Newly Summoned Demoness 2 - Chapter 15 – Guidance (Patreon)

The silence that enveloped the carriage was like a thick blanket that persisted until they dismounted at Aetherhart’s Artifice. Henri and his squad offered them farewells as they took up their favored positions on the street around the shop.

Elania shook her head. She wondered when Henri actually found time to go home and sleep since he seemed permanently available and on call any time they went anywhere.

Once inside, they both fell into the familiar rhythm of returning from a day out. After putting away their things and equipment, Yolani moved to take care of a small lantern artifice project for a customer who had put one on order.

Elania found herself gravitating toward a small stack of books in the workshop's corner.

The books were an eclectic mix of texts, from tomes on arcane artificery to practical manuals on various mundane trades like carpentry and metalworking. All themed with artificery in mind, of course, but there was one title that caught Elania’s attention: “The Caverns of Neftasu: A summary of an underground realm and its environs.”

She slid it out of the pile carefully, then settled in the nearby chair. The book was heavy in her hands, relatively thick compared to the others. The hard leather cover creaked slightly as she opened the book to the first page.

The pages offered a faint smell, and as she flipped through it, she found maps and descriptions of the city they called home.

It was a section on geography that truly drew her in, though.

A picture of a bubble centered on the city, deep underground, took up the bottom of an entire page, while a long narrow umbilical cord stretched up to what she assumed was the surface world.

The description made it clear that without the Celestial Engine providing a wide blanketing effect on the area underground, everything would become uninhabitable molten rock.

That was interesting, and from the illustration, it looked like the edges of the bubble were molten landscapes—even the top layer sitting above them.

It showed a zone of water between the molten zone and the inhabited one, and pictures of fish swimming in the water highlighted just how unique the ecosystem was.

A small map scale in the corner hinted that the entire bubble was approximately six-hundred miles wide in diameter, although she wasn’t sure how accurate the measurements would be.

Then again… they had artifice and magic. Maybe they were pretty accurate?

As Elania turned the page, her eyes glimmered with excitement. A two-page illustration showed Neftasu in relation to the overworld. Two large continents ran across the pages separated by a narrow sea and connected by a tiny isthmus.

The location of Neftasu’s umbilical sat nestled between three different nations—The Empire of Monevoian, the Archdiocese of Tiria, and the Republic of Wenia.

The area directly above Neftasu seemed to be composed of dry, rounded hills and a few mountains. The way that there were only two major roads into the region where Neftasu connected to the overworld, plus the relatively few towns or other communities, hinted not a welcoming area.

The Empire dominated the land to the northeast until its territory went off the map, with one single highway that looped around until it reached Neftasu’s borders.

Hundreds of settlements ranging from cities that had their own tiny illustrations to towns and villages that simply received a dot and name covered the area. Just by looking at the map, she could picture several smaller kingdoms fitting inside, and some areas had a hub and spoke road system that hinted at just that.

Tiria was much smaller and located to the southeast. It looked heavily forested and temperate from the little drawings of trees and fields on the paper.

There wasn’t any description or explanation of what exactly made up an Archdiocese, so that was unfortunate. She remembered hearing that the Lightbringers were arriving in Neftasu from there… so understanding that relation would be nice.

The Republic of Wenia was the smallest of the three bordering nations and was right up against the western sea of the continent.

A small circle surrounded it and several other small nations, linking them to the nation that sat on the isthmus that connected the western and eastern continents. There wasn’t any drawing of a canal, but she suspected that the Duchy of Torland somehow benefited from holding the chokepoint.

Elania’s brows furrowed as she turned a few more pages. It was all about Neftasu, with nothing more on the other regions. That filled her with frustration…although that wasn’t the book’s fault. It was supposed to be about Neftasu.

It was just that she realized she knew very little about the world, and it was much bigger than she had thought. Maybe the faraway places had little bearing on where she was at, but the Lighbringers hinted that maybe Tiria at least was relevant.

Besides, what was it like in the other countries? Did they all treat demons the same? The memory of ‘karma-markets’ suggested that some places were… far worse than Neftasu.

