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

--- Kat ---

Kat was surprised at the lack of questions. Everyone was ready, and new this was going to be a big day so most of the little things had been hashed out beforehand. Perhaps if Meg was looking a bit less intimidating someone might have tried. Craunch did open his mouth but somehow a bit of food got thrown into it. Kat didn’t see Corela throwing anything at the idiot. Nope. Definitely didn’t see anything like that at all.

Moving out started off smoothly. The treants weren’t in the way and were already fairly far away from the hatch. Kat was able to move right next to them, start letting her aura flow out, and then just sit down nearby. The treants just sort of swayed in the wind and vibed with Kat while she was helping them out. It seemed like they may have remembered her as it was even easier to calm them down this time.

Lily did struggle a bit. While the mana cost of some basic arrows wasn’t particularly high Lily found she had to concentrate in keeping all of them up individually. Perhaps if she’d put them in place all at the same time or had a better spell for it the issue could be negated. Alas, that wasn’t the case. Lily found it hard to concentrate on so many things at once, even if they were basically the same.

It was stretching her brain in new and slightly painful ways, but she was determined to see her part of this through. Kat helped out with this by sending a bit of her calming aura through the link. It was hard to tell how much this helped, but Lily appreciated the attempt at the very least, and even if the effects were hard to judge the fact Kat thought of it at all buoyed Lily’s spirits in a big well allowing her to simply grit her teeth and keep the signs up. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Meg moved at the front of each group as they came up. She took charge by carefully brushing aside the odd branch of leaves. She was very careful, and ensured that while many different bits of flora were moved out of the way none of it was damaged at all. There was a slight scare when during the move, one of the twins slid on a patch of mud but the second one was directly next to the first, catching her sister easily and avoiding any real issues coming about.

Craunch actually behaved himself which was nice for everyone involved though not actually a major surprise. He did know when to shut up, thankfully enough. He was grouped up together with Pip, Sephy and Amalak for the short leg of the journey through the forest. They made up the last group actually, and once they were all through? It was time for Kat to move one.

She was just about to leave when she heard a loud crashing sound. Kat didn’t know what that was bit she did pour her aura into the treants to stop them from going over to investigate. Kat watched with some worry as the largest of them twitched once, twice, and then went silent once again. Kat wasn’t quite sure if it was time to move or not now.

Then Hunter appeared beside her. "Do not be concerned everyone is fine. We can move to the first meeting area now,"

Kat gave a shrug and left for where she could feal Lily. It was easy to get out by simply flying upwards while avoiding any of the more densely packed areas. Kat did keep her aura up just in case but it didn’t take long to get to everyone else. Once she did though… Kat was surprised to see that Meg had destroyed one of the walls. Everyone… seemed fine enough with this?

*Do you know what’s going on with that?*

[Not really, I wasn’t paying attention to the conversation before it happened and only just got here myself. Everyone seems pretty ok with it though? Like nobody smells scared?]

Kat and Lily ended up giving each other a shrug before the group got moving once again. Everyone was bunched up really closely, except for Kat and Lily who were flying over the group. Just barely high enough to be considered flying really. If anyone bothered to jump and reach up they could grab hold of Kat’s tail for attention of they really wanted. Lily could sort of feel the space even though she wasn’t trying and through that new that flying any higher someone would get separated.

Kat kept watch over everyone and things seemed to be going well. It was very strange to watch from above, people seemed to just fade in and out of existence when they hit a certain threshold and Kat found it acted much the same when she flew passed it herself. They weren’t always heading forward either. Sometimes they needed to take hard turns to the left or right, which even let you see areas they’d been in before. At one point you could even see the back of the group off in the distance which was especially weird.

It was hard to tell how far along the route they were with the weird space distortions, but eventually things went wrong. It was an accident, and not something they’d properly taken into account. With everyone pressed in close together and shuffling to walk, it meant that little bit of hair that the older style dragonkin all had? It was a problem. Stensil was just the poor girl that proved why it was a problem.

Despite being older, she wasn’t in fact taller then Neoms, the person walking in front of her and eventually Neoms fairly voluminous hair caused Stensil to sneeze. Pip was walking right behind Stensil and wasn’t quite ready for Stensil to jerk back into her when she sneezed, so Pip was sent stumbling. Now Malt wasn’t going to allow Pip to fall over so he rushed forward and pushed her back up into place… and followed through on that movement, vanishing as he stepped a bit too far to the right.

"HALT!" called Kat. Everyone quickly stopped at the command. "We’ve lost Malt!"

Meg looked back at the crowd and growled. "Did you see where he vanished?"

"Yup!" confirmed Kat.

"Can you find him?" asked Meg.

Kat glanced over at Lily who nodded.

[I can sort of feel the area he vanished. I can make my way through and maybe lead us back to where we need to be?]

"Lily can defiantly find him and can maybe lead him back to us," answered Kat.

Meg clicked her tongue. "Alright, if Lily is willing she can go and grab him. If it’s just a matter of working backwards to meet back up with us in moments, do so, otherwise inform me and we’ll keep walking. We’ll have to trust that Lily can find her way back to you, and through that the rest of us. Hmm… not sure if I want you in the group now though…"

[I’ll go ahead now.]

Kat nodded and Lily dove down into the slightly distorted space Malt had triggered vanishing from sight. Kat could tell Lily encountered Malt moments later… and also that the way back wasn’t properly accessible. Perhaps if Lily knew some more space spells she could mess with things to find a way back but as it stood retracting her steps would send her somewhere completely different.

"Lily has Malt but getting back isn’t obvious!" yelled Kat. The huddled group started mumbling at that, but Kat didn’t want to concentrate enough to work out what they were all saying.

"Alright," said Meg with a frown. "Part of me wants you out of the sky. We need you with us so those two can find their way back… at the same time if we lose anyone else and nobody notices, or it takes a few steps to do so we could be facing more serious issues. Kat, how safe from getting separated up in the air?"

Kat gave a shrug and said, "I’ve been mostly relying on Lily’s senses to ensure we stayed safe. The safe ’upper limit’ hasn’t changed too much and we’ve never gotten close but it has moved around a bit. As long as there’s no major dips I’d expect it to be fine for me to keep flying… but it does carry a slight risk," Enjoy new stories from empire

Meg glanced at the group for a moment before shrugging. "Stay in the air. It’s not ideal but frankly it’s a major bigger pain for us to start losing people already. This place should be safe so I expect if Lily moves at a decent pace she’ll be able to find her way to us eventually. We may stop for an early lunch so we’re not wasting time or something… and well, if Malt and Lily don’t eat? I’ll call that punishment for getting lost,"

Kat wasn’t happy with the announcement but Lily sent her own reassurance down the link. She at least seemed to think it would be fine so Kat relented. Hopefully getting back together wouldn’t be an issue.