Newly Summoned Demoness: Side Story Two (Part Three) (Patreon)

Elania sat on a crate while they waited for Lucas and Kael to come back with a climbing kit. Harlock had been unhappy with the prospect of taking the elevator down, despite Yolani’s protests that it was fully functioning. The other girl didn’t have any problem with waiting for the kit, though.

When they returned, Yolani laid out the plan.

“We’ll attach the kit up top first. Then Henri will toss it down once the elevator has started to move. It’ll play out as we go down. If anything happens, we’ll be able to climb back out,” Yolani explained.

“What if the elevator breaks and falls?” Henri asked.

Yolani gave him a ‘really?’ type glance. “Elevators can’t break and fall. Not like you’re thinking. If it goes too fast or the cable is cut, safety clamps will bite into the bars in the shaft and hold the elevator in place.”

“I don’t trust it,” Harlock grumbled. “We should have charged double.”

Elania shared the sentiment. She never trusted elevators, either. As much as some statisticians wanted to tell her they were safer than being struck by lightning, she just didn’t believe it. Especially the ones that made creaky noises.

The rope ladder arrived and was promptly attached via multiple ropes to various structural elements outside the elevator shaft. Yolani took a few minutes to play with the settings on the panel. Elania watched until the other girl finally waved for her to come over.

“Charge this up to at least fifty power. That’s way more than needed, but just in case we need to cycle it up and down a bunch of times,” Yolani said.

Elania reached down and touched the mana shard, releasing some [Power] until it was at the level Yolani asked for. “Maybe we should have asked for payment, too.”

Yolani glanced at her. “If there are some things in the kennels, we can probably keep them. It’s where Ranolf kept his charging station, so there might very well be several mana shards.”

“Unattached ones, or ones like the elevator shard that can’t be repurposed?” Elania asked.

“Raw ones. Like yours,” Yolani replied. She closed the access panel with a nod and then pressed a button, re-initializing the equipment. The little elevator light did its best to light up the shaft, but it was anemic.

Elania poked her head over the bars, looking up. The darkness didn’t really bother her thanks to her [Darkvision], and she could clearly see the large metal cable that reached down to connect to the elevator. It looked a bit too much like steam punk to her… or was it arcane punk, thanks to the mana shards?

They did not need to play with magical steam bombs and things, so Elania kept the thought to herself. Although if they ever ended up on the surface… a flying steam ship with Da Vinci style wings and balloons would be pretty cool.

“Everything’s ready!” Yolani called out. The Ironfist mercenaries assembled in a line, each carrying their own gear. Harlock had his spear and shield. Lucas had a shield as well, but replaced the spear with a sword. Kael’s gear was identical to Lucas’s, but his sword was slightly shorter.

Harlock looked at Yolani. “Normally we’d ask for payment up front, but since the city is footing the bill…” The man let the words trail off as he looked at Henri.

“We’ll make sure you get paid, old man. Just make sure you keep the ladies safe down there,” Henri replied.

Harlock chuckled. “O’ course. Although if things go sideways, I have a feeling it might be them protecting us a’ bit as well.”

They all moved into the lift together. Yolani took control and lowered them a meter. Henri tossed them the climbing apparatus. The rope ladder slid between the bars on top of the cage without issue. Then they continued down, leaving the light from the shop behind.

The elevator light cast everything in a stark light while the platform creaked and groaned, as if protesting that it was now returning to the bottom after its disuse.

A lump of worry settled in Elania’s gut. Everything was going too smoothly. Something was going to happen. A sudden screech from below echoed up the shaft and everyone jumped, tensing up while hands went to the hilts of weapons.

A sudden lurch sent a second shockwave through the group as the lift suddenly dropped several feet, then jammed to a sudden stop with a jarring screech of metal against metal. The single light cut out, leaving them all enshadowed. Kael and Lucas screeched while Harlock grunted.

Yolani nearly lost her footing at the control console, and Elania wrapped her arm around the other girl’s back and caught her.

Yolani mumbled a muffled, “Thanks.”

“Light! We need light,” Harlock shouted.

Elania raised her free hand and summoned a bit of [Power] in the form of light. The orb floated in her palm.

Yolani pulled on the control lever. There was another sound of grinding metal and a slight jerk, but the elevator didn’t budge. “The lift’s stuck,” Yolani announced, her voice calm despite the sudden halt. Her hand went to a second lever and pulled it, deploying an extra set of emergency brakes.

There was a moment of silence before Harlock broke it. “We can start climbing back up, or…”

“Make a hole in the bottom of the elevator and deploy the climbing rope and continue?” Elania finished for him.

The man grunted, then nodded. “Or that.”

“We have a job to do. They are obviously still down there, unless I was the only one that heard that shriek?” Yolani asked.

“No. I heard it as well,” Elania replied.

“That just leaves us needing to cut through the elevator floor without tossing us all into the black, then,” Harlock said.

Kael and Lucas looked at each other and they somehow managed to look even more nervous. Elania grunted and almost felt bad for bringing them.

Yolani opened her pouch. “No worries. I have something for it.” She fished around for a few more seconds before pulling out a small cylinder with a screw-top lid. It contained a gray powder, and she drew a human sized square just underneath where the climbing rig hung down from the bars above.

