D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad - Chapter 2074 Flight of the Lost Part 1

Chapter 2074: Chapter 2074 Flight of the Lost Part 1

— Kat —

Once it was safe to leave through flying away… they just sort of did. The dome was high enough, and the light was bright enough that it was hard to track them while staring up at a false sun. Kat was a little worried about Hedera, but she’d managed to fire an arrow at them with a note on it. Kat had nearly freaked out because it was far and away the most accurate arrow to get anywhere near them once they got to the roof… but it was aiming to the side anyway. The note was actually nearly missed in the panic.

The note just said that Hedera and Sam were going to head to a guard outpost further into the city, perhaps even the castle and that she’d meet back up with them at Steel’s house later. That was good as it meant that Sam would be safely out of harm’s way and most of the trouble would be trying to follow Kat.

“So… now that we’re basically free where do you want to go?” asked Kat.

“I’ve got a few safehouses. I can pick one of them. Probably one on the other side of the city…” mumbled Appoline.

[She spent at least an hour making those sticky pots. She doesn’t have time, or at least, I wouldn’t want to risk it.] Lily pointed out.

Kat grimaced and decided it was best to mention that, “We’re probably close to that two hour limit. You spent a while making the sticky pots to hold the guards down. If we’re heading over to the other side of the city… I’m not sure you’ll make it.”

“Shit,” cursed Appoline. “If we pick somewhere too close we’ll be followed before I can make a proper healing potion… and if we go too far away you’re right we won’t have time anyway. Dammit, I really don’t want to rely on that smug bitch but I sure as shit ain’t heading for the guards.”

“They’ll want to find you anyway to fix the mess that someone left behind in your name,” Kat pointed out.

“Oh that garbage… hmm…” Appoline mumbled. Kat pointed off to the side where the cloud of poison could still be seen. It wasn’t as thick as it was so the poison in the air was dissipating… but because it was trapped inside Kat thought it likely that the poison was settling onto and perhaps into the ground rather then truly leaving the area. “Oh. Oh that’s… that’s a much bigger problem then I was assuming.”

“Yeah they used these plants to spread the poison pretty far. Plus there are giant slime golem things running around that make it hard to investigate. I think I stopped the plants from sending up more poison but there was already a huge amount in the air before I stopped them and it can’t exactly go anywhere,” explained Kat.

Appoline rubbed the side of her face, making her ear bounce up and down in the process. It was almost cute, but the deep scowl she was wearing ruined most of the effect. “Dammit, they’re going to have my by the throat already with that. Even if I didn’t have anything to do with the setup, it’s still MY poison and they’re going to be on my ass for that.”

“Steel is quite fair, and isn’t going to push too hard when things aren’t your fault,” Kat countered.

“Yeah maybe he won’t be, but the king and all the other advisors are going to be on his ass to punish me. Sure I didn’t release the poison myself. I didn’t help with the planning, and I was locked up by my stupid family for literally nothing at the time… but it’s still MY poison and they’re going to want me to do something about it.

“If they have to make a new law to force Steel to punish me properly? They will. Now, I could cooperate and help them clean things up to save myself some grief but that still means admitting fault in some way… which once again, the advisors who are super pissed at the moment are going to use to force me into more things,” grumbled Appoline.

“Question… are you even allowed to brew poisons like that inside the city?” asked Kat.

“Eh,” Appoline shrugged. “Sort of? Generations ago one of the kings… or maybe it was a push by the advisors? Whatever the case, one of them pushed to have specific potions banned… but not classifications of them. This set a precedent that you can only ban specific potions and my thing has always been creating unique and original poisons.

“That means that I’m fairly insulated from that particular law… but you CAN still be charged with poison people, or places and the alchemist who made them can be charged if the guard have reason to believe the alchemist in question knew they weren’t going to be used for a legal purpose.”

“I still fail to see the issue,” Kat commented.

“The issue is that, for all that I’m technically part of the thieves guild, I’m a researcher at heart… and a bit of a hoarder. I don’t really hand out potions for guild jobs. Instead, I like to teach them how to make the potions themselves. Far less work for me in the long run, and far less legally questionable… except I’m sure they can argue that, considering it’s a thieves guild, I should suspect that my things could be stolen and might count that as ’standard business’.

“Plus, I’m sure that there’s at least one poison I gave out for a job in the past. Especially when I was originally starting out. Even besides that… I suspect that because of the fact I mostly make poisons, plenty of them simply have no legal use. Like the organ rotting poison. I can’t think of a legal use for that one, but I kept it around anyway,” explained Appoline.

“Why would you even want to make that?” asked Kat.

“Well the idea was to make something that could burn through a regenerators mana to kill them that way, making it seem like a natural death… but it turns out that they can simply push the poison out of those organs and it was quite specifically organs, not blood to not show up in bloodwork. It’s actually quite survivable for regenerators with minimal issues,” Appoline happily explained.

*What am I even meant to think of an answer like that? Is this meant to be a threat because she’s worked on poisons specifically for regenerators before?*

[I don’t know? I think she just likes talking about poison. It’s hard to tell but I think she has the same sort of face that I wear when I find a new interesting research topic.]

*I’m not sure I agree with that, and considering I see your face more often it probably counts for a lot… but fine.*

[Yeah she might just be like that. Saying that it didn’t work might be her way of reassuring you? Or maybe it’s just the first example that came to mind.]

“I suppose I see the problem,” admitted Kat. She also saw quite a lot of other problems with Appoline but at least she was… somewhat self aware. Probably. “Still, you need to make a decision for where to go sooner rather then later or you’ll run out of time to make it,”

Appoline sighed, “I suppose you’re right… though… where are you currently staying? Perhaps I could make use of your lodgings?”

“Steel’s house. He doesn’t use it much but he DID sleep there last night when Lin visited to tell us to come and help you,” answered Kat.

“Oh… oh that’s just the worst of all worlds isn’t it?” Appoline said. Kat gave a deadpan look. “Well I get that it’s not so bad for you, but for me that’s how I get involved with both sides of the problem. Though… maybe getting them to fight over me would actually make things less of a hassle for me personally?”

“You really think involving both of them will make things less of a pain for you?” asked Kat, not able to tell because simply saying it would, maybe, be the case obviously wasn’t a lie.

“Oh no, not really. It’s a nice thought but Lin will probably not fight for my attention at all. Instead she’ll try to get more from the guards for my cooperation and then shove me off onto them. Possibly making her annoyed with me in the process and I’ve already seen how that ended up. Hmm… makes me wonder if she had anything to do with the… everything of the last few days,” grumbled Appoline.

“Would she?” asked Kat, suddenly a lot more concerned.

“Eh… maybe? I’m sure she could set it all up but this doesn’t really feel like her style and she was trying to court Steel. Somewhat metaphorically, so like… getting on his bad side in such a major way? Not ideal. Though maybe she was thinking of fun ways to mess with me and someone else overheard her and ran with it? If so that might explain why she wanted to free me so fast. Then again, I haven’t seen the damage either…”