D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

When Kat woke up, reforming her mind slowly, the pain hit her out of nowhere. She felt like her skin was being stabbed from inside with thousands of little needles. Despite this though, she could feel her energy spinning within her trying to cover everywhere and fix the damage. Focusing on the flow, Kat helped stabilise it, following the exercises that Kara had recommended her.

The energy flowed around and around, increasing the pain, but also increasing the pace and clarity of her energy as it went. As time started to lose its meaning and the pain started to cause her vision to swim, it all just stopped. Then, Kat felt her blood starting to come up through her mouth.

Panicking, she looked around for something to dispose of it when she noticed Kara was next to her with a bucket. She didn’t hear Kara walk in, but Kat wasn’t complaining in the slightest. Leaning over, black blood poured out of her mouth. The bucket was almost entirely full by the time Kat finished… but there was no pain, and no issues.

Kara smiled at her and put the bucket down. ”How do you feel?” asked Kara

”Great actually” said Kat surprised. Her body felt light as if she was about to float away and her voice returned to its steadier tone, she knew to be hers. ”I’ve not felt quite so good in a while”

Kara smiled and pulled out a bottle of water she handed over to Kat. ”That’sss great. I’d like to asssk you to sstay for at leasst one more day ssso we can monitor you. Alssso I recommend you sstay mosstly sstill for at leasst one more day even if you want to leave. Your body needsss to get usssed to itsss energy working once again and needsss to balance itself.”

Kat nodded ”I’ll stay then. You can tell me about the last of the factions that way” said Kat with a smile.

”That’sss likely for the besst. I’m glad to sssee my theory about your regeneration wasss correct” said Kara

”What do you mean?” asked Kat ”What exactly did you think would happen?”

”You jusst needed to get passt the turning point… hmmm, think about it like thisss. Mosst of your energy wasss locked up trying to keep your energy channelsss together. Forcing them to move, got the energy flowing, and repairing better, but what you really needed was for your energy channelsss to recover enough that they could fix themssselvess completely. If you check your problem only at like twenty-five precent energy, but becaussse before ssso much of it wasss unusable you feel like your capacity hasss sssudenly doubled or tripled, almosst like ranking up” said Kara

Kat winced remembering when she ranked up to Rank 2 and ran into a few walls trying to move around straight after the upgrade. *Yup, lets stay in the hospital. Besides, if I went home and was anything less than perfect health I might have to be worried about Vivian killing me for making them all worry. If I go home completely healed, they can’t give me too much grief.*

”I’ll keep that in mind. What faction will we cover next?” asked Kat

”I sssupossse we’ll go with Gluttony next and finish up with Sloth. Sloth is a good place to end really” said Kara. ”Ssso, Gluttony. For the mossst part they manage the food sssuply. Now Greed sstill buysss and sssellsss a lot of it, but Gluttony grow or raissse mosst of the food. Now, that might sssound altruisstic, but they end up eating mosst of it themssselvesss.

”They are alssso fiercely protective of their food sssuppliesss, posssibly matching Wrath in pure military might asss the larger faction asss well asss being able to abussse the home team advantage. Gluttony demonsss are more than willing to eat the attacking forcesss. Mosst demonsss can essscape… eventually… but it’sss sstill a harrowing experience.

”Gluttony… getsss along with everyone actually… I mean, not asss well asss Lusst, but they get along with everyone at almosst exactly the sssame level. It’sss weird how they do it, but they sssomewhat have sssomething for everyone. Busssinesss for Greed, friendship for Lusst, nothing Envy wantsss becaussse they think making food is for peasssantsss, they don’t care that Pride doesss there own thing,

”Wrath actually ressspectsss them becaussse of their willingnesss to defend what isss there, and Sloth… jusst leavesss them to do whatever. Ssso it’sss hard to sssay who they get on the worssst with. A final note about Gluttony isss the original demon type. They are called Gorgers and jussst eat anything. They look like wormsss for the mosst part but thisss changes at higher ranksss. 

