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

--- Hedera ---

Hedera wasn’t sure if the days had moved quickly or slowly but it was clear that a lot of things had changed. She was alone in the house now, but she had a team for investigation work. With Appoline and Kat gone Steel was willing to push to have Tanisha and Furen moved. The reasoning that he gave was that Hedera wouldn’t always be around to watch them, nor would the looming spectre of Kat and Lily keep them at bay. Not once people realised they were gone.

The fact that the house had been broken into once already did lend some credence to that, and there was all sorts of concessions made to get them to move. The potions Appoline had made for Tanisha’s throat were carefully packed up so they’d survive the trip, and Tanisha had been given a few other promises before the two girls were packed off to a safehouse. Frankly, neither seemed thrilled to leave, but neither did they fight it.

For Hedera’s part... she wasn’t sure what to think about the move, but it didn’t seem to be something done out of malice, nor simply a desire to kick them out of the house. Steel still hadn’t used it even after the girl’s had gone so it wasn’t to make space for himself at least. It made the place quieter that was for sure... but it also wasn’t like she was just lazing around either.

Hedera had been given a team, consisting of two other stealthy guards and a more front-line guy to act as said team. Mostly they were sitting around watching things. Just two different places so far, it wasn’t like Kat had been gone too long. The first was Weaver’s warehouse. Hedera hadn’t minded that watch. The list of who was allowed inside was shared earlier and most people avoided the area.

A couple of stickybeaks had shown up, clearly trying to figure some things out... but how many of them had criminal intentions was harder to determine. All of them were young, and most were still teens. It made it hard to know if they were getting paid for the info or they just wanted to know what the heck was going on in the obviously restricted area. If they were being paid it was a dirty tactic... but likely an effective one.

Hedera still worked with the other two to draw the best pictures she could of them all. Sure it wasn’t the nicest job, but she wasn’t doing anything questionable either. Not when the area was so clearly signposted and blocked off. The teens knew what they were doing, even if they didn’t quite understand the full scope of it. What Steel did with the information was not Hedera’s problem, nor did it hang on her conscience. Especially not when they were all actors. Though it did make her wonder if the teens were actually teens or not.

A question that she carried with her for the second investigation. A shop, one that sold staple foodstuffs and should have been mostly out of business. Not that they really didn’t business considering the money situation, but the way everything was MEANT to be supplied this particular shop should have nothing, or at least, close to it. All of the produce it normally acquired from the area that was now soaking in poison.

They were doing an oddly large amount of business for a shop with nothing to sell. Hedera still wasn’t totally sure how the city functioned with its weird ass currency system and free food, but the answer was probably ’because Thyme ensured it’ or ’because building a functioning economy for a fake city was too much effort’ so stuff got made, everyone get fed... stuff like that.

Though that brought up Hedera’s second interesting thought. One that she let her mind roll over as she watched the customers come and go. Was the whole city populated? Did Thyme recruit a cities worth of people just for the city... or did he recruit a bunch of people and then cycled them in and out depending on who was in the area? It might sound silly, but with time manipulation he could give people hours, or maybe even days to get ready or swap between spots.

Of course, there was always the worry that two people would visit the same random person... but again, Hedera didn’t know enough about time magic to say creating a time loop so someone could be in two places at once was impossible. Especially if it was set up beforehand.

Eventually she came to the conclusion that ’important’ characters like Steel were consistent and always ready, but the random people she saw walking around and never interacted with were likely spending their days doing that all across the island... well that or most of them were Thyme. That might be simpler. Having a bunch of bodies walking around doing nothing important to make the place seem lived in. Though... how many bodies could Thyme control?

That was her question for the second day anyway. It proved interesting enough, though the number of pictures she had to draw for all the visitors was making her hand cramp. With the warehouse, they’d had the time and lack of visitors for everyone on the team to scratch out a drawing of each and every teen that had shown up. Some better than others of course, but the variety would hopefully help Steel, or whoever, figure out exactly who they were. The shop left no such time.

All three of them were drawing at a constant right, and the fourth bastard managed to avoid the work because he was pretending to be a more standard guard, waiting at the edge of the street in a little box that made his appearance seem routine. He was still counting customers, just more subtly and without doing any drawing. Allegedly, it was because he couldn’t but Hedera wondered if it was actually just that he wanted to avoid the extra work.

The third day came with a surprising request. Steel had asked for her to come and teach some archery classes for the guards, and couldn’t help but ask... ”Why?”

”You’re far and away the best archer in the city. Much as it might pain me to admit it. The fact that everything is so... tightly packed and that any and all ’dungeon diving’ is just the cities expansive underground tunnel network means that archery really isn’t looked upon all that well. I know, the king knows, plenty of people know that archers are useful, that you can do great things even at a distance...

”But nobody here really respects them and as such our recruits are honestly not the best. They know how to shoot in formation, how to hold back a riot... but proper archery? The stuff that you can do? I can only think of a handful of people in the city that are even in the same ballpark as you. So, I’d like you to teach a class, and perhaps more if it goes well. If we get even one good archer from the lot of them it will be well worth it.”

”Alright then, I guess I can accept that,” agreed Hedera before she finished off her breakfast and then left the house. She’d not really trained any groups before so the day would prove to be a learning experience. In the past, she’d had one on one lessons. Plenty of wealthy merchants and nobles that wanted their heirs to know how to defend themselves... in theory, or simply kids that thought archery was cool.

It meant that when you wanted an easy quest while the rest of the team was relaxing, or injured, or just off dealing with other things, teaching some random person archery for the day was pretty much always on offer. Not one that Hedera had taken all that often. Not something she felt invigorated and inspired by... but she’d done her fair share of that sort of teaching. How much worse could a group be?

The answer was ’it depends’. Nobody was singularly as awful as her worst clients. The ones with no patience, no skill, and guards or parents that hovered around the whole lesson. The ones that were spoilt rotten were easy to just grin and bear it. When it was a group though? That was different. The first few bits of heckling Hedera had ignored, but once it escalated? She’d shot an arrow close enough to ruffle the idiot’s hair, but not actually touch him.

Bastard had screamed bloody murder, and she politely asked, not to do that again. Of course, the fact the older guard was chuckling when he’d made such a request made it hard to tell how strictly she was going to be held to that request. From there... things got less direct. The problem, as Hedera saw it, was that this was not a class eager to learn how to use the bow.

No, it was a mix of people, and some of them were quiet, attentive, wanted to learn, wanted to see what they could do. Others had just shown up because someone else had told them, or they were supporting friends, or perhaps that it got them out of other work. They were constant distractions... but not annoying enough to be called out on it in a way that would stick.

Then she had to do it all again with the second class after lunch. Yay.