Demons and Botched Rituals Part 22 (Patreon)

"Thanks for the help," Harmony told Fred as she finished putting her math book in her bag, happy that someone had been willing to explain things in a way that actually made sense for once.

"It's no trouble, I like math," Fred assured her.

"You explained things better than the teachers," Harmony assured her.

"It's easier when you don't have thirty five people to keep track of," Fred pointed out as Harmony walked over to the door.

"I guess," Harmony replied as she grabbed the doorknob, fairly sure the teacher didn't really care if people actually learned anything in her class as long as they could fake it on the tests. She blinked when she opened the door and spotted Willow sprawled on the bed with her eyes closed 'looking' at the ceiling while Jade or Ruby was busy licking her pussy like a lollipop. She glanced at where a naked Xander was banging the other sister with his back to her. 'Damn, he has muscles,' she mused as she headed for the door to leave, not seeing a point in interrupting.

Fred froze as she reached the door and saw the scene, 'At least they're having fun,' she mused as she quietly closed the door, walked back over to the beanbag chair and sat down. She grabbed her new spell book out of her bag and flipped it open to the spot she'd bookmarked, figuring she could grab a soda later.

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Selena didn't even bother to look up from her alchemy project when the doorbell rang, mostly because she was tired of people ignoring the closed sign. "Your turn."

Hermione glanced at the mechanical timer sitting on the desk. "If I'm not back when the timer goes off, pull the cauldron off the heat."

"No problem," Selena assured her as she added a dash of ground up lizard skin to her cauldron.

'We should have changed the sign,' Hermione thought as she headed up the stairs, annoyed that people were ignoring the closed sign hanging across the stairs. She plastered a smile on her face as she walked out of the back room, knowing that having a reputation for snapping at people wouldn't actually help anything and that things would calm down in a couple of days. She opened the door and scowled when a large blond haired man burst into the shop, almost knocking her over.

"It's about time!" the man snapped as he glanced around the shop, less than impressed by the empty shelves. "I need a potion for the stench."

"We're closed," Hermione replied as she glared at the man that would have looked like he'd just stepped off the cover of a romance novel if it wasn't for the oil soaked rag he was using to cover his nose, less than impressed with the man's behavior and attitude.

"I don't care demon," the man replied flippantly. "Fetch your owner, I'm Lord Gaston Boulevard, they'll want to help."

Hermione briefly considered turning the man into a toad or demanding that he leave before she realized he wasn't going to leave peacefully unless she gave him what he wanted. She pulled one of her failed potions out of her pocket and held her hand out so the potion vial was resting in the palm of her hand and easy to snag. "Fifty gold."

"What?" Gaston sputtered. "They go for five in the city!"

"You should have stocked up in the city, we're closed," Hermione snapped.

"I want to talk to your owner!" Gaston snapped.

"Pay the gold or leave," Hermione replied as she pulled her hand back a couple of inches as if she was going to keep him from grabbing it.

Gaston grabbed the potion, popped the top and then drank it.

"Thief!" Hermione shouted, wanting to make sure she didn't get a reputation for selling defective potions.

"Shut up!" Gaston snapped as he pulled five gold out of his coin purse. He slammed it on the counter then stalked out. He scowled at the purple skinned demon running up the stairs. "Get out of my way!"

Harry stepped forward and set his feet when it looked like the man was going to escape. "No."

"What did you say, demon?!" Gaston demanded as he stepped back and drew his sword.

"Calm down," Ash ordered as he stalked up the stairs behind the girls, less than amused about having to deal with idiots.

Gaston turned and glared at the nearly seven foot tall innkeeper that thought he had the right to order him around. "Stay out of it old man."

Hermione opened the door and froze when she saw Harry standing by the stairs, shocked that he'd turned up on her doorstep. "Harry!"

"Hermione!" Harry replied with a smile, relieved that she was safe even if she had an asshole to deal with.

"No fighting in town," Ash told the idiot.

"Do you know who I am?!" Gaston demanded, glaring at the innkeeper.

Ash laughed as he slipped past the rabbit girl that looked a fair bit like the new alchemist's demon. "I asked your friends, they were happy to give me the details. You're the oldest son of a cunt of a lord from the city that has delusions of importance."

"What?!" Gaston sputtered in shock.

"I remember your father, he came through twenty years ago, stinking of piss and shit because he got jumped by lizard folk," Ash replied with a smirk as he placed himself between the idiot and the girls.

