Demons and Botched Rituals Part 24 (Patreon)

Giles paused when he caught his reflection in the mirror he kept on his desk and realized that he wasn't going to be able to explain the changes away with a couple of good night's sleep and a vat of face cream. 'Give me a leather jacket and I'd look like Ripper, at least I hadn't lost my common sense.'

He took a couple of seconds to review his priorities and run through some of the Watcher's mental exercises for detecting mental influence before he was confident that the desire to set Synder's car on fire was no worse than it always was. 'Close enough,' he mused as he walked over to the shelf to grab the book of glamours. 'No point in giving people a reason to gossip or making Snyder more suspicious.'

He spent a couple of minutes reviewing the familiar spell to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything then cast it, tossing up a glamour to conceal the changes. He frowned slightly as he checked the mirror, not sure he'd gotten all of the lines right though it was certainly closer to his previous appearance so it would probably pass muster.

'Now for the hard part,' Giles thought as he flipped through the rolodex, knowing that his old 'friends' deserved a drink or at least a heads up about the tattoo not being as inactive as they'd thought.

0o0o0

Angel glanced between the bottle of what looked like grape juice that was making Angelus snarl in the back of his mind and Buffy. "You realize I'm a vampire, right?"

"I'm aware," Buffy replied dryly. "It's supposed to be a source of life and health, it should cure you."

'Not a chance,' Angel thought as he took the bottle filled with juice, causing his hands to tingle like he was touching a nine volt with his tongue.

'You're a monster, she doesn't know what you've done,' Angelus taunted, trying to keep Angel from drinking the liquid that felt like liquid salvation.

'You're right,' Angel agreed as he took the lid off the bottle. 'Either way, I'll be at peace,' he replied, feeling a sense of peace wash over him as he made up his mind, fully expecting to turn to dust. "Don't forget to live," he told her, then took a long drink of the juice that tasted better than any blood he'd ever tasted or anything he'd ever drank while alive.

Buffy took a step back as a ghostly version of Angel stepped backwards out of his body, leaving his body looking cold, murderous and delighted for a second before pain flashed across his face and he started screaming and thrashing on the ground as the holy energy washed over him.

"Worth it," Angel said as he watched the holy energy wash over his body, burning the dark magic out of it and causing Angelus a considerable amount of pain from the look of things.

"Shit!" Buffy blurted, not sure how to fix things considering how badly she'd screwed them up.

"It was my time…" Angel trailed off as his body gasped and he felt a tug on his chest, yanking him back into his body. He sat up and froze as he felt his heart beat for the first time in over two hundred and fifty years. "I'm alive…"

"Told you it had healing properties," Buffy replied as smugly as she could, relieved that she hadn't killed him.

Angel pushed himself to his feet, doing his best to hide his shock at not being yet another pile of dust in the cemetery. 'How much is left?' He jumped straight up, not expecting much since he couldn't feel Angelus and he could feel his heartbeat. "Ahh!" he blurted when he found himself ten feet in the air rather than the two and a half or three feet that he'd been expecting.

Buffy briefly considered darting forward and catching Angel before dismissing the thought, mostly because catching someone nearly twice her weight and nearly a foot taller than her would have been problematic but also because he managed to twist and stick the landing. "How are you feeling?"

"Hungry…" Angel trailed off as he caught the metal cross she tossed him and realized that it wasn't burning.

"For blood?" She asked warily, wondering if she was going to have to stake him.

"Cheese burger," Angel replied as he held his hand out so she could see the cross resting in the palm of his hand.

Buffy smiled. "I could eat."

0o0o0

Harry smiled as Hermione walked into the kitchen wearing an oversized red t-shirt that she'd probably conjured. "How did you sleep?"

Hermione yawned as she walked over. "Like a rock. You?"

"No nightmares," Harry replied as he loaded a plate with scrambled eggs and sausage.

Hermione glanced at the window that showed it was barely dawn. "And yet, you're awake and cooking."

"Not enough noise," Harry admitted as he set the plate down in front of Hermione. "I'm used to sleeping in a dorm or at the Dursleys, there's always some background noise, the rooms in my pocket dimension are too quiet."

"Trade you, listening to the wind and the weird noises in the swamp wasn't particularly relaxing," Hermione admitted as she worked on cutting up her sausage.

"On second thought, I'll take the quiet," Harry replied with a smile as he turned the magical hotplate off and dished himself up a plate.

"Where did you get the supplies?" Hermione asked, fairly sure the village didn't sell sausage.

