Newly Summoned Demoness - Chapter 28 – Allies

Once they were inside the shop, Yolani walked to the back workshop and picked up the map of the dungeon. Her eyes traced the lines her father had drawn, marking his planned route.

“I need to go after him,” she said, not tearing her gaze away from the parchment. “I can follow his steps and see if I can find him.”

“What?” Henri blurted as he followed her into the room. His face turned pale in the dim light of the workspace. “Yolani, that’s insane! The dungeon is a death trap!”

“I know,” she replied calmly. “But it’s also where my father is.”

Henri ran a hand through his hair. “What if you don’t come back? What then?”

“Then I guess we’re both lost.” Her voice was quiet but firm. The shaking in her hands had stopped. That surprised her.

“That’s not an option!” His words echoed throughout the room, the sound filled with desperation.

Yolani finally looked at him, meeting his distressed gaze with a solemn one of her own. “Do you have a better plan?”

“I could…” he faltered, looking down at the table before continuing, “…we could hire someone else to go into the dungeon to look for him.”

“And who would we trust with such a task?” Yolani asked pointedly. “No, I have to go for sure.”

“Then I’m going too,” Henri said. “We will need help, though.”

“Wait…what?” Yolani blinked in surprise. “You’re going to come too?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice firm. “I’m not letting you go in there alone. I promised your father I would look after you.”

“But Henri, it’s dangerous!” she protested.

He gave her a look. “Are you stupid?”

She blinked in confusion. “What?”

“I just told you it was dangerous, and then you said you are going! Of course I’m going with you,” he said. “You’ll need someone to watch your back.”

Yolani opened her mouth to argue, but closed it again. She knew he was right. She wasn’t thinking rationally. A part of her felt relieved as well; she didn’t want to admit it, but the prospect of venturing into the dungeon was terrifying.

“I will always be there for you.” Henri stepped closer, closing the distance between them until they were only inches apart. His eyes bore into her, filled with an intensity that she’d never seen before.

“Henri, what are you—”

Before she could finish, he leaned forward. She froze in shock as his lips met hers—a soft yet insistent pressure that sent a jolt through her entire body.

Pulling away abruptly, she stared at him wide-eyed as confusion swirled within her. Henri was her friend, and she’d always thought of him as more of a brother. She’d never considered him in any other way before.

“Henri…” she trailed off uncertainly.

He looked at her anxiously, his hands falling to hang limply by his side. “I…I just thought—”

She shook her head, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Henri,” she began softly. “You’re my closest friends… you’re like family to me.” Her heart pounded as heavily as it had when she confronted the Magister as she continued. “But I can’t… I’m not ready for anything else.”

The silence that followed was deafening, filled with unspoken words and a thick tension. He looked at her and nodded. “I’m sorry. We should be focused on finding your father, anyway. That’s what is important right now.”

Yolani let out a silent breath of relief. She pushed down a sudden surge of anger. Why had he chosen now of all moments to do this? She turned around and looked at the map. “Thank you, Henri. For… everything.”

He walked around the table and looked at the map as well. He pointed to her father’s final plotted destination on the third level of the dungeon. “We need help,” he declared. “At least two other fighters, I think.”

Yolani looked up at him. “We could try hiring from the Iron Fist. I know some of them…well we see them every day.”

He frowned and rubbed his temples as if warding off a potential headache. “That would be expensive. I’m not sure they’d be interested in leaving the cushy guard duty, either.”

“How much do you think it would cost?” Yolani asked.

Henri took a minute to think about it before answering. “At least 3 or 5 small golds, plus supplies and equipment costs.”

Yolani nodded. “The shop has funds I’ll borrow for that. There is also the large gold entry fee. There is no point holding back…”

She turned and went to the large safe in the back corner. Unlike the wall safe that kept the high-value trinkets and stones, this one was more often used. She deftly unspelled the locking runes in the correct order, allowing the heavy metal door to open. There was a pouch of small gold, and she took it without hesitation.

