Chapter 41 - Artifice Denied / Chapter 42 - Merc Dist' / Lesser Demon Access (Patreon)

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Chapter 41 - Artifice Denied

If the guards had police cars, Elania thought she would surely be handcuffed and in the back of one right now. As it was, the guards had confused when she hadn’t offered any resistance and had only taken her aside and away from the woman before they started asking questions. Her protestation of innocence was met with skepticism; apparently, women didn’t just drop down on their knees and start shrieking, even in the face of demons.

It didn’t help that the woman had immediately launched into massive exaggerations of all the horrible things Elania had done to her, loud enough that Elania could hear some of the more fantastical claims. At first, Elania was terrified that the guards would arrest her or lock her up or... even believe a tenth of what the woman was saying.

She realized the guard was getting annoyed at the woman, who managed to constantly come up with more to say. The second guard spent the time questioning nearby people, and the fact that dozens of witnesses had stayed to watch the hysterical woman, it wasn’t hard to locate them.

When the interviewing guard returned and whispered something into the interegator’s ear, both seemed to have come to a conclusion and where done with listening to the ravings.

“Ma’am, you’re going to have to calm down.”

She wasn’t ready for them to stop listening to her because the shrieking reached a new pitch, and she grabbed hold of the guard’s arm to try and keep him listening to her.

That was the wrong thing to do because the guard’s response was swift and merciless. The one she had grabbed quickly spun her around and locked her arm behind her back in one smooth motion while cursing and yelling something to the other. He drew the stout cudgel at his side and smashed it into the woman’s face.

Elania was sure she would have crumpled instantly, but the first guard held her up and she received several more savage blows, randomly distributed to her face or stomach. The crowd and everyone watched on frozen, and Elania wanted to yell at them to stop, that it was enough, but couldn’t find her voice.

Thankfully, she didn’t need to as the guard finally released her to crumple to the ground in a mess, blood and teeth scattering onto the paved stone. The sudden silence evaporated in the chammering of the crowd, punctuated by the shrieking cries of the mother’s young boy draping himself over her trying to shake her back to consciousness.

The guard with the cudgel turned and pointed at Elania. “I think we figured out what happened. Go on, get out of here and don’t cause any more trouble.”

She wanted to protest that she hadn’t started any trouble, even as she felt terrible and guilty at the woman getting beaten down, even if it was their own stupid fault. She looked over the bloody mess the guards had wrought, and the kid was looking at her – not the guard – with a glare of hatred.

If she had been a hero, she’d have stopped the guards and somehow made everything turn out alright. If she had been given super healing and happy love powers, she’d of healed everyone and made everything alright with a pretty smile. She wasn’t a hero, and didn’t have those kinds of powers. The guard was frowning at her, and she pulled on the straps of her backpack and shrunk a bit, nodding to him and putting her head down and moved on in a hurry.

She didn’t want to end up a bloody mess on the street, too. Elania had no interest in seeing how many guards it would take to turn her into a pulp. Taniel had hinted that irate demons were dealt with in special ways anyway. Finding out that there were Conclave Iron Monkey style hit-monks out looking for her would not be fun.

Elania hurried away toward her destination and the crowd that had been witness to the spectacle parted for her without issue; in her head, the directions she’d received were now a chaotic mess, but she hoped she still had the right direction at least.

---

Elania blinked at the wooden sign; the lettering on it couldn’t possibly be English. Somehow she knew it said ‘Artificer’s Row’ anyway, but there was no way anyone had ever got that many letters to fit neatly on such a small square sign. At least she had found what she was looking for, she hoped. The road was much cleaner than the area with the market, and there were much fewer people in view. The people she did see, though, were unmistakably better dressed, and a few that she had passed by had looked at her unhappily as if trying to tell her she didn’t belong.

They usually picked up their pace and hurried past her whenever she decided to look them in the eye and offer a polite smile.

Elania had thought the ‘Artificers’ would be in a much more industrial district; they were the ones working on the fancy lights and other magical devices she had seen so far. At least that was what Tanyan had explained to her. Maybe ‘Artificing’ was a relatively clean industry, or her idea of a giant factory from earth was outdated.

