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

Green was still dead to the world, Tophat was still glancing around worriedly and Buff was making sure that he was ready to step in should things get serious while Gloves… Gloves was still causing issues with Gray. ”Old age must have rotted your brain if you think you’ve got any useful information left to share. Then again, they say ’those who cannot do teach’ so perhaps you’ve got some wisdom to share.” Snickered Gloves

”Boy, just because some people are hacks doesn’t mean you should have skipped out on your lessons growing up. They keep the mind sharp… so I suppose it’s no surprise you have the attention span of a goldfish, the grace of a drunk hippo and all the majesty present in a dung beetle. I doubt you’ll ever take up a teaching carrier though. No wisdom in that nogging to pass on even if you wanted to,” sneered Gray right back.

Green suddenly felt herself waking up and sniffed the air. *Hmm… that smells like a bit more smoke then normal.* Green glanced around at the wall and was rather disappointed to see that it was now actually starting to shrink. Not by much, and to the untrained eye not at all… but Green wasn’t untrained and her eyes were up to the task. Groaning she pulled herself back to her feet before dusting herself off. Just because they were burning time now didn’t mean it was time to rush.

*What a shame. I was just hoping for a good nap while those two got it out of there system. Now instead I have to mediate somehow. Ideally Tophat will mediate and I can just be the scout or be the magic expert. Granted I’m not really an expert on magic but how hard can it be to destroy a magical artifact powering a fire wall? It doesn’t seem overly complex.* 

The ones not arguing noticed Green’s return to the living and looked to her for guidance. *Urgh, where’s Gareth or Nixilei when you need them. I do not want this leadership position. Whatever fine. I guess I’ll make do.* Green gathered a clump of air in her hands for a few moments before slamming them together creating a bang reminiscent of a gunshot going off next to your ear. ”Enough. The fire is finally moving and we don’t have time for this anymore. Gloves, shut the fuck up. Tophat and I woke you up because you have workers gloves and we could presumably use the muscle. Nothing more, nothing less. If you don’t want to work with us, LEAVE. Oh wait. You can’t. Because there’s a GIANT WALL OF FIRE WE’RE TRYING TO DEAL WITH.” Shouted Green.

The Fae sucked in a deep breath calming herself. ”Now, Gray, I understand that Gloves is a little irritating, I have a similar teammate. However, he also knows when it is the time and place for such things. You’re just purposely antagonising Gloves at this point, it’s rather obvious. Stop. It’s like watching a veteran soldier beat up a cripple who keeps challenging him to a duel. Funny the first time, boring the second, and pitiful the third. You’re better than this. Stop.”

Gloves didn’t look happy at this pronouncement and opened his mouth to complain but Green drew her dagger coated in in wind and jabbed next to his ear sending a gust of compressed air shooting past and just barely nicking Gloves flesh drawing a thing line of blood. ”Now is not the time. I don’t like being the leader, but apparently I’ve been volunteered. Now. Gray. Where do we look for the artifact?”

Gray sighed and looked over at Tophat, ”Do you know about the secret room under the general store?” at Tophat’s extremely confused look Gray sighed again though the movements were much more exaggerating. Shoulders heaving as she leaned more heavily onto her cane as if aging a decade in an instant. ”Nobody takes the time to do things properly anymore. Under the general store is a secret passage that’s supposed to be used to evacuate in the event of an emergency. Parts of it ended up collapsing in an earthquake a twenty years back and nobody wanted to bring in the personal to fix it. That being said… a rather nice room managed to survive and is still connected to the store. I’d bet we’ll find it there. The tunnels used to connect to all the houses, but I think only the general store still has the required tunnels now.”

”Ok let’s go then,” said Green with another much softer clap as she spun on her heel. She didn’t even wait for confirmation from the others. At this point they could either follow her, or do their own thing and she didn’t rightly care which of those options it was. Taking things slow while trying to work out exactly what was going on was fine… when the time limit wasn’t so obvious. A glance to the side told her that the fire wasn’t speeding up… but by virtue of the circle shrinking at a consistent rate the area it held would be decreasing a lot faster then the perimeter.

Green got to the general store and didn’t even bother checking for locks simply kicking the door down. Unlike Kat it didn’t fly off the hinges, Green just knocked out the small strip of wood keeping the lock in place. With the store open Green saw a smattering of vegetables, a bit of salt rope and a few other bits and bobs. ”Where do we need to go?” asked Green still not looking back.

She heard what had to be Gray shuffling forward, two legs and a cane an easy gate to pick out from amongst the crowd even with the fire and screaming. ”It’s under the counter,” said Gray as they stepped around the wooden bench and pressed a combination into the cash register before hitting the confirm button. The sound of straining rope and coiling gears tickled her ears as Green walked around to see a hole opening up in the floor. Noticing there was no ladder anymore Green grimaced and jumped down herself.

”I can catch you all as you come down. Though I might need some help for Buff. Someone grab a lantern as well, we might need it,” yelled Green as she hit the floor. The impact was fine but the mana cost was another chunk out of her not yet restored reserves.

Tophat was the first to take the plunge, easily being caught by Green with Gray following after quickly. Gloves stood at the edge awkwardly for thirty seconds before Buff pushed him out of the way and jumped down. This required a bit more effort. Green created a cushion of air on her gloves, releasing it just before Buff reached her to bleed off some momentum, letting him hit her arms as she moved with the weight, spinning slightly and depositing him off on the ground. *Oof, not as heavy as he could have been but not great on my arms. Note to self, do more lifts during practice, clearly my arm strength is falling behind. Well that or Buff was a lot heavier then he looks.* 

Gloves scowled and dropped down, not wanting to look weak in front of the others. Green had no trouble catching him and so once again the crew were all back together. Gray started walking first, as they were the one with the lantern, heading down the tunnel. Everyone else had to crouch slightly with the low hanging ceiling but it wasn’t so bad.

In fact, it only took a few turns for a bright orange glow to be visible up ahead. The group sped up as much as they could reaching the small room in no time at all. It had a few runes carved into the floor and a glowing orange crystal hovering in the middle. ”That must be it!” shouted Green with joy. *I’m so happy it was easy to find this thing. We could have really been given the run around. Now how do I deal with this…* ”Gray any ideas here?”

Gray carefully walked up to the crystal making sure not to disturb any of the markings. ”Hmm… this has so small runes of it’s own. Likely a spell crystal of some kind. The other runes in this room might not even be connected to it. We just have to disable the crystal safely and the fire should die down.”

Gray spent around thirty seconds studying it before Gloves strode forward, ”What are you waiting for? This has an easy solution granny,”

Gray raised an eyebrow at that, and said, ”Oh really? You think you’re equipped to deal with complex rune matrix?”

Gloves had reached the crystal now and lightly put his hand on it. ”Of course not. We just gotta stop the fire though, so we do this!” Gloves wrenched the crystal out of the air and slammed it into the ground shattering the crystal on the floor. Everyone else in the room just stared at him in shock.

”Gloves,” said Buff in a deep gravely voice. ”You’re a dumbass.”

And that was the moment the explosion went off.