Fool's Adventures: A Demon's Souls/Buffy the Vampire Slayer Quest

Time to go. With that thought flitting through your head you double check your minion. Examining her weak pulse, breathing and the state of her Soul, you confirm for sure that it won't be till the sun rises next at minimum. As a contingency you lock the wards again as you leave. Even if she wakes up, she won't be able to get out, and the wards should prevent her from touching the Gauntlet, or otherwise stealing it, by trapping her in the central circle.

Securing your home behind you, you quickly enter the sewer through the alley entrance and descend. Scenting the air you find no trace of recent vampire scents. Pulling shadows close, you walk up to the point where your tunnel meets the main street tunnel and head right, going north.

The trip is mostly uneventful, nothing to meet you but the sounds of rats again. Hmmmm… you briefly contemplate the usefulness of rats towards your tasks, but quickly discard them. Too much effort to change them and not sufficient gain.

The area the Magic Box resides in is another market area of sorts. When you first found it you had not really noted the other things in the area, more interested in the magic you could feel. Now though, you pay some attention to the Souls congregated in the area as you travel below them. In the direction of the Magic Box you note a familiar Soul.

The older witch is inside the building, near another Soul. Likely the proprietor. Moving quickly you search for a way up near the building, while keeping an eye on her, and find one a few minutes later. Climbing up you peek out of the sewer and see no one nearby who might be paying attention to you.

Pulling yourself out of the hole gracefully you slither over to the back corner of the building, though you are careful not to touch it, and hear a conversation ending.

"...come again Amy, tell your mother I said hello!" A male voice, older and kindly sounding. Hmmm?

"I will Mr Bailey!" A young woman's voice responds to the man. You edge up to the front corner of the Magic Box, hiding yourself in shadows and a stack of crates. Hearing a bell ring you look around the corner to see a curious sight. A young body carrying the Soul of the old witch.

You look closer, examining the magic which lingers in the air around her. Possession. Some skill, but only a modicum of actual power. You think, after looking at her. Your examination further reveals that she is not carrying much of interest to you in the fabric bag she is carrying. Only some weaker totems, silver wire and some spices with minor magical properties.

She is obviously preparing for something, though looking at the ingredients again you do not think the curse you think she is cooking is aimed at you. Nothing among demons would be much affected by what she is carrying, from what you can sense from the items. Settling into the shadows you watch her walk away from you down the sidewalk.

Tall and with long legs with curly blond hair and the scent of lilacs. Hmmm… perhaps a student at the Warrior's school? You wonder privately. Shortly thereafter she disappears around a corner and her Soul moves away, heading for her home. The other Soul was young. Perhaps a younger relative also possessing another body, you conclude. You do need more information on them though to be certain.

Looking back at the Magic Box you track the proprietor through the walls. You hear him muttering and moving things around in a back room. "Good day today… good day." You hear a relaxed sigh then. The rest of the mutters don't hold anything of note. After watching while glancing at the sky you decide he is closing up for the day.

Moving back to the sewer access you pull the cover closed after you and descend to wait in the darkness. You listen to the chitter of the rats as you wait in silence, beginning to examine the potential magical defenses. The first look is gentle and prodding at the quiet whirl of magic surrounding the building.

You do not find any real presence of organization in the energies around you. You do find combinations of things which might be minorly hazardous or restrictive. A deeper look and a comparison of when you were in touching distance of the walls has you sure that there is nothing organized and that if something triggers it won't kill you. Nothing within has the power to do that as you currently are.

At this point you estimate that around half an hour has passed, and the man is leaving. Climbing back out of the sewer you slide up to a corner of the building and watch him get into a car in a small backlot, manipulating keys of some form from what you can see and hear before it starts.

Noting that little piece of information down, you carefully round the corner of the building and look for a back entrance. You find one very quickly and then approach, gently pushing against the magic in the air with yours, wary of triggering it. The next step you need to do is search for physical defenses, which humans are rather fond of you've found by talking to your prisoners.

Staring intently at the door you search for any indications of some kind of device or trap meant to injure you or stop you. You see nothing of the sort. There is a little wire with some of that energy you sense in the streetlights, electricity, going through it. Something else then, perhaps some kind of warning device.

Certain the door is now safe to touch after your momentary examination you grab the handle, and finding it locked as expected, twist. The handle comes out of the door frame with a clunk, not being reinforced like the locks in the prison were. The door creaks open and a shrieking starts up from within the building.

Rushing in, you see a blinking panel and silence the wail by slamming your hand through it and frying the innards with a small Soul Arrow. Carefully checking the rotating mass of magic all around you, you feel for any kind of retaliation from that corner. After a moment of nothing occurring you stride quickly into the backroom where you can sense something you desire.

Going to a flimsy brown box, you stab a hand into it and see your first target. A tattered book titled Volumen ex Inferna Daemon bound in thin beaten metal. The book feels similar to the school does, though approaching it from a different methodology, and it is powerful. Likely, it contains lore on the demons you keep reading or hearing about.

Taking hold of it you proceed to turn to the other boxes and tear them apart as well. Spreading the wreckage over the room you leave a handful of seconds later. Entering the front room behind the counter, you see a room absolutely full of an incredible variety of knicknacks, with the front windows covered by blinds of some sort. Looking for a container to carry your items you see an arrangement of fabric bags like the one the witch was carrying.

