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

— Kat —

Kat spent the night meditating on watch. There was some argument about how far they wanted to go to protect the camp, but Kat insisted she wasn’t tired and could watch over everyone for the night with no ill effects. That had taken a bit of arguing but in the end nobody pressed the issue to the breaking point.

Kat had gotten up a few times and set a bit of demonic fire burning towards some of the closer monsters during the night, but even then nothing got within fifty metres.

The morning afterwards wasn’t anything too interesting. Bower had proved to have a knife to go alongside his crossbow but it was clearly more for plant-life then animals. He was able to hack through attacking flora with a great deal of skill but his age was also showing as he did so. Bower’s movements were almost robotic, his arms and legs not quite up to the full range of motion they once more.

His fighting style was efficient because it now had to be. Full of straight lines and close calls. Still an admirable style, but on that lacked a lot of the flexibility that Bower himself also lacked.

It was just after they’d normally stop for lunch that the group ran into THE mist. The capitals were important. Bower had delayed their snacks knowing this was coming, and Kat could see why. There was no way to mistake this mist for the normal kind.

It looked a bit like mercury and floated around oddly, moving in ripples pressing up against an invisible barrier that was clearly keeping the substance locked inside.

Bower waved a hand though it to prove it was easily moved aside, and that it couldn’t escape the barrier. “As I’m sura ya’ll can guess this is the mist I was talking about. Now, we can take a bit of a break to ensure that ya’ll are fed and watered and give me the time to cover all the little details you’ll need to know,”

Bower opened one of the pouches on his belt and took out what looked to be a primitive nutrient bar and started to chew on it. While he was doing that, Kamiko asked, “Why… um… why wait till now to tell us about it? I mean… we had all that time before we set off, and even last evening we had a bit of time before bed… so… um… why wait?”

Bower quickly chewed through the rest of the bar and then brushed off his hands. “The main reason is to have ya SEE it with your own eyes. I can tell ya that it’s a dangerous place, a strange place, that it doesn’t quite follow the laws of the world till my lungs are squeezed dry… but ya just won’t understand.

“This forest? It ain’t natural, at least not completely. Something created this mist. Perhaps it was unintentional, perhaps it’s something that broke centuries ago and has continued working in some half-damaged state. I don’t rightly care myself, and those trying to find answers never seem to come back if their serious, or come back empty-handed if they give up.

“This stuff behind you? We call it mist because we ain’t got the words to call it anything else. It’s been around longer then I have, longer then the kingdoms have. It’s probably from that big even the church likes to research, but for all I know it could be even older. I reckon it’ll be here long after I’m dead, the kingdom is gone. This place will never become a memory, because it endures.

“I need yas to understand, that when I say something about this forest. I mean it plainly. When I say that it’s easy to get lost, I mean it. When I say that it’s best we all stick together. I mean it. When I say you can take two steps and go from scorching heat to humid bog… I mean exactly that.

Not three steps, not a few metres. I mean, one step from dessert to just mist, another step from mist to swamp.

“This place is tricksy, and if the beast your looking for is inside? Well you’ve got a hell of a problem on your hands. Rely on me and I’ll make sure ya all come out of this alive… but I can’t promise ya more than that. Made a good choice selecting a guide… and this monster made a better one when it decided to hide out here,”

*Oh. Oh fuck.*

[Yeah… I hadn’t considered this at all. Hunter went on and on about all the possible special abilities the drake might have that lets it get around all over the place… but… but what if it’s NOT the drake that’s managing that but the forest? I don’t think… I don’t think we understood what we were getting into.]

*Yup. I’m with you on that Lily.* It seemed Hunter was having that realisation as well, “Ah. I appear to have been overly concerned with the drake’s capabilities when I was neglecting to consider the advantage the terrain provides. A rookie mistake,”

Bower shrugged, “Eh, there’s nothing to indicate the forest is anything strange from a distance and I bet nobody you met actually mentioned it. Heck, a lot of the more distant folks don’t actually know, and the ones closer to the forest just assume it’s obvious because EVERYONE knows. Though admittedly, I would’ve thought Stphn would have mentioned it,”

Hunter shrugged and said, “I believe he may have but I was digging into a number of details with him for a number of hours while the rest of my team… mentally left. I believe I was asking the wrong questions now,”

Bower just shrugged, “Well what’s done is done. Now ya know, we can get onto the next topic. Sticking together. Now, the mist doesn’t have any… intent to it. It’s not got a controllen intelligence behind it. No secret fog monster at the middle of the forest, no secret heart of the forest connecting all the trees and manipulating the mists to its advantage.

“It is brutally, and completely unconcerned with the inhabitants within. It will not help ya, but it will not hinder ya. This has its upsides and downsides. While not being actively hostile might sound like purely a positive, the lack of intention can be just as annoying in places.

If something hates ya, and is trying to kill ya, you can predict it in ways ya just can’t with something uncaring like the mist.

“So to help with sticking together, we have these,” Bower pulled out a bracer like with a gold sheen. “This here is a tracking bracer. It is both, very simple, and very smart at the same time. You whack it on your arm and it drags you, slowly, towards the other people with the bracers. That’s where the smart part comes in.

“If you get separated it’ll lead you towards the closest bracer to you… up until you’re within about a metre of each other. Then it’ll lock onto the next closest. Somehow these things know how to keep groups together. It more or less always looks for the ‘best’ bracer to grab on but I ain’t got a real clue of how they work. Don’t even seem to have much magic in ’em.

“I appropriated these from a group of poor sods I found in the forest once. All long dead of course, but they had these things in a nice sealed crate. Found a few more of those crates around since, but I don’t rightly know how they got there,” explained Bower

*What do you want to bet that the bracers are old technology from the ancient empire this place used to have?* freёwebnoѵel.com

[Hard to say. They look to be in remarkably good condition. I struggle to believe they’re really that old… then again Bower said ”don’t seem to have much magic in them’ as opposed to no magic. Of course, on the third hand that might be an argument against, or maybe ‘not much’ might really be ‘none’ and he can’t tell. Really it could still be anything at this point.

Heck, it might even be older then the empire.]

*Heh, that’s a fun thought. Truly ancient mystery mist.*

“Now, they do have some pros and cons. We’ll get to those in a moment because there’s another option,” Bower paused to put away the bracelet and pull out… a normal if particularly large length of rope. “This is the second option. Much less magical, but in some ways a lot more reliable.

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“We tie ourselves together with this rope and ensure that we can’t be forcibly separated by anything without the rope getting sheered through. This is pretty tough stuff, so it can take a beating, and most of the monsters ain’t smart enough to specifically target it anyways.

Might seem like a poor solution compared to the bracers but I find this old thing is reliable, especially when dealing with apprentices and what not. Much harder to lose them this way, and much easier to keep them alive,”