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

— Kat —

“Right fine that’s… not great but I suppose we can take a bit of time then. Um… how come you guys are cutting this so close anyway? Normally you give yourself a bit of breathing room,” asked Kat.

“It was the extra missions we took,” stated Gareth. “There were some emergencies along the way and they sort of just piled up over time. We noticed we were cutting things a bit close, but even if we had to detour it would’ve still been fine… until we had to deal with that arsonist in the last town. They were setting up enchantments that started small fires some time after they’d left. It made it hard to track them down… and cost us an extra two days. That combined with the bridge was too much,”

“Yup,” smiled Green. “And our wonderful Nixilei here was responsible for making sure it didn’t take any longer! We might have kept moving but the province here is run by a friend of my family, and while technically not my job… it also isn’t not my job? I guess? Especially with Nixilei on hand. So… I’m glad we could help them out even if it is a touch annoying and a potential issue. I don’t know if anyone has ever been late to the final part of the tournament after all…”

Kat nodded, “Do you think Thyme would make an exception? Wait a bit for you or perhaps come looking?”

“I’m not really sure Thyme would have a choice,” said Nixilei. “While acting as a judge they’ve already bent the rules a fair bit. Mostly in the fact that they were able to judge all the rounds personally. If they were caught playing favourites… well normally it’d be an issue but after meeting the different rulers the only one likely to complain is the human one. Well, some nobles might cause a raucous so it depends on how much they complain… in the end we’d rather not tempt fate,”

“Fair enough,” agreed Kat. “Though… if we’re waiting anyway. What’s the status with your romances? What’s changed since we last met up?”

Nixilei looked like a deer caught in some headlights and tried to dash away to another section of the tent, but her foot was grabbed by Green before she could run. Not that the tent had that much room, but it did have a few different sections to it so she could pretend. Regardless, it seemed Green wasn’t willing to let her escape.

“I’ll give me own report first,” said Green. “Then you and Kress can go. Though… it’s not like much has changed with us you know?” Green turned to Gareth who shrugged. “Yeah not much has changed really. We still love each other, the wedding is still happening but not for a while… hmm we should totally invite you to that. I wonder if ‘getting to participate in the wedding’ would be considered enough of a reward?

“Hmm… hmm… there’s not much else to say really. We’ve been going steady for a while now and while we’re not like… all kissy all the time that’s just not really our style. Or at least, it’s not mine and Gareth is willing to accept that. We’ve talked about some other things like kids and stuff but we’re still nowhere near ready for that yet. So… yeah nothing else to say. Next,”

Nixilei didn’t really want to speak… and Kress was nice enough to step forward. Of course that just meant Nixilei HAD to go next, and follow up his act. Where he planned to detail basically everything. Perhaps he’d get to hear what she’d been up to with Asteodia. “So me and Stan are… I guess in a sort of holding pattern? Not sure what it’s like for you but he couldn’t visit all that often.

“Still, he did manage to get something we can use as basically a mailbox,” Kress pulled a birdhouse looking wooden structure from his storage ring. “This here lets us send letters back and forth. It’s nice, but… well it’s just letters and he’s not allowed to help out too much on quests and stuff unless he moves here or we make our relationship more official.

“So he could only really visit properly for short bursts of time and one of us had to pay for the service. Which… yeah means we haven’t seen much of each other. Still, it’s nice talking to him, I enjoy the letters and his poetry is pretty funny. Not what he wanted me to take away from it… but it’s amusing at least.

“At the moment though, we’re sort of in a holding pattern as well. Nothing grand before we finish up with the tournament. The plan is for both of us to take some time off and have a few more dates… but I’d say compared to how things were right after the last round? I’m pretty hopeful. Not sure it’s going to work out long term, but I suspect we’ll at least have a good few years together,”

Enjoy new chapters from My Virtual Library Empire

After finishing up with his speech he turned and looked directly at Nixilei. The fae let out a long sigh. “Alright fine. I guess I can talk about things. It’s… I don’t know. We didn’t exactly… get all that close compared to Stan and Kress while we had the time. We… did set up a similar message system as Kress but it’s expensive to use and well… we’re just not quite at the same place.

“I don’t know how to explain it. We’re… we’re not really dating or courting but we’re also not, not courting. I mean, I know I’d be hurt if I found out she was courting someone else and I suspect it would be the same for me. So… we’re sort of off the market but nothing has really happened. Her parents… ergh. Nothing has really happened on that front. Marigold convinced her to accept a bit of help but she keeps chickening out and avoiding the issue.

“I’m not exactly sure what to think on my end of things. Not just because of that but because I reported our interactions to my boss. It feels wrong to do so, but I DID warn her of exactly what I would be doing because of my position and she said it was fine. The issue isn’t even that my boss disapproves, or that Green’s parents disapprove. If anything, they gave my a strong thumbs up…

“But it just feels so unbelievably awkward. Plus, unlike Kress we’ve only shared a handful of letters and we just… oh I don’t know. It feels like it’s liable to cause us both so many issues but I haven’t exactly put her out of my mind. So it’s just… awkward for everyone involved I suppose. I didn’t really want to talk about it, or think about it at all really. It’s just… all on her I guess but I don’t even know what I want her to say or do at this point,”

After that Nixilei sighed and just sat herself down. Green grinned and turned to Kat. “So… now that you’ve heard it from us, what about you and Lily?”

Lily just gave Green a deadpan look from Kat’s arms, while Kat gave a real answer. “Not much I suppose? I guess the same as you and Gareth though no talk of weddings or kids. I’d say… we’re closer but also not really? We’ve spent more time together, Lily got to have a super cool moment where she saved the world, and got embarrassed by Gramps, the old dude who raised me.

“Um… but yeah not much other than that. We weren’t exactly looking for relationship progress because we ended up on a somewhat tense mission to save a world. Lily was super helpful with it, but we weren’t really trying to… progress our relationship for that whole thing and then when we got back it was more about reconnecting with out families we’d perhaps neglected a bit,”

“Hold up,” said Kress. “What’s this about SAVING A WORLD? Because I get your strong but ‘save the whole world’ strong? Even if I’m less of an ass I’m not sure it’s enough for me to buy that,”

“Well, it’s a touch more complicated then that. And it’s more like we were just barely strong enough to nip a problem in the bud before it became a serious issue. I specifically was sent because of political reasons. Well, not because of anything I did but because of was friends with someone else that had been to the world before which let them… bend the rules a bit to avoid alerting the angels. Though there’s no real problem with that. We’re on pretty friendly terms with them… but well…” Kat trailed off.

“Politics?” offered Kress.

“Yeah politics. I don’t know the full details but yeah that’s why it was us specifically that got sent,” explained Kat.

“Right but that still doesn’t explain much. How did you end up saving the world?!” hissed Kress.

Kat sighed, “Alright it’s a bit of a story and technically it starts with my friend… but let’s skip that. So we get summoned into a monastery…”