"Sunnydale," Harry replied as he sat down at the counter. "The library doesn't have an alarm on the door so I slipped out and did some shopping."

"You didn't have to," Hermione said between bites of the delicious sausage, “we have supplies at the shop.”

"I couldn't sleep and I wasn't awake enough to tackle Merlin's library," Harry admitted as he put ketchup on his food, “it was a good diversion.”

"It's not that bad," Hermione argued halfheartedly. "Professor Giles can probably help identify most of the languages so we know where to start."

Harry dug into his food, not sure if he should mention the translation enchantment that he'd learned from Edwin's enchanted magnifying glass or if he should let her have fun translating things by hand.

"Morning," Selena offered as she walked into the kitchen as they were finishing their breakfast, looking half asleep.

Harry nearly choked on the last of his food when he glanced up and realized that Selena wasn't wearing clothes. "There's food on the stove, I'll make some more when everyone else gets here."

"Thanks," Selena replied as she walked over to the stove, still trying to wake up.

'At least she's cute,' Hermione thought as she checked out her summoner's behind. "When are you planning on opening the shop?"

"I should have enough…" Selena trailed off as someone rang the doorbell for the shop. "So much for having a lazy morning."

Harry pulled his attention away from Selena and looked at Hermione. "Do you want me to deal with it or make some more food for the girls?"

"I'll deal with it, you're a better cook," Hermione replied as she grabbed a pair of pants from her inventory and equipped them on her character doll.

"Thanks," Selena offered as Hermione headed for the stairs. "That's going to get annoying."

"You can always hire a clerk when you get tired of dealing with people," Harry pointed out as he grabbed the dirty dishes and walked over to the sink, giving Selena a chance to eat.

"Is there more?" Jessica asked hopefully as she walked into the room with River following her.

Harry paused when he turned to look at Jessica and saw the naked bunny girl and his wet haired summoner who was wearing her loincloth and halter top outfit. "Do you want scrambled eggs or an omelet?"

"Omelet," Jessica replied as she walked over and sat down next to Selena. "Keeping up with Jade is a lot of work."

"Omelet," River replied as she walked over and sat down next to Jessica. "Morning."

Selena finished the bite of sausage she was working on. "Morning."

"Two omelets coming right up," Harry replied as he turned the magic hotplate under the frying pan back on and walked over to grab the eggs from the ice box.

Jessica pulled her attention off Selena's breasts. "Do we have a plan for today beyond making a bunch of potions and selling them?"

Selena yawned. "Not really, my folks said they'd be back with more alchemy ingredients somewhere between noon and twilight so I need to make a bunch of potions. I also want to take a little bit of time to get to know people at the inn but we can probably deal with that tomorrow or tonight if we have to."

Harry pulled the eggs out of the ice box then closed it and looked at River. "Do you still want to talk to your friend at the glassblowing guild?"

River glanced at the window. "We might as well wait until after lunch, he's not a morning person."

"Works for me," Harry replied as he walked back over to the stove. "I can ap-teleport us back to town. I wouldn't mind swinging by the Second Chance shop in town to see if they have anything to boost magic or know where I can get elemental stones."

"Can I talk you into making everyone a copy of the minotaur's loincloth?" Selena asked Harry, wanting the extra protection in case someone started something over the idiot noble getting his ass handed to him yesterday.

"Shouldn't be a problem," Harry replied with a smile as he cracked a few eggs into the bowl, looking forward to seeing all of the girls in matching outfits. "I managed to grind Hermione's arrow spell up to eleven last night."

River pulled her attention off of Jessica's breasts and focused on Harry. "How does that help?"

"Level five improves the arrow shafts, level ten lets you conjure mithril arrowheads which means we can melt them down for a nice silvery blue metal," Harry explained as he used a whisk to mix the eggs for the omelet.

"You realize that some rogues have a skill for detecting wealth, right?" Selena asked warily.

Harry turned and looked at Selena. "I'd rather take my chances with rogues and have extra defenses."

"How much of a discount do you think the mithril would give you for the strength enchantment?" River asked, excited about the idea of having a full set of magical armor without having to walk around in heavy plate like a fighter.

"Worst case, I'll just grab the archmage's staff and enchant the loincloths, I should be able to make a decent replacement," Harry said as he poured the eggs into the frying pan.

"How much did the enchantment for teaching people skills cost?" Jessica asked thoughtfully.

Harry turned to look at Jessica. "A thousand mana, why?"

