Wares She Couldn't Actully Resist

Ludmira wasn’t bad looking; she was actually a rather attractive woman; she just spent most of her life being compared to her elder sister; that kind of experience can really get to you pretty fast, especially at an early age. She looked like she was in her early thirties, with no magic or tricks to cover up how she aged; her skin was nearly flawless; it was almost impossible to find a wrinkle or mole on her skin at a casual look, and almost as hard if you were actively looking over her body; which she had mixed feelings about on a good day. Her teal eyes were highly uncommon, and she had elegant legs that complimented her buxom figure as well. Her reddish-auburn hair was done up in a simple yet elegant manner, and you could see a bit of her sister’s fiery crimson hair in her appearance. You would be forgiven for thinking she specialized in Enchantment magic, and while she had quite a few from that particular school magic, her specialization was actually Conjuration magic, which was often just referred to as “summoning” by a good deal of the masses. She was sitting in her favorite chair, meeting with her daughter and two of her daughter’s acquaintances. Ever since she was awarded the title of Duchess, which only happened a few days after her sister married the crown prince at the time, she felt she needed to show she had earned and deserved the title to show up all the high society pricks that did more talking than doing.

Ludmira really hated being compared to her sister, and the comparisons kept on coming with greater intensity after the royal wedding. Her sister didn’t seem to be aware of how much of an issue it was, but she never really spent all that much time with Ludmira after she had left to make use of her natural magical abilities. Ludmilla had been born with the power of fire; it was unconfirmed where the power originated; it could have been a fiend or dragon somewhere in their ancestry, which would mean Ludmira could have the same natural aptitude, or it was just a result of the various magical surges of the world that often had random effects on the area and creatures in their general vicinity; seeing as Ludmilla awakened to this power in her early teens while out walking the family property, it could have been any of those, or maybe a mix of any of the three to some degree. But no, no natural magical aptitude for Ludmira; she had to spend her expenses on tuition for a magic school. That school was where she learned she had a preference, and a bit of knack, for conjuration magic, so she made that her primary study. Then her daughter awakened to the power of the storms a few years ago and went off to be an adventurer.

Ludmira took up the adventurer life after her own graduation from the school and learned a lot of things the school was unable to teach for one reason or another. It was during this time on the road that she developed a fascination with rare and unusual magic items, so much so that she turned them into a bit of a collection hobby after her years of adventuring came to an end. And it was merchants like this Dalmira person before her that usually had some of the most unexpected finds, often not even knowing what they really had and selling the items at prices so low that they were practically a steal; half the time, even Ludmira didn’t know without properly checking with the appropriate magic rituals.

So, of course, Ludmira was interested. She was wearing her basic robes, so a thought came to her for a moment. “Please wait by the entry hall for a moment,” said Ludmira, “I want to slip into something with a bit more magical defense; sometimes, seemingly harmless magic items can prove a bit more dangerous than they were thought at first blush.”

“Of course,” said Dalmira, “we understand.” So far, Ludmira was following everything pretty faithful to the script, even if the early part of all for this was a bit hastily thrown together a moment ago. “Take your time, there is no real rush.”

Ludmira thanked them for their patience, gave her daughter a little wink on the way out, and headed out of the room up to the master bedroom. Once she was out by the stairs, she moved over to a teleportation circle she had cleverly hidden in the aesthetic of the decorations for that area near the foot of the stairs and used it to teleport herself straight to the master bedroom; she then walked into her surprisingly impressive walk-in closet, she used magic to allow it to hold more while not actually expanding the space itself, she then used magic to completely undress herself. For a brief moment, her naked body, in all its glory, was present where she had not permitted anyone to see her, then she used her magic to attire herself in a set of green and indigo lingerie that could easily be mistaken for an elegant dress before leaving the closet and heading to the room’s special teleportation circle. This particular outfit was enchanted to raise the wear’s magical resistance, and she knew that because she had been there to assist in its creation, this was a custom piece.

A moment later, she had used the circle to return to the meeting room’s entrance and strode over to the entryway. She was very much looking forward to what this merchant had brought to show off, and she especially enjoyed telling merchants trying to trick her how they had been scammed into trying to sell a piece of magical junk. She was greeted by the sight of two of them by the door, her daughter and the merchant.

“Where did your third companion go,” inquired Ludmira.

“I asked her to go and bring the cart closer to the gates,” said Dalmira, “I trust you approve of this approach.”

“Yes,” said Ludmira, “it will save us some time.”

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While Ludmira was getting ready, the three demons in the guise of their former mortal forms had a private chat, to which Ganmither, in the form of Madre, made her way out of the manor to bring the cart into position. After their pleasant greeting with Ludmira, who was newly attired in some interesting lingerie, the two remaining demonesses led her out of the manor to where the cart had been positioned.

Delvin figured that having one item that Ludmira was probably interested in likely wouldn’t be sufficient, so they came up with three mock-ups of things that could interest her, each with features that expanded on how Delvin’s corruption could enter the target’s body. After making sure the guards were at a suitable distance from them and the cart, they would present the items to Ludmira.

It took a few minutes to get everyone in the proper position before the planned sales pitch, and they had worked on this part of the plan for quite some time. Now all that was left was to bring the plan to fruition.

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Ludmira found the cart rather quaint; it had been some time since the last time she had seen a merchant cart of this nature, a marvel of magical technology that could actually be adjusted in size to fit different needs and situations. She missed this sort of thing.

