Newly Summoned Demoness - Chapter 24 - Gambit (Patreon)

As Yolani descended from her room, the absence of tinkering in the workshop was noticeable. When she opened the door and looked inside, she was stunned.

Her father had donned a set of armor, and a full set of combat wands was hanging off a combat belt. The armor and a half dozen empowered medallions held runed protection sigils, set to ward off any elemental magic, and his leather travel gear was spelled for durability and weight reduction of their contents.

She’d seen him wear his adventuring outfit only a few times before, when her mother was still alive. The two of them had taken turns adventuring for the materials needed for the artifice shop. Until one time, she’d not come back.

It had been their thing, and neither had wanted to give up adventuring. A prick of long suppressed guilt welled up to sting her. Until she had come along, they’d gone together. Maybe if father had been with her, she wouldn’t have…

Yolani took a deep breath and released it then glared at her father. This was all his fault, anyway!

“What are you doing?” Yolani whispered.

Her father paused momentarily before setting down his helmet on the table. He locked eyes with her, the serious expression something she had seldom seen before. “We need that mana shard, Yolani.”

“Next week’s auction might have one…” she offered weakly.

“We both know that even if there is, we won’t be able to take the winning bid, even with the funds paid up front.” He countered.

“Where are you going?” A frown crept onto Yolani’s face.

“I’ve got some help with arranging some men to go with me on a delve. We’ll pick up a mana shard there.” He picked up his helmet and put it on. The protective runes lit up briefly before going back to their normal state.

“What? Are you stupid! The Syndicate won’t just let you take out a mana shard without you giving it to them!” Of all the stupid plans she’d heard, this one took the cake!

He shook his head. “Lani, it’s fine. Do you think your old pops is daft? Your uncle Hector made a deal with them for us. We’ll be providing them with a bunch of work for free in return for being able to keep the shard.”

“You don’t know you’ll find one.” Yolani tried, but she couldn’t think of any good reasons that he shouldn’t go other than it was dangerous, and she was afraid he would get hurt… or worse.

He smiled at her. His stupid disarming ‘everything will be okay’ smile. “Oh? I think I’ve a few good years left in me, and the upper levels of the dungeon aren’t that dangerous. We just need a mid-grade stone, and we shouldn’t have trouble finding one.”

The conversation seemed over. He pulled a backpack over his shoulder and then headed to the door. Yolani felt a bolt of panic run through her. “Wait. You’re going now? Already?”

“Scheduled to go in at third hour today, pumpkin.” He turned and looked at her expectantly. “Not going to see your father off before he goes?”

She froze. It was something she’d always done as a little girl when either of her parents had left to go on an adventure. Hesitantly, she approached him and went on her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Please, dad. Be careful.”

He patted her on the head. “Always. There’s a good bit of work left to do, and I’ll entrust you to work on the light stones while I’m gone. I should be back in two or three days. Who knows, we might get lucky, and I’ll be back tomorrow even.”

“It’s only going to solve half the problem unless they let you take out two,” Yolani replied. The headpats turned into messing her hair up and she whined and captured his hand to stop it.

“Don’t worry your little head. Hector is good at getting deals. He said he likely can get us another shot at a stone later if things go well. He pulled through and got us the good contracts for the light stones, after all.”

Yolani froze. “Uncle Hector was the one who proposed those contracts?”

Her father raised an eyebrow. “He pointed me in the right direction to the Magister who needed the work done at least. He’s a good brother.”

“He’s too good at getting deals… and those weren’t good contracts, dad…” Yolani whispered again. Alarm bells were going off in her head.

He sighed and patted her shoulder. “I know things didn’t work out well. We’ll avoid any contracts in the future as long as we can keep up sales on the sundries enough to support our costs. If you have a better plan, I’m willing to listen.”

Yolani shook her head. “I don’t have anything…”

He nodded. “Me either.” He pulled her into a hug. “Love you, Lani. Don’t let that Henri boy drag you into anything dangerous while I’m gone.”

