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

Elmony froze. Kat’s eyes couldn’t make out the slightest movement except for the tiny sway of Elmony’s outfit. Seconds passed and she didn’t blink, didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. If Kat hadn’t seen her walking around just a second ago the temptation to declare her a statue would be strong.

”I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put quite like that.” Mumbled Elmony.

Kamiko huffed, but had a smile on her face when she said. ”We’ve been telling you that for years.”

Elmony through her arms up in the air and turned away. ”I guess… but it’s different. The words made me think it through a lot more and it’s different coming from the people you grew up with. You guys are practically forced to enjoy my company!” said Elmony

Kamiko rolled her eyes. ”Meradithna chose not to enjoy it” mumbled Kamiko.

Elmony winced and said. ”Yeah… but I thought we agreed not to talk about that.”

Kamiko shrugged. ”I know you all agreed to it, but I wasn’t exactly involved in the conversation. I have free reign to complain about her all that I want. I never agreed to anything, though I’ll admit I wouldn’t say anything around Mum or Dad. They still feel rather bad about it.”

Elmony let out a long breath. ”Yeah. Yeah they do.”

Kat just sat back and watched the not quite argument. *I don’t really have any reason to jump in here. Elmony clearly has a lot to deal with, and I hope I helped a bit but, I’d guess she isn’t completely over it. Has the same look on her face that Sam had when I finally explained his family didn’t chose to leave him.*

That was when both Kamiko and Elmony turned to Kat in sync and seemed to ask a question with their eyes. The thing is, Kat couldn’t quite decipher it. *Shit what do they want? Is this something I should know? Maybe just change the topic? If they are polite enough to go with it they might forgot what they actually meant for me to do.* 

”So, what was with all the blood? I know you said it was for an ability, but where did you get it all, it wasn’t black enough for it to be yours?” asked Kat

Elmony nodded and said. ”Well, not all demons have black blood, just most of us, so don’t look to closely at that. The answer though, is it was actually wyvern blood. Honestly that last mission was a little scary when I started but it turned out to be rather easy.”

”Why is that?” asked Kat

”Um…” Elmony looked over at Kamiko, asking with her eyes ’wasn’t that easy to guess?’

Kamiko shook her head and jumped in to explain to both of them ”Elmony was probably told she had to fight a dragon. Elmony, Kat isn’t from a world with Higher energy and only recently became a demon so she doesn’t know about a lot of this sort of thing.”

”Ah, sorry.” said Elmony, ”You see, dragons are one of the few things that can compete with a demon. They are some of the strongest creatures, especially in mana based worlds, and while the strongest dragon would certainly lose to the strongest demon… there is a lot of stages between me and the strongest demon. Additionally, a lot of worlds don’t manage their mana properly.

”What ends up happening is a bunch of dragons get there hands on it and just sort of keep it to themselves. Dragons are one of the few creatures that can just take in mana as they grow and then keep taking it and getting more powerful mostly without limit. They are actually more limited by the dimension then they are their own bodies.”

”What do you mean by that?” asked Kat

”Of course, should have seen that coming.” Mumbled Elmony as she pulled out a chair for herself. ”Right, so most Dimensions have a hard cap on how much energy any single creature can contain. They can’t prevent stronger things entering the Dimension, but they can prevent things within themselves getting stronger.

”They can’t stop a demon, but they can stop anything else. In this case dragons. The greedy bastards are worse then Greed. They just take in as much mana as they can, and then sit around taking in more mana to keep themselves healthy and fed. The problem is, that takes away a lot of the mana for everyone else. Any Dimension has a limited supply of whatever higher energies they use and if it’s wrapped up in a dragon nothing else has it.

”The main reason this is a problem, is that dragons don’t use the mana particularly efficiently. Oh sure, they get strong without effort, and stronger still when they put in some elbow grease, but for the same amount of mana a lot of other creatures could be twice or three times as strong, and they can even start to produce their own mana to give back to the world.

”Dragons only really give back once they die. Don’t get me wrong, they give back everything they’ve taken and more most of the time… but that’s only if they do die. Dragons are rather good at avoiding that fate.”

Elmony shook her head, letting her long hair whip around her back and slide easily around her horns. ”Sorry I was getting off topic. The reason I was concerned is you never really know how strong a dragon is, and you know that if you’ve been summoned to kill one it’s usually quite strong. With that much mana, they can do a lot of damage during a fight, not just to you but to everything else.

”Luckily it was just a drake, which is a dragon’s inbred cousin. Normally they come about in one of two ways. The first is if they are the child of two mana starved dragons. It’s rare that happens, but it can, so I’m mentioning it for the sake of completeness.

”The second way is whenever a dragon manages to fuck something else and the child is a downgrade from the dragon parents. It’s very rare, and I’m talking one in a million chance, that a dragon and that something else can have a more powerful child. That will still be called a dragon, and will ’carry the full bloodline’ or so they say. It’s not really true, or, I guess it depends on how you look at it.

”It’s mostly just a measurement of strength, but the big thing about that strength is how a dragon sees it. Remember how I said they are mana hogs? Well, that half dragon that can still eat mana like a full dragon will be welcomed into the fold. It’s about the only way they can be strong enough to compare is if they get that particular trait. Still need a few others, and some good genes on the other side as well, but the mana eating is the big one.

”Still, drakes are pretty scary in their own right if they’ve been around. Sometimes they get a bit of intelligence but that’s pretty hit or miss. This one got Wyvern Control. They aren’t actually related to dragons, or maybe they are in an extremely distant way. Wyvern’s are like a strange mix between a vulture and… a wolf or something?”

”I say that because wyverns are pack animals. They group up and attack things in quivers that’s the name for a group of wyvern, a quiver. Anyway, a quiver will fly around, normally looking for carrion, and occasionally bringing down weaker animals if they can. For some reason though, they think of drakes and dragons as alpha wyverns a lot of the time.

”Not sure why. As I said they aren’t really related, and dragons don’t tend to bother with them. They see wyverns as beneath their notice. Drakes though, even if they don’t have Wyvern Control like mine did, tend to group up with them. Wyverns protect the drakes base, and the drake makes sure to get a couple extra kills for them.

”So, with that part explained, I guess I’ll explain the blood. See, I knew I was fighting something, and based on eye witness reports it sounded like it had to be a dragon. So, as I’m fighting through the wyverns, I let them coat me in blood. For my power to works its best, the blood needs to be fresh, so I didn’t just pick it up before I left or keep it on me or something.

”So I wade through all these wyverns, letting their blood soak me. I rock up to this ’dragon’ I’ve been scared of, and I unleash my strongest attack on it as it goes to take off. Obliterated the thing. Never had a chance, my attack cut the thing in two instantly. I’ll be honest I was a little surprised.

”So I just… said quest complete and left. Didn’t even remember to get rid of the blood. That’s actually why I slammed the door too.. I wasn’t quite prepared to be home and still have the bonus strength.”