Placing it on the map, she counted it out. The workshop’s lighting gave the coins a lustrous hue.

“Thirty?” Henri’s eyes widened at the sight of so much money. “Yolani, that’s way too much!”

She gave him a look and didn’t put it back. “No amount is too much when it comes to saving my father, and we are going to be hiring more than one person.”

“Ahh…I didn’t mean it like that,” Henri replied.

“I know, it’s okay.” She secured the coins back in the pouch and then put it in her travel bag. Now they just needed to figure out who they’d hire without getting stabbed in the back.

“Sergeant Harlock,” she suggested. “He’s reliable and would probably be willing to help, and definitely would know if there were a few others willing to do the job.”

Henri nodded. “I think that’s a good choice for a first place to start.”

Yolani restrained a loose lock of her hair. “Alright. You should go home and arrange for a few days’ leave from the guard. I don’t know if your uncle can—”

“He can. It’ll be fine. Trust me.” A frown appeared on his face. “Are you sure you’ll be okay here alone tonight?”

Yolani offered him a small smile. “I’ll be fine, Henri. I’ll take care of hiring the mercenaries in the morning.”

He nodded, then walked around the table to her. A momentary panic filled her as she remembered the earlier kiss, but he enclosed her in a hug instead. Instead of tensing up, she relaxed.

“I’m sorry about earlier. You’re already under so much stress.” Henri whispered.

She really was. The façade she had built about being tough felt like it would crumble if someone tapped it. “I’m sorry if it wasn’t…I just can’t think about it right now…I have to focus on finding my dad.”

Henri stepped back and squeezed her shoulders. “Don’t worry about it. We can talk about it later. For now, let’s just focus on saving him.”

Yolani nodded. He hesitated, clearly reluctant to leave. Finally he turned and left the shop, leaving her alone with her thoughts and plans for the impending expedition. A moment later, she went and locked up the shop for the night.

There were a lot of things she needed to organize, a lot of the items they’d need would be able to be sources from the shop itself. Defensive items, consumable weapons, and the like. She was pretty sure that dad had kept a healing ward stone somewhere, too.

A wave of determination surged within her. She would find her father and bring him home—no matter what it took.

When she finally finished all the preparations she could think of, she laid down to try to get some sleep.

It felt like she had just closed her eyes when the morning bell echoed through the city. The deep sleep helped a lot, and she felt a resurgence of energy as she got dressed and geared up for the day ahead.

Her first stop was the checkpoint at the front of Artificer’s Row. The familiar sight of bustling artisans and hurried wagons was in stark opposition to the sudden direness she felt. She was relieved to see that Sergeant Harlock was at the gate, overseeing the comings and goings as usual.

“Sergeant Harlock,” she greeted him, keeping her voice steady.

“Yolani,” he replied, his gaze softening slightly at seeing her. “Any word on your father?”

She shook her head sadly. “Actually, that’s why I am here. I need help,” she stated. She jumped into a thorough explanation of the previous day’s events and what she had found, the map, the delver crew coming back without him, and her encounters with her uncle and the Magister.

Harlock listened attentively as she spoke. His brow furrowed in concern when she mentioned the venture into the dungeon, but he didn’t interrupt her explanation. Once she had laid out all the details of her plan, he remained silent for a moment before responding.

“This is a risky endeavor you’re embarking on,” he said gruffly. “We can’t be sure what happened in the dungeon either, but I admit, the picture you paint doesn’t look good.”

“They might have left him in there, alone and hurt. The more we delay in going, the worse…the worse…” Yolani’s voice faltered and the line of thought almost brought a line of tears to her eyes, despite doing her best to fight against it.

He gave her a moment to compose herself.

“I know,” Yolani responded firmly. “But I don’t have any other choice.”

Harlock nodded grimly before letting out a sigh. “I’ll help you find some trustworthy men from Iron Fist who might be interested in the job.”

Her eyes lit up with gratitude. “Thank you, Sergeant Harlock!”