She hugged him back and squeezed as tight as she could. “Love you, too, dad.”

And then he was gone. It felt like an empty hole had settled in her chest. Why did it feel like she’d never see him again?

A heavy sigh escaped her, and she slapped her cheeks. Those were not good thoughts to have! She needed to stay strong.

Turning to examine the workshop, there were plenty of tasks left unfinished that needed tending to, not even including the light stones themselves.

Her father had already done most of the work on them, but they still needed their power couplings replaced since the old ones would likely fail in the middle of the unit’s next service term if they weren’t.

Hours passed as she immersed herself in the various tasks at hand. She’d had plenty of guidance under the eyes of her father all of her life. It’d been years since she’d actually needed any help at all, and she’d already begun to explore her own avenues of research into conundrums that had stumped her father and the rest of the artificer community.

Even if she wasn’t as deft with a micro-engraver and her work was sometimes a bit crude, she felt her application of theory was maybe, just a bit, more advanced than her dad’s. The tomes he’d learned from weren’t quite modern editions, and things had changed a bit.

And he was stubborn at trying new things.

Which was probably why he had been so happy to accept the light stone contract. They were big, simple, and very expensive to repair because of all the servicing work required to refurbish them for another decade of service.

Grunt work. That took a lot of time, focus, and concentration. But it was so bog-standard she couldn’t help but feel it was… boring.

Most artificers probably felt the same way. Which was why such work carried a large price tag. And because of how valuable the light stones were—they were as old as the city itself and very hard to replace—there were massive fines and penalties if you damaged one.

So, throwing apprentices at the task was out of the question.

As the day trudged along, a handful of regular customers came by to purchase minor trinkets or items that had already been repaired. An apprentice for another shop stopped by to buy some pre-built components, and she traded a few tidbits of rumor and news with the young man. There were a lot of things you could learn just from talking to the customers about their day.

She kept her cheerful front up the entire day, but no matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to put the worry away.

In the end, she closed up shop early. Part of her job was to keep their tools and supplies stocked up, and the [Power] on their workshop tool’s shard crystals had become quite low.

Mana crystals. They were basically miniature mana shards.

One of her more recent research ideas was how it might be possible to combine shard crystals into full mana stones. Which recent events had suddenly shoved to the forefront of her list of things to think about.

The small pieces were usually fragmented off a proper stone or found as drops from lower-level monsters in the dungeon.

Each one carried a small charge and generally they were used to run low powered tools and items, while mana shards would carry heavy workloads, like powering a light stone for ten years for sixteen hours a day.

If mana shards held anywhere from hundreds to thousands of power units, then the little shards were only rated for ten to twenty.

Yolani made her way to the back room where most supplies were kept and did an inventory. Over the years, she’d formed a collection of the smaller crystals. She kept them all charged up in case of emergencies.

Her father often joked about it since they only needed about ten to twenty at a time for all the equipment. They did slowly degrade with use, so she rotated them out with each power cycle.

It was best to store them while fully charged to prevent degradation, which informed her next maintenance task. Fetching the next tray of ready shards, she brought them out to the workshop and replaced all the tools that needed a new one.

Not every tool was used evenly, so only about half needed to be replaced. It was still enough for her to fill half a tray with empty and nearly empty shards.

She fetched her purse and pulled out a few small golds. It was a lot, but power prices had skyrocketed with the mana shard shortage. There were only a few places one could go to get magic items recharged with the lack of stones, and one of those was Ranolf’s shop.

Locking up the shop with an artificed lock, she headed across the row. Since she’d closed early, there was still plenty of activity and people going about their days all over. Some people she recognized and waved as she went by, while others seemed in a hurry to make purchases or go about their business. Ranolf’s was the largest shop on the entire row and did an almost industrial amount of business.

She forgot how many apprentices he had, but it was like two dozen, and he had two sub-artificer masters under his umbrella working for him as well.

