Chapter 2366 Tased

--- Kat ---

Things didn’t calm down all that much after the first attack. Several more monsters of the same type tried and failed to ambush the pair. Once you knew what to look out for it wasn’t too hard to spot them. See, they apparently could ’freeze’ themselves to look like the wall... but they weren’t really the same kind of rock... or something. Kat wasn’t a geologist, but she could tell the difference when looking at one even if they were hiding. The main issue was that they did still explode upon death even if she ’killed’ them some other way. Something that wasn’t easy.

In an attempt to not have to deal with the explosion, Kat had tried kicking them to pieces... which failed. Targeting the eyes wasn’t any better as they popped like a bubble upon contact, spewing concentrated lava on the attacker. Kat was more annoyed by how fast it dried on contact with her. Clinging to her clothes by drying partially in between the fibres instead of just sliding off.

On that same one she’d taken the eye out for Kat tried further to break the thing into pieces but that didn’t seem to matter. Whatever she threw off the ’main body’ would die, and after a certain point it would just freeze over and explode. Why? Kat didn’t know. The tipping point seemed to be about half its body mass but why it just gave up on life after that Kat didn’t know. Perhaps that didn’t always kill them or something? Considering they could harden at least an outer shell, maybe it went all the way down...

Lily jumped in to see if she could damage them much, but had the same issues. Her paper could scoop away decent chunks of lava before it burned up and her shadow hands could remove larger chunks then Kat... at the cost of a good deal of mana. That didn’t remove the whole ’explode when too damaged’ issue that the pair faced, so that kept happening so they just sort of accepted it as part of fighting the annoyances.

A second monster also existed in the area, and they almost missed that it existed at all. The cave was mostly just stone but every now and then a patch of flowing lava would be revealed, and even more rarely things would open up to another lava filled area. In one of these lava filled areas, there was just a few platforms for Kat and Lily to jump across. Except at least one of them? Not actually a platform.

Kat had Lily on it originally intending to drop one of Grunkle’s devices on it. It had been a while since the last one, and it was about the right time... except just as Kat put her feet down the rock started to shift. Initially, Kat thought nothing much of it, simply taking to the air once again. It wasn’t a stretch to guess that the rock had just shifted a bit because of her weight...

Except soon a large muddy looking tentacle had swiped up and across the top before the entire thing settled back down after just a moment, looking like a normal part of the rocks in the area. It made Kat a touch worried about how many other rocks were monsters... but it was also clearly too lazy to turn this into a proper battle. *Saved by my flight once again I suppose.*

After flying to the other side of the cave and ensuring this wasn’t also some sort of giant monster, Kat placed the next device and continued moving. They had two more left to go in this area and Lily could feel a portal somewhat nearby. This wasn’t the only one, they’d found a second a bit earlier... except it seemed to go to a very small island for some reason. They’d duck out, noticed that the portal essentially existed as the only space on the ’island’ and then left. There really wasn’t anything else to see there, it was weird.

The new portal seemed to be similarly weird. Lightning was slamming into the other side of the portal... of course Kat still wanted to check it out. Just to be sure it was safe for everyone else. [Can’t we just come back to this later? There’s an entirely separate lava area...]

Perhaps but would you really want to waste time getting back here if there’s just nothing?

[Fine.]

Kat carefully removed Lily from her boobs, ignoring how she was hissing all the way. Despite the verbal complaints, Lily knew this was the best plan mentally. She still wanted to complain though.

So Kat took one deep breath before giving her a nod and stepping through the portal... to find it was exactly how it looked. As in, all of the lightning was striking the ground, and it was currently still in the process of doing so. Or rather, it had been frozen in that moment. The portal showed a very accurate snapshot of the other side, but Kat hadn’t thought it to be quite so literal.

As a pair, they’d thought that perhaps the island was destroyed and the portal remained, or alternatively that it was just constantly raining lightning like that area they’d needed to get through before. Perhaps some chunk of that ended up in the sky. Seemed unlikely, but it was possible.

Neither had expected things to be frozen like this... nor for Kat to be so tempted to touch one. [Don’t do it.]

But frozen lightning! I have to know Lily. What about the pursuit of knowledge?

[Just throw a rock at it or something, don’t be an idiot.]

A rock will not give me the answers I crave.

[Throw a rock or so help me I will jump through this portal and yank you back myself.]

Fine... Kat kicked at the ground, shattering it and creating a few rocks to experiment with. Throwing one at the lightning... saw the rock bouncing off. Kat tried it again. Some thing happened. Surprisingly solid... can I touch it now?

[I’d really still rather you didn’t.]

*I’d like to note that isn’t a no...*

Lily rolled her eyes but decided it would probably just be better to let it happen at this point. Kat could survive a lightning strike anyway and this one at least seemed fairly safe. Didn’t mean she was any less worried as Kat’s hand slowly moved towards the lightning in question. When she finally made contact it did zap her... but only to the level of static electricity. The sound was louder then the pain was.

Kat poked it again. Zap.

And again. Zap

Kat started to rapidly poke the lightning as it caused her hair to rise up. *Ok this is kind of fun.*

[I can’t believe you got shocked by lightning and decided the best idea was to HIT IT MORE!]

*Look, this is actually really cool. It’s not doing any damage to me, it’s oddly warm, and I’ve never had the chance to so easily cause static electricity. I mean technically it isn’t but it FEELS like it. I wonder if that’s because I’m freeing a little bit of the trapped lightning on contact or if static electricity clings to the time frozen lightning bolt for one reason or another.*

Lily debated entertaining this question for a bit... before deciding that she was kind of curious as well. Hopping through the portal Lily winced at how high they were and that it was getting a bit harder for even her to breathe. Kat of course, hadn’t even noticed.

Still, that wasn’t the problem she was looking at right now. She focused her senses on the lightning as Kat poked it... and found that it wasn’t reacting at all. Even if Kat was obviously being zapped, it seemed as if the lightning was still completely and properly trapped according to her senses. [I think it has to be the second one. That or something weird is going on with mana. The time frozen one seems to not be reacting. Of course, I’m using space sense to tell that so perhaps I’m wrong...]

Lily decided to test for herself. She strode over to the lightning and reached out a paw. Zap. Lily shivered on contact. Even knowing what was going to happen it didn’t really prepare her. Kat was right it didn’t really hurt but it felt majorly weird. Or rather, Kat was able to just deal with it, but for Lily it went right through her whiskers and all along the fur all over her body. Kat just had her hair stand up a bit.

Lily poked it again and found the feeling was the same. It flowed over her whole body in a way that static electricity just didn’t normally... but it was safe. Or at least, safe for someone at Rank 3. Lily supposed there was a small chance that it would hurt someone at Rank 2 but Appoline would probably be interested enough in whatever weird stuff would grow here that she’d be willing to come along anyway. She could also probably make a lightning resistance potion if it was really necessary... still confirming this was a real portal, and that it was higher up was enough for now. They still had more devices to place after all.