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

Chapter 2030: Chapter 2030 Poisonous Escape Part 1

— Kat —

Kat slammed down on her panic and summoned up demonic fire instead. A lot of it. At this point, there was perhaps a chance Appoline could figure out something eventually, but Kat was nearly certain they weren’t about to get caught in the next thirty minutes. She was NOT happy Lily had nearly chocked and this gave her a chance to stop that. Still, the danger wasn’t immediate so Kat calmed herself down enough that when the nova of demonic fire engulfed the whole room it was only the mist that was frozen. Even the pink glitter mist nonsense was left as it was.

Icicles clinked down to the floor as the poison in the air froze in place. The temperature plummeted and the glitter mist hardened in a few spots that got larger chunks of ice. Kat wasn’t sure if the glitter would completely freeze, or not but it did seem to be closer to a solid then it was before. Shaking her head Kat turned to Lily and pulled her into a big hug. Lily, deciding that they were pretty safe here grew back into her human form. She was planning to return the hug, but found she had both her arms trapped by Kat’s.

“Sorry. That was just a bit scary. Getting injured is one thing…” Kat said, trailing off towards the end.

“… but chocking is something else?” offered Lily. Kat nodded. “Yeah, I can imagine why. It’s… not a clean death at all. Not that I’d have died, I’m confident Thyme could’ve got to me but yeah it really wouldn’t have been fun.”

Kat sighed and squeezed Lily a few times as if she was a squeaky toy. Kat wasn’t expecting her to actually to squeak, but the slight give when Kat applied more force was strangely comforting. Lily did laugh at the process though. “Really?”

“Look… as silly as it is, I think this is the closest you’ve come to being seriously hurt while I’m around and I was BARELY in a place to help. What would’ve happened if I had more normal demonic fire? I’m not sure if it would’ve been able to properly deal with the mist,” grumbled Kat.

“I think it would’ve been fine? Because it ’burns’ things conceptually so it could burn the mist despite that not making sense? I think?” offered Lily.

Kat rolled her eyes. “Yeah that’s not really making me feel better. Nor the fact my immediate instinct after we were PROBABLY safe to set everything on fire.”

Lily did her best to shrug with Kat’s arms still tightly wrapping around her. Kat’s tail at least held her around the stomach and gave her room to move. “Look, I get that you’re worried. Hell, I was worried and… I’m still worried. I don’t really know what kind of space this IS or how it was made.

“If the chest simply connects to some hidden area somewhere else in the base? Then that’s fine, we can deal with that somehow I’m sure. If it’s expanded or isolated space? Then we have much bigger issues…”

“Remind me of the difference?” asked Kat. She could see the answer in Lily’s mind… but forcing the question out into the open meant a few more seconds of not confronting the problem head on.

“Expanded space is essentially just stretching the internal dimensions of a bag. It’s easy, and fairly stable until it isn’t. The problem for us in this case, is if it’s expanded space and we knock down a wall the whole thing will collapse. Hopefully it’ll spit us out at the same time… or it might crush us.

“Isolated space isn’t really isolated. It’s what I’m calling an area of space claimed for a storage ring or whatever. It’s usually a little bubble of space just outside of the world and technically in not-space or whatever it is. If you break out one of those? Then… well I’m not actually sure what would happen. As a demon I think you’re more equipped to travel through it then normal and I think my connection to you would help… but a normal person would simply come undone,” explained Lily.

“Right, so obviously we don’t want either of those…” admitted Kat.

“Obviously,” agreed Lily.

“…but you can’t really tell what this place IS?” asked Kat.

Lily shook her head. “No, annoyingly enough. Thyme is better at space manipulation then I am and I can’t work out what’s going on. The whole place has some space manipulation about it… but that might just be the portal and then a way to expand the space somewhat. Or maybe it’s being used to reinforce the area. Or perhaps keep things out. Or maybe this is all a pocket dimension barely clinging to the side of the world.”

“Do you think any of those things would really be in the hands of a Rank 2?” asked Kat.

“Yes,” sighed Lily. “That’s the whole issue. This sort of magic can be touched on with finesse at Rank 2. The real issue is that people LOVE these things and just leave them around. It’s possible Appoline’s backstory is that she found some Rank 5’s chest of poison labs and that’s how she fell in love with the discipline.”

“Alright so what do we do?” asked Kat.

“Well…” Lily paused to glance at the door. “I’d be willing to bet that there’s SOME way out of here. Sure Appoline might be paranoid and not want any ways for thieves to escape… but I think it’s far MORE likely that she, or whoever made the trunk, would want a way OUT if someone managed to slam the door shut. The fact we seem… somewhat immune to the poisons means we’re probably fine to explore. I’m just not sure where the exit would be.

“I’m happy to use my senses to find it, but I really don’t know how well it could be hidden or exactly what I’m looking for. It could be anything from an obvious space hole that spits you out somewhere ’safe’ or just a little button hidden somewhere that opens the trunk lid.”

Kat nodded into Lily’s ears before moving her face back away. Not reason to deafen her girlfriend with her response. “Alright, that makes sense. What do you think that last crash was though? Something to seal the exit perhaps? More poison?”

“Hmm… do you think you can check safely?” asked Lily.

“Probably… I… hmm… I can’t really think of anything that would stop me. That’s the issue though. Surely there HAS to be something she’s cooked up to counter me. Even if not me specifically, the fact I can’t think of anything… probably not the best sign,” grumbled Kat.

“Well… what about the transformation potion? Sure it was incomplete based on what the notes said… but if she just wants it to be deadly that’s fine for her purposes?” offered Lily with a grimace.

“Right,” agreed Kat with a wince of her own. “I think being Rank 3 probably helps me resist something like that, let alone my demonic energy. I could perhaps throw out some demonic fire in front of me? I don’t know how much ice we want to risk leaving around.”

Lily glanced at the sizeable amount all over the floor. “Probably a bit late to be worrying about that…”

“Yeah I guess,” admitted Kat. “Should I take a look out the door? With my eyes? Or mist time again,”

“Well is there anything that can actually HURT you like that?” asked Lily.

Kat nodded, “Yeah if the water gets knocked too far out of the way, or destroyed, frozen. Stuff like that. It takes me demonic energy to reform or get more water. It’d take a lot though. I guess the worry is that whatever it is can mix in with my water and disrupt my control.”

Lily shrugged and Kat sighed, finally releasing her girlfriend from the hug. Carefully flying over to the door to avoid the glitter Kat went to crack the door open before pausing. First she glanced at the gap between the door and the wall… but it seemed like she couldn’t see through it. In fact, the boards had actually grown a bit to block the door completely. Kat frowned and pressed out the handle but the door remained stuck in place.

“I think I know what that last potion did…” Kat rattled the door in its frame, producing more than a few creaks and groans but the door didn’t properly shift. “Shit. Ok… um… let me see if I can sneak through this.”

Kat dispersed into water and pressed herself up against the door. The growth wasn’t perfect, or even so Kat was able to find a small crack to force herself out of. Though… it wasn’t fast. There was only so much water she could force through it at a time and it was a particularly small opening. Perhaps it would’ve been better to find another hole but Kat wasn’t going to waste the mental energy splitting her focus. Time to see what’s going on in the corridor.