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

Chapter 2107: Chapter 2107 A Convenient Scream

--- Kat ---

This time food delivery was performed by Steel. He insisted on hand delivering the food and let it all spread out across one of the tables inside. Steel guarded it for a little while until Kat returned, having been notified by Lily that he was clearly looking for an excuse not to leave until Kat showed up. Once she did, Steel tied the front of the tent shut, and a wave of magic passed over the group.

All the alchemists took notice, but so did Lily and Hedera. Kat was the only one that didn’t really feel anything. It wasn’t a powerful wave, just a somewhat notable one for those attuned to mana at all. ”I have some more news, but we should have enough time for you all to take a break and eat first. I’ll explain while you do,”

”We also have some news,” Fred commented. ”Seems the poison is getting refilled somehow. Kat figured it out while cleaning things up, and we did some extra tests to confirm things but the poison isn’t replicating by itself,”

Steel grimaced, ”Not ideal but... that simply confirms the information I managed to get.” Steel turned and started to open the various food dishes. Tweedle glanced between the fragrant steak that had been shown off... and the potion she was only halfway through. Appoline simply used her old trick of keeping a toe in the potion to lean over and grabbed some food to eat while she kept working. It did mean that she needed to balance on one foot as she ate, but clearly she thought it was worth it.

Kat had eaten plenty last night and even grabbed a small snack for breakfast so despite the great smells she wasn’t tempted at all. Lily however, had simply noticed there was a large plate of uncooked fish and cleaned the entire thing. Kat wasn’t sure she could eat it all, the meat on the plate looked like it weighed more than she did let alone the plate... but she was clearly interested in making an attempt.

*I didn’t think you were that hungry...*

[I wasn’t except now I am. This smells amazing to me.]

Kat sniffed the air and found she could barely smell the fish. There were too many other competing, much better smelling dishes, at least to her. Lily clearly had a favourite. ”So what have you found?” asked Kat.
”It seems like the person they were working for let slip something. When one of them asked for why... well they were turned down pretty fast. Allegedly they weren’t given a proper answer... but the answer they were given was revealing. Apparently it was ’It’s not your job to worry about that, it’s your job to get the kill on this woman. Crippling or sending her into a coma will mean you keep half the money, anything else and we’ll be looking for refunds. Just don’t run into the poison and we’ll have no issues...’”

”Now, from their perspective it was a simple warning not to die to the poison... but with the extra information we have? I’m thinking there’s almost certainly something inside and the fact they keep adding to the poison, or at least, someone is, makes me think whatever they need to find they haven’t done so yet,” explained Steel.

”Alright... but counterpoint that we thought of earlier. What if they want more guards on the area so they can look for whatever this is elsewhere in the city?” asked Kat.

”It’s a possibility,” admitted Steel. ”I don’t think the evidence points to it though. We haven’t seen any sort of increased activity in other areas of the city and if they were simply looking for a chance to do one thing, or find one thing it would’ve been over by now. My best guess is that the Diggers found something important under the area and then sealed the tunnel but that’s a guess. Maybe some kid found their way down there and they’re going off shoddy directions,”

”What would take them so long?” asked Kat.

Steel shrugged, ”Could be all sorts of things,”

”Alright,” sighed Kat. ”What’s the plan then? Should Lily and I go in to look for signs of people moving about? Perhaps whatever thing they’re looking for? Or should we instead focus on cleaning everything up? The poison ponds are releasing more gas into the air and we know they’re being refilled...”

”If we had more time I might suggest simply camping out until you catch the person that’s messing around with the poison but it’s possible it’s some sort of remote setup, either with pipes or some hidden enchantment...” sighed Steel.

”I could probably check the pools for that?” asked Kat unsure. ”At the very least, the poison doesn’t affect me even when I’m swimming around in it. Doesn’t feel the best on the skin but it doesn’t hurt,”

Steel nodded along, ”Alright that’s probably a good idea. Just check one of them, no need to find all of the answers, just proof of what’s filling them up,”

Kat nodded, ”Well I’m going to head off and do that now, feel free to let me know via Lily if something I need to attend to comes up.”

”Take some more cleaning potions,” said Appoline as she pointed to another table. It only had a couple of bottles on it, as they’d been a bit too focused on investigating the poison itself but there was still a handful.

Kat shrugged and grabbed them before heading off into the air. As she was flying towards the closest poison things seemed normal... except... just barely on the edge of her hearing she managed to catch what might have been someone cursing. Carefully gliding over towards the sound she tried to work out exactly where it had come from. It wasn’t close by but the poisons muffled things somewhat...

However the air was decently clear at the moment because this was all cleaned out on an earlier run and the poison hadn’t quite filled back in yet... so perhaps they weren’t too far away? The problem was that she was in the denser residential section of the area and not the fields so there were plenty of places for people to hide. Smelling them was out of the question, not only was Kat pretty bad at that but there was poison everywhere messing with any other scents.

Plus, if there WAS a group here then they had to have a wind enchantment keeping the poison away, and presumably keeping their smell in just as a coincidence. Still... Kat hovered over a particular street looking for signs of passage... and was pretty sure she found them. The pathway was fairly normal looking at first glance but there was fresh dirt scrapped onto the curb just outside of one of the houses.

*Think I’ve found something.* Thought Kat as she pushed the details towards Lily. Hopefully she could explain to everyone what was going on either through meows if she was willing to risk that or shadow writing.

[Should I run over?]

*I doubt they’re all that strong. I heard someone curse and that’s why I headed over. The only thing I’ve found so far is fresh dirt scraped off someone’s shoe. I don’t want to just barge in and interrupt a conversation that might give me extra info... but I also just don’t know where exactly they are. There’s a bunch of houses here and none seem like they’ve been broken into...*

[Can you check the back? If they’ve got dirt on their shoe, or had anyway, then perhaps they needed to use the back entrance at least once? Perhaps you can see a mess in the dirt there?]

Kat nodded and raised her height a bit to see into the backyards... but it was a mess. The poison had clearly soaked into the soil there and a slime must have come through at some point because a bunch of the fences had been destroyed. She’d apparently been at just the right angle to miss it when she was flying in.

Perhaps that was what the cursing was about? Someone nearby had encountered the slime? Flying over though revealed that the slime trail seemed old. It hadn’t hardened, there was fair too much poison in the air for that... no instead it was almost wetter then before? Less viscous perhaps? It was in the process of melting into the ground.

The main issue, was that it wasn’t pink slime that had been brushed off the shoe or shoes, it was DIRT and these backyards had a fairly distinct lack of it. Sure there were still some dirt patches but none of the ones Kat could see had footprints inside of them. So... was the dirt from somewhere else? Did they just want to clean their shoes before going inside? If so why was there only what looked like dirt from one person on the curb?

*Hmmm... can you check with Steel if I should start going through these houses? I’m not seeing anywhere else they could be. Though I might be in the wrong row, or perhaps other side of the street?*