Mist of Shadows
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Demons and Botched Rituals Part 16
🕑 Added 2022-09-06 08:29:51 +0000 UTCAn: easiest method to find previous chapter(s) is to run a search for Demons and Botched Rituals... it's mildly horrifying how long it's been since I updated this...
"Snape?" Harry sputtered, feeling a bit green at the idea of anyone willingly getting near his profesor. "Are you insane?"
"Just being thorough with my research," Willow said defensively.
Harry shook his head. "Sorry, that's just a horrible mental image."
"How long does it take to teach your blacksmithing skill?" Xander asked, figuring learning Blacksmithing would be useful to the group and would serve as a distraction from Willow asking about relationships.
Harry focused and spent the mana to teach Xander the skill and all of his patterns then snapped his fingers. "Done."
Xander blinked as he realized he knew the basics of using a forge. "That's a trip."
"What else can you teach?" Buffy asked, curious if she could pick up anything interesting.
"Lock Picking, Electrical Affinity, Tailoring, Make Up, Drama, Art, an Inventory skill and a pair of resistance skills that help protect against blades and curses," Harry said, listing the skills he was willing to teach that he thought they'd be interested in.
"How much are you charging?" Giles asked, wanting to make sure they weren't selling their souls or agreeing to something that would cause trouble down the line, as he absently rubbed his left wrist.
"I'm sure we can think of something," Ruby teased as she ran her eyes up and down the three.
Buffy turned to look at Ruby. "What type of something?"
Ruby smiled at Buffy. "Generally dancing, stripping, gold or back massages are effective currency."
"Stripping?!" Willow sputtered.
Harry chuckled to himself wondering if the girls were serious or if it was just part of their seduction technique.
"We're lust demons and you're overflowing with fantasies," Jade said cheerfully.
Ruby grinned as she rested her chin on her sister's shoulder and trailed her fingers over her stomach. "We can show you a good time, a very good time."
"I'm not sure that's wise," Giles warned his students.
"Don't worry, they're good demons," Fred assured them. “Touchy feely, yes, but not the bitey stabby kind I had to deal with before they rescued me and gave me tacos!”
Ruby smiled at Willow as she pulled her sister against her. "We should grab some chocolate sauce."
"Tasty," Jade teased.
“Not on tacos,” Xander said as he and Fred had matching expressions of distaste.
“It’s not for those tacos,” Ruby teased.
"Behave," Harry told the twins, fairly sure they were behaving, but wanting them to behave a little bit more since they had company over.
"If we must," Jade replied with a pout as she wiggled against her sister. "Do you want to watch your friends have their wicked way with me?" she asked Buffy.
"I don't swing that way," Buffy replied as she pulled her gaze off Jade's breasts, fairly sure she was maybe lying as she was more than a little turned on by the idea of watching Willow in a sucubus sandwich with Xander as the meat.
Willow pulled her attention off Ruby's hands that were wandering perilously closer to Jade's breasts. "Back massage?" she asked hopefully, figuring that was the safest option since she didn't have any gold she could lay her hands on in a reasonable amount of time.
"Are they always like this?" Xander asked Harry, trying not to think about a naked Willow covered in chocolate sauce while the demon girls licked it off her and where exactly he could insert himself in that picture… all the places he could insert himself.
"Yeah," Harry admitted with a smile. “I haven’t known them that long, but they’ve been that way as long as I’ve known them. I’m sure it’ll get boring eventually… maybe in a couple of years.”
“A decade or two tops,” Xander agreed as they watched the cheerfully lecherous girls tease the shy hacker.
Fred shook her head. "They just like flirting."
"Nothing wrong with flirting," Ruby said cheerfully as she gave her sister a gentle push towards the bed.
Jade snickered as she flopped onto the bed.
"How much for enchanting and tailoring?" Willow asked Harry, trying not to think about the fact that it was getting uncomfortably hot in the room or about the mauve skinned demon sprawled on the bed giving her looks like she wished her friends would… Um Xander! Yes, Xander should give her looks like that, not Buffy. Unless she wanted to of course because Buffy was the slayer and it was a tough job that probably required a lot of stress relief.
"Normally, I'd just give it to you but you're the one that brought up Snape flirting with students so five magic items," Harry replied, only half joking.
"Sorry," Willow offered, realizing that asking about Snape's love life was probably like someone asking about Snyder's.
"What does it take to enchant magical items? Are we talking blood sacrifices and rituals or expensive components and exacting creation?" Giles asked before Willow could agree to something she shouldn't.
Harry turned to look at Giles. "So far? Just mana and the object you're enchanting."
"That should be fine," Giles admitted when Willow gave him a hopeful look.
