Trail 48: Working with Demons

--- Jon ---

“So how much of the station are we working with exactly?” He asked, carrying a box through the station halls.

“I’ve managed to… convince everyone to give us about half of the station, with the other half being reserved for ongoing business and holding a halloween party.” His ma answered before dropping the box on a nearby desk.

“Unfortunately, since everyone here is a lazy bastard we’re going to have to move everything ourselves.” His ma continued while gesturing to the numerous desks littering the room.

“Should I be offended by that?” Officer Garcia frowned, setting her own box down with a grimace. “Also why am I carrying bags full of blood? Actually, why do you have bags full of blood?”

“Because it’s a haunted house?” His ma blinked, just as confused as he was.

“Okay, so it’s fake blood.” Garcia nodded looking relieved.

“What no!” His ma frowned looking offended. “I’m not one of those cheapass pansies that use ‘fake blood’. If you want to do a haunted house right you’ve got to use real blood even if it costs a little extra.”

“It’s… It’s not human blood at least… right?” Garcia whimpered.

“Of course not.” His ma grimaced. “I’m willing to splurge but not that much!”

“There’s also the fact that human blood has more human diseases.” He pointed out as he began pushing a desk towards the wall.

“Oof, yeah, after mixing it in the tank, if just one person has hepatitis we’d all be going down.” His ma agreed.

“Right, so… I’m not going to be running your haunted house.” Garcia told them.

His ma gave her partner a dry look. “Wuss.”

Scene Consequences

-Gained 1XP to Trap Making and Psych Warfare.

--Currently: Trap Making Lv. 9 (9/20) and Psych Warfare Lv. 4 (7/10).

---

Realizing that he’d run out of Pix’s potions, he decided that it would be in his best interests to make another batch of said potion before she realized he’d let her supply get so low. (I am so lucky that we made those magic muffins at the cooking club.)

He was pretty sure her last potion would have run out by now if not for that.

While he waited for the potion to reach a slight boil, his eyes drifted to a small pile of leftover Anima Herbs, (Hmm, it wouldn’t hurt to make a couple of healing salves too. I mean just because I have Pix, that doesn’t mean that someone else won’t need them.)

Scene Consequences

-Gained (Potion Rank: 3 + Perk Bonus: 2 = 5) MP Regen Potions.

-Gained (Potion Rank: 3 + Perk Bonus: 2 = 5) Basic Healing Salves.

-Gained 1XP to Potion Making.

--Currently: Lv. 7 (4/16)

System Update: I’m remixing the rules on the Garden instead of a growing supply of ingredients -that I may or may not have forgotten to keep track of- instead as long as an ingredient has been in the garden for 5 turns we can use as much of it as we need for potions. (Because Pix magic.)

---

“So, how do these look?” He asked, showing off a few wooden figurines he’d carved based on what Val had told him during their last lesson.

“You know you don’t actually have to make it look like the one you’re summoning?” Val pointed out, picking up a little statue of Pix (that I really should’ve put a flooring or something on so that it could actually stand.) “The only thing that matters is that it symbolically reflects them.”

“Maybe… I-it’s been a couple months since I’ve carved anything so I may’ve gone a little overboard here.” He admitted a little awkwardly.

“Fine, it’s whatever.” Val shrugged, tossing the figure on the table (at an angle that could’ve snapped the wings off.)

He frowned, picking the figurine that Pix had loved seeing up and making sure it wasn’t cracked.

“Like I was saying, the reason I asked you to make these was to see if you could make something that represents one of your summons, that way we can tweak it so that you can create your own Contracting tokens.” Val explained, pulling out a small bird skull covered in little painted symbols. “Technically you can use anything be it a statue, a drawing, or whatever else, just so long as it holds enough similarities for symbolisms sake.”

“So now that I’ve got the figurines do I carve a spell circuit or something onto them?” He wondered, flicking open one of his knives.

“That’s one way of doing it.” Val nodded before shaking her head. “But if the lines or paint are damaged they’ll disrupt the spell, so I’m not going to bother showing you how to apply that version of it.”

“Then which version of it are we going to use?” He frowned.

