Demons and Botched Rituals Part 26 (Patreon)

'At least the entertainment is better than anything the wizarding world has,' Harry mused as he watched the show, curious how much of their performance was the result of skills and how much was the result of hard work, lighting, or enchantments. He glanced at the middle aged woman sitting off to the side of the stage playing a harp and singing in a language that he didn't recognize. 'That would probably be more entertaining if I could understand her.'

He turned his attention back to the dark haired ladies covered in mostly see-through silk scarves that were tossing balls of fire back and forth. 'Some type of illusion or are they playing with pyromancy?'

Harry glanced over at where River was talking to a pair of drunken carpenters by the dart board then turned his attention towards the blue haired teenager that sat down at his table, finding his gaze dropping to her breasts as she was wearing a green silk halter top that gave everyone a nice view of her breasts. "Need something?"

"Everyone needs something," the girl replied with a smile as she set her elbows on the table and flourished her hands, conjuring an ornate fountain pen in her right hand and a roll of parchment in her left. "I'm an artist in need of a subject, can you help a girl out?"

"What do you need me to do?" Harry asked, not seeing a problem with helping the girl out while he waited for River to finish her game of darts and to pick up a carpentry class.

"Hold reasonably still for about a minute," the girl replied as she moved one of the candle holders and an empty wooden mug to keep her parchment from rolling up while she worked.

"Shouldn't be a problem," Harry assured her as he turned his attention back to the show, not seeing a point in objecting as she'd asked nicely and she wasn't blocking his view.

"Thanks," the girl replied cheerfully as she started drawing, her hand practically blurring across the parchment as she captured Harry's image.

Harry watched the sketch quickly take shape over the next minute, not sure a professional sketch artist could have done better with a couple of hours of work.

The girl winced as she finished the sketch and her hand started cramping up. "Ouch, I should have used the five minute version."

"Sorry," Harry offered, fairly sure he could have kept still for five minutes.

"It's my fault, I've already used the pattern a bit more than I should have today," the girl admitted as she let her fountain pen vanish and tried to massage the pain away with her left hand.

"Dungeon pattern?" Harry asked, not sure how to politely ask about her class.

"Nah, I got it from my class," the girl replied as she continued trying to get the pain to stop. "I get story and drawing patterns from my artistic skill."

"That sounds useful," Harry replied, wondering where she'd picked the class up.

"Less than you'd think," the girl admitted, thinking of all of the aspiring artists that crowded the streets, trying to sell drawings to people. "Tell you what, if you pay my tab and agree to use the massage skill on my hand, I'll teach you the class."

Harry pulled his attention off the sketch and looked at her hand. "How much is your tab?"

"About a gold," the girl admitted, still annoyed that she'd had a bad couple of weeks selling stories, mostly because the Tanners guild had jacked the cost of parchment which made her longer stories less profitable.

Harry pulled a gold coin out of his pocket and slid it across the table to her. "How much for the drawing? Unless you want to keep it?"

"Five silver?" the girl asked hopefully, knowing the demon had the money thanks to her Sense Wealth skill.

"Done," Harry replied cheerfully as he pulled another gold coin out of his pocket and slid it across the table, “keep the change.”

"Thank you," the girl replied with a smile as she pocketed the coins, happy that she'd be able to pay her tab and afford to eat for the rest of the month without having to dip into her rent money. She summoned her pen and signed her name then slid the parchment over to Harry, glad that the ink she could conjure dried fast.

Harry looked at the signature. "Iris Moonlight?"

"Mom likes flowers," Iris replied with a smile as she spent the mana to teach the demon her Courtesan of Ink class, hoping he wouldn't complain about the drawback.

Harry blinked when he read the popup for the girl's class. 'Courtesan of Ink? Artistic (Stories, Drawing and Painting), Conjure (Writing Supplies), Massage, Sex, Shadow Stealth, Target Evaluation, Sense Wealth? Clothes tend to change over time to be more risqué. Not what I was expecting but I'll take it,' he thought as he accepted the class.

Harry pulled up his new massage skill and looked at the description. 'Covers a number of massage skills for giving pleasure and relieving pain.' He held his hands out. "Let's see your hand."

"Thanks," Iris replied as she set her right hand on Harry's hands.

Harry activated his new massage skill, not quite sure what he was doing, until he was or at least his hands felt like they had a mind of their own as they started kneading Iris' hand, causing her to relax as the pain slowly faded. "How's that?"

"You're a natural," Iris offered, making a mental note to avoid using her quick sketch skill for a couple of days.

"I'm just letting the skill do the work," Harry admitted, trying not to overthink things.

"It's working," Iris replied, relieved that the pain was gone.