"In that case, you have a deal," Willow said, looking forward to learning magic.
Harry taught Willow Enchanting and Tailoring. "That should do it."
Azure glanced at Xander who was trying and mostly failing not to stare at Jade. "We should probably borrow Xander for a couple of hours. I’m sure there are a lot of skills we can teach him without tiring him too much."
Buffy turned to look at the blue skinned demon. "Why do you want to borrow Xander?"
"She wants to chain him to a bed and have her wicked way with him," Jade teased as she stretched, pulling everyone's attention to her.
Azure glanced at Jade then shook her head, fairly sure she wouldn't need to chain him up to keep him in bed, not that she was intending that at this time. "I was thinking about having him help man the forge so he can gain some experience while we make some blades for trade."
"That's actually a good point," Jade admitted as she rolled to her feet and headed for the forge with a spring in her steps.
"I'd love the chance to get some practical experience," Xander agreed, figuring it was a fair deal and it gave him a chance to get to know them better. It was rare he met someone supernatural who wasn’t trying to eat him alive and wanted to see where it led.
Buffy pulled her attention off Jade's cute butt, wondering if she had a lust aura. "If you give me the skill, I'd be willing to help," she offered, unwilling to leave Xander in a hell dimension without backup, much less Willow.
"Sure," Harry agreed as he taught Buffy Blacksmithing. "Let's see how far we can get before we run out of material."
0o0o0
"You realize that Mom isn't going to be happy with your insane plan," Loki pointed out as he shot a large rat with one of the arcane arrows he'd conjured before crashing the night before.
Selena yawned, rather happy that Hermione had cast a bubble head charm that kept the stench from getting to them. "You're the one that wanted to sneak out before everyone woke up and shoot rats, don't blame me if we get in trouble for sneaking out."
"With how much she hates rats, we'll probably get a prize for clearing the sewer, bringing one back as a pet on the other hand, is a problem," Loki pointed out.
"I wasn't planning on bringing it home," Selena argued, well aware that their mother wasn't a fan of rats. "I'm just using it as a meat shield and giving it a bit of training for experience before I sell it to someone that needs a combat pet."
"That sounds like a good way to get the guild after you," Loki complained as he shot and killed another rat, ecstatic that his new arrows did enough damage to kill them outright as long as he got a halfway decent hit.
"That's why we have masks," Selena argued, planning on using the limited shape changing ability that Hermione had shared to look like a random adventurer before she sold the rat.
"I thought it was to help with the stench," Loki teased, well aware of the plan.
Hermione ignored the light hearted bickering as she played with the pet menu, wishing that she'd played more of her father's RPG games so she'd have something to compare the interface to. "We need a decent way to heal our pets."
Loki watched as Hermione's latest rat was torn apart. "Most of the trainer classes use potions or magical bandages between fights."
"Lovely," Hermione muttered as her rat pet icon vanished. She raised her hands and used her capture skill on the surviving rat, causing wisps of purple mist to jump from her fingers and surround the rat's head as it charged her. "This would be easier if the experience hadn't slowed to a crawl."
"They're rats, what were you expecting?" Loki asked as the giant rat stopped moving, its eyes erupted with purple light, letting them know it was under control. "At least your class has style and no one will confuse them with normal pets."
"Which should drive the price up," Selena said cheerfully as she sent her rat into the next pack of rats that rushed around the corner. "We should have asked Dad about an armor spell we can use on pets."
Loki sent his rat to join his sister's rat, figuring it would give them a couple more seconds to kill the rest of the pack before Hermione had to torch the survivors. "We can ask when we get back."
"How much archery experience are you getting?" Hermione asked as she hit the button on her pet menu for teaching her rat the attack command.
"More than I was expecting, less than I'd like," Loki replied as he practiced his quick shot skill. "The pets are eating some of it."
"The pets are also letting us avoid getting bit," Selena replied as she tossed a shadow bolt at the rat that got past the pets, killing it with one shot.
"You're supposed to be shooting things," Loki pointed out.
"I would have missed," Selena replied as she took a shot at the pack of rats with her bow and scored a glancing hit on one of them. "I'm not an archer."
Loki swapped to capturing a rat once his current pet died. "You picked up the skills, you might as well grind them while you can."
"Fine," Selena replied as she went back to shooting the rats.
"Is that a boss?" Hermione asked when she saw a rat half again larger than the rest of the dog sized rats.
"We're not in a dungeon, it's just a large…" Selena trailed off as the giant rat opened its mouth and breathed a stream of fire at them.
Hermione gestured and tossed up a shield to block the stream of fire. "Wingardium Leviosa!" she chanted as she gestured at the rat.
