She Demon

by A P Gore

  Noah stole into the respawn room. He ordered three coffees, spending three silvers, and called out the goddess’s name. In a fraction of a second, Sumara walked through a door. She conjured a chair out of thin air and grabbed a takeaway cup with lusty eyes.

  After finishing the second cup, she put her hands on the chair arms and relaxed against the cushioned seat back. “Whoever brought the final seed of the coffee bean from the frozen earth was fucking awesome. Without coffee I would’ve died out there.”

  “How old you are, Goddess Sumara?”

  “Hmm, I don’t remember. I’ve been locked in this fucking game for so long that I stopped counting.”

  “No, I meant how old you are in the real world? Outside the game.”

  “What year is this?”

  “4058.”

  “Damn! That makes me three thousand years old. Wow, that’s fucking awesome.”

  “You’re joking, aren’t you?” Noah chuckled. It wasn’t possible. At most, a human could live two hundred years. If she had said that many years in the game, he could have believed her. Then again, two hundred years in the real world meant twenty four hundred years in the game… Still, the math didn’t add up.

  “Why would I? I’m a real-world demon, and demons live forever—unless someone kills us. Anyway, thanks for the coffee, but you ain’t getting any blessings for bribing me with it.” She winked at him and picked up the next cup. “You know what sucks? Giving blessings to all the devotees, bestowing wealth upon them but not having access to any of it to buy what you like from the real world. I know this coffee is made up of ones and zeroes, but it tastes damn real. Doesn’t it?” She took a long drink.

  Noah ordered a cup of masala tea from a famous tea shop in the real world. He used to visit it regularly with his co-workers. It cost him half his silver, which felt like a rip off for one cup, but when he took a single sip, he realized why the goddess was addicted to java. The aroma of a real masala tea tickled his nostrils. The flavor spread over his tongue, so realistic he almost couldn’t tell the difference. He missed his real life even more after tasting the tea. After reaching his last level up, the game had upped his drinking order quota by one.

  “It does, indeed…” His voice cracked. The experience was overwhelming, and he wanted more. For a moment he regretted calling the goddess and giving her three coffees. He could have given her just two instead. “I could kill someone to get this daily.”

  “Me too.” Sumara winked again. She appeared to be in a super good mood today.

  It seemed like a good time to butter her up. “Esteemed goddess, I need your help. A blessing, actually. The demon girl living with me is suffering from a rare curse, and I think only you can heal her. Would you do that for me?”

  Sumara straightened in her chair and glared at him. “She is suffering the curse of Sumara, my curse, and she won’t live more than two months. Try giving her hundreds of antidotes, but she will suffer and then come to me.” Her eyes were full of hurt and suffering.

  “But why?”

  Her fingers wrapped around the half empty coffee cup and crushed it. The dark, chocolate colored, smoking hot coffee spilled over her hand, but she didn’t even flinch. “No more questions, Noah. I won’t answer anything about the curse. You want to remove it? Find a way. You are a fucking Cursemancer. If anyone can do it, you can. But don’t ask me any favors in this matter.”

  “Okay.” Noah forced himself to breathe normally. He wanted to throw his half-empty tea cup in her face, then grab her head and smash it on the table again and again until she felt the sort of pain he did. But he did nothing. He was helpless, because the goddess was his only hope of saving Thia. After a few deep breaths, he managed to calm down. “You said there is a way for everything right?”

  “Yes, but only I can remove that curse from her. Or you need to get the e….. Forget it. You can’t get it.” She cocked her brows while tracing a nail over the coffee cup; her black nail polish contrasted against the white and green of the coffee cup.

  “There has to be a way to prolong her life, doesn’t there? Please tell me something.” He begged.

  She studied him thoughtfully. “There is one. A sure-shot one for you. Okay, here it goes: earn my blessing by any other way than bribing me with coffee, and I’ll tell you a way to prolong her life.”

  “Is that a deal?” he asked.

  “A deal.”

