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

Chapter 1927: Chapter 1927 House Exploration

— Kat —

Never split the party. It was an old adage, and one Kat had ignored more than once… but in this case they decided to abide by it. Just in case. It was weird they couldn’t hear any sounds of movement at all. The fact this place was completely empty, even to the point of not having any vermin around? That just set off all sorts of alarm bells.

Stepping inside the first house, with Kat first and Lily riding on Hedera’s shoulder revealed a strange interior. It looked almost like a fight had taken place except all of the various bits of furniture was missing. All that remained were the faint imprints of different things. One the walls there seemed to be a few paintings, or something else roughly rectangular on the walls. The paint remained about a shade lighter where they once hung.

Except in more than one place there was major scuff marks around them, as if someone had scraped the walls with the painting frames on their way out. Perhaps if the marks were larger that would make sense, but none of the rectangles were all that large. The paintings looked to have been easily removed… and yet there were marks everywhere on both sides of the walls.

Stepping a bit further forward were two doors, one on either side. Hedera opened one and Kat opened the other. Inside Kat’s was a carpeted room with marks indicating a couch had once been in here and perhaps a coffee table as well. The indents in the carpet were shallow, and might just be a product of the carpet’s shape instead of indicating a table. Kat really wasn’t sure.

Other than that though, the room was empty, and a glance across at Hedera who shook her head implied there was nothing on the other side either. Shutting both doors the group continued on, moving back until they hit a relatively open area with a kitchen that actually seemed to be mostly complete… of course the fact that the kitchen bench was part of the floor and the cupboards set into the walls. Any appliances that might have once been there, including the sink, were gone. Empty spaces where they once were.

They canvased the rest of the house in a similar manner with similar results. There was however, one, annoying exception. In the room that seemed to have been the master bedroom, under the carpet that was obviously peeling back, was a small nook with a single orb in it. “Shit… we’re going to have to check a few other houses now aren’t we?” asked Kat with a sigh.

Hedera nodded as she scooped out the orb and handed it over to Kat before poking around in the little nook they’d found. “What are you looking for?” asked Kat as she put the orb in her silk carry bag.

“Any secret compartments. It’s actually somewhat common for their to be a secret inside a secret. A lot of people stop once they think they’ve ’found it’ though… doesn’t seem to be the case here. As far as I can tell there’s nothing else hidden in here,”

“So do we keep going through houses?” asked Kat. “That took… maybe fifteen minutes? That’s pretty fast actually, and we’ve been passing up big chances for orbs. I wouldn’t say we’re at the point we really need to be worried… but we might be there in a day or two,”

Hedera sighed, “Yeah. I’d ignore these if we were still in Autumn but you’re right. Best to use this as a chance to stock up on orbs. Plus, if collecting them keeps us busy until night we can rest here. Though…” Hedera waved at the empty space where a bed once sat. “Seems like we’re going to be using sleeping bags anyway,”

“Yeah,” agreed Kat as she started to head out of the room. “Do we split up now? Or stick together?”

“Eh, there’s plenty of rooms in each house. I say we tackle them together, but look through separate rooms. No sense in making things too risky, or too safe. I’m sure I can survive for the five seconds it will take for you to come rescue me, that is, if Lily and I don’t deal with the problem ourselves,” said Hedera with a shrug. Only to wince when Lily dug in her claws a bit to prevent herself from falling off. It didn’t hurt, what with her armour, but the sound wasn’t pleasant.

Kat had to stifle a giggle at that but nodded and headed for the door. They left the house and entered the closest one. It was entirely colourful on the outside and essentially the same on the inside. Kat wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but while the colours were different the experience was about the same. Only… no secret in the bedroom. When Hedera checked the spot for a secret nook, there was nothing. So, with help from Lily, the pair started to stomp around the room looking for a hollow spot in the floor.

While they were doing this, Kat made her way back to the kitchen and opened the one grey drawer in the whole place. Immediately coming face to face with an orb. Still just one hour, but that was nice considering the lack of effort needed to acquire it. “Found the orb!” yelled Kat.

Hedera and Lily swiftly exited the bedroom to see Kat standing next to an open drawer, orb in hand. “Hmm… so is it different because this one is coloured? Are all the hiding spots different? Do you reckon all of the houses have an orb?”

“Surely not,” said Kat after a moment. “There’s a LOT of houses here. I feel like we’d end up with at least another thirty orbs, maybe more, if each had one. That’s more than I got for a wide variety of chores.”

“Maybe… but there aren’t as many orbs just around in the snow,” countered Hedera.

Kat shrugged, “Well let’s keep looking for anything interesting I suppose.”

The next few houses were more of the same, though with different hidden spots. The first was hidden under a painting that had rather obviously been left in a hallway, the second was a bit harder as it contained a few rooms with actual furniture remaining. In this case, a couch in the room Kat usually checked first, and a full tent in the room that Hedera was checking. Shockingly, neither rooms had orbs in them.

It was a great delay. Kat and Hedera spent a good twenty minutes canvasing both rooms over and over. Kat had even got to the point of just taking the damned couch apart and still no orbs. They were about to collectively agree that it was time to leave… when they entered the kitchen and noticed one of the cupboard doors was angled ever so slightly. Inside of that one there was the orb they were looking for.

It did mean that looking through the houses got a bit more difficult. Not only did they know that red herrings could be a thing, but it opened up a question. ’Could there be multiple orbs in one house?’ Ultimately, they didn’t know and had no great way to confirm yet. The discussion wasn’t all that fast and lasted across another few houses they checked. These at least, had other simple finds with one being hidden inside the kitchen sink and another in one of the later rooms.

See, each house had the two rooms at the front which lead into the kitchen. From there, there were two more rooms at that back as well as the basement and the yard out the back. So far they hadn’t had much of a reason to fully explore the gardens but in this case it was set into a garden shed in the backyard. It was blended in to look like part of a painting on the shed’s side. It was even painted to add to the effect… but nothing else had any definition to it making it stand out anyway.

After two more houses, they settled on what the plan would be. It basically just boiled down to ’no longer than 30 minutes in each house’. They also agreed only to take particularly casual glances at the other rooms for extra orbs, as they still hadn’t seen anything that indicated there was multiple. The deciding factor for the thirty minute time limit, was that with both of them looking, they needed to find two orbs an hour to break even. Luckily they were managing that… most of the time.

One exception to this was a particularly sneaky house. The basement stairs weren’t where they normally were and the pair had decided that it meant there just wasn’t a basement this time. They were sort of correct. What they’d missed was that instead of a basement there was an attic, but they were really looking for the well-hidden trapdoor in the ceiling. The only reason they’d managed to spot it, was just before the time limit on leaving was coming up and Hedera sneezed, jerking her head around and letting her catch a glance at something… a door handle set into the ceiling. Missing that was a bit embarrassing…