Newly Summoned Demoness - Side Story One (Part One) (Patreon)

Elania stepped up to the edge of the muddy bank and looked down at Kael, who was plastered to the side, his boots submerged and at an angle as the rushing underground stream tried to tug him loose and wash him away.

She bit her lip. “Remind me why we brought him again?”

Kael turned his head, his face coated with a thick layer of mud and shouted, “Help!”

Yolani stepped up to stand beside Elania, shaking her head. “We needed them to help carry the horns back. They’re big. Remember?”

“A party of two with no one to watch your back is not safe in the depths,” Harlock said as he looked down at the younger, trapped mercenary. “Methinks ye need to fetch him out, Demoness.”

Elania frowned. Normally when someone referred to her by her race, they were being nasty, but somehow the older man had turned it into a title instead of an insult.

“There’s no way I’m getting him back up without getting dirty.” Elania glared down at Kael with a frown.

“Please! Help,” Kael’ cry became almost shrill.

Elania signed, squatted down on her heels and reached down to grab his wrists. She pulled him up effortlessly, then sat him down on the stony cavern floor. True to her prediction, mud splatter came off to dirty her brand new dark green cloak.

“Ugh,” Elania mumbled.

Yolani pulled out a wand and smiled. “Don’t worry, I have something for it.”

A white light emitted from the wand’s tip and the Master Artificer wove it around in the air in a small pattern of runic writing that was still not legible to Elania.

She’d learned that her ‘writing’ skill only applied to mundane words, not arcane symbols, or algorithms. Not unless she managed to learn them or pick up the [Arcane Writing] skill, which wasn’t likely… even with all the artifice stuff Yolani had been jamming into her head.

The artifice magic set the muck to dissolving off both Kael and her at a rapid rate. The brown dirty mess floated away and settled on the ground like an evaporative mess.

Elania couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face. “Well, Kael, looks like you’re in Yolani’s debt.” She shot a glance at the young artificer, who was trying to suppress her own amusement.

Kael groaned, standing up and brushing off despite having everything cleaned off of him. He muttered something under his breath about ‘demonic strength’, causing Elania’s smile to widen.

Elania grunted. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to be more careful,” she advised, earning herself an unhappy look from Kael. The boy had been nothing but trouble since they’d brought him along for the expedition into the dungeon. But she had to admit, his antics kept things interesting.

The party moved on once more, onto a path that would take them deep—and far from the cavernous city-state of Neftasu. Elania listened idly as Harlock dropped advice and knowledge on Kael. Some of it was even useful to her.

Especially the bits relevant to the creatures they were planning to hunt: Hornar Spiders.

“Listen close, lad,” Harlock said as he led them down a spiraling tunnel. “Hornar Spiders aren’t your typical cavern critters. They’re large, eight-legged monstrosities with curling, antler-like horns that resonate with magical vibrations.”

Elania watched as Kael’s eyes widened slightly at the description. She herself felt a smile tug at her lips in anticipation. She’d never fought them before, but she doubted they were any worse than a pair of Rockbears or Razorscales.

Harlock continued, his gaze distant, as though he was recalling a personal encounter with the spiders. “Their horns are their most significant feature and allow them to sense prey from a distance inside the caverns… but they are also their greatest weakness. If you can land a blow on them, or otherwise disrupt the magical resonance with their horns, you can disorient them for a short while.”

Yolani spoke up, her tone cheerful despite the danger they were discussing. “That’s where my tool bag comes in handy! I’ve prepared a few resonance bombs that should knock them out if they go off close enough.”

Elania glanced over at the other young woman and couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm. She was always ready to face any challenge head-on.

“But remember this,” Harlock added sternly, bringing everyone’s attention back to him. “These spiders are highly territorial and aggressive. If you pass into their territory unprepared, you’ll find yourself ambushed and wrapped up in their webs before you even know what hit ya.”

Kael gulped audibly but nodded earnestly, indicating he understood the gravity of Harlock’s words.

Despite the inherent dangers of their surroundings, there was something thrilling, even exciting, about the expedition. It was a far cry from her previous life on Earth, which felt increasingly distant with every passing day, or even her expedition to reach Neftasu. That was no doubt down to the different companions she now had.

Traveling with companions you couldn’t trust was worse than traveling alone, while being with… friends was liberating.

After a few more hours of navigating the winding tunnels, glowing fungi encrusted expanses, and underground streams of the Underdark, Harlock led them to a halt in front of a solid stone archway.

Elania recognized it as a way station, currently unoccupied.

“Waystation,” Harlock explained as he stepped inside. “We’ll rest here for tonight.”

It was in a much rougher shape than the ones Elania remembered. There was a firepit in the center, but no sign of kindling or fungal wood. The individual chambers were missing, and the space was just a single large round room.

Yolani wasted no time moving straight to the arcane device standing in the center, and after a quick check to make sure everyone was inside, she activated it. There was a familiar pop in Elania’s ears as the shimmering blue field popped into place.

[WY#643 has accepted your unauthorized presence in order to rectify a security boundary.]

Kael and Harlock laid out their bedrolls, and Elania grabbed the cook-pot to take it to the nearby underground stream they had passed a few minutes earlier. As soon as she stepped out of the waystation, the muted rush of water echoed off the cavern walls.

Setting the pot down beside the rocky bank, she studied her reflection under the dim ambience of the cavern’s flora. Two yellow irises were framed by her middle length red hair. Despite all the trauma she’d endured, there wasn’t a single marred scar on her skin. It was a far different look than she had once possessed, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it herself.

“Preening again?” A melodic voice punctured the solitary moment from behind.