“It won’t be cheap. I figure it will be at least three to five small golds per volunteer,” Harlock warned.

Yolani nodded. “I’m prepared to pay, and will be happy to have some men we can trust along the way.”

“We? Is your boy Henri coming along?” Harlock asked.

A blush formed on her cheeks. “He’s… he’s not ‘my boy’ Sergeant… but yes, he’s coming along.”

Harlock grunted, but before he could respond, another mercenary stepped up. She recognized him as the man that had walked her down from the shop to the gates a few days earlier on the day of the auction.

Harlock looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “What is it, Lucas?”

Lucas nodded to them both. “Couldn’t help but overhear. Seems like you need some extra hands. I’d like to volunteer.”

Yolani turned towards him in surprise, feeling a surge of hope. Maybe finding volunteers would be easier than Harlock had thought? “Lucas, are you sure? It’s going to be very dangerous.”

He nodded firmly, meeting her gaze. “I’m aware of the risks,” he said. “But your father, and you—are nice sorts. I need a bit of extra coin, too.”

The next hour turned into a mix of Harlock monitoring the gate guards while they continued to discuss the specifics—potential candidates, her taking care of the needed supplies, and the fact that she would need to deal with the Syndicate to get access to the dungeon.

Satisfied with things, Yolani left Lucas and the Sergeant to recruit while she went to collect the supplies and get them ready at the shop. They needed rations, water, potions, and of course, all the artifice sundries she had prepared the previous evening.

Henri arrived mid-morning, his face a mask of determination. He was armed and ready in his own delving gear, with supplies strapped securely to his back. He set it down and quickly got to work helping her organize things. She left him to mind the shop to go shopping for the needed potions.

Thankfully, Alchemist Row wasn’t that far. The wide array of magical concoctions that would provide invaluable in the dungeon weren’t rare, but they were expensive. Eight small golds for two dozen healing potions. The Master who sold to her threw in two defensive reinforcement potions for free when he heard what she needed them for.

She thanked him profusely. No matter what anyone said about the cutthroat nature of the city, she felt the artisans did their best to look out for each other…most of the time.

By mid-day, preparations were complete when Sergeant Harlock arrived along with Lucas and three other men.

“Miss Aetherhart,” Harlock greeted her with a respectful nod before gesturing towards the men accompanying him. “These are our volunteers from Iron Fist—Lucas you’ve already met; this is Thoren,” he nodded to a man who resembled a mountain with arms like tower-caps.

Yolani gave Lucas a smile and Thoren a respectful incline of the head.

“Jareth,” Harlock indicated to a wiry man with a set of half a dozen daggers on his belt; “and finally, Kael,” he gestured at the youngest, who had an air of nervous excitement around him.

Yolani responded to Jareth’s wave with one of her own. The smile she gave Kael was perfectly neutral as she thanked them all. Was Kael really old enough to go with them?

“I’m sure the Sergeant has gone over things with all of you, but I just want to reiterate this is a dangerous mission, and we will be looking to rescue my father or…find evidence of his…passing. Regardless of the outcome, you’ll all be paid for accompanying me and helping keep the party safely on the trip. It’s all the way to the third level.”

She gave each one of them a serious look, but no one seemed deterred.

Harlock nodded to her. “Payment will be two large golds for the expedition. After we are out, there will be a final tally for damage to equipment and gear, maxing out at one large gold.”

Henri sputtered, “That’s outrageous.”

Sergeant Harlock gave him a sharp glance. “The dungeon is dangerous, lad. You can’t expect men to risk their lives for pennies. Not honest men who will watch your back down there, at any rate.”

Yolani nodded in agreement with Harlock’s statement, silencing any further protest. She pulled out her money bag and counted out twenty small golds, and Sergeant Harlock distributed them to everyone.

With the matter of payment settled and introductions done, they gathered their packs and headed as a group towards the Dungeon District. Moving as a group through the city was subtly different from what she was used to. The mercenaries formed up in a small arc in front of her while Henri and Jareth stood slightly behind on her flanks.

