," Jade promised.

"No worries," Xander replied, glad that he was wearing jeans and was face down.

Willow did her best to pay attention to the symbols Ruby was drawing rather than Xander's skin or the way Ruby wiggled her butt as she moved around, drawing strange arcane symbols on Xander's back.

Ruby smiled after finishing drawing the mostly fake symbols, only about a third of them being required. She gestured and snapped her fingers, causing the mana inside of Xander to start glowing like a blacklight poster from the sixties.

Willow felt her stomach lurch for some strange reason as she looked at the patches of purple light that just seemed wrong. "Why does the purple stuff make me think of the worst part of the holiday season mixed with everything that’s wrong with artificial grape flavoring?"

"Because that's the hellmouth corruption, it's nasty and disgusting," Ruby replied.

"How do you get rid of it?" Willow asked with a shiver, not sure why it bothered her as much as it did.

"Like I said, sex. He feeds me mana and excess emotions and I feed him magic and we have a great time," Jade said.

"We should probably check how much corruption Willow has," Xander suggested, worried about his best friend since she had a tendency to jump into new projects with both feet and wanted to make sure that learning magic wasn't a quick trip to Crazy Town.

"You better be looking the other way buster," Willow said, part of her hoping he snuck a peek. She waited until he turned his head then pulled her t-shirt off, wanting to make sure she didn't have any patches of not grape inside of her before she started learning magic. She lay down on the bed, trying not to think of the fact that she was half naked and that all Xander would have to do was turn his head and he'd see her breasts. Part of her was disappointed that he didn't look but another part was relieved. She bunched up her t-shirt and put it next to her breasts on the same side as Xander.

Ruby smiled as she started drawing symbols on Willow's back, carefully working in the symbols she needed for her spell while having a bit of fun doodling.

"Can I look yet?" Xander asked.

"I don't have a shirt on," Willow sputtered, wishing she had enough courage to just tell him to look or even to twist so that she was flashing him while Ruby worked on her back.

"No one has shirts on," Xander argued.

"Fine," Willow said as she buried her face in the sheet, knowing that she was technically covered even if it didn't feel like it.

Xander turned his head to look and made a mental note not to mention that her gym shorts had gotten pulled down just a touch in her wiggling. 'That's Willow you're looking at, best friend since forever, so? She's hot. Yeah, I've got nothing,' he admitted as he enjoyed the view, trying to focus on the symbols and not his best friend's back or behind that the gym shorts did a bad job of hiding.

"Nice skin," Jade offered as she watched Ruby work, enjoying the show.

Willow turned her head to look at Jade and Xander. "Thanks."

Ruby finished the symbols and cast her spell, causing Willow's flesh to glow like Xander's skin. "Does your family have magic?"

"No, they're Jewish," Willow replied.

"Not that I know of, why?" Xander asked as he studied the angry looking blotches of purple energy.

"Just curious," Ruby replied, making a mental note to check on their parents because someone was either cursing them infrequently or they were tossing barely formed curses at them on a regular basis to make sure they followed their rules. 'I doubt they'd work once they start learning magic but they've certainly built up like sludge in the bottom of a dumpster,' she complained to herself as she pulled a mirror out of her inventory and angled it so that Willow could see her back. "As you can see, you're going to need to deal with the sludge."

"Yuck," Willow complained, wanting the shit gone as it made her feel nauseous.

"If you want, I can start with a massage," Ruby offered, trying to ease them into things because sex was supposed to be fun.

'Screw it, I want this shit gone and Xander needs it gone,' Willow thought, thinking of all of the negative thoughts holding him back. "Thank you."

Ruby hopped up on the bed and carefully tossed her leg over Willow, 'accidently' dragging her loincloth along Willow's bare leg before kneeling over her behind so that she could work on her back. "You're welcome."

"Don't worry, you're in good hands," Jade assured them as she twisted around and straddled Xander so she could give him a massage.

"What's up?" Xander asked, curious what Jade was planning but not seeing a point in objecting.

"Since we're twins, we can take advantage of the law of symmetry to double the cleansing power by doing both rituals at the same time and place, that means double the fun," Jade said as she started working on Xander's shoulders, slowly pushing her energy into him so that drawing his energy out wouldn't hurt him.