Suddenly her own picture of an army of swiss watch-makers hammering away with tiny tools made her smile. Maybe it was that kind of thing!

She skipped the first shop on the block. That was something of a silly quirk she’d picked up from her mom. ‘Always skip the first shop on the block, Elle. It’ll be less crowded and picked over than the rest.’

She wasn’t sure such advice was very relevant here, but she applied it anyway.

The front door was unlocked, but Elania didn’t miss the metal reinforcements woven over the doorframe. The entire storefront was covered in the stuff, and she wondered if Artificers and Pawnbrokers shared notes on how to secure their stores. Once inside, though, the environment was very classy and clean. The polished wooden floors shined in the light of several bright and well-positioned light crystals, and a man behind a glass counter was smiling at her.

‘A forced smile.’

It was plain the man wasn’t happy to see her, or rather he had taken in her somewhat disheveled state and didn’t like the look of her.

“What are you doing girl? There’s no charity or food here. You’ll scare the clientle away, please leave.”

“I’m not here for charity, I have something to sell,” Elania wasn’t deterred and continued toward the counter, but that seemed to agitate the man further.

“Stop, we have security.”

Elania eyes followed the man’s head as he turned to look in a corner. Sure enough, there was a big brute of a man, clad in plated armor and with a big cudgel already at hand. Elania stopped immediately and started to pull out the Monster Core to show the man, so maybe he’d calm down and stop thinking she was some thief or something.

“I’ve a Monster Core! I just want to sell it!”

“Get her out!”

Elania’s hope for some resolution plummeted as the bouncer like security headed straight for her. A flashback of the tunnel with her plunging her arm through the Innkeeper’s chest went through her head, and she stopped and backed out toward the entrance.

She didn’t want that kind of thing to happen again; she wasn’t even sure she could repeat such a thing without her mana-shard anymore. Her maximum Power had risen considerably, but that didn’t seem to be as easy to access as when she went over her max.

“I’m going, calm down.”

The brute didn’t seem to be in a hurry, content with slowly following after her as she retreated out the door. She slammed it shut behind her with a bit more force than she intended and then hurried away when a few people looked at her strangely. Her nerves were shot, and she looked at the next shop with dread filling her.

---

She had tried two more shops, with much the same reactions. She’d even tried approaching with the Monster Core obviously on display in her hands, but the shopkeeper hadn’t even blinked an eye. All of them seemed to have some security, and in the second one, she had seen another customer.

The artificer shops were like upscale jewelry shops selling things to very wealthy rich clients. All of them were definitely racist and discriminatory against her shabby appearance, to the point she wasn’t even sure if they had noticed she was a demon! It was true that with all the extra light, her eyes probably didn’t shine as much, but still, it had been made a huge deal to her by the monks and Marcus, but it seemed poor people were just as bad or worse in the eyes of some people than demons were.

She spotted another shop that she hadn’t tried yet but had lost her motivation to try it. The shops were so wildly different from what she had imagined an Artificer shop would be like, that she started to question if she was even in the right place.

Suddenly, the lights above the city dimmed considerably, and Elania found herself looking up in surprise. The light cast had shifted, and now everything was being bathed in a dim blue. It left shadows everywhere, although after a few seconds, her eyes adjusted and she could see normally, although much of the color had leeched out of her sight.

It felt like someone was playing with her turning the Photoshop saturation down to annoy her. Still trying to come up with a plan, she wandered down the street back in the market's direction, so she didn’t notice that the people walking the street has thinned considerably as soon as the lighting had changed.

“Hey, girl! You planning to break curfew?”

Her aimless meandering had caught the attention of a guard.

Curfew? No one had even mentioned a curfew to her. That seemed like an important thing to forget to mention, and she felt it was just another betrayal by everyone for failing to mention it to her. Tanyan could have, at the very least, told her.

As soon as she turned toward the guard, she noticed his demeanor change almost immediately. The intent way he was staring at her and the way his hand had slipped down to his sword had her freeze. He must have used [Identify], or maybe it was her eyes, but he went from treating her as a wayward youth to a demon right away.

“What curfew? The Conclave monk didn’t mention anything about a curfew.”