"New friend?" River asked cheerfully as she sat down next to Harry.

"This is Iris, Iris, River, my summoner," Harry offered as he continued massaging Iris' hand. "Better?"

"Much," Iris replied as she pulled her hand back and wiggled her fingers a bit, testing to make sure they weren't going to cause her trouble.

"What happened?" River asked as she studied the excellent sketch of Harry.

"I overused my quick sketch pattern," Iris admitted. "The Tanner's guild jacked the prices of parchment, so I've been having to work harder to keep up and there are a lot of artists running around that are willing to sell sketches for cheap because they don't have to make a living."

Harry pulled up his Leatherworking menu and looked at the parchment option. "Have you considered picking up Leatherworking and Skinning so you can make your own?"

"I asked around, I'd need at least twenty gold to bribe a skill trainer to avoid a contract…" Iris trailed off as she saw Lenny and one of his goons making their way over. "Shit."

Harry followed Iris's gaze and looked at the sleazy looking man in a purple business suit with a six and a half foot tall guy that was built like a gorilla. "Problem?"

"Yeah, Lenny thinks that he owns everyone that stays in the apartment building where I'm living," Iris complained.

"Lovely," Harry muttered as the short man with greased black hair walked over like he owned the world.

Lenny looked down at Iris with a nasty smirk. "Iris, you know the rules, you can't work here, unless you want to join my organization."

"Are you the owner of the bar?" River asked, wanting to make sure he wasn't before she told him to fuck off for interrupting a nice conversation with a cute girl.

Lenny gave River a dismissive look. "No, I just have a deal with the owner, I provide him with working girls and he keeps the rest of the bitches out of the area, thus she can't work here."

"What part of I'm an artist don't you understand?" Iris asked, not sure why she bothered trying to explain considering the number of times she'd already tried to explain.

"Everyone is an artist, love, now get out or join up," Lenny said smugly.

"If you're not the owner, fuck off," River told the asshole.

"What did you say?" Lenny demanded as several locals instantly backed away, wanting nothing to do with the upcoming fight.

"I told you to fuck off," River replied as she stood up.

"Shit," Iris said as she realized Lenny was going to lose it.

"Let's just leave…" Harry trailed off as Lenny grabbed the sketch off the table and ripped it in half.

"Hey!" Iris blurted before she realized what she was doing.

Lenny sneered at Iris. "You're not an artist, you're just a whore like the rest and if you're not going to work for me, you can die in a ditch, bitch."

"Take it outside!" the old man behind the bar ordered, not wanting to deal with the authorities or the mess.

"Tell the fucker to pay for the sketch first!" River demanded, a bit tipsy from her earlier glass of hard cider.

"Break her," Lenny ordered his thug.

"With pleasure," Evan said as he reached for River.

Harry didn't even hesitate as he pulled his sword out of his inventory and hacked the thug's hand off at the wrist when he reached for River.

"Shit!" Iris sputtered as she backed away from the table when Lenny used the distraction to hit River with his pimp cane, sending her to the floor as her whole body locked up.

Harry buried his sword in Evan's chest then stepped forward and grabbed Lenny's cane so he couldn't hit anyone with it. "River?" he asked, knowing she was still alive because he wasn't being pulled back to hell or his dimension.

"Everything stopped working," River complained as Iris managed to pull her out of the way.

"She's cursed," Lenny replied smugly. "You killed my bodyguard, do you want a job until I can get him resurrected?"

Harry stared at Lenny for a couple of seconds as he tried to understand the insane piece of shit's perspective before deciding that he didn't care. He ripped the cane out of Lenny's grasp then hit him in the head with it, knocking him to the ground.

"Someone call the watch!" the old man behind the bar ordered.

"Fuck that, someone should have done that years ago," one of the older carpenters said as he raised his glass of ale towards Harry.

"I'm going to fucking kill you!" Lenny threatened them, trusting his various contacts to resurrect him and make the assholes pay.

Harry gestured at River. "Finite."

River sighed in relief and scrambled to her feet. "That was fucking annoying." She lunged forward and kicked the asshole in the nuts as hard as she could, wanting to make sure he never had children.

Harry winced when Lenny started wailing in agony, rather impressed with the paralyzation effect as he hadn't even twitched. He hit the screaming pile of shit with a stunner to save his ears then carefully picked up both pieces of the sketch and stuck them in his inventory so he could hit them with a repair charm. 'That escalated fast.'

"We should leave," Iris warned them, knowing the owner of the bar would press the issue.

Harry turned to look at the old man behind the counter that was glaring at him. "He destroyed something that belonged to me then he attacked my summoner. If you lie to the watch about it, I'll be back to have a discussion with you."