'And double the trouble,' Xander thought as he watched Ruby work on Willow's shoulders, feeling a warmth flow into his shoulders where she was touching that probably wasn't natural but not caring because it felt great. 'It's not the destination, it's the journey and I'm going to enjoy it,' he mused, looking forward to having sex for the first but hopefully not last time with the girls, the fact that it would clean his aura was just a perk.

0o0o0

River had barely knocked on the door to the tower a second time before it was yanked open and a blonde haired missile hit her and wrapped their arms around her. "Hey Kat, nice to see you."

"No dying!" Katrina ordered her step sister as she wrapped her legs around River and buried her face against her breasts, less than pleased about her risking her life in the dungeon or her mother for suggesting the idiotic idea.

"I'm not planning on it," River replied as she turned so she could look at Harry, Jessica and Guinevere. "Do you want to meet my demon?"

"Yes!" Kat said excitedly as she unwrapped her legs around her step sister and dropped back to the ground, proving to be taller than River by a couple of inches.

Harry smiled at the busty blonde haired girl wearing a black kilt, a witch's hat and boots along with a nice looking blue blouse that was a bit on the sheer side. "I'm Harry Potter, nice to meet you."

"I'm Katrina," Katrina said as she practically bounced over so she could get a closer look at the flying carpet. "Can we go for a ride?"

River glanced at Harry. "Maybe later, we have a quest we need to take care of, we're just checking in to make sure Dad isn't going crazy."

"I'm fine," Edwin called out as he walked out of the tower.

River glanced between the crater and her father. "You're fine?" she asked in disbelief.

"You're safe and sound and you obviously have some stories to tell," Edwin replied with a smile as he pulled his daughter into a hug. "Besides, Stella should be back by dinner, next week at the latest, it depends on how busy the temples are."

"It's going to make an awesome pond," Katrina said cheerfully, knowing her mother would be back eventually but planning on enjoying the vacation from her nagging about her social circles and lectures about decorum.

River briefly considered mentioning that Stella probably wouldn't be back from the dead before deciding to hell with it. 'I'll let someone from her guild break the news,' she thought as she returned her father's hug.

Edwin glanced between Harry, Jessica and Guievere. "Speaking of stories, did you find anything interesting in the dungeon? Nathan knew you'd survive and that you'd pick up a compatible demon but he was a bit fuzzy on the details."

"Your old diviner buddy?" River asked, fairly sure he hadn't come around the tower for a couple of years.

"Yeah, I called in one of the favors he owes me and had him do a reading before I signed the paperwork," Edwin replied with a grin.

River sighed in relief as she realized that her father wasn't completely crazy and hadn't bought into his wife's shit. "Harry and Jessica helped me rescue a princess from a dragon and we recovered a couple of books that we need to look through."

"Magic books?" Katrina asked excitedly.

"Princess?" Edwin asked, curious about her adventure.

River gestured towards Guinevere. "Princess Guinevere, this is my father Edwin Brightstaff and my sister Katrina Hellsing."

"Pleased to meet you," Guinevere offered, looking forward to swapping stories with the witch about magic and reading through the library together while Harry and Jessica tracked down his friend.

"Nice to meet you," Katrina offered, then turned to look at her sister. "What about the books?"

River sighed dramatically. "I'm afraid we had to leave the enchanted books."

"Trapped?" Katrina asked, not sure why else her sister would leave them behind.

"Unfortunately," River said with a shrug, only managing to keep her straight face for a couple of seconds before she snickered. "You'll just have to settle for the fraction of the library we managed to make copies of."

Katrina mock pouted. "You're evil, you know that right?"

River smiled as she thought about her plans for training the wood resistance skill she was planning on having Harry give Kat. "I'm aware but I think you'll forgive me when you see the library."

Edwin waited until Kat chased River into the tower before he turned to look at Harry and the rabbit girl. "Thank you for keeping my daughter safe, she means the world to me."

"I was happy to help," Harry assured him as they headed for the tower, relieved that her father wasn't what he was expecting from some of River's initial comments about the man.