Val placed a large roll of butcher paper on the table before unraveling it to reveal a Spell Circuit of some kind. One far more complicated than anything he’d ever made on his own, be it for Contracting, Spell Scripts, or Enchanting.

“An unholy bastardization of three different Arcane arts.” The demon summoner answered with a fanged smile.

Scene Consequences

-Thanks to Val gained 4XP to Contracting: Summons.

--*Skill Level Up* Contracting: Summons Lv. 6 (1/14)

---Contracting Capacity is now: 6/13

-Progress made towards ??? Perk. (2/4)

--- Audrey ---

“So this is the place?” She asked as Jon began to remove a storm drain cover.

“Uh, yeah, pretty close anyway.” Her possible cash cow nodded as he checked his phone before showing her a couple of pins on his map. “We’re going to have to be a slight distance from the entrance I used due to traffic, but we should be able to find the Creep corpses if we go down this tunnel and take a left.”

“Fair enough.” She shrugged, not really caring about following him underground an unknown distance from their objective. (In an enclosed space like this I’m pretty sure he won’t be able to avoid my Stranglethorns.)

“Hold on, give me one second.” Jon told her as he stepped off of the ladder and into the darkness of the tunnels.

With the light of her own phone she was able to vaguely see him put a hand to his chest and causing the small flash of light common to most summonings as a little fairy came into being in front of him, its glow illuminating the tunnel well enough to make everything visible.

She vaguely recalled the fairy from the Arcane meeting, but given the distance and shadows of the night she’d actually been split on what the creature following him around actually was. (With the glow it could’ve just as easily been a willowisp.)

“Uh, Audrey, this is Pix. Pix, Audrey. She’s going to be helping us collect the bounty on those Creeps.” Jon told the little fairy.

“Pleas-” Her smirk turned to a frown. “Wait, did you say Creeps?”

“Right, yeah… Um, while I was down here I found a couple more of those things… nesting I guess? And I went ahead and killed them in their sleep figuring it wouldn’t hurt to deal with them while it was an easy kill.” Jon explained almost bashfully rather than with the pride she was used to seeing from other hunters claiming a kill, even an easy one.

(Then again I guess he doesn’t want to be a hunter.) She figured, knowing that while it was an exciting lifestyle it was also a dangerous one. One that she was honestly glad her little sister had no intention of involving herself in.

Considering this new information, she gave him a nod. “Alright, well how many did you manage to kill?”

“Um… a lot?” He winced sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“A lot?” She repeated before sighing. “You do remember that thing I warned you about becoming an affiliate don’t you?” Not that that was necessarily a bad thing for her, regardless of how much Val and Artemis might complain about it. (And if it doesn’t work out I can just have everything filed as a probationary thing since he hasn’t actually been in the city for a whole year.)

“Yeah, I remember, and I sort of figured I’m already part of the school’s magic club, so if anyone were to go looking I’d probably be labeled an affiliate anyway.” Jon shrugged.

“True…” If not for the fact that despite using school asset’s their club wasn’t actually on the books, and she only got access to that clubroom by blackmailing the school faculty. What’s more, Artemis had rigged the room with a slight perception filter to keep people from noticing their comings and goings, so very few people actually realized any of them were directly affiliated with each other. (Beyond Artemis and Val’s occasional hate-flirting anyway.)

She was about to ask how much ground they were going to have to cover to gather these corpses before they stumbled across a Creep curled up on the ground with a massive gash in its skull.

“Brutal.” She noted, more because based on what she’d seen she was pretty sure he would, (Yep, there’s the grimace.)

“Yeah…” Jon sighed before giving the corpse another look. “Should we drag this back to the entrance now, or…”

“Give me a second.” She answered before pulling out a couple of her ‘special’ seeds and planting them into the Creep via the hole Jon had dug for her. “Alright, with that I should be able to drag the corpse wherever with this spell later, but for now let’s go ahead and tag the rest.”

“Right, then um, we’ll continue this way then…” Jon told her pointing down one of the tunnels.

---

“That can’t be right…” Jon eventually frowned looking behind them and in front of them.

“What isn’t?” She asked, mildly impressed by how many Creeps he’d killed by walking through the storm drains. (I’ll have to remember this for next year. We let the Scarecrow loose down here and we’ll just be raking it in.)

