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

Chapter 1993: Chapter 1993 What the Dogs Doing?

--- Long ---

Long stared at the massive hole in the sand they’d made. Boney, Surge, and himself had done most of the work while Shoal stood around under the shade, but he didn’t mind that. She looked about ready to fall over. ”How are you not about to pass out?” asked Shoal. She was soaked in sweat and leaning against the nearby giant pillar of the desert.

”My armour is fancy as FUCK lass. I got so many enchantments on this thing I’m surprised I ain’t glowing. The one keeping me cool is a state of the art temperature control system so good I could probably walk into a volcano and still be fine,” announced Long as he shovelled aside some more sand. Compared to the two dogs it wasn’t really that much but he wanted to work with them.

”Even still, I thought there was like... a cap on that or something. I feel like we asked about it,” grumbled Shoal.

”Ah, but the trick is you just pay extra to have one for cool environments and one for hot ones. It means more enchantments on the armour, more money for the materials and crafters but ultimately, a better product. Probably not worth that money but eh, when you’re playing to win that’s how it is,” shrugged Long.

”Blegh,” groaned Shoal. ”And why are we doing this again?”

”You’re the one who said the clues were leading us here. I don’t see what’s different about this pillar compared to the other ones but Boney is happy to dig and I’m happy to spend time with him and Surge here,” said Long.

Surge growled lightly. Unlike Boney who was completely fine with the heat, Surge was very much not. She was having to use her magic to keep herself from frying in the sun. Something her stupid human wasn’t currently helping her with, because she was stupid obviously.

”Look, I’m not entirely sure either but we passed two other landmarks that worked, and then we needed to ’find the skybound dirt’ at ’the shard of the sky’ which I have to imagine is the pillars reaching up to the air... and I think ’skybound dirt’ is the sand because... well sandstorms are a thing. I don’t know how else you’d have skybound dirt,” sighed Shoal.

”What about if it was a floating island?” asked Long.

”Do you SEE a floating island?” asked Shoal.

Long glanced up at the sky, as if it would somehow show him a floating island where none previously existed. Of course, he saw nothing. ”No... but it would be cool.”

”I’m not arguing for or against the ’cool’ factor I’m trying to work out what else the clues are trying to get us to do. Even if I’m fairly sure that sand is the ’skybound dirt’ why would we need to find something buried under layers of sand? Surely the further you go down the less and less sand that’s been in the sky you find?” Shoal pondered.

”I’m just having a good time with the digging. We could go all the way into the caves that we’ve seen exist under the desert if you want. The only thing we could do is climb the pillar here but I’m not sure that’s possible and not something I really want to risk,” admitted Long.

Shoal looked the pillar over from her spot sprawled out on the ground. The glare from the sky was still pretty bad even with the shade. As she placed a hand over her face to block some of the light, for just a second, it seemed like she saw something up in the sky. Then again, there were a few monster birds around. Probably nothing.

--- Sen ---

Sen grimaced at the gross sounds his boots made as he tried to make his way through the mud. There had been a light shower overnight and despite the light nature of the downpour the autumn area was so wet already that it had turned the ground to mush. Stantin was not happy with him either. ”Look, I promise you I’ll clean your fur up before we settle down for the night,”

Stantin gave out a pitiful whine. ”No, no it’s not going to work. I am NOT cleaning your fur up a few hours before we stop for the day. It’ll take me nearly that long to get you clean and then you’ll complain about going any further and we’ll have wasted the whole day. I know you wanted to stay in that little town but they weren’t all that keen on having a big wolf around either,” grumbled Sen.

Stantin gazed up at Sen with his best puppy dog eyes. ”No Stan. YOU were the one who thought it would be funny to sit on one of the kids that were messing around with you.” Stantin gave Sen a look that said ’it was pretty funny though’ ”look, just because it was funny doesn’t mean it was a good idea. It scared a bunch of the adults.”

Stantin looked back, ”No, no it doesn’t change anything that the kids seemed to think it was hilarious. Plenty of adults don’t take a kid’s feelings into account... and the one you squished wasn’t too happy either. Poor little guy was having trouble breathing.” Stantin did have the wherewithal to look away, slightly ashamed at that one. He’d not quite positioned the kid correctly and they’d ended up with a face full of knee.

”Look, we got a few quests from them, and the swamp seems to have more than a few orbs around the place. We can probably return and maybe get you a proper clean once we finish up with those quests. They might be a bit less annoyed at you after all of that,” explained Sen.

Stantin whined again. ”Look, I know you’re a big baby but you made this particular bed, and now you have to lay in it. Perhaps you’ll think twice before pulling out a gag routine, and what your audience are going to think on it. Everyone there was a bit on edge, and I get that humour can help... not ’maybe killing a kid’ type of humour though.”

--- Kat ---

Kat was wondering if the city was already at the breaking point. Arriving at the various guard stations had her spotting a few different crimes in progress. They ranged from a woman getting backed into an alleyway up to three kids leading a guard on a Scooby Doo style chase. Funnily enough it was the second issue that was technically more serious. Kat had dropped in between the two people, a man and a woman when she’d seen what was going on.

The man stopped what he was doing and raised his arm, dropping the knife to the ground where it notably didn’t make a clinking sound. Kat glanced down at the knife, then turned around and saw the woman also had her hands up. Kat let the situation run through her head for a few seconds. ”Alright... do you two know each other?”

”Yes,” they both said at the same time.

”Do I want to know?” asked Kat.

”No,” they also said at the same time.

”Why did you think this was a good idea?” asked Kat with a sigh.

”We had an illusion setup around the alley, we may have alerted the nearby guards as to what we’d be up to, and... um...” the woman trailed off but Kat just sent a wave in her direction signalling she got it. Annoyingly enough. ”Yeah that.”

”Ok... I’m going to fly up and pretend I didn’t see any of this. I’m not going to mention it to anybody, and we’ll never speak of this again.”

”Deal,” agreed the two and Kat shot off into the sky. *I don’t know if I should be more or less annoyed that they were real people and not Thyme clones. I mean... that still wouldn’t be good, and I’m going to have to spend some time shoving that interaction into the ’do not open’ box... but at least it was real? I guess? Did Thyme hire them because they do that sort of shit? Was I meant to extort them?*

Later on Kat encountered a second incident. Three kids had been painting the side of the guard station, gotten caught, and now they were running around the area with just one of the guards on their tail. Perhaps he could’ve caught them, but these kids, well teenagers really, were good at movement. Up and down the various ledges and tricky to stand areas. While the guard was forced to lumber along in his armour.

Meanwhile, a second guard stood at the front of the station laughing his ass off. Kat sighed and touched down next to that guard, who eventually did recover. ”So, I’ve got a letter... and I also want to know what’s going on?”

”Oh, well, those three kids come around and try to paint the guard station about once a month. The leader is actually the one in charge of the station and there’s no laws against painting the guard stations if you have permission. Which they do,” explained the guard.

”Wait then why are they being chased around?” asked Kat.

”Well, the guard chasing them is known as ’Fat Bob’ for obvious reasons,” Kat glanced over as the guard spoke... but didn’t get it. ”Ah, yeah he barely fits in that suit of armour and it used to be worse. Anyway... he missed the memo it was allowed, and the kids enjoy it so... nobody does anything to stop it. Now it’s a regular event here. I wonder if he’ll ever notice that we’re not washing the paint off?”

Kat sighed. Sounded amusing but also a whole heap of ’not her problem’.