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

— Hunter —

More testing needed to be done. That was the obvious, if more annoying conclusion Hunter reached. She’d fought treants before quite a few times but never around anything she wanted to keep intact. Well, there was that one time when she was summoned to defend a town from a treant that got destroyed, but in fairness she was summoned during the fight.

Some desperate guy had offered ‘everything’ to kill the treant after she was summoned into his ruined home.

The town was already half gone by the time she was summoned, and it wasn’t more than three quarters gone by the time she finished. Most of that was because the treant was able to summon large roots that spread like a wave breaking apart houses as they went.

There wasn’t a good way to block that sort of attack because sure, you could stop a few of the roots but they just reformed behind you and kept going.

Hunter had wondered enough to check what the man was actually charged and it turned out he had a couple of priceless, for his world at least, relics in his basement. A basement he probably didn’t know about because it seemed to have been a smugglers tunnel full of all sorts of stuff. Or perhaps he was a smuggler.

Hunter had just checked for that information after she’d left and it wasn’t like she really cared to ask. She was just curious what ‘everything’ meant in that sort of contract. The answer? Not much. It just meant everything was on the table not that the cost went up. Though being summoned right in the middle of the fight probably increased it.

So it was time to test the senses of these things. First, Hunter moved to the nearest tree that wasn’t part of the main four, stretched out her aura over the area and then snapped the branch. The largest of the treants turned to face her. Staring directly at her… but not moving so Hunter didn’t either.

She was hidden behind the tree so it couldn’t actually see her but she didn’t think the eye like growths it had actually functioned as eyes.

Hunter didn’t know any of this just yet, she was waiting for more sound queues. She’d heard some movement, treants were not quiet even just looking around, but she hadn’t heard enough to indicate one of them was up and moving.

So, with great care she lined her head up with one of the nearby branches that had a good amount of leaves and slowly extended her head across it, allowing for a single eye to pear through the leaves.

There she could see the towering form of the largest treant, if only by a touch, looking in her direction. It was also the closest… probably. She couldn’t see any of the small treants with all of these leaves in her face.

Hunter watched for a few more moments, moving around slightly to get the best look she could at the treants, at least the ones she could see before retracting herself and settling down a sturdy branch to think.

*Hmm… did it turn because it has the best senses? Because it’s closest? Because it only ‘heard’ things after it dropped out of my aura? Is it because I didn’t cover the entire tree? Was it because the branch was looking a little old already? I didn’t think about it consciously but I think I picked the most decayed branch.

Hmmm… more testing is probably necessary but I don’t know how much I can flex my aura. If they manage to see through it they might start looking more carefully.*

Which of course meant more testing, but first Hunter wanted to see what she was working with. Hunter made her way back down to the ground and shoved the dirt and bits of grass aside while allowing her aura to cover her. Eventually, she found both what she was looking for and what she was afraid of. A locked hatch that, based on some mostly faded signage, seemed to be for elevator maintenance.

The problem was that a number of roots from the trees had wedged themselves around the hatch and would almost certainly set off the treants.

So if Hunter wanted to get inside she’d need to clear off the roots and make sure that her aura would cover it. So testing. Moving to one of the nearby trees again she spread out her aura to just cover the one tree before slicing a root. Just one. To Hunter’s annoyance she immediately heard the treants start to move.

Discarding her spot she sprinted away as quickly as she could while remaining silent and avoiding damaging the environment.

The silence was probably unnecessary but she’d trained herself to do it automatically in these sorts of situations and it took essentially no additional thought. Hunter then moved as far away from the centre as she could, which really wasn’t as far as she’d like, and then sliced through a few roots underground. Of course, that triggered the treants again as she didn’t bother with her aura at all.

From there Hunter skated around the edge, keeping quiet and careful until she was a quarter of the way around the dome and the treants had stopped moving. This time she pushed her aura to cover the entire tree, it was… hard and really testing the limits of her ability. The upgrade to Rank 4 was likely necessary and more training with it would be in her future but she managed it.

So Hunter made the cut… and nothing. No reaction. *Perfect.*

So Hunter made her way back to the centre… only to look it over and realise that things might not quite be so perfect after all. That single tree had stretched her range a good deal and now she needed to deal with four trees and there roots with no real way to tell which tree the roots belonged to. So Hunter quickly discarded her old plan, and carefully cleared away more dirt.

She pushed it back further and further away from the hatch until every root was exposed.

Then Hunter got ready, coiling her body up and ready to spring away and pulled out two knives, one for each hand. She didn’t bother with her stealth aura for the moment, she just needed to be quick. Two strokes per knife, four strokes total. In but a moment all of the roots were cut and Hunter leapt away as soon as she’d done it. She could hear the treants running over.

Not walking, running, and in a few steps the largest would be there.

Hunter fled as carefully as she dared at great speed, getting as far as she could in the first few breaths and then throwing herself up into a tree and curling around the thick branch she’d aimed for… and just waited, carefully breathing, and making sure not to activate her stealth.

Perhaps she would’ve got away with it, but just as likely the treants would’ve sensed something MISSING and then start knocking things over to find her.

Hunter could still hear the treants moving around. They were clearly more concerned over her recent actions then her tests and it showed. Hunter could make out numerous footsteps but didn’t dare move from her position. However they sensed things, they clearly didn’t have a way to spot her directly. Hunter had been prepared for that.

Prepared to move away from her current spot and find a better place or dive down into the hatch after leading the treants away for a bit.

She was safe for now though, so Hunter just relaxed and waited. This took some time as the treants were actually quite patient, or at least willing to spend the time looking. Ten minutes in and one of the medium sized treants walked nearby. Hunter held her breath and completely halted all of her bodies movements. As expected the treant walked right on without stopping to look at her at all.

It did come back twice after that, but that was clearly just as part of the search pattern and not because Hunter was being targeted specifically.

When the movement eventually stopped Hunter activated her full stealth once again and made her way back to the centre. The dirt she’d moved away had been pushed around by the treants large feet but a bit of effort meant that it was easily removed. One of the small ones were keeping guard, while the rest remained motionless but spread out.

Hunter was careful not to mess up any of the foliage nearby or the new roots she could see had recently been grown…

Stay updated through empire

But the roots had not dug back into the hatch, so once it was visible again Hunter, in one motion, lifted the lid and dashed down onto the ladder, quickly shutting the door behind her while her other arm held onto the ladder. Finally, she was into the facility.