D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

--- Kat ---

The next week had moments of ups and downs. Most of the downs revolved around checking with D.E.M.O.N.S and getting no answer… right alongside admitting that fact to Sylvie, Vivian and Callisto in her regular messages back to them. Kat normally didn't mind her missions, she also didn't mind relaxing a bit after her mission was done… BUT THIS WAS NEITHER!

It felt like they were in some sort of awful limbo. The crew would get up, search around the area, meet up for lunch, move base camp, and then repeat. This had been going on for a week and nobody was particularly happy about it.

The girl's had volunteered to take Bower back home multiple times but he was sticking with them till they got answers… not that it was happy about it either, but they understood.

On the brighter side, it turned out that everyone had managed to go up in rank. Somehow. Even Bower, though for him it was more like he regained some power then gained new ones. It was unclear if his theoretical peak had changed but he could now comfortable use Rank 3 power once again. The group was starting to think that perhaps the explosion of the drake had more effects then the obvious.

Just a feeling though.

Lily desperately wanted to crack open her paper spellbook but she didn't bring it along! Lily was cursing the storage rings and praising them at irregular intervals as she practiced a bit between her searches. Just a bit though, as they days were regularly quite tiring.

They hadn't gone into the mist yet, but they'd covered a massive swath of area around it, and Lily contributed to that by flying around and doing her part. She slept well throughout the night.

Kamiko had learnt what her new ability was on the third day of their little excursion. When she was changing out the wrappings on Hunter, she let out a long sigh… and a whole bunch of bubbles. It was exhausting apparently, but they 'captured' injuries. This let Kamiko heal someone, and hold a bunch of injuries to throw at people in a pinch.

The issue was that creating the bubbles was massively draining.

There was also a bit of an odd balance. You needed a bubble large enough to cover the injury completely if you want to 'take' it, but bubbles increased exponentially in cost with their size. Except when Kamiko just blew out a stream of smaller bubbles they did still do some healing. It was strange.

Hunter healed up quickly once Kamiko discovered that… and Hunter was able to discover her own new ability moments later. Kat had no idea how Hunter worked it out so quickly but once she was up and moving she managed it in less then five minutes. Hunter could now break apart into a swarm of tiny little snakes and send them out to do things.

There were some restrictions. The first was that Hunter had to split her entire body, it was all or nothing. The other big restriction was that one snake left behind in the mess was a pure white albino snake that held her main consciousness. How Hunter knew that? Apparently she just did. Kat didn't question it overly much.

Now, the odd thing was that as long as that snake was fine Hunter could reform from any of the snakes without issue.

On the other hand? Kat was pretty sure that she was at Rank 4. She'd casually smacked away a branch that fell on her at one point and that casual slap had levelled a good chunk of forest. Kat may or may not have tested her regeneration afterwards and found she can regrow an entire arm in less then a second.

Lily was not pleased to learn that knowledge, and Kat could admit she'd been a bit… hasty in testing it. Lily spent an hour mental lecturing her on why that wasn't the first thing to test when you THINK you got a power-up.

Sadly, despite that upgrade, Kat hadn't figured out what her ability was. She'd considered transforming into KatE and seeing if that helped her figure things out… but Lily sent mental glares her way every time she considered it so the idea was shelved for now.

Which brought everyone to the end of the week of searching. It was the middle of the day and everyone was just sort of done with things. "So what's the plan?" asked Kat. "I feel like we can't just keep doing this. I know that D.E.M.O.N.S has been pretty regular with its updates… but those updates are basically just 'we still don't know'.

I get it, I don't want to bail out and leave something undone… but like… at this point? I feel like we're just wasting time,"

"I agree with you," stated Hunter. Kat couldn't help be taken aback by that. She knew Lily felt the same, and thought Kamiko might agree with her complaints… but to here it from Hunter? That was a genuine surprise.

"Really?" asked Kat "I mean… that's… good I think? I thought you'd be a bit more straight laced about this,"

"I have found no fresh signs of the drake in days and I have not been able to partake in any proper practice because the mission requires my focus… but it is exceptionally unclear where the drake ended up, even if we assume it survived. There is no reason to believe it ended up in this area other then the fact that dimensional bubble that contained it was connected here once…

"But I consider it quite likely the drake ended up somewhere completely different. I would first guess it to be somewhere within the mist, perhaps in another bubble, but the few times you and Lily flew over the area you saw no new holes in the mist coverage. Which means its possible the drake is in an entirely different part of the world, or perhaps not even this one.

I am more concerned with why they haven't yet pulled us back.

"We were a track and kill team designed to take out a drake we knew the rough location of. None of us possess the means to track it simply via sight and the fact that we have not yet received reinforcements or replacements is far more concerning to me.

The time wasted is an annoyance yes, and I do not like that we seem to have been left to waste time… but it's the details surrounding us that make me concerned,"

"Oh…" mumbled Kat. "Um… Kamiko have you heard anything important from your mother?"

Kamiko shook her head, "Nothing worth mentioning. I mean, I do send her regular updates and well wishes… but she hasn't told me anything that might hint at… bigger issues. Is it really that likely?"

Hunter shrugged, "I personally suspect that the explosion destabilised the dimension we're in and potentially a large area around it preventing us from being recalled. Instead of informing us that nobody knows when we can leave, it's instead sent us on a quest to find a drake that probably doesn't exist to stop us doing something foolish.

Then again, if I'm correct D.E.M.O.N.S likely also can't tell if the drake survived or not,"

"Um… that's… that's bad?" offered Kamiko. "I… I don't know how big of a concern that really is for me… I mean… there's all this stuff in my storage ring I could be messing around with… and like… my messages are going through to my family, who I don't normally spend that much time with anyway… so… this could be a fun camping trip instead!

Though… um… I don't know how easy it is for you all to be happy about it?"

"If… If that IS true?" grumbled Bower. "Then I'm going to be mighty annoyed. I stuck around to ensure that beast is dead in the ground, but if I'm wasting time I could be spending back at home training the youngsters? Then I can't be too pleased,"

"The offer to escort you back home is still on the table," offered Kat. "I can probably fly you there now actually,"

Bower just shrugged at that. Kat sighed and turned back to Hunter. "I don't know what to think of that idea… I mean… it does make some sense, but I feel like we'd be told something like that?"

"Politics," stated Hunter. "It comes back to politics. If they don't admit the mission is over, or that it needs to be extended they don't need to pay us more. Technically we were told this could be up to a month long and we're not quite there yet,"

"What about that?" asked Lily.

"Then they're still probably safe because traditionally leeway is given for missions of that size. I expect they could squeeze and extra week or two past that out of the situation before they're forced to actually announce a result," grumbled Hunter.

"Bother," said Lily, Kat and Kamiko together.