Grabbing it you stick your book into the bag and then follow the scent of coins to a device on the wooden countertop. Looking at it you set your bag aside and grab the device, before slamming it down onto the counter corner. Repeating this several times the device cracks open with a merry jingle as coins go flying to the floor along with fluttering bits of paper.

Pausing for a moment on the greenish papers you wonder what they are before you smell the girl. Deciding from that and the coins that this is money you clean out most of it, as if in a hurry, putting it into your bag. Your minion can likely use it when she wakes up.

Moving gracefully and quickly around the counter you head into the aisles and shelves of the little store. The magic in the air is becoming disturbed and you think a response from those constables might be coming so you hurry to take items from the shelves as you move toward the other useful items you can sense.

There are two of them, of similar power to the book. The next item you find is a device which looks a bit like a cylindrical incense censer the size of your thumb, which you judge you can use for storing or binding a significant mystical force, equivalent to a sizable portion of your own power. The final one, as you start to hear sirens, is a sprig of smoky smelling herbs and wood which you can use in the creation of your property wards. Introducing firey elements to it will likely help greatly.

Placing it all into the bag, quickly organizing it so that nothing is being crushed, you then rush out the back door. Climbing carefully into the hole to the sewers you pull the cover on behind you. You are already moving away and concealed in the shadows of the tunnels when you hear the sirens peak and the constable's vehicles pull up near the store. You are out of your hearing range before any conversations reach you. Moving quickly, you return home, watchful for vampire scent or disturbances.

You get home without any incident a while later. Climbing out of your sewer access you poke at the feeling of your wards. Nothing. All is as it should be. Pulling away from them you enter your yard, and secure the gate behind you. Scenting the air in your yard you verify that there is nothing amiss and then enter your home.

Carrying your possessions up the stairs you reach the third floor and the Fog Gate blocking the door. Pushing on your wards you unlock them, the Fog Gate fading before you. Walking through it you see your minion still passed out in the middle of your circle. Moving to one of the shelves on the north wall, the same wall where the Gauntlet is stored, you carefully remove your items and catalogue them.

First you have your three main targets. The book, the incense censer, and the sprig of herbs. You carefully lay the book down on the shelf near your chair in the far corner of the room. The other two items are put next to each other, while you make certain they won't have any odd interactions. The pile of other items you grabbed are a mixture of low powered objects.

Taking them out you store them on a lower shelf before drawing several circles around them with your energies to prevent their magic from mixing with the rest of the work room. Carefully going through them, it's a large assortment of mostly pointless to you items. Soothing herbs, other plant material, a package of cards labeled "Tarot", and miscellaneous minerals. The most notable thing is a burnt and treated wooden wand with no real power. It is however, open enough that you could theoretically turn it into a catalyst wand, even if you don't need such things.

Stepping back from your items, you survey them. They are suitable, you decide after a few minutes considering them. The minor items might be useful for making a few weak crafts or other devices, but you have higher priorities. Turning to your minion inside the now deactivated circle you check her again. Hmmmm.... Her condition is not very improved, so you raise your estimate of the time slightly. She will live, but likely not wake with the rising sun.

Satisfied, you rise and consider the remaining time you have left in the night. Your Gauntlet is available right now and, with the power you have on hand, you can study it. The binding censer might also be useful for you in your examinations as a means to hold part of the power of the Gauntlet outside of its physical shell.

You could also search for Angel and follow him. With the items and the Gauntlet in your possession this is slightly lower priority than it has been, but he is still a demon with a Soul. Such a being, with similarities and yet massive differences to you, must eventually be examined to judge how much of a threat he actually is.

Looking back at your items, you focus on the book. Your knowledge of the "Demon Dimensions" which you have seen references to is woefully lacking. Such things are of great importance to you as a means of gaining your power back and because they are the most likely source of the Hellmouth's energies. Perhaps by studying the book you can learn of them or the demons which inhabit them.

In the end you decide to…


Okay what do? This will take you through the rest of the night.

[] Study the powers of the Magic Gauntlet. What secrets does it hold?
[] Track Angel down and follow him. What does this demon with a Soul mean for you?
[] Read the book you got from the Magic Box. What can you learn of these demon dimensions?

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So, I must apologize. I need to clarify something in my post above and I'd like to expand on the topic of the Idol hunting people further:
I'll freely admit to not being initially comfortable with the hunting path when I started the quest, since it didn't lead to the narrative I have in mind if I started it early. If I start it later, it is fine, but it is harder to write with and progress if I started with it.

With that said, such a story path is something I grew comfortable with around the fifth or sixth story post as I got acquainted with the Idol's character and my overarching plots started to come into being, so you can consider that as a future plot possibility as my reluctance is no longer a possible problem. You can also consider every reason I laid out in the post for why things happened the way they did as valid, because they should still be valid in universe with the above stuff in mind.

Unfortunately, right now, the Idol is too busy, smart enough, and uninjured so you are not getting an option to go out and hunt people tonight or in the morning. Her hunting people in this vote doesn't really make a lot of sense from where I am writing her, especially when she has Annie to snack on. Sorry about any possible confusion or lack of clarity I caused.

I wanted to get this little note out there so everyone is fully updated and engaged with what I am thinking.

Have fun!

Vote lock at the usual time of 6:00 pm UTC May 31st.