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

Chapter 1921: Chapter 1921 Broken Stone

— Kat —

As the smoke cleared and they saw the slumped, unmoving form of the statue there was a cheer. None of the three quite knew who started the cheer, but all three of them were joining in before long. Hedera and Lily collapsed into the snow behind them, but Kat wanted to make sure everything was safe and headed over to the remains of the statue. Resummoning her outfit as she did so. Nobody had noticed, not even Lily, but she was missing LARGE segments of her outfit. Flashing Hedera was no on her to-do list for today and Lily would probably faint.

Kat got to the remains of the statue and looked around. The entirety of the head was missing. Just, gone. The chest was in pieces, with a large chunk missing right in the centre. There were a few bits and pieces of stone that connected to the arms which seemed mostly intact. Kat couldn’t help but think how lucky they were. The control orb wasn’t even where you’d expect the heart to be as, if it was there, they’d have just barely missed it. Probably. Depending on the size.

Kat’s best guess was that the control orb was situated near the top of the ribcage, perhaps around the shoulders. Not a terribly obvious spot while still being quite safe. If you were going to attack any part of it you’d go for the neck, joints, or heart. That being said… Kat did want to make extra sure.

Kat stomped down on the statue’s arm and the entire thing flew off. Kat glanced down at her foot and frowned. *That’s… that’s not right? Why was it so weak?*

[There’s no control node anymore silly. All the magic reinforcing it probably got destroyed in the blast alongside the core. All the durability enchantments are shredded… or at least no longer actively being powered. I guess it was just made of normal stone after all.]

Kat thought that was a bit too simple of an explanation but anywhere Kat struck suffered catastrophic damage. The chest cavity caved in, the other arm was disconnected from the torso and only remained somewhat nearby due to the ice it was imbedded in. Kat still felt uneasy. Even if it was ’just stone’, stone was fairly hard. Especially when it was infused with at least some mana… then again the golem here wasn’t fighting back at all. It’s chance of escape had been reduced to essentially nothing, *unless it has some crazy full restore?*

Kat waited for her thoughts to trigger a second round of fighting… but nothing. The golem remained unmoving and in place. Completely destroyed. Just as it seemed to be. Kat still felt uneasy but unless she wanted to spend the next ten minutes just pulverising the stone there wasn’t anything left for her to do.

She did take the time to look around a bit for any orbs… but if they were above the ice and not just imbedded in the stone somewhere they were definitely cracked. So Kat made her way back up to the other two. Hedera was shivering… and face down in the snow so really it was her own fault. Lily on the other hand, had transformed back into her Memphis form and just spread out across the rock they’d been sitting on. It wasn’t exactly warm, but having been there for a bit already it wasn’t completely freezing either. At least Lily had picked a spot with no snow.

Kat opened her mouth to say something before deciding to let them have a chance to relax, even if just for a few moments. Kat sat down next to Lily, pressing into the compacted snow nearby and ignoring how strange it felt around her wings before picking her girlfriend up and placing her on her stomach. Lily stated purring as Kat started to slowly run her fingers through Lily’s fur.

The three stayed like this for around ten minutes before the cold got to Hedera and she finally pulled her face out of the snow. “Brrr, that was… not my best idea…” mumbled the elf through chattering teeth. “And I was sort of warm before too…”

Kat shrugged, “Eh, seemed like you were having a good time so I just sort of left you to it. What’s the plan now though? Do we want to dig up the rest of the statue and see if there’s more orbs? Do we even RISK digging up more? Or do we just move on?”

“I think… hmm…” Hedera chewed a lip. “What do you think would happen if we asked Timmy to dig out the rest of the statue?”

Kat frowned and thought the question over, she wasn’t sure, but Lily did have a few guesses for Kat to share. “Lily thinks that, either Timmy wouldn’t do anything because there’s still orbs, or Timmy will dig up the rest for us?”

Hedera nodded, “Yeah that’s what I was thinking… but then I started to wonder if Timmy would still refuse because, even though the ’challenge’ is over, simply cleaning the rest of it up would CONFIRM that for us, and might count as helping complete it?”

“Ah, that’s some tricky wording…” said Kat with a nod. “I wonder which way Thyme would go for? I guess we still ask Timmy, and if he cleans the area up we know that it’s time to move on. If not? Well we can debate it after we know,”

Hedera nodded and yelled out, “Timmy! Uncover the rest of that statue!” Timmy popped up from the snow beside her, and Kat’s suspicions Timmy could teleport grew stronger. Despite showing off that he was around and ready for commands… Timmy didn’t actually DO anything. Just… appeared and that’s it.

“Welp, so much for the easy option,” sighed Kat. Hedera nodded along. “Do we want to test things out here? I mean… it’s a pretty obvious way to check right? And that fight didn’t take too long…”

“It might not have taken too much time but it was somewhat exhausting. I’m also not sure if I want to risk more attacks like it. There could be other similar statues around. Which I guess raises another question of what to do if we find more. I mean… will they have the same weaknesses? That wasn’t an easy fight necessarily but nobody got hurt…” Kat felt Lily lightly bite at her stomach. It didn’t hurt. Heck, she couldn’t even properly nip at Kat’s skin because of the kimono in the way, but she got the picture.

“Nobody got injured,” corrected Kat. Only for Lily to bite at her again. “You know what I mean. It doesn’t count as an injury if it’s gone before the fight is over,” [I suppose.]

“It’s not a bad plan per say…” admitted Hedera. “But I don’t have infinite arrows. Now, I could make some more, but even though I know the runes I’m not sure the materials will be available. Surely you don’t think I can just slap an enchantment on any old arrow right?”

“Well, Lily didn’t but I pretty much did,” admitted Kat.

Hedera sighed. “Usually, arrows are either enchanted via the tip, or the entire thing. In the case of the tip, it’s normally rare scrap metals or monster parts. You want them to be good at holding magic… but not actually amazing. The same for if you’re enchanting the whole arrow. Usually it’s the wood that’s enchanted and the tip is more to help it fly correctly. In this case, it’s discarded staff or bow wood that wasn’t quite good enough.

“Arrow enchantments are usually designed to fail, catastrophically. Many ’proper’ mages and enchanters argue that it’s a bastardisation of their craft… and maybe it is… but it’s really mana efficient especially if you want it to explode. The traps are a little harder… but not that much harder.

“Of course, even with that… if the material isn’t suited for it then the arrow is just going to explode in your hand. That’s the point after all. It’s one of the reasons they’re still pretty expensive. So… I can’t just conjure them up from nowhere is my point.”

“Right…” said Kat slowly. “We might be able to buy some in town with orbs… so is it worth fighting more things like that?”

Hedera tapped the side of her face. “It really depends on materials. Frankly I don’t want to deplete my arrow stockpile just for ten hours’ worth of time. Maybe if you hadn’t managed to earn quite so many over night I’d be more willing to gamble… but as it stands I think I want to keep them for more important fights. Of course… I don’t know how else we take one of those things down… I think… I think we try not to activate any others we find. Though I’m not against digging more here because I doubt there’s more around, but that’s just a gut feeling,”

“Alright, I can respect that,” said Kat with a firm nod. “No sense in wasting resources when orbs are everywhere…”