Newly Summoned Demoness - Chapter 44 – Bitter Fruits (Patreon)

The world turned into a blur. Yolani was vaguely aware of others talking and moving around her, but their voices were distant echoes in her ears. Her gaze remained fixed on the skeletal remains; her father’s pouch clutched in its bony fingers.

Her father’s pouch, magically protected from the acid that had dissolved everything else. After an agonizingly long hesitation, she reached down and took the leather gently.

Inside was a mana shard. It shined brilliantly, hinting at its high-quality nature, but she didn’t bother using [Identify] on it. Maybe the skeleton was someone else from the party, and her father had given the pouch to him?

But there was the damning [System] message. She wasn’t sure what skill, spell, or artifice was at work, but she had tried to ignore it. Yet it hovered at the edge of her vision, unrelentingly demanding an answer to its question. It didn’t seem inclined to force her to accept or refuse, though, and she purposefully ignored it out of spite.

Yet…yet…in her heart, she knew the answer. Leaving some kind of special thing behind for her to find was…keeping in with his character. What had his last moments been like? The Waspites were dead, though they’d return eventually either in the same chamber or a different one, according to the dungeon’s whims.

The dungeon wasn’t to blame for this.

A hand landed on her shoulder and the person told her it was time to go. Right. There was no rest in the dungeon. The chamber would coalesce and form new enemies to fight, the artificial system resetting things, and anyone lingering too long inside would end up facing more and more foes.

Yolani stood up; Henri gave her a worried look and led her to the rest of the group. One of them went to her father’s remains and collected them as respectfully as they could into a bag. Then the group began the trek upwards, following the reverse of their previous path.

Her childhood friend was there, his hand on her shoulder, his voice soft and soothing. But the words were meaningless sounds to her. Nothing could penetrate the fog that had settled over her.

The remains of the [Alpha Waspite Queen] were abandoned while the loot was distributed and load balanced. The nearest chambers were still clear and facilitated their upward ascent to the second level. Fighting was light, which was a good thing because her mental state wasn’t suited for combat. It all passed by with no effort from her.

What had taken three days of fighting downward to achieve took less than one to ascend, despite her incapacity. It didn’t seem like the dungeon had the energy to throw further challenges in front of them, so it did the absolute minimum expected. A goblin here, a skeleton there, with no further rewards offered.

The entire system seemed as broken as her heart.

A subtle awareness remained at just how she was failing the group, but she couldn’t bring herself to apply her full attention.

When they arrived at the gates leading into the Syndicate’s chokepoint entryway, her mouth dropped. They had come that far already?

Harlock yanked on the bell to indicate their arrival. Everyone looked exhausted. Lucas, Jareth, and Thoren leaned against the stone wall while they waited as if they all needed a long rest off of their feet. A few minutes later, the guards ushered them through the heavy steel vault door and into a sealed chamber.

“Dump your loot and things here. The manager is on his way,” the burly guard ordered.

It took a lot of time for them to sort things out, which was expected. Delves weren’t expected to be immaculate affairs. When Fenton arrived thirty minutes later, they had not been waiting long.

The ledger of their catalogued items was in his hand as he greeted them. “Welcome back. I see that all of you have survived. Congratulations.”

“Not all of us,” Yolani mumbled.

Fenton’s gaze slid off of her and to the laid out remains on the examination table, and then to her father’s small pouch. Rather than starting on her side of the room, he began with the others.

That went slowly, with every item either being matched to their previous list of belongings or appraised and then added to the party’s running tally of acquired items and their preliminary value. The process was methodical, thorough, and allowed no room for objection. Not if they wanted to leave, other than in prisoner cuffs.

She ignored it all, resting her head against the stone and closing her eyes, gripping her father’s pouch tightly in her hands. Henri ran her things through the process for her, but then the manager reached her father’s skeleton.

Fenton coughed to draw her attention. “Ms. Aetherhart, I’m afraid you’ll have to show me the contents of that pouch.”

Resigned, she opened it and displayed the high-quality mana shard which illuminated the entire room. Fenton grunted and plucked it from her palm. “I’m afraid that I’ll have to take this.”

She felt a spike of defeat. “The agreement with my father said he could bring back one mana shard.”

He stared at her for a moment with a frown. A glimmer of hope that he was considering letting her keep it was smothered promptly. “That agreement was between your father and the Syndicate, not you, Ms. Aetherhart.”

Fenton’s men hauled off all the loot items they had found, minus a few tidbits some of them had decided to keep. At a cost to their share, of course.

Each member of the party was issued a card that was then magically sealed by blood with the lot numbers of each item and their royalty share for the haul, to be paid after the items were sold or auctioned off.

Yolani, to her surprise, received two cards. One for her father, and herself. Fenton looked at her sternly. “The mana shard will be auctioned off this rest-day. Your father’s fifty percent share of the proceeds will be available the day after.”