“There should’ve been a couple more bodies before that chamber there.” Jon explained gesturing to what seemed to be an open chamber at the end of the hall.

“One of the other Creeps must’ve gotten to them, fuckers are cannabalistic if given the chance.” She figured, because while the other teen had killed a fair number of Creeps she had no doubt that there were even more lurking somewhere in these tunnels.

After all, during the actual Halloween Haunt over a hundred Creeps swarmed the streets, and that’s after weeks of everyone chipping away at their numbers. If she went off of those numbers then he’d killed about a week worth of Creeps in a single night. (Not bad. Shame he doesn’t want to be a hunter.)

While he may not have beaten them in a straight fight a smart hunter was often even more dangerous than a strong one. That was something every member of her ‘coven’ could attest to in their own ways.

“I see…” Jon frowned before glancing towards the larger chamber. “I wonder if any of those are still there?”

“Any of what?”

“Oh, um, remember how I said they were nesting, well that was their main nest.” Jon told her pointing at the chamber in front of them, where she could see… (something) on the ground.

Following the other teen into the chamber she found piles of sludge all over the place, sludge that she knew from personal experience was the result of the Creeps combusting in sunlight.

She couldn’t help but whistle at the sight. “This must’ve been what a dozen Creeps?”

“Uh, something like that.” Jon nodded.

“How’d you take them out?” She asked more out of professional curiosity than anything else.

“I uh, I rigged a bunch of molotovs to sort of just… drop on them.” Jon explained kind of lamely.

“I see…” Personally she would’ve unleashed a swarm of stranglethorns and snapped all of their necks in their sleep, (but to each their own.) “Right, so I’m going to go ahead and warn you that I can’t actually claim these… or I can but, the bounty for turning in sludge is even less than turning the corpses in without a license. Though they won’t penalize you for not having a license there at least, something about bribing the people to report anything strange.”

“Huh…” Jon shook his head. “It’s whatever I wasn’t actually turning this in for the money anyway, I just wanted to make sure Sanctuary knew about these nests for next year.”

“Trust me, now that people will know these nests are down here, it may not happen this year, but next year these things are going to be cleared out daily.” She promised him, without bringing up the fact that she and the girls were going to be doing the cleaning rather than Sanctuary.

“That’s a relief.” Jon smiled at her.

“Yep, though I should warn you again that the payout on this won’t be until the haunt is actually considered ‘over’.” She figured she should warn him, just in case he was expecting the money today.

“That’s fine. Like I said I wasn’t really in it for the money. I just, I just didn’t want to deal with Sanctuary you know?” Jon admitted.

“Nobody does.” She pointed out.

Jon gave her a nervous chuckle. “Yeah, well, uh… Thanks for dealing with them then.”

“It’s no problem.” She assured him. (And it honestly isn’t.)

A little known fact about Sanctuary was the fact that whenever a city had a major ‘event’ like this they tended to release the kill scores of every group that involved themselves in it. That way they could take advantage of the various rivalries to motivate the gangs and hunter teams into putting a little more effort into risking their lives to fight the demonic invasion in the hopes of one-upping each other. (And of course so that Sanctuary can one up the Heroes’ Guild by consistently topping them.)

This benefited her and the girls in the fact that as one of the two newest Hunter teams in the city, scoring decently on this kill count would establish a resume of sorts that she and the other girls could use to get their little business venture off of the ground. Something she no longer had to worry about given how this gave them a few more kills to said count.

What’s more, thanks to the fact that Jon had taken her on this little adventure, she now had a decent little treasure trove for the next year’s haunt. Even if it meant claiming these kills over the next couple of weeks to keep anyone else from seeing said treasure trove.

“Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ll take you and your fairy out to lunch for a job well done.” She told her cash cow with a smile.

Scene Consequences

-In 15 Turns (roughly turn 60) Jon will gain 5 Grand, increasing his weekly budget by $100 a week.

-A/N: Just going to warn you that there was a saving throw here where Audrey would’ve been mad for bringing heat down on her and the coven, that somehow you guys passed with a crit success. (And I was mostly rolling to see if she’d dislike or hate you for dropping this on her.)

You are very lucky your greed didn’t set you back a couple levels on Audrey’s social here.