Newly Summoned Demoness 2 - Chapter 1 – Stirrings (Patreon)

Patreon now no longer allows you to edit text previews, which is annoying. The first 140 characters are always shared. This isn't that bad for a chapter like this, but it's very bad for a lot of other creators who possibly put links to .pdf or .epub etc.

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Newly Summoned Demoness Series

A War in the Depths

By Erios909

Blurb

Elania has grown accustomed to life in the Underground City State of Neftasu, sharing a home with Yolani inside the refurbished Aetherhart's Artifice, a shop her friend inherited from her father.

But not all is as calm as appears on the surface. Events inside and out of the city have pushed the Magistry to enact a sweeping set of reforms. Some of which the duo is directly responsible for.

Not all are pleased by the changes, and the iron fist of the Magistry and the City Guard is heavy. The dark cult that summoned Elania to Eladu still runs free, and the Lightbringer order has been roused by the loss of one of their divine artifacts.

Yolani has had time to come to terms with her father's death but finds that her love for artifice can't replace the hole in her heart. Yet maybe there is someone for her that shall help mend it.

With unrest, anti-demon sentiment, rogue governmental agencies, and the threat of a looming crusade on the horizon hanging over them, there is only one way Elania and Yolani will manage to navigate the peril swirling around them.

By relying on each other...

And pressing against boundaries of [Power] and Artifice that were never intended for mortals.

Newly Summoned Demoness 2 - Chapter 1 – Stirrings

The light of Neftasu's light stones crept through the gentle filter of the window curtains, casting a soft glow that danced across the gently swirling dust motes floating in the air. Elania stirred, the warm sheets a comfortable embrace against the cavernous city’s ever-present chill. For a moment, she hovered between sleep and wakefulness, a peaceful contentment filling her.

The clatter of ceramic downstairs nudged her fully conscious as the scent of Geru bean brew wafted up and into Aetherhart Artifice’s upstairs bedroom. Yolani’s room. Elania sat up and stretched, just as she had every day for the last few months since they had finally restored the shop to its former shape.

As she rolled off the wrong side of the bed, a standing mirror greeted her with a vision of her sleep-rumpled self. Two golden irises stared back at her. She wasn’t sure that she could ever get used to the shimmering celestial energy floating inside of them.

Flexing her fingers, she ran them through her now vibrant red hair that hinted that her [Power] pool was well and truly topped off.

That only made sense because Yolani had made her eat two dozen chickens the day before so she could charge the shop’s mana crystals and routine tools.

She lingered on her reflection, contemplating the journey that had led her to the quiet moment of solitude and silent introspection. There were no answers waiting in the glass, only the image of someone still learning the breadth of her own transformation.

Elania let out a heavy sigh. Being summoned from her dorm room and thrust into a conspiracy was bad enough. The fact that the system considered her a ‘lesser demon’ and that most people had a very poor view of demons in general wasn’t great. But her trip into the Celestial Engine had been the icing on the cake of what-the-fuck.

Even if the aftereffects had mitigated a lot of the blanket racism and animosity she faced. Certainly, the Magisters had gone out of their way to help Yolani and her fix the shop. Even if she couldn’t remember anything and only had what Yolani had recounted to her to go by.

At least she had been smart enough to demand they support Yolani, as well as clean up the problems in the city. Even if the shop-support had its limits. Most of the work had been left up to the two of them.

It wasn’t that bad. Fixing up the shop, bringing in supplies, replacing broken items, going on adventures for rare unavailable components—all of it was a massive improvement over her early days in Eladu, when she had been alone and facing racist asshole monks and rangers and crazy Mushroohums and wild beasts.

Although their most recent trip to secure the reagents for the shop wards had been a bit over the top.

If she ever had to face another Hornar spider again, she was going to make sure she brought something larger than her [Vorpal Dagger].

The stone floor was cool under her bare feet as she pulled on her trousers and an olive-green tunic. Socks went on before she slipped her feet into a pair of leather soled shop-slippers. Wearing something that reminded her of sandals with socks on was almost a cardinal sin, but not, apparently, in Neftasu.