Elania turned back and gave Yolani a suspicious look. “I don’t preen.”

Looking away, she reached down with the pot and filled it with water while Yolani let out a little laugh.

“You do when you’re a cat,” Yolani countered.

An unhappy expression appeared on Elania’s face. “You better hope I don’t have to eat too many spiders, or you might wake up wrapped in a cocoon one morning.”

Yolani put her hand to her chest in mock horror. “Oh no. That would be…well maybe not as bad as waking up to sandpaper scraping my head off?”

Elania tensed up and focused on retrieving the pot of fresh water. “That only happened once.”

Yolani crossed her arms. “You trapped me on the bed for an hour!”

“It was a bonding experience,” Elania countered.

“Darkwalkers are solitary hunters!” Yolani objected.

Elania blushed, not wanting to bring up that while Yolani was right—Darkwalkers were solitary—that didn’t apply to mated pairs. Not that she had intended to force anything on Yolani, it was just that thinking became muddled when she was transformed.

Finished with the water, Elania helped Yolani shave off enough [Tower-Cap] wood to use for their fire. Carrying the pot in one hand and a bundle of sticks under her other arm, they made their way back fairly quickly.

A yelp from Kael made both Yolani and Elania freeze and share a look before they burst down the path to return to the still shielded waystation.

When they entered the chamber, they found the young man on his ass scooting backwards while Harlock chuckled and watched. “Boy, you are in a rude awakening if that thing scares you! The Hornar Spiders are much larger!”

Elania’s gaze fell onto a spider that had crawled onto and claimed Kael’s shield. To be fair, the spider was as large as a hand and was waving its arms at the young mercenary. Still, it wasn’t a monster or anything.

“Harlock, you shouldn’t torture him,” Yolani admonished. She pulled out a wand and flicked it, the spider floating up into the air via telekinesis. It began to struggle and wave its legs around, but the artifice magic floated it out of the waystation and deposited safely on the path.

“Won’t it be able to get back in?” Elania asked.

“Good point,” Yolani said with a nod. She set down her bundle of sticks by the wall and then went to the control device and shut down the field. “Any other creepy crawlies in here?”

Elania raised her nose and sniffed. She smelled nothing. “I think we’re fine.”

“Did you just…sniff?” Kael asked with wide eyes.

“She’s half cat,” Yolani quipped before reactivating the protection field.

Elania shot Kael a heated glance. “You better be careful! You’ll end in so much debt to Yolani that you might have to supply some artifice ingredients.”

His eyes widened in shock, which made her laugh. Yolani just shook her head. There wasn’t really any truth to the statement, but the young man’s reaction was worth joshing him a bit.

Harlock went to work turning the kindling into a campfire while Yolani pulled out some of their cooking supplies. The girl was good at cooking and Elania enjoyed the smell of the various vegetables as they were chopped up and added to the pot of water.

Not wanting to be idle, Elania took a few of the longer poles they had collected and began to shave them down into javelins. It was something she hadn’t done in a while, and the first one came out nearly mangled and a foot shorter than she had intended. Her [Basic Handcrafting] skill seemed to kick in though, because the second and third turned out very usable.

“You going to use those things to fight with? I don’t think fungal wood makes for a good weapon, even if it is flexible,” Harlock said to her.

Elania nodded. “I’ve used them before; they make for a good range attack…and I have a lot more reserves now. I’ve put down Rockbears, Darkwalkers, and even an Alpha Ralfot with these.”

Harlock raised an eyebrow and whistled. “That’s quite a list of critters to have dealt with using a whittled piece of mushroom.”

Okay, to be fair, there had been a bit more to it than just the javelins in most of the fights. Applying her special [Power] was probably what made it effective at all. Although exactly what the ratio wasn’t clear to her.

Kael remained by the wall, going through his stuff, maybe looking for spiders. Elania shook her head. It would have been a better idea to bring Lucas or Henri, she thought. But they had been busy, and Harlock insisted they needed an extra set of hands to carry things back.

Yolani’s shop was still under construction repairs, but there were a few things that the Magistry wasn’t prepared to restore for her. That included the highly advanced magical protection wards that were almost a necessity for a shop like Aetherhart’s Artifice. There was just too much dangerous, and valuable, stuff to be found in an Artifice workplace to not have it magically protected.

There were a few components required to build those types of wards Yolani had explained. She needed something that would…do something…with the…

Elania rubbed the side of her head. Artifice stuff was complex. There were multiple things Yolani could use, but the easiest one was the Hornar Spider horns. Apparently, a few sets of their antlers would cover the needs for the shop, and the other options were stupidly expensive or extremely hard to locate and not available.

A smile appeared on Elania’s lips. And so, the legendary Hornar Spider expedition was formed, featuring a young mercenary, an old one, a pretty [Master Artificer] and… herself.

Yolani finished preparing the stew with a last addition of some dried meat and then made her way over to sit by Elania. The soft glow of the firelight flickered across the raven black-haired girl’s face as she began to tinker with one of her small artifices.

The group’s conversation was light; punctuated with laughter or comfortable silence as the stew finished cooking and they enjoyed their meal around the fire—the flames beginning to cast long shadows against the rough-hewn walls of the waystation.

Elania took the first three watches, since she barely needed as much sleep as the three humans in the group. It gave her the chance to watch Yolani sleep and think about all the things that had happened to her since she’d been summoned.

As bad as it had been when she had first arrived, and after the sudden loss of her life on Earth, things weren’t that bad… and she wasn’t alone.

Tomorrow, they would face unknown dangers again. But tonight, in the small pocket of safety buried deep in the depths below Neftasu, she felt an unexpected peace.