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

--- Lily ---

The answer, once Lily thought about it, was actually quite a while. The three of them needed to eat, and Appoline would probably want to take the chance to make some more potions. Sure, technically they’d had a break fairly recently, but it was Appoline and Kat who’d had that break not Lily herself, and even then there was always more potions to be made. She also wasn’t sure if Wiggles had eaten, but a quick poking of Kat confirmed the answer was no he hadn’t, and Appoline hadn’t really either.

So food was first on the menu and then once that was dealt with they started to explore around a bit… but that also happened at a slow pace. Only Lily could fly and she wasn’t strong enough to lift Appoline… maybe Wiggles, but she wasn’t going to make that attempt. They weren’t really that trusting of each other, or at least, that’s what Lily felt about the matter. It was one thing when he was just a prisoner, trust wasn’t really an issue. Now that he’s free for most purposes it wasn’t something to bring up. Especially not when there was still a chance she couldn’t lift him.

This was an issue because the terrain here was awful, especially for Appoline who was unable to jump between the trees, nor fly like Lily. She was stuck on the muddy ground, and already the slowest of the three of them before that was taken into account. Though at the very last it wasn’t a major issue. They didn’t need to get anywhere fast and potentially might not be really ’going’ anywhere at all.

Wiggles proved his worth in this environment pretty quickly. For all that Lily was pretty good at using her ears now, she didn’t have all that much experience with it in truth. Wiggles though, was VERY ready to make use of them and did so far better. Any of the crock things that got too close were attacked by him, and while they were quite resistant to his initial strikes… they made for very clear targets for Lily to tear into when they tried to snap back at him.

Appoline did ask her to be a bit careful with her attacks after the fourth one to better harvest ingredients, but that wasn’t difficult. By that time Lily already had a good idea of how they moved and followed after Wiggles. Stabbing right through the brain in the next attack was easy, and she even did so in such a way as to not damage the eyes or teeth. Things that Appoline might want.

All in all, it was feeling like an increasingly good idea to have Wiggles on the team. He was no Kat sure, but he did bring valuable scouting capabilities to the team and wasn’t afraid to get into the thick of it. Lily was surprised he trusted her enough to keep him safe, or perhaps it was just that he believed he could flee from the crocks or lead them into Appoline before it became life threatening for him. Well, that or perhaps he didn’t mind getting sent to the infirmary. Lily supposed that was always an option.

In truth though? Things were working quite well. That is, until it started to run. Lily hadn’t been prepared for it, and they were inside the clouds so it was hard to notice the change. Lily hadn’t even been aware it could rain like this inside of clouds. Or was it actually raining down on them from above? Regardless, with how moist the air had already been, their hadn’t been any change in scent to indicate they were about to be soaked.

Currently, Lily had bundled them all up under an umbrella of shadows and they were moving to a nearby rock. It didn’t have space beneath it for it was far too deep in the mud for that, but it was a flat-ish surface they could stand on without simply sinking into the mud themselves. Once the group got there, Lily transformed to speak and grimaced as that meant expanding the umbrella further.

”Ok, what’s the plan? I can’t keep this up forever, but I can keep it up for at least an hour, maybe longer. I’m not really sure actually. My mana doesn’t seem to be draining super evenly. I can go a few seconds where it matches my regeneration, then it feels like a chunk gets taken away but I’m not feeling hail or anything… which is actually kind of weird now I think about it… why isn’t there any hail?” queried Lily as she trailed off towards the end.

Appoline shrugged, ”Too much water mana in the air I’d guess, not enough ice.” Wiggles nodded along.

”Alright, and what about the plan? As I said, not sure how long I can keep up the umbrella…” Lily queried.

”Well… with that moss I can probably make us all potions to keep the water off us. A bit of a waste in my opinion… though with how cold it is perhaps not? Still, I could do it without too much trouble, especially if you’re sure you can give me the whole hour,” Appoline offered.

Lily sighed, ”I don’t really know how I feel about it… and will those potions work for myself and Wiggles?”

Appoline glanced down at the rabbit, then up to Lily, before frowning. ”HMmm… I… I don’t see why they wouldn’t? This isn’t the sort of potion that SHOULD work differently with different creatures, it’s poured over your head and builds a nice little dry bubble for you that can stretch a bit if you’re reaching a hand out… but I’m not certain I suppose. There is also the fact I’m not sure if you’d pop it or not with your shadow… or how it would interact with that at all…”

Lily sighed, ”That’s not really ideal…”

Appoline shrugged, ”I’m not going to bother lying to you Lily. Though I think it will at least work for you and Wiggles for the most part, and you could use paper spells… hmmm…”

”Yeah in the rain?” laughed Lily. ”Not the best idea. It kinda sucks I can use my paper magic more but… shadows are just so EASY to use you know? And they tend to be more reliable then paper… as odd an experience as that is to say, and internalise.”

”It probably just works better with your combat instincts,” Appoline offered. ”From what I’ve seen, they work WITH you rather than as a separate set of magical instincts. For myself, personally, it took quite a while to train myself to know what potions to throw in a fight rather then just throwing random knives at people which is how I was originally trained.”

”You were trained at all to fight?” Lily said surprised.

Appoline nodded, slowly, ”Yeah, sort of? I mean it wasn’t like, super intense family training. Just basic, ’can you hit this target’ and technically we didn’t use knives but various small gardening implements. The idea was that if we had an intruder we could throw them out while running away. Practiced once a week for a bit with family, and I didn’t necessarily keep it up all that well long term.”

Lily nodded, ”Alright let’s get started on that. Wiggles, do you mind keeping watch? I have to concentrate a bit to keep the water off us, not because it’s hard, but to keep the mana cost down. If I stop thinking about it too much it either wastes mana making itself too tough, or I’ll accidentally let water through. I won’t be deaf but you know…” Wiggles nodded and gave a salute to her… and then they got started.

Though apparently having Wiggles on guard was the right call. Lily didn’t really know what Appoline was adding to the potion other than the moss, but almost as soon as she started brewing the water nearby started to churn and Wiggles started to mark targets. He’d thump his leg loudly and then point with one of his ears to where the closest monster was.

Lily had to be careful when striking out at them with her shadows. If they were too far away still she didn’t have the range to attack them and the few times she tried to use her paper spells it was mostly a waste. Sure they had enough magic to survive the rain, but they didn’t keep much of their impact upon landing, and some of them didn’t even get that far if they needed to travel the full distance.

It wasn’t too hard, but it was annoying and draining on her magic reserves. She was spending so much of it to keep the monsters away and they didn’t seem ready to stop any time soon. Then again, the monsters here seemed completely fine with cannibalism. Any monster that was killed was just food for the rest, so they didn’t really mind sticking around. The stupid would die for the prize and the smarter ones would happily take the free meal.