  “Thank you, goddess.” He bought two more coffee cups for her and left of the room. He had work to do now. While he passed by the council hall on the way back to the inn, he saw a demon bartering with a dozen others. It was the first time he had seen so many of the demons together. A few visited the blacksmith’s bar now and then, but not more than a handful at a time.

  “A human in a town of demons? That’s interesting.” A tall demon wearing leather armor and a leather cap stared at Noah like he was a display piece in a museum. He had a long face, cunning eyes, and a huge bag of holding lying next to him on the ground.

  Noah cast perception on the strange demon. It failed with a nasty comment from the game. But he did get a +1 to perception due to his continuous tries without backing down. That was a plus.

  The tall demon sidelined everyone to make room for Noah, eyeing him in a contemplative manner. He had the look of a salesman, and his words were coated in sugar. “How can I help you, human?”

  “Are you a merchant?” Noah asked.

  “Yes, of course. Who else would visit this cursed town?”

  His words hit Noah like divine intervention. “What do you know about this curse?”

  “What do you want to know? Every piece of information has a price tag.”

  “A price for information?” Noah raised a brow. The man reminded him of the greedy Mathial.

  “Yes. One silver for a question. A merchant’s time is as valuable as the goods he sells.”

  “Ten coppers for each question.”

  “Make it fifty.”

  “What if I give you something else instead?” Noah pulled the yellow metal ring he had found on the goblin out of his bag and showed it to the demon.

  The merchant snapped it from his hand like it was a piece of precious metal. He squinted at the ring. “It’s not worth more than fifty copper.”

  Noah snatched it back.

  The merchant stared longingly at the ring like someone was taking a piece of his heart.

  “Answers to my questions and two leather armor pieces which I can use. Then the ring will be yours.”

  The merchant studied him for a moment. “Level four. I have a couple pieces of armor which will fit you.” He pulled two leather pieces from his bag of holding and showed them to Noah.

  “And the secret to identify the items myself.”

  “Only a person with journeyman skill level can do that, but I can give you something that will allow you to identity twenty items at your will.”

  Noah smiled. “That works for me. Deal?”

  “Deal.” The merchant snatched the ring out of Noah’s hand and placed it in his bag of holding. He then pulled a magnifying glass out of his bag and handed it to Noah.

  Noah studied the glass, but it looked like a normal magnifying glass and nothing more. “Will it work?”

  “A merchant’s word is a word he bets his life on. It’ll work. Whenever you find an unidentified item, put it in front of this and ask it to identify it. The item shall reveal its deepest secrets to you.” The merchant gave him a quirky smile.

  Noah nodded and put the glass in his bag. “What do you know about the curse on this town?”

  The merchant moved away from the crowd and dragged Noah to a corner where no one could overhear. “Why do you want to know about it?”

  “I have a quest around it.” He lied.

  “I don’t know much. But I’ll tell you what I heard from my fellow merchants. This town wasn’t like this, a hundred years ago. It was the heart of a thriving demon empire. It was a small empire, but the king was so strong that e
ven humans feared his name. But one day the king of the demons committed an act against their goddess, Sumara. In a moment of anger, she killed the king and destroyed everything. A wave of death passed over all major cities of the empire and cursed everyone in them. The curse was mostly fatal for the women of the empire, and they died one after another. People left the empire and settled in other countries. The cities were deserted or annexed. This capital was converted into a small town of people who still worship Sumara and hope for a new future.”

  “But what did the king do?”

  “No one knows. I doubt anyone alive in this cursed town knows about it either,” the merchant said. His voice was a bare whisper by that time. “Let me give you a word of advice, human. I don’t know why you are here, but I can see the goddess blessing in your title. Stay away from her. Stay away from this town, and stay away from demons.” His tail was hovering next to Noah’s head now.

  “Thanks for the advice, Mr. Merchant. But I don’t need it.” Noah readied a poison orb in one hand. The merchant eyed the orb and lowered his tail.

  The merchant’s expression changed in an instant, and he put his mask of salesmanship back on. “It was great doing business with you, human.” The merchant walked back to the crowd with a sugary smile plastered on his face.