Closing the book with a soft thud, she sighed and leaned back in her chair, eyes drifting to the window. The artificial hue of the light stones filtered inside to meld with the standard artifice lighting Yolani was working under.

Yolani poked her head around the large device she was working on wiring, her expression softening upon seeing Elania’s troubled gaze. “Find anything useful?” she asked, standing up and taking a break from working.

Elania shook her head, a rueful smile appearing. “Just how much I still don’t know. I feel like I’m just stumbling around in the dark with no purpose.”

Yolani came over and settled into a chair next to Elania. “We can get more books, if you like.”

Elania shook her head. “First, we need to figure out what books. Although after looking at this, I think I’d like a primer on the other nations… so geography?”

The other girl raised an eyebrow. “You want political books? I thought you’d want something on demonic treatise or something.”

A groan escaped from Elania as she rubbed her temples. “Well, we’ve been over that. I’m a demon. Relain—Bishop, whoever—used a ton of mana shards to summon me. Normally, it’s impossible to summon a sapient creature, or a human, but he was trying to summon some dark goddess who shared my first name, and bang, here we are. Elania, lesser demon, with ridiculous ‘Potency’ on the same level as some god or demigod whatever.”

Yolani tensed up and looked around the room, as if she was worried someone might overhear. “I wouldn’t say that part out loud. It might be… dangerous. But I suspect the Magisters might already know…I don’t think a normal lesser demon would have survived a dip into the Celestial Engine, even with the help of an arch-seraph.”

Elania nodded. “Sorry. It’s just a bit overwhelming when I think about it.”

“No worries. I can see about getting some books about the overworld from a bookstore. Or… you could just ask me? I know a little, at least,” Yolani said.

Elania perked up. “Well, what about Tiria? That’s where the Lightbringers come from?”

Yolani shook her head. “The Lightbringers are a holy order that’s spread all over the east. Their headquarters are based in Rocoralia. That’s the kingdom ruled by the Holiness.”

“The pope?” Elania asked.

“Pope… hum. I think it’s the same thing? I’m not really that religious… actually, there aren’t very many followers of Aurorism in Neftasu,” Yolani admitted.

“Alright. So, the big religious head is on Rocoralia. I didn’t see it in the book, so I guess it’s further east?” Elania asked.

Yolani nodded. “Very far. Halfway across the continent, maybe twenty-five hundred miles?”

“And Tiria is ruled by an independent religious head,” Elania said.

“They’ve never really bothered Neftasu, although they are certainly anti-demonic. There are various degrees of legality for demons—and slaves—for that matter, all across the overworld and in the other city-states and the overland nations,” Yolani explained.

“That’s right… there are other underground cities like Neftasu, each with their own Celestial Engine?” Elania asked.

Yolani nodded again. “There are fourteen Celestial Engines across the world. Six belong to underground city-states and seven are held by overworld nations in an above-ground capital.”

Elania raised an eyebrow. “That’s only thirteen?” she asked.

“The fourteenth one is Contia. It’s supposed to be… well, a flying city.” Yolani’s eyes seemed distant. “I’ve always wanted to see it; they are supposed to have the most advanced artificery in the world.”

A smile appeared on Elania’s face. It was the first time that Yolani had talked about any big goals or wants outside of fixing up the shop and putting their lives back together. “Well, why don’t we go see it?”

Yolani’s eyes widened, and she shook her head. “There’s no way… the shop… the shop won’t mind itself, and besides, that’s so far away, it would probably take a year just to get there!”

Elania shrugged. “Who knows then, maybe in the future?”

“Let’s just focus on piecing things back together here for now,” Yolani said.

Elania nodded. “Why don’t we make lunch? I’m pretty sure we skipped a meal.”

Yolani laughed. “For someone who doesn’t have to eat, you’re always looking for food.”

A grin appeared on Elania’s face. “I am part [Darkwalker], you know.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’d ever let me forget,” Yolani replied, rolling her eyes. “But it’s unfair. You can eat anything without having to worry about gaining weight.”

“Does that mean we are going hungry?” Elania asked with a grin.

Yolani chuckled. “Of course not. I definitely need a break from wiring. Let’s make something.”