Elania did her best to appear non-threatening, and she watched the confusion play over the man’s face. She decided to continue on with an explanation.

“I was looking for an Artificer that would buy a Monster Core I got while hunting. Except all of them threw me out of their shops without even listening to what I had to say.”

The man’s blank expression didn’t change for another moment; then he did turn his head and look over at one of the Artificer shops before swiveling back to her. Something that resembled sympathy flashed over the man’s face, and he shook his head.

“Wrong kind of Artificer. Wrong district even. You need to head over to the Mercenary district, and find a craftsman Artificer. These shops are just resellers that cater to the nobility. Who sent you here?”

“I asked a clotheseller in the market for directions... my party left me outside the Conclave to find things on my own.”

“Huh, not a very good party then, eh? As for asking a bazaar merchant, they probably don’t know the difference either. Ain’t many of them that ever owned any Artifice, much less deal in it. If they did, they wouldn’t be in the bazaar.”

“Oh.” She did her best to encourage him to continue, and thankfully he did.

“No curfew in the Merc District, no patrols, either. You’ll want to get over there, now in any case. Curfew in the Uppers starts at 19 Heure.  It’s a good walk from here, but you should be able to make it easily.”

“Uhh, how long exactly until then?”

The guard frowned, rubbing his forehead in a bit of exasperation, ”Demon’s tit’s! They didn’t even show you the binding stone? There’s a dozen across the city, one in front of the Conclave, even. Can’t imagine they couldn’t have stopped at one and let you use it.”

That was her thought exactly, and when, if, she saw Tanyan again, she was going to let him have it over that one. “Yeah, they didn’t do a good job did they. Were more interested in delivering their Glow moss to their masters than making sure I was acclimated to the city...”

“I see, that’s what you were doing with the monks...” He paused and looked over to another guard and waved at them.

“Wait here a second. I’ll show you the binding stone on the way to the Merc Dis and at least get you pointed in the right direction.”

Chapter 42 - Merc Dist’

Elania added a clock to her Hud, which was wonderful all by itself. The other features of the binding stone presented themselves in yet another menu that she could call up, the most relevant of which to her was ‘Call Guards’ since she was still following Henri toward the Mercenary district.

“Don’t expect a fast response in the Merc’ District though. Unless you have a upgraded callsign, most calls in there go unanswered. It’s just not patrolled well enough and is too large for that. Mostly the mercenaries and some gangs keep the order without steppin on each other’s toes. The dwarves have their own union as well and the factions generally don’t mess with each other.”

Henri was a godsend, Elania thought. He’d already filled her in on ten times as much as the monks or Marcus had about the city, as well as telling her exactly who she needed to find and where.

“So, going about at night isn’t going to be wise, curfew or no, so you’ll want to find a well-lit tavern and wait there. Most of ‘em are open all night and day. You’ll see why.”

He paused as they turned around a corner, and a large two-story-tall gatehouse appeared; it had circular towers built directly into the gate and was part of the inner city wall. The mercenary district was part of the vast sprawl that left the walled confines of the older part of the city. It was impressive, but not so much as just how massive the cavern was to hold the entire city.

“What about earthquakes, isn’t anyone afraid the roof could collapse? It doesn’t make much sense that such a huge cavern stays intact?”

“Engine has its own field that prevents that.”

“Engine?”

“Really? You’ve never heard of the Celestial Engines? One of fourteen Celestial Engines that maintain the world, reality, and the system? What kind of rock did you...”

He paused, looking at her and frowning, maybe for the first time considering that she was a lesser-demon and not a lost young woman. Although Elania would have assured him she was definitely both.

There were a few guards idling at the gate; they didn’t seem to be checking anyone that passed through in either direction, although there was only one or two trickling through at the moment. That changed when they saw Henri, and one of them waved questioned them.

“Henri, what did you find a new girlfriend already? Digging in the gutter for them now after Aleah dropped you?”

“Uhh, no. Girl needed help with some directions.”

“So you escorted her all the way from your post to here.”

Another guard still leaning against the wall chimed in, “Always the knight, bleeding heart Henri.”