"I finished leveling my Skinwork class and the restrictions are annoying," Jessica replied as she opened her character sheet and double checked the restriction on her class.

"Having trouble leveling enchanting?" Harry asked.

"I'm down to a sliver of experience with the enchantments I got from my skill. None of them are labeled as Leatherworking enchantments or flagged as anything weird but I'd rather test things with the enchantment for giving people my Leatherworking skill if I'm going to risk losing the class before I can give it to Hermione."

"Is it worth the risk?" Harry asked as he pulled a plastic container of grated cheese out of his inventory along with a glass container of already cooked onions and diced hot peppers.

"With the amount of experience I'm getting for the patterns I know are safe, it's going to take a couple of weeks of grinding to get another level of enchanting and it's just going to get worse. I might as well check the skill enchant since I should be able to stick it on a leather hat. Worst case, I'll lose the class and skills and have something that can teach Leatherworking," Jessica pointed out.

"Technically, the worst case would be the process fails and you lose the skills and the class and we have to pick up the class from Franklin," Harry argued as he turned to watch the eggs cook.

"That's assuming Franklin hasn't lost the class," River pointed out.

"I doubt he'd risk it considering how much he wanted Enchanting but there's always a chance that something went wrong," Harry agreed, fairly sure the system was set up to screw with people given some of the odd classes.

"And the longer we wait, the more likely he'll take chances and screw something up," Jessica pointed out.

Selena pulled up her enchanting menu to double check the numbers on the enchantment she wanted to use. "Can you wait an hour?"

Jessica turned to look at Selena. "Sure, why?"

Selena closed her enchanting menu. "Assuming I'm using the magic enhancing bracelet and the staff, I'm five points of mana away from being able to afford the temporary skill enchantment that would let me enchant something with my Mentor Skill. We can probably get at least five points of discount with magical silver, if not we can try mithril, it's supposed to be good for enchanting."

"Which would let Jessica teach Hermione the class and avoid the drama and risk of losing an Enchanting skill that gives Leatherworking enchants," River mused. "How long do you think it would take Hermione to max out?"

"A couple of hours, less if she can make a Time Warped or Stoic skill for Leatherworking," Jessica replied with a grin. "It gets experience from both skills."

Harry added the onions and peppers to one side of the would-be omelet then stuck the container back in his inventory. "You can always test things after you teach Hermione the skill."

"I can wait," Jessica assured him, looking forward to dropping the annoying class and picking up the skills so she wasn't stuck with the class restrictions.

Harry worked on filling the other side of the omelet with cheese.

"How quickly do you think we could skill up if we just duplicated all of the ingredients and tossed everything together in a bunch of frying pans?" River asked thoughtfully.

Jessica shook her head. "I feel like I should defend the glorious art of cooking, but I was thinking the same thing."

Harry frowned as he thought about how much of a mess you made when you were working on the first couple of levels of cooking. "Let's wait until we have a camp fire or something, I don't want to clean up the mess."

River glanced around the extremely clean kitchen. "That's probably fair."

Jessica glanced at the omelet then looked at River. "Paper, rock, scissors for the first omelet?"

"What?" River asked, not sure what she was talking about.

"It's a game, paper beats rock, rock beats scissors, and scissors beat paper, you usually play when you can't decide on a course of action," Jessica explained as she showed her the three symbols.

Harry reached out and turned on the other burner then gestured at the frying pan and the omelet. "Gemino!" he said cheerfully, creating a second pan and omelet. He moved the second frying pan over to the other burner.

River laughed. "Cheater."

"Of course, he's cheating, he's a demon," Selena teased, feeling better now that she had some food in her stomach and was a bit more awake.

Harry smiled at Selena then pulled a container of cooked and still hot sausage bits out of his inventory and sprinkled them on the omelets. He put the container away and grabbed a spatula. He folded the omelets closed and glanced at the floating progress bar he'd dragged off to the side of his field of vision. 'Not bad considering half of the ingredients were copied.'

He grabbed a plate off the stack and nearly dropped it when he got another chunk of experience for the second omelet that was just as large as the first. 'Huh, is that because I added sausage to each of them or can I just copy everything before I finish?' he mused as he stuck the omelets on plates and set them in front of Jessica and River, making a mental note to add copying half finished projects to his list of things to check.