The throngs of people parted for their passage like schools of fleeing fish in the path of one of the lake monsters in the city’s primary lake.

Despite the short time knowing them, there was a seemingly undeniable sense of camaraderie between the mercenaries. That made her feel like she’d made the right decision to hire them all from the same mercenary company.

As they reached the Dungeon District, Yolani felt a small knot forming in her stomach. The guards posted at the checkpoint were Syndicate men. Their cold faces and dismissive attitude were something she’d grown used to over the years attending the auctions with her father.

A burly guard with a twisted scar running down his cheek stepped forward, blocking their path. “Hold it right there,” he ordered gruffly. His eyes flicked over them disdainfully, as if judging their worthiness to enter. He seemed to find what he wanted when they finally settled on her.

Well, her title of [Master Artificer] was probably what he was looking for.

“We’re here to delve into the dungeon,” Henri stated firmly, meeting the guard’s gaze without flinching.

Before the guard could take offense or stall things, Yolani stepped forward. “I have the delving fee for the dungeon run.”

The guard’s glare slowly drifted away from Henri to focus on the large silver she held up in her hand. He pocketed the bribe and nodded. “Really. You lot? Well then, you’d better prepare for a thorough search.”

What followed could only be described as invasive. Their belongings were turned out and examined meticulously by the guards—every potion vial opened, every piece of equipment handled roughly while being logged. They were stripped bare with no regard for privacy or respect.

The only saving grace was that the search of their items was done in their presence, so there was no chance for shenanigans or theft.

No matter how greedily the guards eyed her money pouch and bag of artifice crystals.

Once the guards had finished rifling through and documenting their things, another man approached with an air of authority that clearly marked him as someone higher in rank within the Syndicate hierarchy.

“Manager Fenton,” Harlock greeted tersely as he gathered up and began to re-adorn his armor.

“Oh? Are we acquainted, Mercenary?” Fenton asked.

“Been through here before.” Harlock answered with a gruff.

Fenton nodded to him. “Excellent. Then you’ll know the rules and procedures, however I shall go over them again for the rest of your party.”

Yolani already knew the gist of it but she stopped and focused on the message so she wouldn’t miss anything.

The manager’s gaze swept over them with a dismissive expression before launching into a list of rules and costs associated with entering the dungeon. “Any mana shards are to be handed over upon exit with no delay; the price for failing to disclose anything found is one year of indentured servitude with no parole. Half the value of any loot found is to be paid either in kind or coin; and no rescue parties will be dispatched should you fail to return.”

Yolani raised her hand, drawing a frown. “Yes, Miss Aetherhart?”

“My father had an agreement with the Syndicate.” she stated. “He was supposed to be allowed to keep one mana shard from his dungeon delve.”

Fenton raised an eyebrow, annoyance clearly etched on his face. “Unlikely,” he scoffed.

“It’s true,” she insisted adamantly. “Check your records if you don’t believe me.”

He almost protested, but ultimately turned and fetched a large journal that was chained to the table. After flipping back a few pages, he stopped to read the entry. He grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like ‘damned artificers’.

“It seems you’re correct. Your father did indeed have such an agreement. Now, if your party would like to depart, you must all agree to the Terms and Conditions of Expedition before being allowed entry.” Fenton turned his gaze to Yolani. “There is also the formality of the gold entry fee.”

She pulled out her one large gold and handed it to him. He passed a small wand over the coin, which turned green, confirming the metal’s purity. Placing it in his own pouch, he had each party member sign their mark to the agreement form before filing it away in the large ledger.

“Very well. It appears this group is founded as the 5,672nd Neftasu expedition. May fortune favor you.”

Fenton gestured towards one of the guards, who moved forward obediently. The man’s beefy arm disappeared into a recess of the wall as he manipulated some hidden mechanism. With a low groan that echoed ominously through the corridor, a heavy metal door to the dungeon began to open.

