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

Kamiko paused for a second and seemed to think about what she was going to say, before speaking. ”Yeah, ok, I think I’ll just summarise this part because a few people weighed in at various times, and they dressed it up in really flowery and excessive language. Like, the hat guy started with ’We have been experiencing a number of separate instances of what we suspect to be ghostly activities mainly centred around the old building that the last exorcist lived in and while we trust that she was skilled enough not to leave her own spirit behind, it is likely that something else was attracted to that place’

”And that was just the start. I mean, he could have just said the old lady’s house was what they think was haunted” Kamiko shook her head. *Um… Kamiko you are guilty of that sort of thing as well… I’ll admit he might have been a bit long winded but still, not much worse than you if at all.* ”So, the summary is that they managed to work out that building was the centre of the disturbances.

”A few people chipped in and explained that they had problems in neighbouring buildings as well. The biggest was that various small objects were going missing. Mostly the people who had nice silverware, and there was also one ring missing I believe? Maybe two? Anyway, there was that, as well as food that would get torn apart and strewn around the area it was left in, normally the kitchen.

”Um… these incidents would always happen at night, except for one person who claimed it happened in the middle of the day, but nobody else was willing to give credit to that particular story. I’m still not sure if it was true, but he claimed that it happened during the day and that he was missing his whole silverware drawer. Personally, I think a thief stole his using the ghost as an excuse but I didn’t investigate that.

”What else… there were weird distorted sounds that would emanate from the old building whenever people got close, and if they continued onwards anyway they’d start to hear scratching sounds, they described it as ’like someone trying to scratch their way through wood’ but when I went there it sounded more like someone scuffing their boots on the floor, before I figured it out, so I think it was just the fear talking when they got to that part.

”Um what else… apparently nobody has actually gone into the house, both for good reasons and bad ones. See, that house is special and only the current exorcist is allowed to enter it without permission. All the useful things that the old lady who owned it before didn’t need were taken out of it, so that the new exorcist, whoever it may be, can decorate as they want, so it’s mostly empty.

”Out of respect none of the older generation is willing to enter it and search for the ghost, but the kids who don’t really know what they are doing still try to sneak in, but got scared away. Oh yeah that’s a thing as well, apparently the temple takes in orphans so they have a couple of younger kids, but nobody younger then… I want to say five? I didn’t really ask and I was told not to listen to them because nobody really knew what was going on and it felt rude to push the point at the time.

”Of course, as an older and wiser demon, I realise that I probably could have asked a few of the kids around the place and gotten the answer to the mystery in like an hour, but I didn’t know what I was doing. So much so that I didn’t notice that I was given a really vague contract. I just agreed to ’investigate the disturbance’ in the temple. I could have just asked everyone a question and left without solving anything. Aw well, I’ve learned to be clearer with my contracts since.

”Is there anything you want me to go over before I move my story along and we leave the main building?” asked Kamiko.

Kat considered it for a moment. *Well, I know she figured it out based on the fact she said as much earlier… and I would like to know what exactly this temple looked like, but I imagine we’ll get to that point later on. Um… names? I’m curious about those.* ”Well… nothing major but did you actually learn anyone’s names for that summoning?” asked Kat

Kamiko looked away embarrassed as red started to crawl up her cheeks. ”Um… no not really. I mean, a few of them actually did give me their names, but a lot of people gave me dumb titles telling me what they did instead… so they got nicknames, like ’hat guy’ and ’thief dude’ which… now that I think of it was a bad name because he was robbed and not the thief but… anyway, I just gave everyone nicknames in my head.”

Kat giggled slightly, finding this to be really easily believable…. She did have the same habit after all. It was so hard to stop referring to Nixilei as Glasses, in my head even after I knew her name. Green was easy because well… her name is Green, but yeah, I feel you Kamiko. ”Don’t worry I did that as well. I even found one person I was referring to as ’Green’ in my head because of her hair and well… that’s her real name” said Kat.

”Wow, you have to tell me that one later” said Kamiko.

Kat shrugged ”I don’t really mind, that was one of my more recent adventures… or maybe not now that I think about it. Depends how you count. Anyway, I’m sure we’ll get to it”

Kamiko nodded. ”Right… um, where was I… ah! Leaving, so I left the big temple, and as soon as I stepped out the front door, I realised I’d made a big mistake. See they kept talking about the exorcists house this, and exorcists house that and all the houses around it but… I realised as soon as I left the door, I had no idea where it was.

”I didn’t want to go back and ask, until I looked down and realised, the temple was up maybe… five hundred or so steps? Something like that? Away from the town itself so if I did have to come back and ask it would have been quite the trip. I also wasn’t used to boosting myself with energy and hadn’t even consider that so I knew my legs would kill me if I tried.

”Anyway, I awkwardly walked back inside and asked for directions, and see, good thing I did, because I would have gone completely the wrong way. See, the town down the steps is the main compound, and the secondary compound where the exorcists live was actually HIGHER up the mountain.

”Now though, I had a problem. Most people would be down in the main town area, but I probably needed to investigate the compound anyway, and I spent a rather excessive amount of time deciding which way I wanted to go. In the end, I went upwards, because I didn’t really know how large the area up there was, and thought at least I could look at the house in question.

”So up the steps I went. The angle was pretty atrocious honestly, and makes me wonder how the old lady managed it. The steps were at an angle of… seventy degrees or higher I think. I found out later this was because her house was built early on in the settlement, and they used to have a long winding path, but they later needed that space for farming and so they built the new stairs to use the least amount of room…

”And that angle was pretty much all they could get if they wanted it to be one straight staircase to the compound. So, anyway, I struggle my way up, hardly able to see anything and when I finally make it to the top, I’m astounded, because it’s honestly got quite a few houses around the place.

”It was closer to a little village in and of itself rather than a compound. All the houses were mostly the same. They were all long, and seemed to be made up of two sections with a central courtyard that had all the rooms in the houses open into it. Some had a pathway straight to that courtyard from the front, others made you go through a door, but all of them were made from wood, with decorative posts every few metres to hold the places up.

”Sadly, I didn’t think things through properly. You see, everyone who happened to live in that area was down at the temple in case I needed to call on them to answer questions, and then after that they went and prayed. Two birds one stone type deal. This of course, meant that when I went up those stairs to find more people to talk to… I was forced to confront the fact that I’d left them all down the mountain.

”I was not impressed in the slightest I’ll tell you that” said Kamiko, with a fake huff.