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

--- Kat ---

Their walk along the wall didn’t reveal anything interesting. Not for Kat and Lily anyway. Appoline apparently found some unique patches of grasses and weeds that might be good for something, but as she didn’t know what they were, she couldn’t tell how good they were nor explain their properties. Appoline did talk about some similar plants her family had grown and how those were used... but they were just low magic grass at the end of the day.

Some slightly more interesting plants were spotted later, but once again, Appoline didn’t know what they were for so there weren’t any cool stories. Just interesting possibilities. Eventually though, the fact that she still hadn’t been sleeping started to catch up to Appoline and she began to yawn. When Kat pointed that out at first she was ignored, but eventually Appoline was yawning every other minute and slowing her investigation a bunch.

”Fine,” grumbled Appoline. ”I’ll rest a bit once we find a place to do so...”

Kat just grinned and whipped up a quick shelter using the snow around them. With demonic speed, fire, and the practice doing this before it wasn’t hard to get the whole thing set up inside of five minutes. Took a bit more demonic energy then Kat loved spending... but it still worked. Appoline seemed more annoyed then impressed... but she did lay down and try to get some sleep. Kat slipped Lily into the sleeping bag Appoline had bought along so that they could keep each other warmer.

Kat herself exited back up into the snow and started meditating with her feet on the wall. Her idea was that once it was time to go in she’d feel her feet start to sink inside and she could simply wake the other two. Of course, this wasn’t a quick process. Kat barely noticed it but the snow built up around her as she waited for the wall to open. Hours passed and Kat ended up buried up to just below her shoulders in snow by the time she felt her feet start to sink in.

*Time to go everyone!*

[Blegh...] Despite Lily’s mental complaint she pulled herself out of the warm sleeping bag and used her shadow hands to carry Appoline out of the snow sleeping area. Apparently she was tired enough that this didn’t wake her. [Hmm... do we want her awake before we go inside?]

*Eh, it’s probably fine. I doubt we’ll need her help immediately nor will she be missing too much. Surely all of the cool stuff is on the mountain not just around it...*

[Right but Weaver made it seem like this place is completely untouched so surely there would be a lot of valuable plants just... around?]

*Hmmm... alright fair enough.*

Appoline was gently awoken by poking her on the cheek. The pair thought of other methods but with how poorly Appoline had been sleeping they didn’t want to freak her out. This approach was fairly slow and took Kat and Lily poking her a bunch on both sides of her face in pretty rapid succession. Eventually though, Appoline opened her eyes and started to wake up... and noticed the poking. ”What are you two doing?”

”Waking you up. The mist is open now so we’re heading in. Thought you’d want to be awake because apparently it’s been untouched for years... so probably a lot of ingredients.”

”That’s a misconception about how ecosystems work... but thank you,” grumbled Appoline as she shimmied her way out of the sleeping bag and then slipped it into her storage. Once it was packed away, Kat grabbed hold of everyone and pulled them through the fog. None of them were prepared for what was on the other side.

The centre of the island was a mountain. That was something they knew. What that had not realised was just how big it was, nor the fact that it had been destroyed by a massive lightning strike. How did Kat know that? Because it still was.

The snow and hail was gone, leaving them a wide open sky for a massive distance, but the clouds hid the top of the mountain. Even then, what they could see was truly titanic in proportions. Kat wasn’t certain, because she had no idea how far away it was, but if she had to guess the mountain had been larger then Mt Everest by a factor of at least two. The issue with that was the cloud cover blocking the top... and the whole ’was’ issue.

The entire thing had been destroyed... and was still in the process of being destroyed. A giant column of superheated plasma, dwarfed in size only by the mountain itself was pierced through the entire thing. Kat was pretty sure that the lightning itself was larger then the entire city they’d been living in for the last while. It was like a giant, glowing pillar that was holding up the sky.

It was also frozen in time, along with the results of its rampage. Large chunks of mountain in the process of flying off were surrounding it. Lit oddly by the light that seemed trapped in time the same as everything else currently in vision. If Kat focused, she was sure she could see at least some things moving around, perhaps it was the wind moving the trees, or monsters... but that meant at least some of this whole thing was currently in motion.

The chunks of earth that it had kicked up were larger than some towns, each individual boulder enough to crush hundreds of thousands beneath it... and yet countless numbers of them remained suspended in the air, breaking away from each other along with a great number of small projectiles. Some so small Kat couldn’t see them at this distance, but others were all sorts of sizes.

Kat was completely stunned by the sight. Ever had she seen anything like this. The mountain itself would have been impressive with how large it was... but to see the frozen visage of the moment the entire thing was destroyed sat several steps above that... Kat didn’t even have the mental bandwidth to properly look around her. Maybe if she had, she would’ve notice the ground being disturbed under her feet.

As it was, Kat never noticed the tiny purple rabbit popping up from under the ground beneath her until it bit right into her tendon. Kat let out a hiss as the world slowed and she tried to react. Kat didn’t know what had happened, not yet, but her leg was in the process of spasming. Her Rank 4 body protecting her from the full force of the bite... but it was still enough to mess up her leg.

Kat’s tail lashed out, not to steady herself, but to throw Appoline onto her shoulders just in case she was also being attacked. Kat let her wings expand to keep herself in place as her leg kicked out, and spasmed in pain. Lily, feeling Kat’s pain over the link, had her mind go into overdrive. She took in all of her senses, and smelt something nearby. Lily moved before anyone else scampering around to Kat’s so side she could glare at the rabbit.

It was a puffy little thing, with giant front teeth and slight amounts of static electricity dancing along its purple fur. Its eyes glowed with light and it stared right back at Lily for exactly one tenth of a second... before disappearing into the ground. Lily could hear the thing booking it away from them. She wanted to chase... but Lily didn’t want to get baited by the thing. She could hear other similar sounds all around her so it wasn’t the only one. In addition to that, the rabbit, while small... was actually larger then Lily was. She did not want to fight lightning-fast rabbits in their den.

With the extra information Lily was able to shove Kat’s way, she decided it was best to just fly off. The rabbits didn’t seem to fly, or perhaps might not have wanted to. As she rose into the air, not too far of course, but enough to make it hard for the rabbits to get to them without putting themselves at risk, Kat made her way over to the only tree in the area. It seemed that they were in some sort of flower field. It was also stunning to look at with colours everywhere...

But with the majesty of the partially destroyed mountain just a glance away it was hard to be too impressed by it. Sure the flowers looked nice, but did they glow? Did they move in exotic ways? Perhaps Appoline was interested but Kat and Lily felt like they still hadn’t taken in the full presence the mountain gave off.

The tree they ended up landing on wasn’t all that normal either. It seemed, even with the lightning bolt frozen in place, it had influenced at least some of the plants and animals nearby. The wood of the tree was dark brown, almost black with a charred looking exterior filled with swirls. The leaves were mostly green with purple rings all throughout them. They were also sharp and pointy. Something that Kat could ignore but caused Lily to hiss at them as Kat drifted between the leaves and onto a branch to give them a chance to gather themselves.