”Then finally… we have Sloth. Sssloth is different to the othersss, becaussse they tend to take adminissstrative dutiesss. Sssloth likesss to jussst, find a place and ssstay there. Lussst doesss sssome adminsstrative sstuff ass well, but it jussst issn’t on the sssame level. Give a Sloth demon a sstack of paperwork and they will be happy until they finissh it.

”Sssloth demonsss are alsso sstrange becaussse mosst of them don’t need to eat. They can just sssort of… exisst? They are both the weakessst and the hardessst to kill. Sssloth demonsss jusst sssort of continue to exisst.

”It’sss a really strange thing and you have to sssee it to undersstand properly but it isss truly sssomething to behold. They are normally asssigned to investigative Contractsss, sssuch asss finding out about tax fraud or embezzlement. Perhapsss the leassst glamerousss with a lacking amount of combat…

”But they are feared for their ssstubbornnesss and determination to sssee a tassk through once ssstarted. Think of them like a rolling boulder. Hard to get going but once they ssstart they never ssstop.

”Sssloth gets along the worsst with Envy, once again, mosstly becausse they alwaysss complain when it comesss time for Sssloth to do the factional financial reportsss, alongside their very ssstuborn attitude, and their distassste for Envy’s adventuring. They are the only faction that doesssn’t look forward to new worldsss being found.

”Sssure they won’t complain publicly but they realisse it jusst meansss more work for them once the world isss found, and they feel that Envy don’t appreciatesss the time it takesss to actually keep thiss whole place running. The Sloth demon that sssupossedly ssstarted the whole thing isss called a Watcher

”I’m not ssure if you sssaw the other doctor that put you to sssleeep on that firsst day, but that wass a Watcher. They are more ssshadow than flesssh, and are imposssible to hurt more or lesss. Even demon fire hass a hard time damaging them. In turn though, they have to rely on other abiltiesss for striking out asss their demon fire doess bassically nothing more then provide a bit of light, and their full power punchesss can’t even hurt a fly.”

Kat smiled ”That’s all pretty cool actually. Is there any other factions that are worth mentioning?”

Kara shrugged and said ”I’m ssure there are, but I didn’t ever look around too much myssself. I knew I wanted to join MAD early on, and I keep up with the Big Seven beccaussse it’sss important to know what they are doing mossstly for your own health and sssafety. Plusss, my parentsss belong to them, sssso they can give me the inssside information now and then. They aren’t really sssupossed to which iss why I won’t sssay anything I’ve learned from them”

”That’s fine, I certainly wouldn’t want you to get in trouble at all Kara, especially after you have been so helpful to me. Just, one more question I guess… what faction do you think I should join?” asked Kat

Kara pinched her lips together and to the side, clearly thinking about the question. ”Well… I don’t want to tell you what to do Kat. Thiss iss a big choice, one that you can’t really undo, asss even if you ssswap factionsss, you sssimply don’t get the sssame out of it asss when you choossse you firsst.

”I can only sssay you won’t want, Gluttony, and from what little I know of you, Greed, Pride, Envy and maybe Wrath asss well wouldn’t be for you. I don’t want to ssugesst Lusst jusst becaussse of your obviousss heritage, but I feel like you’d be good with people, and they are good at taking care of their own. Sssomething the othersss aren’t that good at consssidering you know nothing about the demon hubs.” Finished Kara with a somewhat wistful smile. 

*I guess it makes sense. I suppose it wasn’t like I was going to become a demon that I’d hate being… well, maybe that would happen, but I do at least know I’m happy with what I got. I should probably look into the smaller ones more… but Lust doesn’t sound that bad compared to what I had pictured in my head.*

Kara and Kat managed to chat a little longer, asking for some minor clarifications over what she should expect when she was released from the hospital that mostly boiled down to.. ’Medically speaking you’ll be fine, but I have no idea what the system will make you do to pay off your debt. I just doubt it will be that bad’