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

Chapter 1301 Chapter 1301 A Bloody Adventure

Kat was on her way back with a cart of food. It was after a small prompting from Lily that they decided on this course of action. The group would remain chatting, with Lily staying behind to keep track of things and hear the orders, while Kat went and picked up all the food. A quick discussion with Mint and now suddenly Kat had enough meals for everyone involved, and a dryad tag-along.

Once Kat returned, it was a simple matter to set things up. Mint might not have been Thyme, but it was clear that she still had some decent control over the wood. Instead of doing anything too fancy like Thyme might advocate, Mint just expanded the main table while leaving a gap in the middle to save effort.

Mint moved it so the enlarged table sat just over everyone's knees and across the couches. It was a little too high for it to be completely comfortable, but as a short term solution that allowed them to eat, it was excellent. Once everyone was seated, Mint asked, "So… you're all adventurers, right? What sort of fun stories do you have?"

Marigold went first, of course. "I'm not sure if you'd consider this fun, but it was certainly unique. See, we were hired to clear out this old… well it was called a tomb but it was more of a trial set by some long dead woman that was finally opened. We made our way through a bunch of fairly basic traps up until we came to this big room.

"In the centre there was an oversized bowl. Nothing massive, it was probably… hmm… just large enough to squeeze inside, but not large enough to comfortable use as a bath. There was a sign on the back wall that said 'The path will open if the chalice is filled with blood'. So of course, as a regenerator it was my job to bleed out in the thing for a few hours.

"It wasn't that bad, just annoying you know? Losing all that blood doesn't hurt, just the initial cuts, and it's a pain forcing my body to produce extra blood without closing the wound, but not exactly hard. Just something you had to keep in mind all the time you know? I had to make a few additional cuts after the original set closed, but eh, as I said it wasn't that bad. Especially with Vanya feeding me the whole time. It was great!"

Marigold was interrupted by Burnice chiming in "And Midnight was brushing you hair, Mauve was standing guard, and I was left doing your nails,"

"Yeah see? It was great. Sure I bullied them into it a bit by playing the sympathy card, but really, if you can't abuse the fact you're being used as a blood bag for a challenge in a tomb, then how do you manage to breathe if you're that stupid?" said Marigold.

"With our mouths," inserted Burnice, "Like normal, functioning humans with less narcissism,"

"Hey you'd totally fuck a clone of yourself so don't complain to me about my narcissism," retorted Marigold.

"I feel like this and that are different things. I just have to wonder what it would be like," said Burnice, with a blush. "I mean, I don't think I'm actually that attractive, but it's just one of those weird scenarios you can't help but imagine right?"

"Literally never," said Kat.

"Nope, never thought about it," said March.

"Um… I was too interested in other people for it to come up," admitted Lily.

"Nah, those three are just crazy, I get what you're putting down Burnice," said Burgandy.

Burnice was practically glowing with how red her face was. She was definitively not looking at anyone as Mint chimed in with. "This is not something that interests me. It takes way too much work to control two bodies for the purpose of pretending to have sex. It's a massive pain and after seeing how much effort one of my friends had to go through to even attempt it, I can confidently say I'll never bother,"

Everyone's eyes turned to Mint. "I have to ask…" said Marigold.

Mint cut her off and said, "No, we don't have the nerve endings for it in these bodies. They're really good, and Thyme tries their best to make sure we can do just about anything a more standard sapient race can but some things just cause too many issues. It's completely impractical unless you design the body yourself and spend years perfecting the details. It's about as erotic as squeezing your arm, sorry,"

[You know… it makes a lot of sense that at least one teenage dryad would try something like that.]

*Does it? If it doesn't feel good and their just practicing with themselves what's event the point?*

[The horny brain comes up with some strange ideas Kat. Don't worry too much about you innocent little cherub.]

*I am a Succubus.*

[Innocent. Little. Cherub.]

Kat pouted at Lily, not truly caring but enjoying the opportunity the joke provided. Lily of course, gave Kat a kiss on the forehead as payment for bullying her girlfriend. A satisfactory outcome for all.

Of course while Kat and Lily were doing whatever that song and dance counted as, Marigold decided to get back to her story. Mint had sort of destroyed her idea of dryad orgies, and she wanted to move on from that. "Right so, I had to bleed out in a bowl. Riveting stuff that will be retold in legends! So anyway, we finish filling up the bowl, took a bit of effort because I had to get out to fill it up but finally it was done!

"Then a massive projection showed up telling us we failed the task, because no power would be worth the lives of so many people. Because um… apparently the only way they thought we could clear the room was with murder I guess? So we said as much, nobody died, it's all my blood.

"Then the construct seemed to pause for a moment. Not like, pausing to think but like… frozen in ice or frozen by time magic paused. Then it shattered into light particles before the wall exploded. Yeah… turns out whoever enchanted the place wanted to look smarter then they were.

"I'm not entirely sure what caused the thing to implode. I was honestly expecting the projection to just ignore us. It heard us, so obviously it was taking in some kind of input, but… yeah I don't know how we broke it, and everything else after it. All the traps were disabled and the door to the vault had exploded open. At least, we assume that's what happened because the door had slammed open hard enough to pull it from its hinges and embed itself in a nearby wall.

"Got a great payout from the job despite that though! All the artifacts were intact and easily accessible because whatever defensive enchantments were in the vault were also fried when the door got opened, or maybe when we broke everything. Really, I don't know if it could somehow tell it was all my blood, or they couldn't see any evidence of us killing anyone, or if they just didn't have a response planned for such an obvious retort, even if it might have been a lie in other situations,"

*Sounds a bit like a computer getting a logic virus, or I suppose a fictional AI killing itself with a paradox. Though I would've thought if it was smart enough to talk back it could avoid stuff like that, or in this case, I would've thought it was too stupid and just ignored the commentary.*

[I'm not sure. I haven't gone all that deeply into enchanting. Might be one of those 'if you add enough magic to a thing you can make it sort of alive' type tropes? It's hard to tell. Marigold doesn't seem surprised by the fact that their was a talking illusion that could handle at least some responses… but if they can do something that advanced with enchanting why does it normally feel like we're in slightly uplifted medieval times instead of later on in the tech tree?]

*I dunno? Best guess is that the world ended at some point and everyone was stronger back then and it's only now that the 'tomb' was unveiled? With magic involved it could easily be a few millennia old.*

[I hadn't thought about it from that angle. I'd just assumed with Thyme being as old as they are, that they'd remember if something like that happened, or have reverse engineered the wonders of their childhood… but I suppose with magic involved the world could've ended a long long time ago and the best structures could survive with time based enchantments or perhaps just durability ones.]

*Hard to say really. The fact that these sorts of tombs seem common… well honestly that just makes it more confusing. Who is making them? Or did they leave a bunch behind just before the world ended? Surely if they knew the world was going to end and made a super strong bunker for it they'd actually… you know, survive the end of the world?*