Loki laughed as Hermione levitated the rat into the air and spun it around so it wasn't facing them. "That's cheating. You should capture that."
"Do you think you can breed more?" Selena asked thoughtfully as Hermione started the capture process.
"Hopefully," Loki replied with a grin.
"I'll let you know when I capture it," Hermione replied as she watched the progress bar on her capture skill slowly creep towards the end, moving far slower than when she'd been capturing the large rats.
"You get to tell Mom that you're breeding magical rats," Loki teased as he shot another rat.
"Or we don't tell her and we set the pens up at the shop in the swamp, it's a lot easier that way," Selena replied as she dropped the last 'normal' rat with a shadow bolt, knowing her mother's opinion on rats.
"Probably for the best," Loki agreed after a couple of seconds of thought. "We just need a way to get the rat to the swamp without her noticing."
Hermione frowned when her monster capture attempt failed. "Is there a limit on the number of pets you can control at once?"
Loki glanced between the giant rat and Hermione. "Not that I know of, it just gets harder to capture them the more pets you have with you and they'll start fighting if your training level isn't high enough."
Hermione glanced at her experience bar, noticing that she'd gotten some capture experience for the failed capture. "I think I got twice the experience for my failure as I got for capturing the other rats," she mused as she restarted the capturing process, figuring she'd continue until she caught it or it stopped giving her experience.
"Do you want me to skin the dead rats?" Loki asked, figuring it would give him something to do and he'd make some pocket change selling the leather.
"Might as well," Selena agreed.
"Save the meat," Hermione told them as she watched her progress bar.
"You're not planning on eating rat, are you?" Loki asked warily.
"Of course not," Hermione replied, trying not to think about the number of diseases the mutated rats were probably carrying. "I need to level my cooking skill and we're going to be raising monsters, we'll need the meat."
"Have you figured out what you're going to crossbreed the rat with?" Selena asked.
Loki grinned as he thought about the acidic slimes they'd skipped earlier because they weren't worth dealing with. "We skipped some acid slimes earlier."
Selena laughed as she pictured the look on her mother's face when she found out what they were planning. "If we're going to get grounded, we might as well earn it."
"That's the spirit," Loki agreed as he pulled his knife out of his sheath and got to work skinning the rats.
Hermione rolled her eyes and restarted the capture process when it failed. 'At least I'm getting experience.'
0o0o0
"Fourth time's the charm," Harry muttered as he stuffed the green demon he'd just killed into a chest in his inventory and jumped through the portal. He smiled when he found himself in a familiar summoning chamber with the professor and a blonde haired teenager with a rather prominent nose and piercing green eyes. He glanced between her twisted black staff that was crackling with lightning and her expensive looking clothes, fairly sure they were going to have a hell of time in the dungeon.
The girl sighed in relief. "At least he's not green."
"Indeed," Professor Grimbane agreed, knowing it could be far worse.
Harry studied her midnight black silk robes then looked at her dark purple witch's hat that had numerous tiny stars circling it. "The last two mages I was summoned for that had loads of gear were complete arses, but from the Professor's expression he actually wants you to survive. So, what makes you different?" he asked, deciding to get everything sorted out in advance this time.
"My stepmother wants me dead and managed to convince my father that I'd be able to reignite the family's former glory if I found something suitably impressive," the girl replied with a shrug.
"Can't you just walk in with nothing and hope for the best?" Harry asked. “The robes and all just make the dungeon more dangerous.”
The girl shook her head. "She cursed the robes, I literally can't take them off and if I don't enter the dungeon within the next hour, they'll kill me."
"That's cold," Harry said, glad his aunt Petunia had just been a bitch and not a royal one like this girl had somehow gotten.
"Welcome to my life," the girl replied dryly. "I'm River, what do you want me to call you?"
"Harry," Harry replied.
"At least you can't die permanently…" River trailed off as her eyes clouded over.
"Damn, she managed to acquire an impressive demon," an oily female voice spoke using River's throat.
Grimbane scowled at the person controlling his student. "Release her."
"Death or glory. Harry, don't drop the gear and walk through the portal," the voice ordered after handing Harry River's staff and hat.
Harry scowled as he found himself stepping through the portal, unable to fight a direct order. 'You're fucking dead when we get out of here!'
"Don't do this," Grimbane warned her, not remotely happy with someone trying to kill one of his students.
"You can't tell anyone," the voice replied then walked her step daughter through the portal, paving the way for her own children to inherit.
Grimbane shook his head, rather amused that she thought he was actually bound by the privacy contract that he'd written. 'If River dies, I'll send a cursed letter. If she lives, I'll make sure she has the resources to get revenge for herself.'
River blinked a couple of times when she found her stepmother's control gone. "I'm going to murder that bitch!"