Wanting to relive some of her nostalgia, she had the guards wait by the gate while she traveled the thirty feet or so to where the cart was for her to take a look at things. She wondered how accurate their sale pitch would be on any of the items. This was going to be fun.

“First on the docket,” said Dalmira as she had Madre open up a drawer the size of her forearm to reveal a massive circlet of steel that had the sensation it gave off a gentle white-yellow glow to it, “We have a surprisingly intact link from an angelic chain meant to restrain a notably large demon or devil.”

Ludmira smirked internally, this ploy had been tried before with her, and she knew the two tricks to dealing with it; first, she had check its weight, Angelically infused metals were always lighter than their mundane counterparts, and the second was to disenchant it, something infused by the power of an angel would repel the efforts of even the most powerful mage to undo their holy power.

She made it look like she was doing some stretching exercises with her left hand, and a spectrally translucent indigo hand modeled on her own hand appeared next to her; which she directed over to the link of chain, if it were really infused with angelic energies then it would be at the limit of what such a small parlor trick like her little hand could lift and move. She directed her magical hand to grasp the piece of metal and lift it, to which nothing happened; the piece was beyond the limits of the hand. “I’m sorry to break it to you,” said Ludmira, “but you got scammed; if this was really infused with angelic power, then it would have been light enough for my cantrip to move. Where did you get this?”

“An abandoned church had it in what appeared to be the reliquary beneath the structure,” said Dalmira, “I was actually accompanied by these two when it was retrieved, and Madre was already holding it when I got around to giving it a magical appraisal.”

While she was a little suspicious about it all, Ludmira couldn’t fault Dalmira for what she said. It wasn’t uncommon for such things to happen as well. Such events were far from uncommon in their world, especially with the history Irocet had, so she was inclined to believe the story. “I understand,” said Ludmira, “whoever had jurisdiction over that church probably got scammed by some charlatan claiming to have found divine relics that they chose to sell to various churches; it’s sadly a pretty common practice in Irocet’s history.”

“Well,” said Dalmira, “chain’s link was a bust, but we have two more items that may be of interest to you.” She she went around to the other side of the cart, and the sound of another draw opening could be heard; she came back around holding a box that looked like it was meant to hold a wand or dagger or other item of such size. Dalmira carefully opened the box, and a powerful pungent scent wafted out into Ludmira’s nose for a brief moment as he beheld an arrow that seemed to have had its head lathered in the blood of some kind of monster. “This,” said Dalmira, “is an intact arrow that has its head saturated in hydra blood; it’s considered one of the rarest and most powerful poisons around.”

“Where did you get this,” inquired Ludmira, trying to see if she could spot the issue. She had never encountered anything like this, the last hydra she had encountered had been dealt with at range with a battery of spells from four different casters, and the only ones who got close enough for a proper look at its blood were a pair of warriors that needed tretating almost as soon as the battle was over to keep from dying, but she had at least read what hydra blood was supposed to look like.

She took a closer look at it without physically inspecting it. Hydra’s blood was supposed to be a sort of ichor greenish-yellow with a sickly red tint to it, and that’s what looked to her, but something about the initial scent felt a bit off to her, so she decided to take another quick whiff to confirm her suspicions. “It certainly looks like it,” said Ludmira as she gestured for the case to get the air clean again, “but the scent is a bit off from what I recall Hydra’s blood smelling of. Yes, it is quite pungent, which is something that will never really go away, but the acrid air to the scent was all wrong; it didn’t quite have the right sensation to it.”

“Sounds like an alchemist took us for a ride,” said Dalmira, “just one more thing to be vigilant of in the future.”

“Time to move to the last item on the list,” said Ludmara playfully as Dalmira put the item back.

After almost minute of moving some stuff around in the very back of the cart, with the sound of multiple drawers moving about, Dalmira returned with another item in a case, this one the width of her forearm and very round, “This,” said Dalmira, “is our final item for you to observe,” opening the case with her own magic, Dalmira revealed a mechanical beetle around the size of a targe shield, “this is a Buzzing Beetle Shield, we recovered it from a dungeon some time ago. It is still exceedingly difficult to produce these with our modern magic, and they were difficult to produce during the time we think the oldest known one of these was made. Just infuse a bit of magic into it or say the key phrase at it will open its wings and buzz to annoy everyone around you.”

Ludmira had actually been shown one of these back in school, so she knew how they were supposed to work and sound like; she willed a bit of her magic into the shield and waited; a moment later, the wing guards popped open, and it started making a rather annoying buzzing sound for seventeen seconds. “Well,” said Ludmara jovially, “that was a nice try, but I’m onto these sorts of tricks. The sound of the wing beats is too far off tempo to be the real deal; at best, this is a display that someone tricked you into picking up.” She made her way back to the manor, and she said, “Remember to put everything away before coming back in; I’ll have one of the maids show you to your rooms.” As she said that, Ludmira could feel warmth begin to well up in her chest and nethers; she attributed this to the buzz she got for being able to spot fakes like this at just a glance after so much time had passed.

Little did she know, that tingle of warmth would turn into quite the blazing inferno within her. She had managed to avoid contact with the items, but the scents and smells of two of them had carried some very special traces of a corruptive **** she had not detected. The same **** that had already done quite a number on the three visiting her.