  5. Armor

  Dusk was almost upon him, and shadows lurked between the trees and ruined houses along the path as Noah walked back to the inn. He already missed the sound of his favorite demon kid, but he had achieved something today: a way to prolong Thia’s life. He just needed to gain the blessings of the goddess now. When a cold drop of rain fell on his nose, he sped up; the weather had gone berserk all of a sudden. By the time the two-story building of Blacksmith’s Inn came into view, he was running with the spirit run spell. He barely got inside before the cold rain pelted the ground outside the inn, spreading the sweet aroma of damp soil. It made Noah realize how much he missed his childhood—the soil, the rain, the farm, his dad. He used to sit on the roof of his family’s farmhouse when the rain came. Watching the rain drops spill over the canopy of the house was a meditative feeling.

  “Damn rain! Bad for business,” Mathial cried in a foul tone, breaking the spellbinding effect the rain had on Noah.

  “No, it’s good and calming.” Noah said.

  “It is when all the customers are already sitting in the bar.”

  The bar was almost empty. Only one demon male, fat as a potato, was enjoying a mug of ale. Mathial was right. Rain was bad for his business.

  “And where were you, man? The girl was crying your name.” Mathial filled his own mug with ale. The brown liquid falling into the mug made Noah thirsty, but at the same time he felt ashamed for enjoying the rain while his daughter lay sick upstairs.

  “I’m sorry. I was trying to find a solution for her condition.”

  Mathial’s face fell, a rare hint of emotions crossed over his brute stone face. “She is weak. But she is at least awake.”

  “I’ll go check her. But I also got something for you.” Noah pulled the leather pieces from his bag and handed them to Mathial.

  “Uncommon leather armor, nice. I can add some metal to it, giving it a better value for you. Thanks for this.” Mathial’s lips stretched into a smile.

  Quest Completed: Leather Armor. You have delivered above and beyond. Mathial asked you for pieces of leather, and you have delivered him armor instead. Reward: Experience: 400 (bonus 200) Silver: 400 (bonus 200)

  The bonus notifications left a smile on Noah’s face while he skipped up the steps. But the smile was sucked inside a black hole when he saw Thia lying near the door, unable to go back to her bed due to weakness.

  “Thia.” He kneeled next to her and scooped her up. She weighed half of what she had only two days back.

  She looked at him with watery eyes and wrapped her tail around his arm, but her hands hung down like she had no power left to raise them.

  He hugged her tightly. A tear slid from one eye as he carefully placed her on the mattress.

  “Daddy. Don’t. Go.” Thia’s eyes leaked a continuous stream of tears, begging for a hug.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie. Daddy is here now and not going away.” His heart pained, seeing her in this condition. He was used to all her feisty jumping at threats for him. She was his daredevil. But now she lay on the bed with all the youthful vibrancy of a hundred-year-old woman. And this was all because of him. He punched the floor next to her, startling her. Her tail wrapped around his arm, stopping his next action. A small chunk of his life bar vanished.

  Congratulations! You have gained a debuff of nacro-life for the next two hours for hurting yourself. That was weird, dude, getting all emotional and hurting yourself. And here I thought you had some intelligence in you. You should raise your intelligence so you don’t remain an animal. -10 to life.

  Noah dismissed the notification, getting angrier at the game and its stupid AI. The game was getting nasty at the wrong times. He wished he could meet the developer and slam his head against the jagged surface of a stone for creating this nasty notification system. He could use a damn word of sympathy. He was losing his daughter, here. Even though she was a piece of code in the game, he still loved her like his own daughter.

  “Daddy. Don’t. Cry.” A small hand struggled to lift to his face, so he leaned down. She wiped tears from his eyes. “Thia. Smile.” Her face stretched into a thin line of a smile, full of pain and fatigue, yet also love.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie. Daddy will get you back on your feet.” His heart filled with more determination. He had to find a way to make the goddess happy so she would give him a way to prolong Thia’s life while he leveled up and found a way to remove the curse. He was a Cursemancer, and he would find a way, somehow. Newfound energy filled his heart. “Sweetie, one more thing. Daddy needs to go hunting, so he can level up and find a cure for you.” He caressed his fingers through her hair slowly and gently, putting them into a neat shape.

