[Contract complete]
As soon as Angelica had the cash in her grubby little hands, she got that message. Which meant a Contract wasn’t complete until the payment was issued? As a Summoner, she had never given herself any rewards or compensation, so of course she wouldn’t know what seemed like a basic rule of any good Contract.
[Several new messages available]
Huh, they didn’t play automatically like usual. Perhaps it had to do with either the Scrying Eye level, or maybe her Lucidity improvement. Angelica wouldn’t mind if the occasional one popped up every now and then, but if there were a bunch, being able to hold off was nice. And she would rather wait. All that sitting around and reading after the chaos of the day had left her rather tired. Angelica wanted to go home and have a nice dinner to celebrate her job well done. They could wait until then.
After confirming that the amount of cash was correct, rifling through it under a streetlight, Angelica gave herself an Order to hop back to the gym and retrieve her things, not really wanting to think about the process this time. She’d held off issuing any Orders thus far, worried it might conflict with Garvin’s contract, but now she regretted it. Perhaps it would have been best to experiment during something so low-risk. Oh, well, next time, if there was a next time.
Return. Once she collected her things, the invisible Imp vanished from the locker room, popping into her apartment a second later. Her sudden appearance did startle Cherub this time, but he got over it quickly, meandering over to the puffball a second later, wanting pets and maybe second dinner. Hungry herself, Angelica opened the fridge, took what remained of the pie, and shoved it into her massive maw, eating what should amount to about five slices in a single mouthful.
She didn’t feel like doing anything else after that. Even though it was early for her, it had been a long day, so she headed to bed. Or rather, to pillow. As a small Imp, she could rest her entire body on her pillow. It was actually extremely comfy, especially because she didn’t need to independently support her head with no actual neck to speak of. The cat came to join her, taking up what little space remained on the cushion.
[Several new messages available]
The voice reminded Angelica the next morning. Alright alright, she mentally mumbled at it like an annoying alarm. First, she had to push Cherub off of herself since he had curled up on her fluffy tummy in the middle of the night, making it hard to breathe. She wasn’t actually sure how to read the messages. Maybe it was a part of Scrying Eye now? But apparently, just mentally accepting the act was enough to get them to play.
[Achievement Unlocked: Food Monstrosity]
[Demon Lord Ferrul is amused by your antics. Take this and ruin the bowels of many others with your unholy creations]
[Passive Skill: Poison Chef Lv.1 unlocked]
[Malice increased]
[Pestilence Attunement unlocked]
[Trait: Toxic Lv.1 unlocked]
[Malice significantly increased]
[Malice has improved from Goody-goody to Hesitant]
[Pestilence Attunement significantly increased]
[Pestilence Attunement has improved from Aware to Touched]
[Achievement Unlocked: Foolish Volunteer]
[You have completed an unbound Contract without asking for any Essence. Are you stupid or foolhardy? If you are trying to earn goodwill with the Summoners by acting for free, they will only take advantage of you. So instead, take advantage of them with this. It will hopefully help you recoup what you rightfully earned, and then some.]
[Passive Skill: Essence Tip Lv.1 unlocked]
[Beguilement increased]
[Fraud Attunement unlocked]
Okay, that was a lot of messages. She was glad they hadn’t bombarded her last night, because her compulsion to check out all the new stuff would have likely hindered her return home. But there was no real reason to not check it now before she started her day. She was feeling a bit lazy, because with the payment from the Garvin’s Contract, she was now comfortably over the threshold for the double-rent that was due, sitting at just under $1,900 now since she’d spent a good amount on the blender and food.
Of course, she’d still need more and more. Life was perpetually pricey, so even her current hoard would dwindle, but today she could take it easy and figure out what to do from there. Clearly, there was the potential for money to be made by accepting more Contracts as a Demon, and Angelica would be lying if she wasn’t interested in earning some Demon Rank levels to unlock more Skills, assuming she could ever figure out what was available.
But at the same time, who knew what the other Summoners would ask of her. She had no idea who was waiting at the end of the voices that called to her. Would they be another shlup like Garvin who just wanted petty-yet-justifiable revenge, or would they be someone more experienced, with even grander aspirations? Plus, there was the concept of being Bound to them. Which, while she didn’t know how bad it would be, was still a scary thought.
Angelica would check her new stuff, and then go for a run. Hopefully, that would help clear her head and think more conclusively about next steps. After activating Scrying Eye, she couldn’t help but go down toward the bottom, skipping over the rest to look at the new Traits section nestled between Skills and Secrets.
[Toxic Lv.1 | Your very existence has become a hazard, and venom courses through your body. When using a Skill that aims to eat away at life, it may apply stacks of Toxic. Each stack causes continual damage to the target’s Health at regular intervals until it is dispersed. Stacks are calculated additively. Potency scales with Trait Level, Malice, and Pestilence Attunement. Duration scales with Trait Level, Malice, and Pestilence Attunement. Both are also affected by target’s Vigor and Resistances]
Great, so now she was a venomous creature, apparently. Perhaps it was more a metaphorical expression. Angelica certainly hoped that her blood wasn’t poisonous now. Would that just make her Health suffer all the time, or damage others if it got on them somehow? It wasn’t something she was going to test unless she suddenly felt ill. Assumedly, Toxic had to do with Poison Chef, which she went to check next, but got distracted by Essence Tip on the way up, since it was lower on the list.