“Hold this up out of the way,” Yolani said, as she handed the climbing rope to Harlock. Then she shooed everyone as far from the powder as possible. “Elania. Can you make a small flame on it?”

Elania blinked, then nodded. “Sure thing.”

Fire starting was one of the very first things she had learned to do with [Power] after all. Even if it had almost ended up turning her into an [Ash Demon].

The powder ignited with a bright flash, instantly liquefying the metal panel underneath it. The glowing panel highlighted the shaft’s walls as it fell, before reaching the bottom with a loud clang. Another shrill shriek echoed up at them.

Elania leaned over the hole and looked down. The metal glowed a dull red in the distance, but at least she could gauge the distance now. They were pretty much at the half-way point.

“Need to deal with the hot metal, or it could sear the rope,” Harlock said.

Yolani nodded and pulled out a blue wand. A wave of the artifice tool coated the still hot metal with a sheet of crystal that crunched as it solidified and turned opaque. Then it suddenly turned into liquid and flowed down through the hole like water.

“Neat trick,” Elania mumbled.

“Who… who is going down first?” Kael asked nervously.

Elania took the rope ladder from Harlock, and then slowly lowered it into the hole. A tug downward had it running freely until it reached the bottom. “That’s me.”

“You are sure, lass?” Harlock asked.

She eyed the man and raised an eyebrow. “I think I’m the safest choice, since we don’t know what we are dropping into.”

“She’s right. She’s definitely our strongest fighter, and most resilient,” Yolani said.

“No argument about that,” Harlock replied. “Spooky down there.”

Elania huffed. Spooky. Well, he wasn’t wrong. It was just that spooky was a little less effective when you could literally turn into a human torch and fist fight with [Rockbears] and come out on top.

Yolani reached out and squeezed Elania’s arm. “We’ll be down right after you.”

Elania nodded, tugged on the ladder to make sure it was secure, and then began her descent. After making it down a little ways, Harlock followed. The ladder ropes were thick, but she realized that maybe she should have asked what the load capacity was?

Oh well.

Halfway down, the dim glow of the cut out panel had nearly faded into the dark. Her [Darkvision] let her see that the bottom of the shaft was clear of obstacles—and demons—though, and she decided that she had had enough of the slow climb.

“I’m dropping down,” Elania called upwards.

There was a confused “Huh?” from Harlock, but she ignored it.

The ground quickly came to meet her as she freefalled, but a surge of [Power] through her body was more than enough to brace herself for the landing. There was a resounding bang, and dust and grime flowed away from her impact in a thin cloud.

As she looked up, two pairs of red eyes stared back at her, causing her to hiss, then growl, mimicking a [Darkwalker]. Her [Identify] skill kicked in as the two startled birds squawked and fled.

[Demonic Chicken] … [Demonic Chicken]

“What’s going on down there!” Yolani shouted down.

“The Demon Chickens are loose!” Elania shouted back.

“Keep the tunnel secure and wait for the rest of us!” Harlock bellowed.

Elania grunted and pulled her [Vorpal Dagger] from its sheathe. Stepping forward, she checked the exit. It was a hallway that went to the left and right, and both corridors terminated with torn ajar doors. The section to the right looked like it led to the kennels.

Despite the welcome, everything was eerily silent.

Nothing moved except for the shifting of the ladder. Harlock’s boots crunched on the debris on the ground and he moved to join her at the shaft’s threshold. “Nothing attacked?”

Elania shook her head. “No. But two of the chickens were at the bottom… like they were waiting for us. Then they ran for it. I don’t like it.”

Yolani arrived next. “It’s not normal. If they are all out of the cages, there should really only be one demon left. They’d have eaten each other.”

“Even though they’re chickens?” Elania muttered.

Yolani shook her head and pulled out a small stone that began to emit light after she tapped it with a wand. Attaching it to the ladder revealed it was also adhesive. “For as long as they have been down here, they’d have gotten hungry, and…”

“…Demons eat [Power],” Elania finished.

“That’s not good. Means they probably found something else,” Harlock said.

“The elevator was stuck. You don’t think someone… was trapped down here, do you?” Elania asked.

Yolani and Harlock both muttered.

“I don’t think anyone really bothered to check to see if any of his apprentices went missing in the aftermath,” Yolani admitted.

“Planning,” Elania said flatly.

Yolani rolled her eyes. “Work in progress.”

“We could be attacked at any moment. Both of you, Focus,” Harlock ordered. They went silent and made ready as Lucas and finally Kael made it down.

“Which way?” Harlock asked.

Yolani nodded towards the right. “To the right are the Kennels. Don’t know what’s to the left. The kennels are just down the single hall, then a large open room.”

“Kael. Lucas. You two are watching the rear, shields up. Elania, you take point,” Harlock said.

Everyone jumped to obey, acquiescing to the mercenary’s command. Elania licked her lips and listened intently as they slowly made their way forward. Yolani placed a few more of her little lights, and the orb of [Power] light floated obediently above Elania’s head.

When they reached the kennels, it was chaos. Cages lay in twisted heaps of metal. Red eyes stared at them from behind the wreckage. A chorus of bird cries filled the space as the birds became agitated by the group’s intrusion.

Elania’s grip tightened around her [Vorpal Dagger].

“Uhh, guys. I don’t think we’re getting them back into the cages.”