"You're lying!" Gaston snapped.

"Of course I'm lying, if I've ever met your father he wasn't important enough to remember," Ash replied as he glanced over at Hermione. "I heard something about thieves, was there a problem?"

Hermione pointed at Gaston. "He barged into my shop when I opened the door to tell him that we're closed and demanded to see Selena because he wanted a potion to deal with the stench. I told him that we're closed but that I would sell him a potion for fifty gold."

"Fifty gold?" Ash asked with amusement.

"Highway robbery," Gaston declared.

Hermione glared at Gaston. "You barged into my shop, of course I'm going to jack the price. You had no right to steal my failed experiment and drink it."

"I paid…" he trailed off with a look of confusion on his face. "Failed experiment?"

"It should make you shit your guts out," Hermione replied with a shrug, not seeing a point in mentioning the other warning she'd seen on the display about your intestines feeling like they were on fire during the entire process.

"Demon!" he shouted as he lunged at Hermione with his sword.

Ash gestured and tossed the idiot off the balcony with telekinesis. "If you'll excuse me, I need to beat some sense into an idiot."

"Have fun," River offered as Hermione practically teleported across the deck and pulled Harry into a hug.

"Nice to see you too," Harry told her as Ash walked over, grabbed the bronze railing and vaulted off the balcony. "How are you doing?"

"Better…" Hermione trailed off when she noticed Jessica. "Why does the rabbit girl look like me?"

"Because you're amazing?" Harry offered.

"Just lucky," Jessica replied with a smile as she stepped forward and hugged Hermione and Harry. "Group hug!"

River snickered as she stepped forward and hugged the group. "Good call."

"How did you find me?" Hermione asked, surprised to see Harry and his friends.

"Divination," Harry replied with amusement.

"Divination isn't…" Hermione trailed off when she realized that the subject might not be useless in this world.

"Professor Grimbane was nice enough to use his crystal ball," River explained.

Hermione scowled as she thought about the professor scaring the hell out of them earlier and nearly making her have an accident. "That makes sense. Can I get names?"

"The adorable girl with bunny ears is my summon Jessica Rabbit and River Brightstaff is my summoner," Harry replied as the girls let go and stepped back.

Hermione glanced at Jessica's ears, still not sure what to think about the red haired bunny girl wearing a long coat and a fancy loincloth. "Summon?"

"I found a spell," Harry explained.

"Do you still have the book?" Hermione asked hopefully.

"Close enough," Harry replied with a shrug.

Hermione opened her mouth to ask another question then closed it when she realized she was being rude. "Nice to meet you."

"Same," River assured her, looking forward to getting to know the bookworm.

"Yep," Jessica agreed as she looked at the flowers.

"Go fuck yourself!" Gaston shouted, planning on coming back with a squad and burning the man's inn to the ground along with the shop.

"Lovely…" Hermione trailed off when the man's shout turned into agonized screaming.

"Could be worse, they could be bending over backwards for he man because he's a lord," Harry pointed out.

"True," Hermione agreed, not seeing a point in mentioning that her complaint was actually about the noise rather than the fact that the annoying prick was in a lot of pain.

"Can we come in?" River asked, looking forward to seeing the alchemy lab.

Hermione pulled her attention off the noise and headed inside the shop. "Thanks for reminding me, I need to check on my experiments."

"Sounds good," Harry agreed as they followed Hermione into the shop, looking forward to seeing the alchemy equipment.

"Trouble?" Selena asked as she rushed out of the back room, having heard the shouting.

"Already dealt with," Hermione assured her as she shut the door. "This is Harry."

"And friends," Jessica added enthusiastically.

"Please tell me you have a bunch of embarrassing stories that you can share from Hogwarts?" Selena asked hopefully, glad that Hermione had excellent taste from what she could tell.

"Don't even think about it," Hermione warned him, half expecting him to bring up S.P.E.W.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Harry replied with a smile as he studied the attractive girl wearing a fancy loincloth and halter top. 'At least she seems nice.'

"Is there a reason your friend looks like Hermione?" Selena asked, curious where she'd ended up meeting someone that looked like Hermione.

"Jessica's my summon, I'm not sure if her appearance is because Hermione is my best friend and the spell created her or if the summoning spell just reaches into alternate dimensions and finds someone that fits," Harry admitted.

Jessica shrugged, not particularly worried about it. "I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually."

