D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad - Chapter 1931 Frozen In Place
Chapter 1931: Chapter 1931 Frozen In Place
— Kat —
“Kat?!” shouted Hedera as she bolted off from the side of the wall to check on the collapsed demon. Lily followed at a much more sedate pace having full understanding of what was going on. Hedera slid beside Kat and checked her pulse and found… nothing? Or at least she couldn’t feel it on Kat’s neck where her finger was. Hedera was in the middle of really freaking out when Lily transformed and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Hey, don’t worry it’s fine,” said Lily.
“Wait… so this isn’t an adrenaline crash and mana exhaustion? Er, demonic energy exhaustion?” asked Hedera as she glanced rapidly between Kat and Lily.
“Um… it might count as demonic energy exhaustion? It’s not the same though. Kat will be fine in a minute or two once her energy refills a bit. Her tail might be able to stop threats for a bit as well. It’s not ideal sure but it’s basically just a time out for a bit,” explained Lily as she knelt down and gently put Kat’s head on her lap. It wasn’t something she had the chance to do often and Lily was going to make use of the opportunity. [Though I had thought you still had more energy than that. Why did you collapse?]
*I wasn’t very efficient with it right at the end there. I was using a pretty conservative amount for a good chunk of the fight but I REALLY needed to make sure I was fast enough there at the end so I made sure to use all the demonic energy I could. A lot of it was probably wasted fighting against the band I’ve got on instead of actually doing anything productive but… well it felt like I needed to take the risk. We’d been fighting this damned thing for hours and you mentioned Hedera was running a bit low on arrows and you on mana.*
[You’re not wrong but I don’t have to like it.]
“Ah… so she’s fine?” asked Hedera.
“Yeah completely fine. From what she’s not telling me it cost her so much demonic energy because she was being an idiot,” explained Lily.
“What?” asked Hedera confused.
Lily sighed. “Kat’s got that Rank 2 restriction on her right?” Hedera nodded. “Well in this case Kat used all of her remaining energy to push right up against that. She might have just barely surpassed Rank 2 limits when doing so… and wasted something like twenty percent of her reserves in the process, maybe more? It’s hard for me to track that sort of thing properly but from what I can see of Kat’s memories that seems about right.”
“Oh… um… what exactly was her plan if this failed?” asked Hedera.
Lily shrugged. *I was expecting you to save me while calling me an idiot in the… I guess moderate case? Worse case scenario Thyme would heal me up. Though, one more question. Did all the orbs end up ok? I threw the bag off to the side in the first thirty minutes but I’ve sort of forgotten where that ended up.*
[Yeah I got it earlier. You didn’t notice?]
*Not really. Normally you’d have a much larger chunk of my attention but I didn’t really have the time to focus on you while fighting.*
Lily rolled her eyes and gave Kat a slight kiss on the side of her temple, eliciting a slight twitch of Kat’s lips. Lily narrowed her eyes as she looked at Kat suspiciously. Hedera was about to ask something when Lily held up a hand and poked Kat in the cheek. Once twice, three time… and then a bunch more in rapid succession causing Kat to break out into laughter. “I knew it!” hissed Lily. “You’ve already recovered!”
“Hey it was like… a second or two before that and there was no reason to get up. I am rather comfortable after all,” retorted Kat.
Lily sighed but didn’t make any attempt to remove her girlfriend. In fact, she started to gently comb her fingers through Kat’s hair. “I suppose it is sort of nice. Admittedly, I prefer things the other way around usually… but it’s nice to mix things up every now and again.”
“Right this is all cute,” cut in Hedera. “And as much as interrupting you two would normally scare me… the giant PRIMORDIAL ICE STATUE is currently a much greater fear. If Kat’s fine I’d really rather not be staying here.”
Kat considered sitting up… but she had a few more questions she could probably ask first. Lily lightly bopped her on the nose at the thought… but didn’t say anything to correct her. “I’m not against leaving, but taking the stairs was what triggered this whole issue. Is it SAFE to take the stairs? If not how else can we get out? Also is there any rewards for our trouble here?”
“Um…” Hedera started to speak but cut herself off and frowned. She stood up and started to look around the arena, properly look. There was nothing in sight. As far as she could tell… there wasn’t anything else. Perhaps there were some secrets somewhere but nothing stood out. The minimal decorations on the wall didn’t have any spots for orbs to hide inside and there didn’t seem to be any other exits. “That’s actually a good, and much scarier issue… I have no idea if it’s safe to leave…”
Kat nodded slightly from her position on Lily’s lap. “Alright, in that case I say we relax here for a little bit at least. I’m not against pushing things but I’d rather fully recover my demonic energy first. Plus having Lily’s mana back would be nice. What about your arrows?”
“Um…” Hedera hesitated for a moment. “I’m going to go with no. I don’t have any great materials for them and I really wouldn’t want to try enchanting anything so close to the primordial. That’s just asking for something to go wrong. I’m also fine with waiting… I think.”
“You think?” asked Kat.
“I’m worried about leaving and triggering another fight sure… but I’m also worried about loitering too long and triggering another fight. It seems fine for the moment and I’d be willing to give it… say half an hour for you two to recover but not sure I’d be willing to leave things much longer. An hour is definitely too long. I’d bet that Thyme would reset things after that… and the worry is that he’d reset it before I suppose,”
“Alright fair… is the primordial itself worth anything?” asked Kat.
“Don’t even think about it,” stated Hedera firmly while making a hand chopping motion. When she was met with Kat and Lily’s curious looks she glared back. “This thing can regenerate from almost nothing and can cause untold destruction! Yes technically it’s super valuable. I could use the seemingly endless amount of water its giving off to make some AMAZING ice enchantments… and probably get us all attacked again in the process.
“I don’t think you understand how scary these things are, or how great it is that we were able to trap it back on the chains. These things are fucking scary Kat, Lily. The only reason we even had a chance was that it was super supressed by the room, splitting itself off from the main body, and the chains. Putting ANY parts of it ANYWHERE and taking it out of the room? I’d bet that it reforms within the hour and starts attacking us.
“Worse, it would be out in the open at that point and it could merge with the ice and snow outside to power itself up super quickly. We’d be risking the potential doom for the whole island. Sure, a lot of people would argue that it is indeed that valuable and worth the risk… but not me. These things are NASTY and persistent and just… no. If you really want some, ask for some from Thyme when you win the thing,”
“Woah, alright. I guess… I guess even with the two hour fight I just didn’t consider it that scary,” admitted Kat.
Hedera shook her head. “The only reason these things haven’t taken over the world is that they don’t even try. They like to just sit in one place until disturbed. A lot of times the more extreme climate changes are CAUSED by one of these sleeping underground for a bit. They just… dissipate eventually, seemingly going where they want and doing what they want. I really have no idea how time captured this one… and it probably isn’t going to be happy about it if it ever got free,”
Lily made some placating gestures. “Alright we get it, the thing is super scary even if we put it down without too much trouble. We won’t disturb it intentionally, and will be really careful not to keep any bits.”
“Thanks… sorry for going off a bit,” admitted Hedera.
“It’s fine,” said Kat and Lily together, before Lily continued with. “That being said… we still need to work out if there’s any reward for pushing it back, and if there’s a safe way to exit. I’m sure Kat can dig through the rubble of the stairs and fly us up but if we’re worried about it escaping it might be best to leave the rubble in place,”