  “Thia. Come.”

  “No, sweetie, you’re sick and need to rest.”

  Her face fell further, and water accrued around her eyelids.

  “Daddy loves Thia, so he must protect her. If you come out, the monsters will hurt you. If daddy dies, he will come back. But Thia won’t.” His heart now slumped even further inside his stomach. Thia won’t be coming back if she dies, so he would have to work hard to impress the goddess. But how am I going to impress her?

  Mathial entered the room with a ceramic tea cup in his hand. “Here’s some tea for the little girl.” The cup had a crude black design of a flower over the white outer layer. “I’ve put some herbs in it to improve her health.”

  Thia cheered, seeing Mathial there. The two surely had formed a good bond. She tried to get up, but when she couldn’t, Noah lifted her and put her in his lap with her back resting against his chest. He acted like a chair for her, like he used to do with Tia. Mathial sat next to him and helped Thia drink the tea, slowly.

  “Mathial, how do you make a tea here?” Noah asked, the inkling of an idea starting to form. What if he could figure out how to make coffee for Sumara?

  “My aunt from the town of Zenos taught me when I lived with her. She was a great cook and used to make many types of tea. I miss her so much. She died a few years ago.” Mathial sighed.

  “But how do you make it? Do you get a tea powder here?”

  “No, but I heard a merchant had that—crushed herbs mixed together. It must taste foul. It won’t give you the natural aroma of fresh herbs. Fock the goblins! I bet it would taste like an orc’s dung.” Mathial laughed at his poor joke, almost spilling the tea from the cup.

  Thia’s tail moved and wrapped around Mathial’s hand, holding the tea cup. She hissed at him. “Tea.”

  “Sorry, girl.” Mathial controlled his laugh and helped Thia drink rest of the tea.

  “Can you teach me how to make the tea?” Noah asked.

  “You need to have herbalism. Without that, you won’t kno
w the difference between a monster’s poop and an herb.” He stroked his mustache.

  “I got that, don’t worry.” Noah grinned brightly. He had an idea, and he was going to pursue it.

  “It will cost you one gold, but if you are doing this for the girl, then I’ll teach you free of charge.”

  Noah rubbed his temples. “Yes. Everything I’m doing is for her.” Technically, everything he did was for both of his girls. Thia and Tia. One in the real world, and one in the virtual—that seemed more real than anything else right now.

  “Then we’ll start tomorrow evening. We gotta go into the jungle to find the herbs. And you’ve got new armor. Gotta try that too.”

  “Wow, you already got it patched up?”

  “Yes, what do you think of my work? I have an apprentice level smithy skill.” The pride in his voice matched the gleam in his eyes.

  “Let me see.” Butterflies fluttered in Noah’s stomach. Real armor. A real defense bonus for the first time. And now he had a shield spell too, which gave a defense bonus.

  “Meet me downstairs in half an hour, and I’ll fit it around your skinny torso.” Mathial chuckled and headed down the stairs, taking the tea cup with him.

  When Thia went back to sleep, Noah rolled his sheets and placed them around her so she wouldn’t start crawling toward the door again. Then he headed downstairs to meet Mathial.

  The smithy was torchlit, and Mathial was fixing an armor plate to the leather torso Noah had brought him. Mathial stopped working briefly to take some of Noah’s measurements. As he went back to work, Noah sat in the corner drooling over the armor in progress like a kid drooling over cupcakes baking in the oven.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Mathial had transformed the leather by applying metal plates around its chest, and then around the guts in a perfect, beautiful combination. Noah never thought he could like armor so much. In real life, his thoughts were always occupied with scientific terms like dark crystals, specimens etc. In the game, all he thought about was Tia, Thia, and level ups. A drastic change.