"Was River your first summon?" Hermione asked, curious how long they were stuck in the dungeon or hell but not wanting to flat out ask.

Harry shook his head. "Fourth."

"Fourth? In a couple of days?" Selena asked in surprise.

"The first two were idiots and Franklin wanted a female demon which I can't exactly blame him for. I set him up with a friend after we got out of the dungeon," Harry explained.

'At least he looks calm,' Hermione thought as she studied her friend. "What happened to the first two?"

Harry scowled as he thought about his first two summoners. "Ralph got killed by a golem and Randel got killed by a cursed crown because they got greedy."

"I'm not surprised," Selena mused, fairly sure she knew the boys he was talking about and neither of them had anything approaching common sense. "Most warlocks don't have a lot of common sense."

"Considering a large part of the class involves summoning demons, are you surprised?" Harry asked, thinking about the green demons he'd run into.

"Not really," Selena admitted as she thought about some of the more annoying people in the guild.

"I'm just glad I survived the dungeon," River admitted, knowing the ghosts would have killed her without Harry's help. "My stepmother tried to kill me by sending me into the dungeon with a bunch of expensive gear."

"Lovely," Selena muttered. "I think you get the award for the worst relative."

"Probably," Harry agreed, knowing that his aunt and uncle had never actually tried to kill him.

River smiled as she thought about the books they'd recovered. "It wasn't my idea of fun but we managed to get some nice loot and a couple of useful skills."

"Oh?" Selena asked, wondering if they'd picked up something that would let them unlock skills.

"Enchanting?" Hermione asked hopefully.

"Runic Enchanting," Harry replied with a grin as he pulled his skill up and paid the mana to teach Hermione his Enchanting skill. "Take a look."

Hermione blinked in surprise when she got a popup asking her if she wanted to Runic Enchanting. She hit the button and learned the skill then quickly opened her skills page and looked at her new skill. "How did you teach a skill?"

"Magic," Harry replied with a grin, causing Hermione to give him a look. "One of my demon skills lets me teach skills, classes and patterns."

"You could break the guild's hold on various skills," Hermione mused.

Harry shook his head. "Just because I can doesn't mean I'm going to, I don't want to give them a reason to kill me or stick me in a bottle for the rest of eternity, pretty sure genie bottles are a thing."

Selena nodded. "They are."

"Let's avoid that," River stated, knowing the guilds would kill her if she got caught trying to break their monopoly.

"What did you end up with?" Hermione asked, excited about the idea of sharing her skills and picking up more tricks.

Harry glanced over the rest of his skills. "I picked up a bunch of skills, mostly Blacksmithing and a cursed version of Blacksmithing, a neat mining skill that lets me carve through rock in a fraction of the time it should take, a blade resistance skill I need to get back and an alchemy skill that increases the potency of the results but introduces negative traits as you get more skilled."

"Get back?" Hermione asked.

"I lost the skill when I lost the Edgelord class. I can still teach it with my Wayfinder skill, I just don't have it and I can't make a magical item that teaches the skill without actually having the skill because River doesn't have enough mana to make the skill hats."

Hermione laughed as she realized their skills complemented each other. "That shouldn't be a problem, Synthesis lets me combine skills and make skill tokens."

"Damn," River sputtered. "That's more broken than your ability."

"Probably, do you have an inventory or a pocket dimension?" Harry asked thoughtfully.

"No, should I?" Hermione asked as she double checked her skills.

"No clue, I figured I'd ask considering the ritual," Harry replied as he used his skill to teach Hermione the lesser wood and blade resistance skills, figuring they'd come in useful. "Jade and Ruby have different skills, same with Azure but I figured it was worth testing."

"Jade and Ruby? Azure?" Hermione asked as she hit the icons and learned the two skills, feeling like she'd missed a couple of months of her friend's life rather than a couple of days.

"Demons I rescued from the crazy green demons, they're staying in my pocket dimension," Harry replied.

"They're great," Jessica offered.

"Can you make a skill token and give me a copy of the Lesser Resistance Blades skill?" Harry asked, not sure how to explain the twins without Hermione freaking out about how touchy feely they were.

"Let me check," Hermione replied as she pulled up her Synthesis skill and added the blade and wood resistance skills together. She dropped a silver coin from her pocket into the box and hit the button, creating a skill token for a Lesser Resistance Wooden Sword. "Lesser Resistance Wooden Sword, not quite what I wanted."

