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

— Kat —

Kat was watching Mint get progressively more nervous as the time limit started to approach when the air started to feel strange, like there was a static charge running through everything. Kat was just about to try and pinpoint the feeling when a glowing portal appeared in the air above the stage. Mint stepped back in a panic as a figure fell through. They were covered in burns and injuries all over there body.

Most of their hair had been burnt off, a large chunk of their right arm had clearly been bitten off and that was just the most serious of issues. Plenty of smaller cuts and knicks littered there body… and the smell. The smell of burning flesh permeated the air after just a few seconds of this figure’s presence… and Kat felt nothing.

Because Thyme hadn’t bothered to hide their dryad appearance at all. Their hair was still made of leaves, the giant chunk was leaking sap instead of blood and the burnt parts were in fact still burning slightly along the edges with a faint orange glow. The cooked meat smell was just being ridiculous. The body didn’t contain a single bit of meat as far as Kat knew.

Thyme coughed out a big lungful of black dusk and said, “Welcome to the final round of the tournament. It probably won’t be all that dang-” Thyme was interrupted when Mint walked up behind Thyme and smacked them on the back of the head.

“THIS IS SHOULD NOT BE A JOKE!” hissed Mint as Thyme pretended to collapse under the weight. Even if their regeneration wasn’t at Kat’s level… these bodies literally meant nothing to time. “Stop pretending to be injured and do this properly! I was so scared for a moment I swear my leaves were turning brown!”

Thyme chuckled and soon stood with fresh green leaves. The damaged sections simply falling off as Thyme laughed with that one majorly injured arm just falling off completely. “Sorry about that but I wanted my introduction to be suitably dramatic!” insisted Thyme with a smile. “It’s the final round and I was going to talk about the last round with a really serious tone! Talking about how it was the only way to save me!”

“So was that fight you told me about a lie then?” glared Mint.

“No… that was real. A pain in the ass and very much real but I wasn’t too injured by it. I just had this intro planned out months in advanced. You weren’t meant to be here and I was hoping to see how many people I tricked…” mumbled Thyme while shrinking down to child size and pretending to be upset at Mint’s scolding.

Mint was looking a little unsure but… she had a reason to be worried so Kat didn’t blame her. Instead, Kat decided to draw Thyme’s attention her way. “It was too much!” Thyme turned towards Kat’s shout. “The smell of burning flesh made no sense when you did nothing to disguise your appearance! You didn’t even try to pretend you had any meat in your body and we’ve seen you walk off some serious damage before. That’s not even getting started on the multiple bodies thing… and because there WAS a real attack this was sort of in bad taste,”

Thyme sighed as a second copy that looked more adult raised up from the floor to continue with the speech while the younger one pulled Mint away for something. Hopefully an apology. “Right well… apparently into A has fallen through. Instead we’re going for introduction B,”

Thyme clapped their hands together and suddenly they were seamlessly transported to a new location. Kat was very impressed she didn’t sense the change at all, and even Lily’s expanded sense of space only felt the moment of the shift not anything else. Apparently it was a bit jarring to those senses but not for longer than that split second in which they moved. Akin to blinking when someone turns the light on in a dark room.

Which also sort of happened. They went from a nice shady glade to the blaring sun on the middle of the deck of a ship. This wasn’t helped by the fact that the masts didn’t have sails on them but instead giant propellers. Kat didn’t think they should be keeping it afloat… but the nearby clouds clearly said otherwise. Kat was pretty close to the edge of the boat so she glanced over and saw…

That the propellers were indeed probably just for the looks because a solid looking cloud surrounded the base of the ship and contained the occasional flash of runes. Lily could feel the mana rolling off the fluffy, innocent looking clouds and Kat quickly decided she didn’t want to know any more than that and turned her attention back to Thyme.

“Welcome everyone for the final round! I’m giving you all embarrassing nicknames once again. You should all know who is who, but if you don’t too bad that’s not my problem at this point! We’ve got ‘Familiar Faces’ ‘Money for Nothing’ ‘Skye is the Limit’ ‘3 Cats and their friends’ and finally ‘The Wiggles’ Squad’. No I’ll not be answering any of the questions about names thank you,”

*Hold up who is the third cat? *

[Um… Green maybe? Because of how often she sleeps? I really am just guessing at this point.]

*Seems reasonable.*

“The final round here today is a SURVIVAL CHALLENGE. The rules are simple, yet complex with plenty of nuance to go around. Firstly, I introduce to you… the BANDS!” Thyme waved a hand over the ground and a table materialised in front of them. Twenty-Five glowing bands sat on the table in groups of five.

“These are your lifelines and your storage! No outside storage devices will be allowed for this challenge. Any you have on you will be kept safe by myself for the duration of the final round but you CAN take stuff out and put them in one of these,” Thyme pulled a band up into their hand. “before you head off. Know, they only have limited space, about forty litres worth of stuff but that can run out sooner than you think!”

Thyme tapped the band in their hand a few times and suddenly it stopped glowing and instead went completely black. “A second feature of these is they mark how much metaphorical life you have remaining and you can restore that life with these!” Thyme pulled a glowing golden ball from a pocket.

“When you place them against your storage device…” Thyme pressed the ball against the bracelet and the glow returned for about a forth of the ring as the orb lost its lustre. “You can restore it! But only for a limited time of course…” It then started to rapidly drain back out again returning to black. “This means you’ll always be on the lookout for more orbs!”

“Of course, there are a lot of nuances with the orbs as well… but let’s first focus on the bands,” continued Thyme. “The more things you have inside the faster they will drain away and those orbs? If you try to store one inside before emptying it out the charge will be stolen… but you can keep old ones locked up. We’ll get to why you might want to do that later…

“Now, because this is a survival challenge how are we determining ‘survival’? The answer is that anyone who is completely out of charge the moment the sun sets is kicked off the island permanently. You are out of the game! Though… perhaps not permanently! There are a few exceptional secrets on the island that might change that. I won’t be sharing that with you now though!

“Instead, let’s talk about what happens if you enter combat with someone else? If someone manages to incapacitate you for twenty seconds, you gain injuries that will kill you in five, or you’re knocked completely unconscious you will be placed in the medical bay. All of the orbs you’ve collected both on your person and in storage will be handed over… and you lose half of your current charge along with an extra hour of energy all for the winner of the fight!

“Worse, your timer continues to tick down while you’re in the medical bay so once you’re free you could be in real trouble! Especially when I keep you there to slowly heal you up over the course of two hours. Don’t worry, I’ll return you to a random spot somewhere near the place you were taken out but always away from the person who ‘killed’ you the last time. I don’t want people just camping out to ruin one person’s day over and over.

“Of course… there’s one more thing to be wary of if someone takes you out. Other than the orbs that will be claimed automatically the person who takes you out will be able to claim any single item from your storage that they want. If it’s something you own it will be returned to you at the end of the game of course… but that means anything is up for grabs! Is it safer to risk keeping your equipment on you were it can be physically stolen? Or hidden away until you’re taken out? You’ll have to decide!

“Though…” Thyme paused to look around. “One final thing about the bracelets… if you happen to be near one of your teammates? They’ll drain at three times the speed! And it increases for every extra team member nearby so keep those in-field meetings to a minimum!”