D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad - Chapter 2185 Ending the Fight

— Kat —

Nothing happened after that. Or rather, no further combat took place. Kat and Lily continued to circle above in the sky, and Greaves did… whatever it was she was doing. Neither of them interacted for a good twenty minutes. After that a giant “DRAW” sign dropped into the arena alongside some booming voice stating the same. The sign looked to be made out of stone… and Kat realised that the fact she could see it meant that someone had made a giant stone sign just for this, it nearly covered the full 100 metre diameter.

Then, once the announcement was over, Kat was back in the kitchen. The knife she’d been holding at the time of her teleportation was falling to the ground… and Kat supposed everything was fine? Kat juggled the knife a bit as she tried to catch it without speeding up her perception. It kept bouncing off her hand until she finally got a good grip on the handle. Lily meanwhile was also back where she was, in that little nook down near the core. Kat hadn’t been certain where Lily would end up.

*Huh… that’s… well… Do you think someone declared that a draw or there was some proper time limit?*

[Does it matter?]

*I guess not. Also, based on the fact I had to catch the knife I was holding before we left I don’t think any ’real’ time has passed. Oh, and we weren’t offered any healing via Thyme. Do you think that’s because it was a draw or because neither of us were injured anymore?*

[I mean maybe? I think I’m entirely healed, or at least, nothing hurts anymore. Not my throat and not my face. I guess it’s nice to know I heal up faster then normal, though it’s hard to say how much faster. What’s normal for a Rank 3 I wonder?]

*No idea. I also wonder if you heal faster because you’re Rank 3 or if perhaps the fact that I regenerate and you have ’my’ demonic energy inside of you means that I help you heal through our link. It makes me feel a bit better about you being in fights even if I’m not sure you’d be able to heal from as much as I can.*

[Yeah… at the end of the day it was mostly bruising, or stuff that you can sleep off.]

*How are you feeling… mentally? Do you want me to come and grab you?*

[I’m sure I can get out of I need to. I lifted the fountain with my shadows remember.]

*I know… I just… I guess I just worry. Are you going to be alright down there?*

[I’m not in any more danger now then I was before.]

Kat sent a mental glare Lily’s way. *You know that’s not at ALL the point I’m trying to make Lily, and avoiding it isn’t going to make things any easier on either of us. If you want me to drop it, I promise I will… but I don’t think it’s a good idea to do so.*

[I… I know but… yeah ok maybe I don’t know. Or I do know what you mean… I don’t know what I want. I’m not sure if having a chance to be with you will help or not. I mean… I don’t even know if I’m still worried about anything of if I just feel bad because of what happened and just need to… let it go.]

[Obviously my big worry about you flinching or something was wrong but couldn’t you have at least had the decency not to look quite so proud of me while I was ripping out your throat? Honestly, that might be what sticks with me the most. The fact that it didn’t bother you…]

*Ah… woops?*

[It’s fine. I suppose I knew what I was getting into. At least, after you gained the ability to regenerate. I just… I dunno it stuck with me a bit? I suppose I’m still worrying about the ’you’ll hate me’ thing even if that’s very unlikely I can’t seem to convince my brain of that fact. So… yeah I think I kinda just want to sit around in the dark for a while?]

*Fine if you think there won’t be any issues. Do you have enough food?*

[There’s plenty of edible plants in the area. I think I have enough but if I don’t I can get more.]

*Alright then. I’ll leave you to that. PLEASE poke me if you want to chat or just… anything. Even if I’m asleep it’ll be fine.*

[Ok.]

Kat wasn’t sure she believed Lily would contact her if she was sleeping… but Kat just had to hope that for now everything would be ok. Letting out a long sigh, Kat went to get started on a meal… but found that she wasn’t all that motivated to do so anymore. Still, Kat slapped her face a few times and got to work. With her lacking motivation it wasn’t anything particularly fancy, just some meat pies. The pasty had already been prepped so that didn’t need doing and the mince was easy to make when you had super strength.

Of course, as she was grinding the mince up… Kat realised that she was serving elves. *Ah. Do… do I know any kind of pies for vegans? Even if they technically aren’t. Hmm… there’s apple pie I suppose but that’s more of a desert, then again is it really? It’s not too much sugar… year alright I’ll make some apple pies as well.*

Plans slightly altered, Kat was now making mince pies and applies pies, all in miniature because she couldn’t find a large pie tin but she could find a bunch of small ones. Kat wondered why that was… regardless she got to cooking and once everything was in the oven she just… sat around for a while. Waiting. Letting herself exist in the moment and totally not worrying about Lily.

When the meal was ready, Kat called everyone over… and Hedera seemed to notice there was an issue. “Are you alright Kat? Not that… well not that there’s anything wrong with you. That is to say. Um, what I meant was that you seem like you might have… er…”

“It’s fine,” Kat said with a wave of her hand. “I was planning to tell you anyway. I ended up in the arena just before and we had to fight Greaves. She had some… nasty tricks.”

“Did… did you win?” asked Hedera, hesitantly.

“No it was a draw,” stated Kat.

Hedera’s eyes widened. “What? A draw… I mean… how could she even manage that? How did the pair of you manage? I mean… I can’t see her agreeing not to fight considering what she’s like… but I mean…”

“She had an interesting… probably poison?” Kat said, letting her own uncertainty show while turning to Appoline. “I plan to ask you about it in a bit Appoline.” Appoline nodded and continued to eat her meat pie. “Anyway, she had that, a launcher that could shoot tracker arrows, and some method of teleportation. I got away from her and dealt with the poison on her blade…

“But after that Lily and I just sort of flew around, waiting for her to show up again and she didn’t. After the poison incident I didn’t want to fight her on her terms in case she’d set up a bunch of traps, and obviously Greaves either couldn’t or didn’t want to fly up to get me. I never saw her after that first round of attacks… and eventually Thyme or someone else decided it was a draw.”

“Huh…” mumbled Hedera.

Appoline meanwhile was leaning forward. “So you mentioned poison?”

“Right… so Greaves tried to take my head off with her axe and chopped through my neck until it hit bone. I was fine a few moments later and nearly got her in retaliation but she teleported away. At the time I thought she was just trying to avoid my attack and maybe set up some more traps, because that’s how she got the jump on us the first time…

“Anyway, we backed off because the fact we didn’t hear her was kind of scary considering how good Lily and my own ears are. After a while though… the wound started to burn. Not that it was still there, I was all healed up… or so I thought anyway. Then the burning kept spreading, and spreading. Eventually had to take out all the skin and muscle that was burning to get rid of the sensation. Any idea what sort of poison could do that?” asked Kat.

“A few,” Appoline answered immediately. “They’re collectively known as ’Troll’s Bane’ or ’Regenerator’s Bane’ and they’re, mostly, aimed specifically at people or things that can regenerate. The exact mechanics differ. Some just eat through flesh fast enough that the regeneration can never keep up, but would normally burn out on someone without regeneration.

“Others… they sneak ’in between’ the regenerative process and sort of… use the gaps inside of the process to spread. The real question is… did it burn because you were continually being damaged? Or was the burn the point? A lot easier to sneak an irritant past strong regeneration then it is to sneak past something actually deadly… but it’s hard to know. Could you tell the difference?”