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

--- Kat ---

Kat quickly found out she was correct. Though in fairness before meeting back up with Meg there had been no way to know.

It all started when Meg marched out of the area, with the sheriff in the lead and fifteen other guards including the deputy, plus one of the teens. Bound in a glowing set of handcuffs and collar. Meg seemed happy with everything but based on the note Kat knew that couldn’t be the case. This was further reinforced when Meg barrelled into Hunter giving her a big hug and saying, "Right time to go. Everything seems to be ready and the sheriff already organised a good portion of his men!"

Now, it should be noted that while Meg was clearly quite attached to Hunter she rarely touched the lamia outside of the occasional spars the two engaged in. It was Meg’s way of respecting at least some of Hunter’s boundaries. While to the guards it may have seemed normal to Kat it sent off a grand number of alarm bells. Still, she didn’t say anything about it, especially not where they could be overheard. Just poked Lily mentally to ensure she was ready to act if necessary.

At some point between during the walk to the hidden tunnel Hunter disappeared and reappeared. At least, Kat was pretty sure she did because somehow a slip of paper ended up between her arm and Lily. *Can you read it?*

[Of course. I’ll try to be discreet about it.] Lily stuck the paper to herself with a bit of shadow so that the white paper couldn’t be seen and then slithered her way into Kat’s top, hiding in the kimono to prevent her face from being visible to the outside and letting in just enough light for the paper’s contents to be visible. [Bit awkward. Wish I had practice with reading things through magic…]

*Wait that’s possible?*

[Yeah, or at least it should be for me with my paper magic. The problem here isn’t really the lighting but that Meg wrote it all out in really tiny letters… or maybe Hunter did this? Yeah I think this might be Hunter’s writing. It’s really neat but miniscule and I’m having a hard to adjusting my eyes to read it.]

*What’s the problem?*

[Well I need to put enough mana into my eyes and sort of flex them the right way to see further then normal, or with ’enhanced zoom’ to get the detail… but that’s taking up a bunch of my concentration because I’m not used to it so while I can see the writing and read sections I’m having trouble reading it all at once. Think of it like… like trying to read a book while balancing on one leg and drinking water with your other hand while keeping a plate from falling of your head.]

*Surely it’s not that bad?*

[No but it’s close.]

Kat sent some mental reassurance Lily’s way but didn’t pet her, just in case that was too distracting. Instead Kat focused on the group of guards… policemen? Kat wasn’t entirely sure who they all were as they marched through town. Plenty of people stopped to look and more than one person dashed off the street. It did not inspire confidence.

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Eventually, Lily did read through the not. [Damn we’ve got a problem. That collar is a lot more advanced then Meg thought would be in the area. It’s a high grade prisoner enchantment. If they get too far away from the sheriff? They get knocked out. If the sheriff gets knocked out? The prisoner does too. Finally, if the sheriff were to die, the prisoner would be put in a coma until the shackles are removed… and Meg wasn’t able to keep track of it because she was left to guard the prisoner. She just knows it’s not on the sheriff anymore.]

*Oh shit. I can see why that’s a problem.*

[Yeah and it gets worse. The knockout duration is between twenty-four and seventy-two hours unless someone unlocks the collar properly.]

*Can we break it?*

[Yes but no. Yes it’s very breakable but it won’t actually wake the person up until some time has passed. Also breaking it sends an alert to the key so we’d be warning them that something was up.]

*That’s… that’s a problem. Anything else important?*

[Yeah… um… do you want to just get the whole note going back and forth like this is a bit awkward especially because Meg’s answered a lot of the questions you seem to have in the note itself.]

*Sure send it through.*

Lily did as asked and Kat suddenly had a mental image of the note… though the memory was a bit mangled. When she had that thought Lily sent a second memory packet that wasn’t the note itself but Lily’s mental interpretation of it which was much easier to read and contained the following:

We’ve got problems. I never imagined the sheriff would have such high quality prisoner shackles in such a small town. I suspect they are leftover artifacts or shackles that were stolen from somewhere. It is NOT normal for a town of this magical-tech level to have something like this.

Additionally, the sheriff seems to have committed himself to the bandit’s cause. From what I can glean within his thoughts he doesn’t properly understand the difference between ranks or demons and other people. We never mentioned or strength which does help sell the illusion…

But he himself is only a high rank 1 water mage, while Pebbles seems to be a rank 2 or 3 Earth mage but hasn’t properly made that distinction clear either. The sheriff at least just thinks everyone is a mage of varying power and that the difference between ranks is not so different, more a measure of skill and power then true order of magnitude changes. As such he likely plans to ambush us in the tunnels perhaps with some bandits.

The issue we have is that the shackles have been modified further and rigged to knock out the teen should the sheriff, whose name is Not by the way, snap a small crystal he has hidden on his person. Annoyingly, the small crystal appears to be one of his back teeth so that he may bite down hard and trigger it swiftly, or if sufficient pressure is applied to his jaw from a strike.

Swift as I may be Not will ensure that there are always people between us and there is a lacking amount of space to get up to speed. It is likely that he can trigger the shutdown sequence before I can reach him and thrown attacks will likely be too fatal.

His minions are mostly useless except for Strdl. Annoyingly, I didn’t notice it before but the deputy is actually a savant. She is a rank 3 crystal mage and likely does not know it herself. She is much, much stronger then she appears. Though untrained she could easily fight Not himself… and he’s taken her along as a bodyguard because of this. It seems he knows of her strength even if she does not.

Disabling her in a non-lethal and semi-permanent way will be exceptionally difficult. Additionally the other minions are all bandits, some are not even proper officers but Strdl either hasn’t noticed or is wilfully ignoring this fact.

The best plan we currently have is to spring the ambush I am afraid. Not WILL monologue. He is an arrogant fool and once he thinks we are dead to rights we can turn the tables on him without setting off any of the traps. Do be warned however that I plan to rip his jaw off to ensure he cannot use his false tooth so be ready for that. Hopefully Kamiko can heal him enough to ensure he doesn’t bleed out. Assuming she cannot or the bandages will not be sufficient cauterization may be attempted but that risks him passing out.

Keep your eyes peeled for any hints of the ambush being sprung early and try not to react.

*Holy shit that all fit on that tiny little square? That’s a like a page’s worth of note!*

[Yeah now you see why it was such a pain to try and read it all. Also seems you were right in that we DID miss something…]

*Yeah but I didn’t expect it to be anything at all like this. I mean… this is huge. I really hope Meg knows what she’s doing with the monologue thing. I do wonder why we can’t just… I dunno project a big fear aura and then grab him while he’s panicking?*

[I suspect the worry would be that he slams his mouth closed in panic triggering the failsafe and knocking the kid out. Who, we do presumably need.]

*Urgh… this is gonna be annoying. How strong is Strdl going to be? And what does it mean to be a Rank 3 Savant?*

[I have no idea… I mean it sounds sort of threatening but only Kamiko is Rank 3 now so I doubt they’re a real threat… I think the real issue would be if they managed to take out the kid or something? Maybe accidentally bring the tunnels down?]

*Joy…*

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