Harry stared at the skill token in Hermione's hand. "Wait, when you said you could combine skills, you meant that you could make new ones, not just tie them together?"

"It depends on the skill, luck and the item I use for the skill token, using magic items increases the chances of getting anything interesting but we don't have magic items to waste so I haven't tested it," Hermione admitted.

Harry smiled as he thought about his stash of enchanted junk in his inventory. "Don't worry, I've got us covered, I need to boost my enchanting skill high enough that I could copy a version of the Holy Grail."

"What?!" Hermione blurted.

Selena glanced between Hermione and Harry. "I missed something, didn't I?"

"It's basically a chalice that grants eternal youth or at least that's the enchantment he picked up," River explained.

"Do you realize how…" Selena trailed off, her mind conjuring up images of greedy nobles dragging everyone into a massive war.

"We're aware," Harry replied with a shrug. "I'm not all that worried about it, the mage guilds already have methods to extend their lives, even if they're expensive and problematic. By the time anyone notices that you and River aren't getting older, we'll be powerful enough to avoid them."

"What other skills do you have?" Selena asked, curious what else they could learn.

"Let's see, Aura of the King reduces the damage that my friends and I take within twenty feet per level of the skill. You might like some of my blade skills or the Unbreakable Courage skill that makes me immune to fear. That reminds me, we're going to need to figure out a safe way to train Resistance to Death," Harry mused as he paid the mana and taught Hermione and Selena the Resistance to Death skill.

Hermione stared at the popup, fairly sure it would work on the death curse. "Where did you get this?"

Selena quickly accepted the skill. "Nice, instant death effects are a bitch in some of the harder dungeons."

"I imagine and I got it in the dungeon," Harry said as he glanced over his list of skills. He frowned as he noticed the horrible skill he'd unlocked from the cursed coins. "Do you have a way to drop skills?"

Hermione hit the icon and accepted the skill. "I can burn a skill to create a new skill, it increases the chance of making something useful, why?"

"I unlocked a couple of cursed and normally temporary skills that might be worth tinkering with but they're not worth keeping around," Harry explained as he taught Hermione his Twisted Alchemy and both Blacksmithing skills, hoping she could make something useful.

"You have a twenty five point cap on your Blacksmithing?" Hermione asked in surprise.

Harry grinned. "I used a class to boost the skill. Oh, I also picked up a skill to create miniature dungeons using an undisturbed grave that you might like to play with."

Hermione gestured towards the counter where she'd left one of her workbooks and an inkwell. "Make a list."

"Sure," Harry replied with a grin as he walked over to the counter to start making a list, looking forward to seeing what she could make with the skills he'd picked up. "Have you managed to pick up cooking yet?"

"Technically, it's a monster cooking skill," Hermione replied. "Why?"

Harry paid the mana to teach Hermione his version of the cooking skill which capped the quality but gave your food the ability to give health and mana regeneration. "Because I'd appreciate a version of the magical cooking skill that doesn't taste like you let Dudley fry the bacon."

Hermione glanced over the description of the Suspect Cooking skill then hit accept. "I might have a way to get something neat, how much mana does it take to copy low end magical items?" she asked as she headed for the expanded bag that she'd stored the magical brownie bowl.

"Anywhere from fifty to a couple of hundred, it just depends," Harry replied. "What do you need copied?"

"A bowl that makes brownies, it's cooking related which should give my skill a nice boost," Hermione said as she looked through her bag for the bowl. "Getting the enchantment doesn't break it, right?" she asked, wanting to make sure.

"Completely safe," Harry assured her. "I'll go through all of the patterns I have once I'm done writing the list."

"Thank you," Hermione told him. "This should make it a lot easier to make useful skills."

"You should tell her about the books," River suggested with a grin.

"Books?" Hermione asked, her eyes lighting up with interest.

Harry gave River an annoyed look before he sighed dramatically. "So much for getting anything useful done."

Hermione pulled the brownie bowl out of the bag and walked over so she could look at Harry's list. "I'm not that bad."

"Great, that means we can wait to look at the books until you've had a chance to make a better cooking skill and trade stories about our adventures," Harry told her, knowing that she'd probably vanish for a couple of days once she realized whose library they'd managed to copy a small fraction of.

"Sure," Hermione replied, knowing she'd have plenty of time after they got caught up to do some light reading.

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