D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad - Chapter 2063 In the Garden of Fleurs Part 3

Chapter 2063: Chapter 2063 In the Garden of Fleurs Part 3

— Kat —

When no alarm sounded immediately and nobody came rushing up from downstairs, Kat and Lily pivoted to keeping the unconscious guards contained. The hoses already in the greenhouse served as perfectly adequate rope to bind the guards. There was more than enough to make sure the bindings were tight and thorough, including extra they cut off to bind the hands and feet as well. It wasn’t impossible to escape but that wasn’t what they were aiming for either. If they wanted that simply killing them would’ve been the correct choice.

Once they were secure, Kat and Lily started to open the way down. The tap trick worked just fine and the middle table started to retract. Lily was hidden off to the side and Kat had decided to be visible in full view of the stairs as if she’d been the one to open it. This proved to be a good tactic because the guards in the basement were ready for them. Kat didn’t know if they’d just reacted to the unscheduled opening or they knew something more but their attacks were thorough.

A trio of magical attacks came flying up from the ground. A blast of fire and wind had combined together into a fiery blaze ready to roast anyone that wasn’t prepared for it. For Kat, it wasn’t even hot. The third attack was the one to worry about. It was a veritable wall of earthen spikes all looking ready to take her out… and they were also going to hit the glass behind her.

*Dammit can I even afford to dodge?* Kat thought as the flames washed over her. Kat didn’t know what would happen if she let the stone spires hit the glass behind her but in the end, it didn’t really matter. There was too many of them for her to effectively stop them all while limited in strength. So instead, she just charged forward. The stone broke against her skin, much weaker then the fire that had proceeded it even if the effect was similar.

In the underground area Kat could see the cells had been locked down, metal bars now stretched and warp to cover the prisoners completely from view. In the corridor, there was one guard on either side and one in the back. Kat went for the two closest to her first, sliding down and readying a punch to take the one on the left out. She earth mage in the back was already working though. The ground softened underneath her feet and as she started to use her wings to escape she was yanked down forcibly into the ground.

Sure she was strong enough to escape, but her wings couldn’t lift that much material. As Kat was struggling to get out the mage guard next to her blasted her in the face with as much fire as they could manage, baking the ground hard and theoretically burning Kat to nothing. Of course, the theoretically was the key word here. This was at best Rank 2 fire and perhaps only Rank 1. Kat simply tanked the flames. She didn’t even need to regenerate afterwards, it just didn’t do that much damage.

Which wasn’t to say Lily was entirely happy with this course of action. While Kat was taking up their attention she’d slipped downstairs and was ready to attack the other mages. Lily considered what she was about to do carefully… and decided that Thyme would make sure they didn’t really die. Claws, real physical claws ripped across the back of the earth mage’s legs severing his Achille’s tendons and sending the mage to the ground, screaming in pain.

Lily winced a bit at the brutality but her shadows were already moving and the second one was picked up and slammed into the metal wall behind him. While the guard was stunned, Lily wrapped her shadows tightly around them, chocking them slowly. Kat, seeing her distraction had mostly worked, ripped the feet out from under the nearby guard sending him down onto the floor. Leaving his face in range to get a similar treatment.

Kat choked the last guard, preventing breath from being taken until he was firmly unconscious. *You know I’m fine right? Like it didn’t burn my hair, didn’t burn my outfit. Didn’t hurt me at all. Right?*

[I’m still a little pissed off that the first response was to go for a kill shot though! So many of the fights we’ve been in before this point are either against monsters, where it’s fair game, or the magic is less likely to be immediately lethal. If you were a normal Rank 2 it would’ve killed you. That was a whole lot of fire directly to your face. Even at Rank 3 I can see it melting eyeballs.]

*I suppose I understand the rage to some extent. Now are we going to bandage that guy you’ve left bleeding on the floor? Need to patch that up if you don’t want him to bleed to death.* As Kat was making that comment she started to break free of the floor. It was hard to get proper leverage for her legs, but a couple of slams to the ground with her fist softened it up enough that she could work her legs out.

While Kat was escaping, Lily had ensured her two guards were knocked out and gotten started on bandaging the earth mage’s legs. Using his robe as a bandage. Kat felt like there had to be some sort of cultural taboo against things like that… but she wasn’t sure. On the one hand, mage robes were expensive and rather precious. On the other, not dying was really nice.

Once the ’bandage’ was applied Kat wondered out loud, “So do we open the gate up properly? Or do we just rip into it?”

[Surely we open it properly?]

“I originally thought so… but the fact that these guys were ready for us might mean we’re going to need to get into a longer fight soon. We might not have time to mess around looking for the controls,” explained Kat.

[Can you even tear your way through the metal?]

“I might not be able to… but I’m quite confident you can. Even if you can’t the ground here isn’t anything special. It’s just dirt. Working around the metal will be easy,” explained Kat.

Lily nodded and got to work, giant curved shadow hands that were a mix of hands and an excavator scoop dug into the gap between the wall and the metal. Once Lily had dug in a bit, she yanked, peeling the metal away like it she was opening a can. The first cell they ripped open was empty. Nobody was there. The second was different… but still not what they wanted.

Chained to the back wall was a man in rags. His hair might’ve been blonde at some point but it was so covered in dirt and muck that it was certainly brown now. He was chained at both his arms and his legs, though the chains were run through a loop so that he could pull away from the wall a bit to get more comfortable. Well, as comfortable as someone with big metal cuffs around the wrists could ever be.

They were definitely breathing but hadn’t even looked up despite the fighting outside or the sound of the metal being torn away. With that in mind, Kat carefully made her way into the cell as Lily checked the final one and found it empty. This place only had the one prisoner and he clearly wasn’t the woman they were looking for.

Kat carefully used her demonic energy to freeze the metal links chaining him to the wall, being careful to ensure that the cold wasn’t spreading along the links. Not quickly anyway. Once the steel was sufficiently cold, Kat shattered it pulling him away from the wall somewhat, before doing the same with the chains on his feet.

Kat pulled him out through the hole and left him on the ground for the moment. “What do we do with him? I don’t know that it’s safe to carry him around. Not sure if we even want to. For all that we want to free Appoline, we have no idea if this guy deserved whatever got him sent down here.”

[He’s malnourished and has a… rash? Scarring? Skin damage around those cuffs for sure. Not certain what you’d call it. Regardless, this is pretty close to torture and I’m not sure I’m comfortable just leaving him here. Even if he IS a criminal I’d want to just hand him over to the guards.]

*Ok that’s fair. The issue is… how are we meant to sneak around while carrying an unconscious body? Also should we blast him with some water? We sliced up the hose but there are other greenhouses we could wash him in.*

[I don’t know? I guess I was just expecting we’d find Appoline or we’d find nothing. I didn’t think we’d run into anyone else and I certainly didn’t think that they’d be unconscious. Do you think at least throwing water on him could wake him up?]