D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad - Chapter 1976 Meta?
Chapter 1976: Chapter 1976 Meta?
— Kat —
Ramor came flying around the corner and glanced at the area. His eyes were glowing with magic as he did so, clearly looking for something. Kat was currently still moving rocks because in the slowed state she was in, Kat was able to catch a bit of notably red hair. Turns out, her worry about the thief being assassinated was a big worry. The guard at least seemed fine, and liable to live. The thief… Kat was unsure. That was due to a combination of factors.
Kat had uncovered some of Jen’s body and it didn’t look quite right. Oh it was a good copy, an excellent one that Kat only managed to notice the issues with because of her slowed time. The big give away, when everything looked correct, was that the entire body ’breathed’ in time. Which led her to looking closer.
See the ’thief’ had one arm crushed and burned along with a bunch of rubble and debris… but a swift swipe at some of the muck revealed ’skin’ underneath that was made with bark. It was damned close, but there wasn’t any pores on this new skin, instead there were faints traces of how the bark had to have been grown. So technically Jen was ’alive’ but Kat had a good idea of what had happened.
Jen had clearly been swapped with one of Thyme’s bodies and Thyme was now pretending to be an almost dead Jen. The question was… what the heck did this mean. Obviously Thyme wasn’t going to ask a random actor to allow themselves to be blown up. Especially if this was part of a pre-planned storyline so… a double was needed. What the heck did that mean for healing though? Angie might be good, but… well how does she even make a start on something like that?
Kat also wasn’t sure if it was right to try and ’save’ Jen if she wasn’t even still around. At the end of the day though? Thyme liked to make things interesting and realistic. The fact the body was ’breathing’ was enough of an indication, to Kat at least, that she had a chance here. “What’s going on?” barked Ramor. His casual demeanour all but gone.
“Someone blew up the walls. I didn’t see anyone leaving when I got here, even ducking out through the hole for a second. My nose also isn’t accurate enough to find a specific scent amongst all of this, maybe if I had more training. I decided without tracking capabilities it was best to remain here. The guard over there seems fine, but Jen here is in horrible condition. Or well…” She glanced at Ramor.
“Look, I’m not sure how to talk around it so I’ll just say it. The Jen ’dying’ here is a Thyme body. The guard might be as well, but the armour makes it much harder to tell. I have no idea if I’m expecting to notice this swap or not but I’m assuming it was just to prevent causing pre-planned pain to someone who signed up to act in this. Would you like me to switch to trying to save the guard instead?” asked Kat.
Ramor’s eyes dimmed and he held up a hand while tapping something in his sleeve. Suddenly the world around her stopped completely. She found she couldn’t move at all either. Ramor was talking but the words weren’t getting to her ears. It was, overall, a very strange experience but one she recognised well. Eventually, Ramor stopped talking and Kat found she could move. Sort of. Her feet were still stuck in place.
“Sorry about this. Thyme was surprised anyone managed to notice the swap. Try not to metagame this TOO much but they were willing to admit that, yes, the ’real’ Jen was swapped out and this is partially pre-planned. There was no reason to let her almost die for a dramatic effect. Especially when she didn’t sign up for a full combat role,” explained Ramor.
“What about the fact… she was already in combat?” asked Kat.
Ramor shook his head. “Look, I’m really not allowed to say much. This is all happening in a time bubble so we’re not losing time. I’m basically just meant to tell you to treat ’Jen’ there as the real thing. If she gets healed, the original actor will sub back in. She’s currently watching everything that happens so she’ll know of anything Thyme says while pretending to be her… but you really weren’t meant to notice.”
Kat shrugged. “Sorry but between Rank 4 eyes and my truesight bypassing any illusions that might have smoothed things over I picked up on it. I also wasn’t sure, considering the circumstances, if this was an… ’in universe’ switch where Jene escaped and I was helping the body double, or if they were trying to ’kill’ her here.” There were obviously a lot of air quotes in the sentence but the point was made well enough.
Ramor nodded. “Very understandable Kat. So, one last time before everything resumes. That is to be treated as the real Jen and if you notice similar things in the future, unless it’s clearly of lower quality and not something Thyme is doing, to treat them as the original.”
“Alright,” agreed Kat. *Even if this is a bit weird. Hard to prioritise a body I know could completely regenerate itself in a blink… but I don’t know what else to do.*
The world returned to motion and Kat returned to trying to ’save Jen’. Now that she knew she was meant to treat this as real, Kat was willing to be more efficient about it. Uncovering her face and chest first, then working her way out to the limbs. Ramor seeing this strode towards where the explosion seemed to occur, eyes once again alight with magic, looking for something. Probably evidence.
Angie was the next to arrive, and immediately saw what Kat was doing and got to work. She pulled open one of her bags and a whole surgical kit practically unfolded before Kat’s eyes. Angie was first cutting away a lot of the clothes Jen had on and then treating the wounds, usually with tweezers. It was important to pull out the various bits and bobs that where stuck in the wounds.
Once a specific wound was cleaned up, Angie would then pull out a bandage, dunk it into a large potion bottle, and then apply it to the wound sight. Angie wasn’t going anywhere near as quickly as Kat for obvious reasons and soon ’Jen’ was completely free of obstruction. She still did not look good though. Her face was in bad shape, and her jaw was… mostly still attached. There was some rubble sticking into her neck but Kat didn’t think it was deep enough to be impacting Jen’s ability to breath. Mostly because Angie wasn’t working on that right now.
With the chest of the outfit sliced off, Kat could see it was actually padded and had caught a lot of the damage aimed at Jen’s midsection. Of course, that didn’t mean she was entire without injury. There was a lot of bruising already visible and perhaps some internal issues Kat couldn’t see at a glance. Better than her right arm and leg though. Both looked completely mangled. Kat wasn’t sure how recoverable that was in a short time frame. You’d probably need healing magic to fix that soon.
Steel arrived not long after, decked out in full armour making it hard to see what he was currently feeling. Steel looked around at everything and grimaced before moving out onto the street to try to control the crowd that was just now forming around the area. He was also tapping a few things on his armour causing a brief glow, but seeing as the world didn’t stop in place, the enchantments probably did something else.
Kat was well on her way to clear up everything around the guard when Ramor came over to speak once again. “So you didn’t see anything at all?”
Kat shook her head. “Well, other than the obvious stuff still here, no. I didn’t see anyone leaving, I didn’t see something like, leaping across the tops of buildings, the street was basically empty, especially nearby. Nothing I could point to and say ’it was probably them’ especially with my ability to see through illusions.”
Ramor nodded, “Yes… as far as we can tell this was something planted ahead of time. Which really worries me because we’re meant to have checks for this sort of thing. Having random explosives installed in our cells is NOT good. The question is… when did it even get there? It’s possible, unlikely but possible an old remanent from the original occupants had the enchantments unravel, because this was an enchantment designed to explode not something more conventional. Going to be hard to figure this one out…”
Kat nodded. “Yes… there’s so little evidence. Is there even any way?”
Ramor nodded, “There are a few techniques and spells we can use… but that sort of thing also messes with the scene so we’ve got to pick what we want to use carefully. Do we analyse the signature of the enchantment? What about a heavy duty scan to try and see who has passed through here? Those are the big two but using either would wipe traces for the other. It’s a mess…”