She gritted her teeth and stared daggers at the man. “The deal was for one shard,” she managed to spit out.

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Ms. Aetherhart, my job is to see that all procedures and rules are enforced at this station, without playing games or favorites. I am not unsympathetic to your loss, but it is not an uncommon fate for those who delve into the dungeon.”

He reached down and picked up the discarded and empty pouch and placed it in her hand before folding her fingers closed around it. “I encourage you to not lose that. Unclaimed inheritances are not on the list of proscribed items of report on the Syndicate’s books. A memento from your father might help you.”

Anger, confusion, and pain filled her chest. What did he know about helping her? He’d already taken the thing that she needed.

That was the last bit of business, apparently, because he turned to the rest of the party. “You are all free to leave. As stamped on your tickets, you may come reclaim your share of the proceeds of the expedition on the date indicated.”

Yolani stood up and let out an exhausted sigh. “I need a carriage. She pulled out a small gold coin.”

Fenton eyed it, then accepted the payment with a nod. Carriages were expensive, so it probably wasn’t enough to cover the price, but he didn’t argue. “I’ll arrange one for you. I assume your destination is your shop on Artificer Row?”

Yolani nodded wordlessly. Henri gave her a concerned look. “A carriage.”

“I can’t deal with the city,” she admitted.

“We’ll escort you back, lass. No need for you to spend your coin,” Harlock said.

Yolani shook her head. “I’m sure some of you have things to do and take care of now that we are back. I don’t want to put anyone out because of me.” She already had done enough of that on their way back.

There were a series of protests, but she ignored them as she carefully packaged her father’s remains in the small box the Syndicate guards had provided her with. It was better than a bag, but she would have to see a more permanent solution later.

When the carriage arrived, a servant packed her things. Harlock, Lucas, and Henri chose to ride along. Harlock and Lucas because they shared the same destination. Henri, she suspected… that he was just going along to watch over her, but she didn’t object.

She didn’t have enough energy to even know if objecting was the right thing to do.

So, she cried into her elbow while watching the city pass by as the powered carriage maneuvered through Neftasu’s busy streets.

When they reached the main gate of Artificer Row, Harlock and Lucas disembarked, offering her quiet words of condolence before they left. She nodded and thanked them…more because that was what she was supposed to do, and not because anything had really been able to help her heart. The words were just more cacophony that filled her head.

Henri stayed on with her to the shop. He directed the servants in unloading her bags and her father’s remains. When she opened the door and stepped inside, everything was untouched… exactly where she had left it.

It felt hollow.

She moved mechanically through the familiar space, setting down her things on one of the less cluttered workbenches. Unfinished works that she and her father had promised to finish together lay in jumbles everywhere, from small cantrip side projects to more complex inventions they still had not figured out.

As her eyes slid onto the two unfinished light stones, she felt a torrent of rage run through her. A nearby wrench sat nearby. She wanted nothing more than to pick it up and bash the stupid things that had caused her father’s death.

No. That was wrong. The light stones weren’t responsible, at least not directly. There was someone else that had that honor. She began to hyperventilate.

“Yolani?” Henri asked with concern.

“Thank you, Henri, for helping me. I…I would like to be alone now. Could you come back tomorrow?” she asked.

He frowned and looked like he was about to argue when suddenly he nodded. “I can do that. Please take care of yourself.”

Haha. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to do that, but she’d try.

When the shop door closed with a click, she walked over and sealed it with the primary security lock, sealing off the inside of the shop from the rest of the world. Then she returned to the box that contained her father and sat down on a chair.

“Why?” she asked. “Why?”

Grief wracked her until her eyes ran out of tears. Somehow, the little leather pouch ended up in her hands and she squeezed it. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, lost in her grief, stroking the leather pouch with her fingertips.

A blurry [System] message on a scroll prompted her to finally wipe away the tears so she could read it.

It was the same message when she had found her father’s skeleton.

[An inheritance has been stored for you. Would you like to accept your inheritance now? Y/N?]

Confusion filled her. She’d ignored the message, but hadn’t Fenton already taken it? He had the mana shard. She accepted the prompt.

[You have inherited your father’s belongings: 1x Mana Shard, 1x Artificer’s Pouch]

Yolani blinked in confusion. Suddenly the leather pouch was heavier, and no longer empty. With shaking hands, she opened it and pulled out the contents—a new mana shard. A medium-high quality one that would work for one of the light stones.

She covered her mouth with a hand. She recalled Fenton’s words to her. Had he known?

Her heart pounded in her chest as realization dawned on her. Her father…he must have hidden the shard somehow. He must have known the Syndicate would take any shard she found…

Clutching the mana shard tightly, she stood up and glared at the nearest light stone.

The magister would have his pound of artifice.

And she’d have more time to prove her uncle’s treachery.