Which made sense because the underground city was about as far as you could get from a sunny beach vacation.

Dressed, she headed over to the window and peeked out at the street. Artificer Row had slowly shifted since her arrival. Business has seen a large uptick since the mana shard shortage had been resolved, and the city’s new reforms had been good for business as well. There had been a lot of demand for work tools and the like.

She took a final, steadying breath before heading down the stairs. There was work to be done, a shop to finish restoring, a friend to enjoy the day with, and a city teetering on the brink of change. And somewhere within her, there was a flicker of hope that maybe she’d be able to figure out more about her new existence.

There had been little information available on her encounter with the Celestial Engine, simply because such things were kept secret outside of the Magistry archives… and they hadn’t really been permitted to look through them.

Demonology tomes were more common, and Yolani had helped her purchase a half dozen treatises on the subject, but nothing had hinted on a way to return to Earth. The stupid joke offered to her by some less than friendly characters—that if she wanted to leave Eladu, she should kill herself—was still the best lead she had.

There was no way she’d leave Yolani on her own without making sure the girl was back on her feet, anyway.

The steps were creaky, as they had been since the attack. The smell of fresh bread melded with the aroma of the Geru brew. She found Yolani, her raven-black hair tied back and her emerald-green eyes focused on a workbench item tinkering away.

She noticed Elania immediately. “Morning. Slept well, I hope?”

“Better after you stopped snoring,” Elania responded, a smile creeping onto her face.

“There’s breakfast and something to drink,” Yolani replied, ignoring the remark. Instead, her focus remained on the item she was working on. Some kind of brooch with a mana crystal embedded in its center.

Elania picked her way around the labyrinth of ordered chaos towards the kitchen. The mess had been the first thing that had returned after they had cleaned out all the debris left from the City Guard ransacking the place.

And blasting in the storefront with a fucking magical cannon.

Light filled the room from newly fitted artifice lanterns, giving off a familiar hue of light that would have been acceptable in a lot of workshops back on earth. Not that she had much experience running around workshops—she had been a college student. The lanterns just gave off a light that was much brighter than a regular flame.

The bread had been kept warm in a box, and the Geru brew was made on an artifice machine that looks suspiciously like a coffee maker. Living with an artificer certainly was almost a necessity for a girl used to modern Earth amenities. They’d even repaired the shower-thing, which was fully capable of spewing hot water.

Luxurious, wonderful hot water.

Elania sat down nearby and munched on her bread. It was fluffy. She didn’t really need any food to sustain her anymore, since her body metabolized [Power] instead, but eating was a distinct, very human activity that made her happy.

As long as it was tasty. The bread thankfully passed that requirement. Geru brew was more suspect, but caffeine still worked on her and waking up to it was a nice luxury.

“We have a fair bit to tackle today,” Yolani began while still focusing on working the brooch. “I’m confident we’ll have the main protective wards up by nightfall if we start early.”

“Ohh. Did the spider horns come back polished finally?” Elania asked excitedly. She almost choked on the bread. Not as dangerous as it sounded, since metabolizing [Power] also removed the requirement for oxygen.

Yolani shot her an unhappy look, anyway.

Fair enough. Spewing crumbs all over the workshop wasn’t a great idea, and eating outside the kitchen was already pressing against the other girl’s boundaries. Still, they had mostly managed to compromise enough to make great roommates. House-mates? Shop-mates.

“Sorry,” Elania croaked as she recovered.

Yolani turned back to her work. “Finn and Mira sent the crate of them this morning. You missed Henri coming up and doing the porter’s job for them.”

Elania tilted her head. “I doubt he was bothered. He was probably happy to have time to see you. He likes you, ya know.”

Yolani frowned. “I know.”

Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to bring up.

“What are you working on, anyway?” Elania asked, trying to change the subject.

“Smoothbore shock crystal,” Yolani replied.