"Are you threatening me?" the old man demanded.

Harry resisted the urge to just say, 'No shit, yes or hey, you're not as stupid as you look,' as he reached down and stuck his sword and the thug it was attached to in his inventory, swapping him for a small pile of ash and letting the ash drop to the ground as he stood up. "Of course not, I'm just trying to make sure you're honest."

The owner stared at the pile of ash the demon had turned the man into and realized that fucking with the insane and obviously powerful demon wasn't worth it. "I'll tell them the truth, Lenny started it, you finished it."

"Excellent," Harry replied as he levitated Lenny off the ground, wanting to have a chat with the man before he tossed his body in a swamp. He turned to look at Iris. "Do you want a job painting portraits?"

"Yes," Iris replied without hesitation, knowing that Lenny would cause trouble when he came back.

"Great," Harry replied as he pulled a handful of gold coins out of his pocket and set them on the table. "Drinks are on me until that runs out," he announced as he headed towards the door, floating Lenny in front of him.

Iris tossed the old man one of the gold coins. "We're square, right?"

The old man considered arguing that she owed slightly more than that because of 'interest' but decided that it wasn't worth it and that he could just take the rest out of the coin the demon left. "We're square, don't come back."

'Wasn't planning on it asshole,' Iris thought as she followed the demon and River out of the tavern, not sure what she'd just gotten herself into.

0o0o0

Harry smiled as he walked into the workshop and saw the collection of tokens lined up on the workbench. "How many new skills did you manage to create?"

Hermione looked up from the knife she was assembling with a smile. "Sixteen if you don't count the various versions of Enchanting that I came up with by mixing crafting skills or the useless skills."

"Useless skills?" Harry asked as he walked over to get a better look.

Hermione gestured towards a handful of tokens that were sitting on a rag a couple of inches from the rest of the tokens. "Don't use anything on the rag…" she trailed off as she realized how bad that sounded.

"No worries, I'm not using anything without checking with you first," Harry replied, completely missing the reference, as he read through the labels she'd attached to each token, looking forward to picking up some of the new skills. "Do all of the Stoic skills do the same thing?"

"Yes and no, all of the skills we're going to use reduce the time by five percent a level but some of the skills ended up with only a three or a four percent boost before I managed to get a better version," Hermione explained as she finished assembling the knife, getting a decent amount of Blacksmithing experience.

"Pot metal bones?" Harry asked warily when he read one of the tags on the tokens sitting on the rag.

Hermione set the mithril knife in the box with the rest of the duplicated knives she'd assembled to boost her Blacksmithing skill. "I was trying to get something useful out of the Cursed Bones of Copper skill before I torched it."

"Any luck?" Harry asked, curious what she'd come up with.

Hermione gestured towards her journal which was sitting on the bench next to the tokens. "Sort of, I managed to get an adamantite version which doesn't decrease your disease resistance or stamina regeneration, but you still take more damage from electricity so I doubt you'd want to use it."

"Not unless we figure out a way to get immunity to electricity," Harry replied as he glanced over the labels on the tokens.

"Not yet," Hermione replied with a smile, fairly sure it was only a matter of time. "Best I've managed is the Essence of Electricity skill which gives you mana for getting hit with electricity."

"Essence of Firebolt?" Harry asked.

"You get mana for getting hit with firebolts," Hermione explained. "I'm not sure if it stacks with the Essence of Fire skill or if you just use the best version you have, I'll have to do some testing."

Harry laughed when he saw the Resistance to Burning Wooden Weapons token. "Some of these skills seem incredibly specific."

"From what I can tell, they stack so it's not a bad thing to have multiple resistances, they're just going to be a pain to level," Hermione explained as she started moving the tokens she wanted Harry to use to an empty basket.

"Magical Tea Brewing?" Harry asked, wondering if he was going to have to start drinking tea.

"It's like the Time Warped and Stoic skills, it basically modifies your Tea Brewing skill so you can create magical effects, only without the time reduction," Hermione explained.

"How many loot drop skills did you get?" Harry asked as he looked at the collection of tokens that appeared to be loot drop skills.

"Alchemy, temporary Blacksmithing tools, cooking, leatherworking, makeup, tailoring and tea," Hermione replied with a grin, happy with the results of her experiments. "How many skills did you pick up?"

"You'll have to ask River about the carpentry skills she picked up, we got a bit distracted and had to leave the tavern in a hurry but I picked up Glass Blowing, Fire Resistance, Basic Chemistry, Basic Pyromancy, two Artistic skills with different focuses, Sculpture with a glass focus, Conjure Writing Supplies, Massage, Sex, Shadow Stealth, Target Evaluation and Sense Wealth."

