I'm Not a Demon!!

The Williams family finished up delivering treats to their friends' families, then returned home. It was now 18:13, leaving Alesha with less than 6 hours to complete the quest. 

Alesha went to her "room" (really, it was her dad's office) to brainstorm how to complete the quest. With her dad gaming using the CT-VR system, she had no need to worry that he'd overhear anything she said while doing so; she'd just need to make sure to pay attention to if he started twitching. That would mean he'd have finished his session. 

Sitting on her mattress and looking at the quest window again, she deduced that what she needed for this quest was to find two more separate individuals to feed Korak to. Basically, she needed to spike their drinks. Probably the easiest place to do that would be a bar or a club of some kind… but, being a complete homebody raised in an abstinent household, she had never been to either. She hadn't the foggiest idea of how to behave in such places and was frankly quite terrified of being approached by unsavory men.

[The old you would have no chance against them, but you could literally just bite or claw at them to defend yourself now,] the System piped in. [I really don't see why you're so afraid. You've become quite formidable compared to the average human woman.]

"Oh really?" Alesha said sarcastically. "I don't know about you, but last I checked, average humans had 5's all around for their stats, and mine are only 6's! And I probably won't just run into average people, not with my luck!"

[Perhaps,] the System replied. [But don't forget, normal humans can't do much damage with their teeth and nails. You can.]

Before Alesha could come up with a response, a glowing red circle appeared underneath her, ominous glyphs appearing as they wrote themselves amidst the complicated patterns of the circle. Alesha stood up in shock and tried to jump out of the circle's center, only to find that a wall of red light appeared to keep her inside of it.

"What the hell is happening?!" Alesha panicked.

----

In a large square chamber, a tall man with long, black hair, pointed ears and golden eyes coached his pupil patiently, leaning over as he whispered into the boy's ears. "Raise your arms just a little, there you go. Alright. Now don't lose your focus. Keep chanting, the summoning circle is opening. Just a little longer."

The pupil, for his part, was completely tuning out the master's words. The short boy chanted the spell with intense focus, otherworldly words rolling easily off his tongue from how often they had been practiced, arms repeatedly forming the requisite patterns as red magical energy leaped from his fingertips to the magical circle in the center in the room. A blast of wind from the circle sent his slightly-too-long dark purple hair whipping around his head, making his icy blue eyes squint as some of his hair almost went into them, red light from the circle casting an eerie glow across his pale face and illuminating his slightly pointed ears. His dark robes fluttered in the wind along with his hair. None of this caused his casting to waver. 

The room grew brighter and brighter until both males had to close their eyes against the light. Then, just as it peaked, the light went out and the wind died down.

The boy, Seth, opened his eyes. In the center of the room (about 8 feet away) stood a woman, taller than Seth, with light brown hair, vibrant, colorful eyes and clad in a kind of clothing he had never seen before. Her loose shirt was a light purple color and her pants were textured with rough linear streaks in various shades of blue, as if poorly dyed. She seemed panicked. As she spoke in another language, one he'd never heard, he noticed her canines were markedly sharper than a human's. 

That was a relief. Her mostly normal appearance had led him to believe that his summoning ritual had gone wrong somehow. But with those sharp teeth and partially slitted color-wheel eyes, there was no way he'd accidentally summoned a human.

He looked up at his master, Levan F. Worthershire, a famous Dark Summoner, with a proud smile. "Look, I did it! I summoned a demon!"

His master didn't have the expression he expected, however. His master looked decidedly confused. "Seth, I'm not sure you did. Quickly, cast the language interpretation spell. We need to speak with her."

Meanwhile, the woman had started pacing back and forth within the circle, which on this side was several feet wide instead of the mere 2 feet it had been back on Elantris. "What in the seven hells is going on?" She muttered, definitely panicked inside. One moment she had been on Elantris, planning how to carry out her latest quest, and the next she was in a strange room, possibly in another world, facing two men who spoke in an unknown language. She'd been brought here by some sort of summoning spell, if she was right about the red light being a magic circle. But why had she been summoned? This didn't look like a comic-book-classic hero summoning ritual; was it a sacrifice summoning ritual or something?

Her thought process was interrupted as the nonsensical words of the nearby men suddenly snapped into making sense. "... communicate with her."

She looked up at them sharply. "Who are you and why have you brought me here?" She asked, trying to give a little backbone to her words. Just because she was scared didn't mean she would let it show.

The older one spoke, his voice a gorgeous tenor: "Answer me this first: are you or are you not a demon?"

Shocked, then enraged, Alesha responded with a shout, "I'm not a demon!!"