[Essence Tip Lv.1 | Chance to whimsically compel the Summoner to provide more Essence upon completing an Order. Current Tip Amount: 11%. Tip Amount and chance of Tip scales with Skill level, Beguilement, master’s Summoner Rank, and Fraud Attunement. Growth scales with Beguilement]
That did really seem like just a great little bonus. Should she actually take Contracts from other Summoners, there was a chance she’d get some extra Essence. Of course, it didn’t say what the chance was—probably too many factors—but it was likely pretty low, at least at the base level. What she wasn’t sure about, though, was the Fraud Attunement. Did getting a bit more Essence really make her a fraud? Out of curiosity, she went up to Attunements to take a peek at how it was defined.
[Fraud Attunement is the leverage of trickery and resourcefulness to get what is desired in an underhanded way. The more acts committed that deceive others, the more the Attunement will grow]
It still didn’t feel like Essence Tip really fit into that. But if she thought about it another way, she wouldn’t really be earning bonus pay as an appreciation of the work she did. Instead, it would be more like a surprise tax or hidden fee that they weren’t expecting and were forced to pay. Okay, maybe that does make me a fraud. At least since “whimsically” was part of the skill description, hopefully the Summoners would think it was their idea and would be happy to do it.
While she was there, Angelica went ahead and checked Pestilence Attunement.
[Pestilence Attunement is the art of subtle virulence, attacking in a way that is futile to fight against. The more use of poison or disease, the more the Attunement will grow]
Yeah, that was pretty much what she expected. Just based on that, combined with Toxic, Angelica had a decent idea what Poison Chef would do. One thing she didn’t expect, though, having already forgotten the specifics due to the sea of messages, was that it was a Passive Skill and not Active like she’d thought and was digging through. Wait, how does that work?
[Poison Chef Lv.1 | Chance for any items cooked to become imbued with stacks of Toxic. Current chance: 6%. Stacks Applied: 1. Chance and stacks increase with Skill Level and Pestilence Attunement. Growth scales with Malice]
While the descriptor was actually far leaner than many of her other skills, the implications were the most dire yet. So if I’m understanding this right, from now on, everything I cook, there will be a 6% chance it becomes poisoned?! And it’d only increase the more she unwittingly levelled the Skill. Can I turn it off?!
[This Skill cannot be disabled]
Scuff! Did that mean other Passive Skills could be disabled? Part of Angelica wanted to test them all now, but her mind was too frantic, her panic only increasing by the second. Would she know when something had been poisoned? Would there be an obvious visual cue or get a message when she triggered the skill? If so, she could live with it, just throwing out the deadly failures.
Wait, what actually qualifies as cooking? The information was severely lacking in that regard. Was it a complex meal, or anything she heated up? Did mixing a salad count? Could she even reheat leftovers? Anything pre-prepared should be safe, right, or would even taking something out of the package count? Surely not… hopefully not. Because then Cherub’s catfood would also be at risk.
She shuffled out of bed and bounced to the kitchen, quickly turning into her human form to make it easier to rifle through her cabinets and fridge. Angelica took stock of all the things that could possibly be eaten without any preparation. There wasn’t a whole lot, mostly snacks, and a few ingredients she could consume raw like a new bag of treat cheese. It was fortunate she had eaten the pie last night, otherwise she could have accidentally poisoned herself since she’d already gotten the Skill but just didn’t know.
After much rummaging, she grabbed a granola bar, deciding it would be her breakfast, praying that the simple act of unwrapping it wouldn’t somehow trigger the Skill. It looked fine, smelled fine, so Angelica took a bite, a very small bite that would hardly even qualify as a nibble. She chewed it, swallowed, and then stood around, waiting for something terrible, but nothing happened. Hopefully that meant the practice was safe, but it was only a 6% chance if it actually qualified, so it would likely be a while before she knew.
Would this be her life from now on? Living in constant fear that she could accidentally poison herself any time she ate? The best solution would be to eat exclusively at restaurants, since there was no way fresh food made by someone else could count. That would get expensive really fast, especially if she couldn’t trust any leftovers to take home, or be stuck eating them cold. Plus, it would become severely time-consuming. She could do delivery for even more expense, or takeout with the Return spell, but that would just add on even more hassle to her day.
No, Angelica needed to figure out the limitations so she could live with it. But even if she understood it perfectly, there would likely be a lingering fear. She had no type of Poison Resistance Skill. There had to be one, right? Or something with similar effects. Perhaps it was something she could purchase when she got some GP. Maybe she could get some sort of clue by looking at her current stats and skills.
So she obsessively scanned through anything relevant in the Demon Growth System using Scrying Eye, looking for something she might have overlooked or not fully comprehended. But the more she dug, the more hopeless she felt. There was no indication whatsoever of how to get anything that would save her from this predicament. She kept repeatedly returning back to the Poison Chef prompt, hoping for a sudden spark of new enlightenment.
And it came, it actually came. Not from a stroke of genius, but rather, another well-timed level.
[Scrying Eye Lv.3]
[Lucidity increased]