"That's… sex?" Hermione asked, wondering if she'd heard correctly.

Harry shrugged. "It came with the art class."

"Sorry, I'm just surprised there was a skill for that, but I guess I shouldn't be considering the world," Hermione said as she finished putting all of the tokens she wanted Harry to use in the basket. "Are we talking about actual chemistry or alchemy?" she asked, changing the subject.

"I'm pretty sure it would say alchemy if it was actually using alchemy but I haven't exactly been keeping up with mug-mundane studies for the last five years," Harry admitted.

"I do some summer reading, but that's not really the same," Hermione agreed, making a mental note to compare notes with Fred. "Wait, why did you have to leave the tavern in a hurry?"

"River got a bit tipsy drinking with the carpenters and insulted a pimp when he came over to harass the artist sitting at our table. Things sort of escalated from there," Harry admitted.

"How much trouble are you in?" Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged. "He started it and I bought the room a couple of rounds of ale to make sure they're honest when the watch asks for details, but the pimp had friends in the watch or at least people that owed him favors, so I'd rather avoid the city for a bit."

"Is he going to come after you?" Hermione asked in concern.

"Considering I gave him the Lockhart special, I doubt it," Harry replied, less than happy about the guy he'd obliviated and left in an alley.

"Isn't that a bit extreme?" Hermione asked.

Harry shook his head. "Not really, they can bring people back from the dead and he told his goon to break River because she told him to fuck off and stop bothering us after he came over to harass the nice girl that had done a sketch for us, just because she was staying in a cheap apartment that had a lot of the girls he 'managed' and she didn't want to be one of his whores."

"Lovely," Hermione muttered as she handed Harry the basket. "At least the wizarding world isn't quite that bad."

"Bad enough," Harry complained as he picked up the first token and used it, getting Stoic Tailoring. He opened his Wayfinder menu. "Do you want the Sex skill for dealing with Selena or should I skip it?"

'Screw it, you'd drive yourself to distraction if you passed up the chance to learn something new and you're allowed to have fun and take an interest,' Hermione told herself, figuring she might as well be blatant about her interest. "That depends, would you help me level it?"

'Play it cool, don't be Ron,' Harry told himself as he selected all of the new skills he'd picked up and paid the mana to teach her. "I've got your butt… I mean back."

"Thanks," Hermione replied as looked at the popup for the Sex skill, doing her best not to giggle like Lavender or start laughing at Harry's attempt to be coy. 'Knowledge and skill, no reason not to grab it,' she mused as she accepted the skill and started looking over and accepting the rest of the skills.

Harry blinked when he used one of the tokens and picked up Mad Enchanting. "Does Mad Enchanting have a toggle like the rest of them?"

"Yes, I checked to make sure," Hermione assured him, figuring it was safer for her to check the suspect skills considering she could sacrifice them and get rid of them. "A ten percent boost per level to the power or quality of the resulting enchantments is nice, but it's not worth screwing up your entire enchanting skill."

"Depends on if you can break the curses or remove the negative traits," Harry mused as he continued using the tokens, reasonably sure a 200% increase to the resulting enchantment would be worth some work. "How did you get the Firebolt Affinity skill?"

"I mixed the Firebolt Resistance skill with the Electrical Affinity skill," Hermione replied as she opened her skill page and looked at her new artistic skills. "I have a pattern for a basic mirror, a writing pattern for dirty limericks and a basic sketch pattern. What did you get?"

"I got a pattern for making stained glass and windows, a pattern for random gloomy scenes and a fruit bowl painting," Harry replied as he taught Hermione his patterns, wanting to give her more options.

Hermione frowned slightly when the patterns were added to both lists. "It's going to be a pain to level both of the artistic skills."

Harry laughed. "Only if you can't make a Time Warped or Stoic skill that modifies our artistic skills. Speaking of leveling things, did you manage to break the Leatherworking and Enchanting caps with the Skinwork class?"

Hermione smiled as she picked up the token for the better version of Runic Enchanting and tossed it to him. "Selena and I managed to boost the cap to thirty, I don't think the class can push the skills any higher."

Harry smiled as he used the token and got a prompt asking him if he wanted to upgrade his Runic Enchanting. He hit the accept icon and smiled when he looked at his Runic Enchanting skill and saw the cap had increased to thirty points of skill. "That was easy, sixteen of thirty."

"Speaking of Enchanting, can I get some help with Merlin's library?" Hermione asked hopefully. "I'm curious how much you understand and if you can translate."

"Sure," Harry replied, not seeing a problem with taking a look, especially since it might give him a couple of new tricks.