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

— Lily —

Lily had decided to take the jump. This was somewhat helped forward by the fact Kat was awake and encouraging her to at least try. It did ratchet up Lily’s nerves a few more notches but Kat had promised not to comment unless she was directly addressed and Lily was hoping to forget her girlfriend was focusing on her every move until after the danger had passed.

Examining the place, Lily had identified three courses of action. The first was to attempt to sneak in through the front gate. Sort of. The second was to simply break through the barrier and deal with the increased scrutiny once she was inside, and the third idea was to try and fly up above the enchanted walls. Lily wasn’t sure there was a height limit but she had a guess.

This was supported by her plans for the front gate. You see, the invisible wall that extended upwards into the sky wasn’t perfectly in line with the walls. It was just a tiny bit smaller then them, and more in line with the spiked metal tips that sat atop them then anything else. Lily’s plan for the front gate was to run along the slight edge of the wall and sneak in through the front above the guards’ heads.

The fact the enchanted wall was thin enough for this sort of oversight implied that the enchanters won’t have closed the top off if they didn’t have to. Well, assuming it was indeed harder to do so. Still, that was far from certain and Lily knew she’d be spotted as soon as someone glanced upwards. Not just the guards. If anyone noticed she could be in real trouble because reporting the flying cat sneaking into the jail seemed like something a normal person could do.

Of course, the problem with going in the front was that it wasn’t just the two guards on either side of the gates that Lily had to avoid. There were also the guard in the guardhouse, and the guard at the front desk, with the front desk guard actually being the most dangerous. There was actually two of them. One for each of the two prison wings and their desks looked straight out the doors and into the small courtyard at the front of the building.

Now the doors themselves were heavy duty reinforced things with glass panelling shored up by metal bars. Obscuring her for the most part… but a swift black dot would draw the eye and the fact it was now morning meant her dark colouration would stand out against the sandy courtyard. Then it was just a matter of them hitting some sort of alert button and it would all be over.

Which was why Lily was half tempted to just trigger the damned things, sneak around to check her friends were fine, and then get into a good spot to rest until the lockdown ended. It’s not like she had anything else that needed doing today, and the fact she could squeeze through the grates meant that she could be deeper inside the compound then the guards would expect.

The main risk was them finding her… but Lily was tiny. There were plenty of places she could hide around the place. More than a few cupboards, the drains. Behind various bits of furniture, above doors. Lily was seriously tempted to just say ‘screw it’ and bash right through the wards instead of trying to be sneaky about it… but that was always something she could do later after getting caught the first time, or finding it impossible.

Which really just left flying in from the top as her first call of action. Lily did take her time looking around as best she could but nobody was obviously watching the skies in vision range. A shame that once she was in the air far, far more people were likely to see her. Lily decided to add a little obfuscation before taking off.

Lily tried out a few different shapes with her shadows. The first was a bat, but she quickly decided against that because… well she looked a little too much like a bat with her leathery wings and furry body in the centre already. Sure nobody would mistake her for one, but at a distance that might think they’d been mistaken earlier and not seen the bat she was hoping they would.

The next form was a basic raven. It was hard getting the feathering right but she really only needed to do that around the edges, and give her head an obvious beak. It was awkward as all heck to see out of though. Not… a major problem because she just needed to fly high enough and then dive into the jail. Something she could theoretically do without needing to see. It was far from ideal but certainly possible.

Lily tried a few other shapes ranging from an indistinct blob, to a giant eagle that Lily thought she could shrink as she got higher to give the illusion that she wasn’t gaining height at all. In the end though… they all had the same or greater problems then the raven form and it just seemed like the best one. If she got caught, Lily wanted to be caught as a rather unremarkable bird that nobody would be too bothered about.

Lily sucked in a deep breath and leapt into the sky, flapping both her real and fake wings as she let herself rise up. Lily didn’t fly close to the jail, in fact she flew in the exact opposite direction for a while as she took to the sky. Lily allowed herself a chance to look around the city… but it was basically useless. The thick wads of shadow covering her eyes made it hard. Lily had left the top of the form open so she could still see but looking below her was impossible for the moment.

So Lily climbed higher and higher, even spotting a few other beasts in the air. Some scarier then others. Soon she removed the shadow below her eyes and used the chance to look down. The town was so far away now. She’d flown a lot higher then intended. *Ok… so do I just like… dive down there and hope there’s nothing to stop me? Or do I take it slow? Hmm… best to just dive. Taking it slow increases the chance someone relevant will notice and if the alarms go off I can simply leave.*

Lily hurtled downwards. It took a few moments to spot the jail, as apparently she’d been blow a fair bit away from the building but soon she had her target. Lily kept her mana sense straining as she barrelled downwards. She needed to know if any alarms would go off when she landed.

Soon the building was just a stone throw away… and Lily suddenly felt like a moron. There, sitting on the edge of the building she’d been scoping out was a bird nest. Complete with a mother bird of some kind that looked like an over fluffed pigeon and her eggs. She seemed a little freaked out at Lily’s approach… but didn’t do much more than glare.

Lily swooped low and made her way over to the centre of the roof where there was some kind of exhaust vent and just let herself lean against it. *URGH! All this worry about if they’ll detect me and there’s a fucking bird’s nest on the roof?! I should’ve just been copying the damned pigeon or pretended to be something that hunts them! FUCK! How did I miss that!*

Lily wanted to let out a pained meow at just how dumb she felt but kept it in check. She didn’t sound anything like the raven she was currently pretending to be so it was best not to. Besides now that she was inside she could hear what was going on. Nothing… stood out. Except? Was that Nixilei laughing? Lily wasn’t sure, the distance and numerous other voices was making it hard to tell but it did sound like her.

Lily snuck into the exhaust thing that was next to her and found it was a vent system of sorts. Not sure why they needed a physical one when they had enchantments but there was probably a reason. What Lily didn’t know was that the architect designing the building hadn’t originally been informed of the enchantments, nor the underground cells, so it was a fairly normal air vent that she was more than small enough to squeeze through.

A few minutes later and she found Nixilei, absolutely covered in blood and laughing at the guard who seemed to have passed out on the floor. There were some torture implements that had been knocked over and Nixilei was smiling wickedly at the unconscious body.

*You know what? I’m not sure what’s going on here and I don’t think I want to know. Like… that’s WAY too much blood but I’m just going to chalk that up to Nixilei being a healer and go check on the others. I have NO desire to look into this any more then I have to. If Nixilei is smiling that’s gotta mean she’s fine…*