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

— Kat —

“Bleegh,” ‘said’ Kat as she emptied a full aquarium’s worth of water onto the sand next to Lily.

Her girlfriend transformed and said, “Kat what the fuck!” even as she went over to Kat to gently rub her back and try to comfort her. “I thought there was that air pocket down there or something… right?”

Kat nodded as the water just continued to drain out of her mouth, though it was petering out somewhat. Lily was honestly a little shocked Kat had managed to… store… so much. It was making a rather notable puddle on the ground at this point. Eventually Kat managed to get rid of it all and wiped her mouth to clean it up a bit. “Yes there was… but sometimes after the first hour I sort of just zoned out in my exploration. I was on the second pass through that stupid storage room and I wasn’t really thinking anymore…

“So when I started to feel the need to breathe… well I just did. And like… the water didn’t HURT or anything, it wasn’t that… awkward gasping, chocking sensation I used to get back when I was human… and sort of felt like I just wasn’t ‘breathing’ strongly enough to get the air out. Which…. I mean is technically possibly but it was a dumb thing to do anyway…

“So of course. I did it anyway. Trying desperately to suck in more ‘air’ before I my brain caught up with my lungs and well… I couldn’t just go suck in air from that little nook anymore because I was half sure I’d swallowed more water then it had air. So… I just sort of went about my business. I was only one final piece short at the time… and it wasn’t too bad of a burning sensation,”

Lily decided she was done comforting her girlfriend and smacked her on the back of the head. “Moron!” hissed Lily as she moved in to hug Kat right after. “Surely there was a better way…”

Kat shrugged, “Eh… sure there was but I didn’t consider it a big deal at the time and I was sort of curious as to how long I could hold up,”

Lily gave Kat a flat glare. “I ended up in multiple fights, defeating a handful of monsters… and I’m pretty sure I was still in far less danger than you! If your regeneration was able to keep up… until suddenly it wasn’t you may have fallen unconscious and died down there! Or well… Thyme wouldn’t allow that but still! And why didn’t I notice you were in pain?”

“It really wasn’t that bad,” insisted Kat as she stood back up to her full height. “Like… I could tell it wasn’t going to be good for me, but as I explained when I accidentally swallowed it all… it didn’t actually hurt… or like maybe a little? It was very easy to ignore is my point. I think this all happened when you were fighting your third seaweed tentacle crab thing,”

“I really don’t know if that’s better or worse…” sighed Lily as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Alright, why didn’t you just come up, get some air, and go back down,” Kat just shrugged. “Urrgh. Dammit Kat! You’re not a moron! You got good grades in school and the kids adore you so why does it feel like you have the survival instincts of a rock sometimes!”

“Hey that’s offensive,” Kat shot back. “To rocks. Those things are happy to sit around in one place for millions of years. I’m not that patient yet,”

Lily groaned and put her face in her hands. “I’m trying to be serious Kat, not marvel at how you’re able to say something like that without tripping the curse,”

Kat shrugged, “I’m getting good at stuff like that. I mean, I don’t have it down to instinct but the opening was pretty simple to capitalise on so… I did,”

Lily sighed again and transformed back into her Memphis form. Arguing with Kat clearly wasn’t going anywhere and she had no desire to get caught by someone who didn’t know she was a person. Though… at this point neither of them really had an idea of how common that information was. Kat took out a canteen and started to pour herself some water to actually drink. [So yeah… how many people do you think know?]

*I think the dwarves probably do? They surely paid for information right? And you didn’t keep your status all that hidden in the most recent round. Then there’s the other teams… they mostly seem professional? Honestly Skye’s team was the least likely to have known beforehand.*

[That’s… not a bad point. It’s kinda weird that you’re probably right about that. I mean, her team is the only one we have experience with.]

*Yeah I guess so. Now, what are we doing? How did your exploration go?*

[Well we’re not heading that way. I say we either go away from shore, or backtrack past the swamp we were in and keep going along the beach that way. I’ve explored for a good bit around here and while I did find a few orbs none of them were more than two hours and I only got one of those.

[I didn’t really want to range further away just in case I needed to come back to you in a hurry and I might’ve seen something worth checking out, but I’m not entirely certain. It was anything at all.]

*Well… what was it?*

[I thought I saw a hidden door beneath one of the mushrooms but when I checked it out again it was missing. I even went so far as to send a shadow claw to it and ‘felt’ around for a latch. Didn’t find anything so I think it’s nothing… but then again I don’t have your eyes. It’s a bit far away… by Rank 2 speeds? Maybe an hour? No probably less because you don’t need to check for orbs at all…]

*Hmmm… might be worth checking out… or like a combination? Heading inland for a bit and then continuing that way until we got roughly to where you think that spot is. If we see something off we can check it out or if there’s nothing there we won’t have wasted too much time. Still… what were you thinking.*

[Well I WAS thinking that we just backtrack past the swamp and check out the new beach area stuff… but honestly you’ve probably got the better idea. Head inland for a bit, look over new stuff and then check out the odd area I mentioned at the beach for another potential major thing. Though… now that we’re a few hours into the day have you thought about flying around properly? I know at night we were swarmed but…]

*I mean… I’m not entirely against it but I just think Thyme would probably put some sort of limitation or major downside on it. If we were specifically looking for… say the village, then I think we could justify a short bit of flying to find our target before moving on to somewhere else… but well… as it is right now? Do we want to find it? I’m sort of torn.

I suspect that everyone will be looking for them, at least eventually… so… I’m torn on if we short try and found one ‘right now’ so that we can, theoretically, get in and out without getting seen by anyone else… but I’m not sure we DO want to avoid everyone. Organically meeting up at a village seems like a good way to keep hostilities from breaking out right?

I’m just assuming there will be guards and stuff so… yeah I see it as being the safer option for teaming up. Then again… maybe we want to know where it is so we can say ‘meet at the village at sundown and we can discuss teaming up’ or something like that? I’m a bit less sure about that variant of the idea… and maybe we would need to know where the village is… hmm… thoughts?*

[Hmmm… I think it’s probably better to know where it is even if we don’t head straight for it… but you’re right. If Thyme doesn’t want people flying they’d definitely leave some traps up in the air to punish people for it… the question is… does Thyme want people to avoid flying?]

*Surely so? Thyme wouldn’t want us to just fly over all of the ‘cool obstacles and ruins’ that they’ve left scattered around for us to interact with… right?*

[Yeah but counterpoint? We WANT orbs and I doubt you can pick out too many of them from the air. Is that not punishment enough?]

*I’m thinking ‘no’ it isn’t sufficient punishment. Just missing out on orbs is a choice not a real downside. If anything it’s a trade-off. Thyme is fond of those as well though… urgh. It’s so hard to say. Especially when it could just be a time limit thing. Like ‘no flying for longer than 10 minutes’ or whatever.*

[Well… I may not love the idea… but we’re pretty well stocked up on orbs and it’s the first day. If there was ever a time to risk getting struck by those defences… it might be the time to do it…]