“That’s why he’ll be a lieutenant soon.”

“Ain’t worth the effort, pay is the same.”

“That’s just to weed out the slackers, and isn’t about the pay, but the access you get even higher.”

“Life-long commitment to the guard isn’t everyone’s cup.”

The rapid back and forth was a bit too much for Elania, so she just stood there and smiled while trying not to look anyone in the eye or bring attention to herself. Something that turned out to be useless in a world where [Identify] existed.

One of the guards had stopped leaning against the wall and had half drawn his sword, “Hey! She’s a demon!”

Elania sighed inwardly for what felt like one time too many. The chatter died instantly, and all the guards suddenly went on alert.

“Fuck, she’s not even bound! Look at her eyes!”

That sent them over the edge, and Henri held up his hands in protest.

“Guys, calm down, I don’t think she’s dangerous, she came here with a party of Conclave monks and if they weren’t concerned about---”

“I’m sure she told you that, how can you believe anything it says, Henri? Are you stupid? What are you bringing it here for anyway? Don’t you know we have enough problems in the Merc Dis’ without a rampaging demon running about?”

“Hello, I’m right here. I’m not rampaging or anything, you know?” Elania spoke up, and everyone went silent and stared at her. Well, that was a nice change; in her experience, men would keep talking over her unless she raised the volume. That, apparently, didn’t apply to lesser-demons, so score one for her new race.

She fished out the checkpoint badge she’d been given when first entering the city. She wasn’t sure it would serve any purpose, but it seemed like something to try.

“I already spoke with Lieutneant Gaston.” Ok, ‘spoke to’ might be a stretch since it was more like ‘interrogated by,’ but she didn’t think it was time to be too accurate. “He let me through the checkpoint without issue. The Conclave monks didn’t seem to be concerned when we parted ways either, I helped guard them for weeks to bring their stupid Glow Moss in from the Mushroohum village. Don’t you think if I was going to ‘rampage’ I would have started already?”

She saw that a few of them understood most of it, and the one that seemed to be in charge of the gate seemed to recognize the namedrop of the Lieutenant, but the one who had spotted her first seemed to be in the ‘anti-Elania or anti-Demon' crowd.

“None of that matters, she’s a bloody unbound demon! Letting her into the Dis’ will be a bloodbath. We’ll have to clean up the mess!”

“I’m not going to rampage! Maybe if someone attacked me, I’d beat the crap out of them.”

That ellicted laughter from two of the other guards who were starting to calm down.

“She’s going to beat the ‘crap’ out of them.”

“That’s a new one!”

“Fitting.”

“Wouldn’t want to clean it up.”

“Hahaha.”

“Stop laughing, this is serious! Anyone she ‘beats the crap out of’ is going to be a bloody mess on the pavement, she’s a demon, not a girl!”

“Seems like she’s both to me.”

“This is se…!”

“…serious. Yeah, sure, but plenty of people end up as bloody messes in there, what’s the difference? We don’t get involved with those anyway. Just when things get really out of hand.”

“Like the last time the Mercs’ and the Dozers got in a scuffle and leveled a city block?”

“A demon could do that, too! We’d be responsible!”

The leader frowned and looked her over again. “She does have one of the checkpoint tokens, and she did mention Lieutenant Gaston.”

“You can get one of those anywhere, they hand them out like candy.”

“Maybe, but most people throw them away, and she did know that my Uncle was on the checkpoint today. That’s not something that is really publicized unless she actually went through it.”

“Just because your Uncle is a high-and-mightly lieutenant, doesn’t mean---” A raised hand silenced the anti-Elania Fanclub, and the guard who seemed to be in charge looked at her... Elania made a note to ask his name...

“What checkpoint did you go through then?”

Oh crap. She tried to remember which one it was, but she had forgotten.

“Uhh, I don’t remember the name. The one closest to uhh... Waystation Four? That’s the one we stayed at the night before.”

That seemed to be enough because he nodded. “That’s the one. I think if she went through the checkpoint and has been vetted by the Lieutenant we don’t have to worry about a ‘rampaging’ demon.”

“We should lock her up and send for a captain.”

“I don’t think we need to.”