"Possession?" Harry asked, more familiar with the feeling than he'd like thanks to Voldemort.
"Yeah," River complained as she glanced between the three wooden pedestals in the middle of the room. "One cloak, one wooden sword, a gnarled wooden staff and three metal doors with symbols, any idea how we're supposed to avoid dying?"
"Blast everything to ash that looks like it wants to kill us," Harry suggested as he dropped the hat into his enchanting box and hit the button, picking up an enchantment for teaching someone a skill and a quirk for the swirling stars.
"I doubt blasting things to ash is going to help right now," River pointed out.
"I was thinking about monsters," Harry replied as he studied the three items sitting 'innocently' on the pedestals. "I'm surprised your step mother would sacrifice the hat considering it teaches a skill."
River shrugged. "You need seventy five points of magic to learn the skill which means she's not even close and it's not a particularly useful skill for a noble. Besides, it's valuable enough that the dungeon should be unbeatable or close enough. Toss in the staff and we're screwed or at least I'm screwed, you'll just bounce back to hell."
"Doesn't mean I'm looking forward to dying." Harry put River's hat on his head and acquired a Resistance to Wood skill that most vampires would kill for, but then they’d kill for a good meal so that wasn’t all that impressive. 'Five percent damage and effect reduction per level, if I max that out I'd be immune to wood. I'm still not sure how any of the resistance skills count as skills but I'll take it. Would that extend to landing on a wooden bench?' he mused as he tossed River the hat. "What do you know about the skill your hat gives you?"
"Resistance to Wood? You have to train the skill, which generally includes getting beaten with paddles and sticks," River replied, with a slowly growing grin and a far off look in her eyes as she rubbed her thighs together.
'Yeah, she might be a bit off,' Harry thought as he put the staff in his enchanting box and pushed the button. 'Increases magic by 10, doubles mana pool and reduces mana cost by 20%? Nice.' He frowned when he noticed the cost of the magic boosting enchant. 'So much for enchantments only taking mana, an elemental stone of each type for two points of magic, not sure that's worth it.'
"We should probably start with the staff. Do you want me to try to identify it or do you want to grab it?" River asked.
Harry handed River her staff then walked over to check the wooden staff on the pedestal. "It can't hurt unless they warded it against your identification spell."
River frowned as she realized he had a point. "In that case, do you want to grab it?"
"Not particularly," Harry replied as he grabbed the staff. He opened his class menu and looked at his new temporary class. "It grants a temporary class while you're in possession of it."
"Which one?" River asked, fairly sure it wasn't going to be enough to save her life.
"Mad Hermit: It grants a twisted version of alchemy that boosts the effects of your potions by 10% per level but adds a negative effect per five levels. Suspect cooking caps the quality of the food you can produce but imbues it with mana and health regeneration, 1% per level of the skill."
"Health and mana regeneration?" River asked in surprise. "I'd put up with questionable food for that."
"It caps the food at adequate, I'm not sure where it starts," Harry admitted, fairly sure he could put up with questionable food if it healed him and gave him mana. "It also gives you an axe skill, a mining skill that reduces the time mining projects take and an herbalism skill that can make a respawning herbalism node."
River grinned as she thought about filling a garden with regenerating plants. "The herbalism skill sounds worth putting up with the rest of the crap."
"I'm not sure if my old herbology teacher would have loved it or hated it," Harry mused as he glanced over the rest of the class details again. "It also comes with a twisted blacksmith skill that makes madness inducing gear that lets you hit ghosts."
"Do you get anything for leveling the class?" River asked thoughtfully.
"A thirty percent chance to pick up a derangement per level, forty percent to pick up strength, thirty for agility, eighty for endurance and fifty for magic."
"That just means you'd need a couple of luck items or something to deal with mental issues," River mused, figuring she could sell it for a mint if they managed to escape. "You should be fine as long as you don't use any of the skills."
"True," Harry replied as he picked the cursed staff up, causing the door with the image of a staff to slide into the ceiling, revealing a circular room with an old man in gray robes standing in the middle of the room holding an ornately carved staff with a dragon's head holding an egg sized sapphire in its mouth gleaming with power. He shivered slightly, fairly sure the old man had more magic than Dumbledore.
"If you want my staff demon, you'll have to defeat me in combat," the wizard announced eagerly.
"Is there a way past without challenging you?" Harry asked, looking at the sealed door in the wall behind the wizard.
"If you're a coward, you can help the knight or sneak through the land of the dead, each path reaches the dragon in its own way," the wizard replied, a glint of madness in his eyes.
"Right…" Harry said as he set the staff back on the pedestal, causing the door to slam closed as the wizard shouted, “Wait-”