It meant he had his finger in the business of every shop in the district, and most of the ones outside of it, too.

It was also the only place in the row itself where you could pick up power for shards. Or even mana stones, but that would have been very expensive. That would have never made sense before the mana shard shortage, but now she’d heard that some of the richer nobles had been visiting to get their full-sized shards topped up.

He had a near monopoly on the service because it was very difficult to emulate. Restrictions on demonology were heavy, and even more so the requirements to get a license to house a stable of them underneath your shop.

There was a Ralfot wagon unloading and six apprentices hauling the boxes into the shop when she arrived. Inside was controlled chaos, and she deftly moved between the moving parts to reach the front desk. The apprentice manning the counter stood up and nodded to her. “Yolani, welcome. Do you want me to get one of the masters?”

“I have eleven Class B mana crystals to recharge,” Yolani said.

The apprentice’s eyes widened a bit. “Of course, I’ll go get Master Ranolf.”

He disappeared into the back of the shop, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Her gaze wandered over the bustling workshop; apprentices were busy with the more menial tasks that were part of artificing. All of them seemed well engrossed with what they were doing, whether it was cleaning components or hauling things in and out.

She didn’t notice any disaster in the making, and she zoned out.

Master Ranolf finally emerged from the back. The man was short, only a few inches taller than her, but his ornate robes hinted at just how much of a fixture in Neftasu’s artificer community he was. His expression was stern as always, but his eyes held an unmistakable glimmer as they landed on her.

“Yolani,” he greeted. “Eleven Class B, I heard?”

She nodded, pulling out her small, sealed tray of crystals. She clicked it open and allowed him to examine them. He examined each one carefully in silence, before finally nodding. “A fairly standard set here. The cost will be two small golds.”

Yolani winced. That was the full amount she had brought with her to pay for them. “Are you sure…maybe we could work out a discount?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but with the shortage, I can’t entertain selling the Power for any less.”

She sighed and pulled out the two coins and watched as they disappeared into the shop’s tiller. Nodding to himself, Ranolf handed her tray of crystals back and then gestured to the door to the back of the shop. “If you’ll follow me, we’ll go see to charging them up for you right away.”

“Thank you,” she said, following him into the back. An artificed elevator screamed wealth at the back of the room, gears whirling to open the box as Ranolf waved a hand over the controller to unlock it. She stepped on board first, then he followed. A small light crystal hung from the cage’s ceiling, and there was a grumble from the artifice before they started to slowly descend.

“Sounds like an apprentice forgot the machine oil,” Yolani commented almost automatically. Her cheeks reddened slightly when she realized that it might have been somewhat rude.

Luckily, he laughed and nodded. “I’ll have to see that they get on it. Thankfully, it is still well within tolerances, and the safety mechanisms wouldn’t have allowed departure if there was a danger.”

Yolani nodded. He was right, of course, but it still seemed a little sloppy to her. She decided to change the topic to something less judgmental and much more notable. “About the mana shard shortage… have you heard anything?”

He grunted and stroked his beard. A thoughtful frown appeared. “It’s worse than we thought,” he admitted grimly. “The Syndicate has tightened their grip over the dungeon shard even more than before. There’s a shortage in acquiring them, I heard. The upper levels have run dry, and mercenaries have been having to go much deeper than normal to find them. Only four groups brought them back this week, and all of them were low quality.”

Yolani forced her free hand to unclench and relax. Her father would be fine! He was very experienced, and he was taking a team with him to watch his back.

“Does anyone know who it was who scooped up all the mana shards in the weeks prior?” she asked.

Ranolf shook his head. “It was a group, of that I’m certain. One with deep pockets and an ability to coordinate their efforts so that the market wouldn’t have time to react. Unfortunately, it looks like it will take months for things to recover to normal.”