Harry turned the hot plates off then used a scouring charm on the pans so they'd be ready to use again. He turned his attention back towards the girls, not sure how to feel about the fact that they'd made more friends in a couple of days than their entire stay at Hogwarts. 'Probably just as well that Ron didn't come with us, he'd be drooling or complaining about having to work. Then again, he might actually be willing to put in the work with the system keeping track of his progress,' he mused as he watched the girls eat, doing his best not to look like he was staring.

He looked up a couple of minutes later when Hermione walked in and the girls were half done with their omelets. "What did they want?"

"They needed a healing potion and disinfectant," Hermione replied as she walked over. "I could have done without seeing the wound."

"Bad?" Harry asked.

"Mostly just embarrassing, a crocodile bit his arse in the swamp," Hermione replied, not sure if the man's friends deserved the title considering how much they'd been laughing about the whole thing, of course they'd hauled him out of the swamp and brought him to get help rather than just stuff a healing potion down his throat and let him take his chances with infection so that probably counted for something.

River laughed, fairly sure he'd have a story to tell once the embarrassment faded, if only because he survived.

"It's not funny," Hermione argued.

"Just picture it being Malfoy," Harry suggested, knowing that he probably wouldn't be joking if he'd actually seen the wound but magical healing made things less horrible.

"Not funny," Hermione complained, trying to get the mental image out of her mind and trying not to laugh because of all of the people she knew, Draco deserved getting bit on the arse for the shit he'd pulled over the years.

"Could be worse, at least it was his backside," River pointed out with a grin as she worked on cutting up her omelet.

Selena shook her head. "I'm not sure a healing potion would fix that, they generally don't fix missing organs or fingers."

"Lovely," Harry muttered, suddenly feeling less amused about the whole thing. "Remind me to check the library for books on healing before we get seriously injured," he said, knowing that using the Chalice for every little injury was just asking for trouble as well as painting a huge target on their backs.

"It's on the list, the temples are expensive," River complained.

Selena made a mental note to look into making cheaper regeneration potions once they increased their Time Warped Alchemy to a reasonable level.

"Do you want me to open the shop?" Hermione asked Selena, knowing one of them should probably keep working on making potions since most of the ones they'd made the night before were already promised to her father in exchange for the large stock of ingredients he’d advanced her.

"I'll take care of the shop if you want to make a silver or mithril crown," Selena offered as she opened her inventory and dropped her outfit on her character doll, instantly going from naked to dressed in her loincloth and halter top.

"Silver or mithril? Do we have extra mithril?" Hermione asked Harry, fairly sure he would have mentioned something that important.

"You just need to level up your arrow conjuration skill to ten, it lets you conjure mithril arrows," Harry replied as he pulled five mithril arrows out of his inventory and handed them to Hermione.

"I wish I could take the spells apart and figure out how they work," Hermione complained as she examined the silvery blue arrowheads, mentally adding grinding her arrow skill to her rather long list of projects and things to spend her mana on.

"My father should have a couple of books on the subject, we might be able to get a copy as long as I promise to leave the initial testing to you," Selena mused.

"Dangerous?" Hermione asked, thinking about Luna's mother.

"It depends on the spell," Selena replied, thinking of some of his father's horror stories about spell creation. "My father knew a mage that tweaked a fireball to create exploding chickens."

"Exploding chickens?" Harry asked in disbelief. "Why?"

"No clue," Selena admitted. "Apparently, he used the spell for two years before he ran into trouble. He'd run all of the tests he could think of and everything seemed fine, at least until he was fighting a group of bandits on a foggy night during a blood moon, his spell summoned five dozen black chickens that exploded with twice the force they should have and killed him."

"That sounds more like a counterspell or a curse," Hermione mused.

Selena shrugged. "None of the bandits were magic users, none of the gear they recovered was cursed and he hadn't picked up any new gear in months. He couldn't remember the fight or why the spell went weird when they brought him back to life and he'd lost the original notes when his tower was robbed a couple of months after he started using the spell so he couldn't check."

"And they never recovered the notes?" Hermione asked.

"Not that I know of," Selena replied. "Of course, the theft also meant he didn't have the notes to turn over to the guild, so the timing was a bit suspect. Another mage created a spell that transformed people into frogs that exploded when they got wet, he was trying for rabbits and the exploding thing was an interesting side effect none of the mages could duplicate."

"Probably for the best," Harry argued, making a mental note to check the magic shops for something that prevented transfiguration when he had a chance and to pick up a book on combat magic. "We should probably get started on the crown."

"Right," Hermione agreed, looking forward to seeing how much her smithing skill jumped because of the mithril.