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

— Kat —

The group left the tent soon after that and got back to their decent pace. Nothing anywhere near as crazy as the Treekeeper fight happened for the rest of the day, though that doesn’t mean they were entirely without issues. A Maned Frog with more courage then sense tried to attack at one point and received an arrow between the eyes for its troubles. There were also a few moments where the trees were packed too tightly together to completely avoid the blur birds.

They weren’t too much of a concern, and the others even got to show off a bit. Sure Kat could follow the speed with her eyes, not everyone was so lucky. It wasn’t necessary for the Blur birds, for they were exceptionally predictable. They would always orientate themselves, wait for half a breath, and then fire off in a straight line, only managing to pull up out of their dives just before slamming into the ground. Just by predicting the path they were going to take, a quick dodge before they took off was enough to dodge them every time.

Kress managed to slice on in half just by leaving a dagger in the way… and then went on to do more tests, attempting to slice them as they flew past. He hadn’t succeeded yet but Kat could tell he was getting closer every time the attempt was made, so she informed him as such. He was inordinately smug for the rest of the day.

Come night time Kat helped with food for dinner and then swapped to her water form to keep watch outside of the tent. They were just in the middle of a random clearing and plenty of monsters were out and about. It wasn’t worth the risk of assuming none would attack the tent so Kat decided to just not bother with sleep for the night. She’d be fine, especially if they manage to get a proper days rest once they reached the city.

Kat settled in for a boring night once the others went to sleep, but before long a bunch of monsters were poking around. The first were water elemental looking things. They didn’t seem to be approaching just, staring at Kat. They were blobs of water with an internal crystal right in the centre. They didn’t have yes but the crystal seemed to have a ‘front’ face with a pointed corner that looked sort of like a nose that always seemed to point at Kat’s water form.

After about an hour of her staring at them while they stared back Kat decided that it was best not to worry about them… that is until the Maned Frogs showed up. They started to attack the water elementals. Something Kat may have been fine with… but apparently she was included in the ‘water elementals’ category in their minds. So Kat started to clear them out.

Kat was trying new methods of attacking while in water form. The first was to try and use high pressure water beams to slice into them… but the frogs just ate the water. Probably not good for them long term, and potentially risking demonic corruption but they weren’t smart enough to recognise that at all. Still, based on the fact she could cut through bark and trees it wasn’t the worst attack ever, just not for right now.

Her next attempt was to send some demonic fire after them. This was a bit of a mixed bag. Kat could do it, but it cost a good deal more demonic energy then normal. Part of that was that every time she shot some demonic fire from her watery form it also froze that section and ripped it from her control. Certainly not idea. Not the worst thing in the world, but not ideal and it made her endurance quite poor.

The next attempt was to use her fans while ‘holding’ it with the water she was made up of. It did not work. At all. First, ‘gripping’ the fans was ridiculously difficult and secondly, attacking anything just meant that the fans bounced off instead of cutting properly. Even when using them at the correct angle. Kat then switched to ice created by her demonic energy and that seemed to work a bit better.

The ‘grip’ was considerably more solid, the ice was harder then it should be and Kat could even fling it at enemies for a makeshift range attack. It was still a bit hefty on the demonic energy cost but the ice was strong enough to be used multiple times before it broke or melted so it wasn’t a major concern. Technically Kat regenerated sufficient energy to make up for it, but it was a close thing and she needed to be careful not to break them early.

In the end the testing had to wrap up because the frogs stopped coming. They weren’t terribly smart but apparently leaving a bunch of frog corpses around did activate some sort of warning system. The water elementals started to bop happily after this, which was nice. Less nice was how they ‘ate’ the corpses afterwards. The crystal would rest on the frog carcass where all the water was sucked out and then it was just left behind afterwards.

The frog assault was the main disruption over the night. A few more things poked around but when Kat found that when she shifted the large mass of water she currently was to ‘look’ at the smaller monsters that appeared they got scared and ran away. Kat wasn’t sure exactly what part of it was scaring them, and the water elementals did seem to help out occasionally so things stayed quiet for the rest of the night.

As the sun started to peak over the horizon the water elementals disappeared into the ground, their crystal cores apparently being fully capable of moving through solid earth without any issue. One remained for a bit longer then the others before it too vanished into the ground. Soon there was movement in the tent and Kat made her way inside to help with breakfast before heading off.

The following day was more of the same really. Avoiding the Blurs, the few frogs, a water elemental exactly once. The more exciting thing on that day was running into another, much weaker Treekeeper. It’s eye was huge compared to the Rank 4 one and was easily spotted while out of its range. It was… kinda weird just how much weaker it was. It’s range wasn’t even half the size, it’s eyes were bigger and more obvious and the tentacles didn’t blend in with the roots nearly as well.

There was a small argument started by Kress when he suggested that we kill that one. Normally that would’ve been that especially because he was half joking, but Green and Nixilei were quite tempted to get some revenge on the monster because of the attack from yesterday. Gareth put a stop to it eventually, but there was more than a bit of back and forth before it got to that point. With Gareth not really wanting to invoke his status as the leader to force things… well until it was clear the other three weren’t going to give up on the stupid idea.

In the end, they had a better place to set up for the night, with a nice cliff wall to make use of. It let Kat focus all of her attention on just the front half of the tent… but it was still raining so she made use of her water form once again. This night ended up much like the previous. Frogs and water spirits with a few turtle moles poking their heads up before leaving. Ultimately nothing of consequence.

The next morning in the tent, Gareth said “We should be matching up with the road today. Probably before lunchtime. If we see nothing by sundown today we’ve got a problem. I trust Green has kept us on track but there are always strange circumstances,”

“Like a Rank 4 Treekeeper,” added Kress between bites of his food.

“I accounted for that already,” stated Green. “And the second one. I’m quite sure that we’re headed in the right direction and that Gareth is right on the time… assuming our maps are correct. I’ve got no reason to think they’re wrong but… well if the bridge falling apart was sabotage and not happenstance there is a possibility we could be very lost,”

“What’s the plan if that happens?” asked Kat.

“Well… the city is at the top of the mountain and there’s no way to mistake what direction it’s in. I just… worry that we won’t get there in time if we have to take that path. I mean, we will if we need to just… it’s not ideal,” shrugged Green.

“Hopefully it’ll all be fine. The lightning has let up a bit, even if the rain hasn’t so we can probably jump the ravine if we need to,” admitted Kat.

“It’s still a concern, so hopefully it doesn’t come to that,” grumbled Nixilei. “The rain is annoying enough, no sense risking a lightning strike as well…”