“And power prices will be Overworld-high in the meantime,” Yolani muttered caustically. “I’m afraid I don’t know how I’ll keep costs under control, to be honest. Two small golds for eleven crystals will mean half the most popular sundries cost more to make than they sell for… unless I double the price, and then no one will want one.”

“We will all have to tighten our margins in the coming month’s I’m afraid,” Ranolf offered unapologetically.

Silence filled the cage, broken only by the rolling of gears. Yolani pondered the issue in her own head before deciding to offer an idea.

“I had another idea about merging crystals, and I wanted to run it by someone with more experience…” Yolani let the statement trail off to see how he’d respond.

Ranolf shook his head dismissively. “It’s impossible. Mana crystals are inherently unstable; any attempts to merge them into a full mana shard would cause catastrophic failure of the structure. Likely fatally for anyone making the attempt.”

Despite the discouragement, she couldn’t help but feel determined to keep thinking about it. She simply nodded, accepting his advice and remaining silent. She would prove him wrong someday.

As the elevator cage reached the bottom, she felt a shiver run down her spine. The air temperature in the demon kennels was at least five degrees cooler than the rooms above and Neftasu’s normal ambient temperature.

Her mana senses were tingling as well, hinting at the contents of the cages arrayed before them as they stepped out of the elevator.

There were dozens of the opaque boxes, each one with a sliding steel shutter only opened when the demon would be ‘drained’ with a mana shard. They made their way to the far wall, where the space’s workspace was bolted to the stone wall.

A cage rattle made her jump and Ranolf chuckled. “Don’t mind them. Fully secure. A new batch of specimens came this week, and they are slightly agitated after being moved, but they’ll calm down soon.”

“Right,” Yolani replied hesitantly. No one was going to tell her to calm down around half a horde of demons.

The crystal works were arrayed with various tools and materials for affixing and unfixing crystals to different surfaces. At the center on a locking pedestal was a vibrant mana shard that dominated the counter it sat on.

[Mana Shard(Condensed) 1450/2150]

Her heart jumped at the sight of it. Maybe this could be their solution? It was a very high-grade stone. It was only half charged, but even then, it would be enough for a decade of light stone service.

“Is that shard for sale?” she blurted, without thinking.

Ranolf paused and gave her a stern, silent look.

She barely avoided flinching under his gaze as she realized her mistake. “I’m sorry… just… had to try. It was thoughtless of me.”

He slowly nodded before turning his attention back to the task at hand. “I heard about your father’s contract,” he said after a long pause. He sounded almost sympathetic. “That must be quite a predicament indeed.”

Yolani swallowed hard at his words, remembering the worry etched on her father’s face before he had departed. “Yes,” she agreed quietly.

Carefully, each crystal was lifted out of the tray and then touched gently against the powered crystal. Yolani watched as Ranolf worked the mana threads between them, creating a siphoning effect. Once the smaller crystal was full, it was returned to the tray. Each transfer took about a minute to perform.

She let him work in silence as she focused on the new light on each crystal and considered her theory. Mana crystals were all different shapes and sizes. Each one had a different resonance based on the crystal purity structure, making them all unique. Which was why when you tried to merge them, they would explode.

What if she could find two crystals that were nearly identical, but with opposite resonances? The resonance could be altered manually as well, with a bit of work with a tuner. The smallest deviation would likely cause the crystals to separate sooner or later, but if it was perfect, theoretically, it would become a single crystal just with the capacity of both its parts.

If she could get that to work properly, what would stop her from combining two doubled crystals the same way?

Sixty-four Grade B crystals with 20 power each would be a medium quality mana shard, enough for the light stone.

She had at least that many in her collection.

Ranolf coughed into his hand, then gestured toward the tray and she snapped out of it. “Sorry. Was thinking.”

All eleven of the stones glittered brightly in the dimly lit kennels. She leaned forward and used [Identify] to confirm each one was fully charged. Satisfied, she slid the tray shut and smiled. “Thank you, Master Ranolf,” she said gratefully.