As they stepped through the threshold, Yolani couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding wash over her. But she pushed it down, steeling herself for what was to come.

***

Future of Patreon

Patreon's recent changes have been abymssal for me as a creator. I don't know why Patreon is intent on delivering updates that make the service worse over the last few months, but that's what they have been doing. They've stripped features from the creator dashboard, including making notifications useless and making the 'create a post' function objectively worse with multiple pages instead of the simple and easy to use structure it had before.

Right not there is no real alternative. This last update though, really drives home to me that the 'enshitification' of Patreon is really in high gear. I'm actively looking for alternative platforms, and I believe in the next few months RR will likely deploy their own form of early access monetization for chapters.

When that arrives I will likely slowly push to migrate my works to that if it works well.

I have disabled further annual subscriptions with that in mind. I don't plan on abandoning anyone who has an annual sub, though. So Patreon will likely be used at least for another year or so. But I will be phasing it out as soon as I can without screwing any patrons over.

Its a been concerning cause its likely that a lot of people won't transfer over, but I can't in good concious support Patreon, who has taken creator's patrons hostage on their platform. The quality of reading on Patreon is bad--their changes are progressively pushing the podcast, video, and spotify portion of their creators because that is where their big money is.

In contrast, writing and such is an after thought for them. They are in the process of 'transforming' into a massive social-media/subscription/thing that is really out of scope for what is needed: an easy to use platform where I can easily make chapter posts to without worrying about it becoming worse every day--and where readers can easily sort through available advanced material, have a good reading experience, and not have to worry about having to battle patreon just to get their payments accepted at the end of the month.

From what I have seen, the RR side of things will satisfy a lot of that. It still is to be seen if their payment provider--Tebex--will be good enough to handle things, but from what I've researched they have done a really good job with their service to other platforms mostly dealing with custom server microtransactions and such.

The key thing for me, though, is RR has a really good developer who listens to a lot of us authors about needed features. When/if we get a chance to move to the monetization scheme there, things will remain the same with pricing and such. It's likely that they will take approximately the same share as Patreon, which in my mind is completely fair to be handling the serving of chapters, handling payment, transaction fees, taxes, and all that.

I'll keep you posted on further developments, nothing is likely to change for the next few months anyway as it will all take time to shake loose and for more clear information to become available. I am however watching very closely.

***

Note from the Author

Some people were asking about ShipCore and Sigma chapters, because there haven't been any for the last two weeks. I know the plan was to do one of those per week on the weekends and the rest be Demoness chapters. Unfortunately, whatever muse likes to take possession of me and make me write didn't want to work that way.

I found myself stalling when trying to write them, being called back to Demoness. It felt terrible, because I couldn't do what I wanted to do, and what was expected. That was just a vicious feedback loop that reached paralyzing levels, and we ended up only getting one or two chapters in that week.

When I finally said fuck it and let go and just wrote what I needed to write--which was all Demoness--things fell out like a waterfall. Over the last two weeks Demoness has progressed 66,144 words!

That's approximately 4,500 words or so on average! Two chapters a day. I'm hoping to finish the rewrite for Demoness this month at this rate, or early November at the latest. Then I am very hopeful we can focus down and finish ShipCore book 4. From there Sigma 16 book 2 would be a likely candidate.

I'd like to write multiple stories at the same time, managing to do Sigma 16 and weekly ShipCore was doable for me before Demoness took over, so something like that could happen again, too.

I wish I could offer more firm guidance on what will happen, but the answer is basically: I have to write what wants to be written, and trying to force things makes quality and quantity suffer greatly.

I have no intention of abandoning the stories I've started without taking them to their conclusion, that is the one thing I can promise. So nothing is dropped, just me not managing to do what those other crazy authors do who can continue writing the same thing non-stop for years and never getting bored/burnout/needing to write something else for a change.

Anyway, thank all of you for supporting me. Without your support I don't believe that my stories would have continued to progress the way they have been able to. I'm writing full time now, and I hope to keep writing for all of you for a long time to come.

-- Erios