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

Chapter 1899: Chapter 1899 Rules for Thee but not for Mee?

--- Kat ---

If Hedera had her way, they’d be sitting around the table with Weaver, drinking tea while they sorted all of this out. Kat and Lily shared the opinion in abstract, if not the specifics as neither were big enough fans of tea. Even still, it would be a nice way to alleviate the pressure of the moment but with Weaver ’zoned out’ and no certainty it was fine to move the chest, or close it back up lest that constitute declining the rule on offer they were left in an awkward position.

Lily decided to help smooth things over a bit by setting up a couch and lounge chair for everyone. Kat and Lily took the couch, while Hedera sank into the chair. Only to be a weirded out by that fact. ”This... this feels realistic?” mumbled Hedera.

Lily was in her human form, sprawled out over Kat who was laying across the couch. Lily was resting on Kat, with her boobs acting as nice pillows while Kat was relaxing with a shadow pillow of her own. ”Yup. It’s part of my shadow manipulation practice. Theoretically I can change my shadows into whatever I want... but practically it’s a bit hard. Things seem to be easier to... give texture to? That sounds close enough... anyway. Texture. I can give texture to things but it works a lot better if my shadow looks like the thing in question.

”I don’t have any amazing books on the subject, but the ones I do have don’t agree on if it’s an inherent part of the magic. Where you specifically project ’the shadow of a couch’ for example, and because it’s ’of a couch’ it’s softer than normal, or if instead the fact that I’m thinking of it as a couch makes it automatically softer. It really doesn’t help that my go to attack these days in a shadow claw.

”Is it a shadow claw because it’s an easy to imagine shadow construct? Because it’s easy to make sharp? Is it because I’m a cat-girl? Is it some combination of them all that makes the shadow claw better? I mean, the books DO have a shadow claw attack but it’s not in all of them and honestly nobody else seems to get the same... mileage out of the spell that I do, really it’s fascinating the implications and...” Lily was interrupted when Kat leaned over and kissed her full on the mouth. Completely destroying Lily’s currently thought process and replacing it with... other thoughts.

When Kat gently pulled away Lily hummed dazedly and snuggled closer into her girlfriend. ”Sorry about that,” said Kat. ”Lily... while not as prone to rambling when nervous, does get into things she’s really passionate about on the occasion,”

”No, no, it’s fine,” insisted Hedera. ”It was interesting, and not really something I’d thought about before she brought it up.” Kat raised an eyebrow at Hedera. She was expecting a bit more of an explanation. ”Um... what?”

”I was just expecting you to ask a follow up question or speak a bit more,” said Kat.

”Oh... well... I didn’t say anything mostly because I’m torn. It really does seem to go to be true... but I have no idea how good or bad it will be for anyone else. Honestly I’m just putting it off at this point...” Hedera sighed.

Lily, finally coming back into the conversation, agreed. ”Yeah it’s weirdly convenient and makes it feel like there’s a hidden trap somewhere. Even still... I don’t know? We’re decently far ahead and I don’t think we were planning to swap around too much. At the same time... we do need to go through them at least... what three times? Probably? That might be more than everyone else...”

”Do you think it applies to the centre?” asked Kat suddenly.

”What?” asked Hedera.

”Well, after the centre opens up... will we just be able to walk in there or will we need to make use of this new rule? Will we be delayed random amounts? Like... say we’re desperately waiting to get inside, we wait right at the border and the day ticks over to midnight. We try to push through and... BOOM. Five hour timer,” explained Kat.

Hedera rubbed her chin as if she was thinking deeply, using her thumb and index finger to really exaggerate the motion. ”I think it will depend on if Lily counts as an ’individual’ for the purposes of this. We have a team or two, maybe three, and I can see us moving up to a team of three, maybe four. Depending on if OTHER familiars count, that number could go up even higher.

”In that case, while the rule is good for us, it might also force other people to group up. Not sure how that would change things... but it might be good? Theoretically it would mean we’re running out of orbs faster because groups are gobbling them up together and perhaps still running low... but it’s hard to say,”

Kat nodded along. *It would also probably be better for our team. Not with Hedera but our friends. If everyone is working together then they probably can’t finish the special item that ends the game. We were already looking to limit that win condition and this seems like a decent way to mess with that.*

[You bring up a good point. I think we probably don’t bring that up to Hedera or talk about it mentally too long. It’s one thing to share stuff about ourselves and more general plans but that was a pretty specific goal we probably shouldn’t just give out.]

”Yeah,” said Kat agreeing with both statements. ”I don’t know if it would be good or not in the long run... but I think with everything we’ve discussed so far I’m leaning towards accepting the rule change. Maybe it’s not better, but it’s interesting and it sort of feels like a waste not to do anything with it. Plus, even if we’re not sure it’s better we ARE pretty sure it’s not worse so...”

”So we accept?” said Kat.

”We do... how do we do that again” asked Hedera. ”I vaguely remember needing to say something but... the memory has fled me...”

”You have to grab it and say ’I accept this change’ or ’I reject this change’ though... now that I’m going back over that memory... if we accept it a big lightning strike is meant to hit us and reveal our location... how the heck is that going to work here?” Kat queried.

”Huh... well... hmm...” Hedera mumbled. ”I don’t want to break Weaver’s house... and there are webs everywhere. Is this like... a real lightning bolt? Or just one that is meant to reveal your location? Because if it’s real proper lightning this whole place could go up in flames... but I’m not even sure if we can LEAVE without Weaver’s permission and assistance... so can we avoid setting the place ablaze?”

Kat giggled, ”Oh I’m sorry. It’s... ha... it’s a serious issue but... hehehe... I can’t help but think of how silly it is we’ve spent so much time agonising over this decision, finally deciding that it IS worth it... only for us to turn around and realise that we can’t activate it anyway lest we risk a massive fire... and we might be trapped. Guess we know why this all seemed too convenient,”

”We’re going to need to put in some work,” said Lily firmly. ”It’s possible, theoretically anyway, that I could ’break open’ one of the pathways we’ve already used but frankly Thyme and ’Weaver’ are so far above me in terms of skill that I will only be able to do it if they’ve left... ’holes’ in their work essentially.

”And even if there ARE gaps that I can exploit? It’s still going to take a while for me to ’pry’ things open. As far as I’m concerned we’ve got two options. The first is to bundle the scroll back up and have one of us run it away from Weaver, hopefully getting her up and moving again to allow us outside where we can use it...

”But depending on how the range works we might be stuck in ’Weaver’s domain’ or like, ’Weaver’s Challenge’ or something. Depends how the rules are written. If we can’t use plan A, plan B would be cleaning away a large chunk of webs in in area and perhaps having Kat freeze the floor as well just to make sure there’s no chance of fire. It’s not going to be quick, and we might need to apologise to Weaver for ’cleaning up’ the webs in that area... but it’s the only way I can see us using the thing without causing bigger issues,”

Hedera nodded. ”Will you need to rest first?”

”Um...” mumbled Lily as Hedera glanced pointedly down at the shadowy chair she was sitting on. ”I’ve still got some mana left so it’s probably fine. This wasn’t mentally draining I just had ’fix’ them in place and accept the mana cost really,”

”Hmm... I think we go for plan B to start with honestly,” said Hedera after a few more moments. ”Plan A seems more likely to annoy Weaver and less likely to work so...”