Elania raised an eyebrow. “Uhh. For the guns the City Guard uses?”

Yolani nodded and pointed to the wall. Elania’s eyes widened slightly as she took in the new arrival: a dozen of the large musket-like weapons in a neat row.

“While you were sleeping in all morning, I accepted a contract with the guard to fix up some of their weapons. Pay is a gold each, but I’m going to need your help with the charging,” Yolani said, a smile slipping onto her face.

Elania’s gaze slid across the shop, taking in all the gadgets and artifice equipment. “Sure thing. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the guns and things. You know Earth didn’t have any magic, but we had really advanced guns. So, I wanted to know if you wanted to try to—”

The shop’s front door slid open, and the customer bell rang loudly. Both of them turned to greet the new arrival.

“Delivery for Yolani Aetherhart,” the man announced, tipping his cap slightly. His eyes flickered to Elania with a mixture of curiosity. “It needs unloading.”

Yolani started to get up, but Elania gently touched the other girl’s shoulder. “I’ve got this. You finish the gun shock-thing crystal.”

She followed the porter outside and stared at the contents of the wagon. It was filled with a dozen long rectangular boxes. More muskets? The value of the contract seemed to balloon in her mind, but was transporting so many weapons…

“Is moving these around like this really safe? I know the City Guard has stepped up patrols, but still…” Elania commented.

The porter shrugged. “I don’t think they are loaded. I’m sure the sensitive parts came separate, like usual. They’re just metal rods without the artifice work.”

Oh. Well, that made some sense. Elania hauled the first crate out easily. She’d have carried two at a time, but they were large enough to be awkward to carry. When she came out for the second crate, there were two young boys standing nearby, watching.

For the third, there was also a group of two men.

The fourth added a man and woman.

All of them were staring at her or quietly talking about her. Discomfort filled her immediately, but Elania ignored them and worked hard to ferry in the crates. It was just about impossible to go anywhere in the city without someone staring at ‘the gold-eyed demon’ now.

She supposed it was an improvement over the outright fear and hostility that had greeted her when she’d arrived in Neftasu. Still, it was disquieting to be the subject of such scrutiny.

Especially just outside her home.

Something must have tipped off Yolani, who appeared in the shop’s doorway as Elania fetched the last crate.

“Enough gawking,” Yolani shouted, her tone brooking no argument. “Get out of here! We have work to do, and unless you are customers, you probably should get on with your day!”

The crowd dispersed, albeit reluctantly, and Elania offered Yolani a smile as they returned inside. The porter had his cargo slip signed and then bid them farewell. Her friend flipped the open-closed sign and locked the front door with a click, shutting out the world outside.

“Ready for some teamwork?” Yolani asked with a playful grin.

Elania nodded and smiled. “Always.”

Yolani led them to the workbench she had been working at. “I was fixing up the ones that were already charged, but we have to go through most of them.”

“Go through… for the muskets?” Elania asked, slightly confused.

“Yeah,” Yolani answered, pulling out a large bag of the brooches that Elania hadn’t seen yet. There were dozens and dozens of the things. Instead of the lit-up mana crystal in the center, the stones were a dull gray.

Elania’s jaw slackened, and a flat, unhappy look appeared on her face. “Are they contained, or need shielding?”

“They’re old to need shielding. Otherwise, we’ll have to replace the crystals in all of them, and that would probably kill most of the profit,” Yolani explained.

Elania let out a sigh, but scooped up a few of the brooches to examine them. Contained crystals were mostly intact and didn’t have trouble being emptied or filled. But Yolani had showed her that most gadgets required shaping of the crystal to modify its discharge properties for whatever application it was being used for.

That meant if she just tried to fill it without ‘shielding’ the crystal first, they were likely to explode. Or melt. Or other bad things.

Yolani took one of the brooches and centered it in a little metal holder, then pulled out two thin metal needle-like tools and flipped down her one-eye magnifier. “Ready?”

Elania grunted as she straightened herself and nodded. “Sure.”

There were a lot of the things so they might as well get started.