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

--- Kat ---

Kat was disturbed on multiple levels during the creation of Appoline’s latest masterpiece. On a meta level, it felt wrong to add even more glass to the area. The wind was still howling and throwing up glass everywhere, at an increased speed such that Kat was pretty sure everyone’s clothing would have been shredded. Damage to their person was unlikely with the shield on their face, but without it someone was probably risking an eye injury. Thus, adding more glass to the mess seemed like a bad idea.

Of course, then there was the other side of the coin, which was how the potion was being constructed. The answer? A considerable amount of glass. So Kat wasn’t entirely sure they’d end up with more once it everything was said and done. Lily had been just dumping massive scoops of the stuff straight into the cauldron and somehow it all got boiled down into nothing.

Kat had to ask how that worked... and Appoline’s answer didn’t make sense as far as physics were concerned but... "Well there’s not much magic in the glass, so when I break it down and capture that magic the rest just burns off. That’s what the fumes are," Appoline explained why pointing to the rapidly dispersing smoke coming from the cauldron. Except, there was no way the cauldron was hot enough to burn glass, and even if it was, the fumes had nowhere near enough mass...

*I feel like I should be offended on physics behalf.*

[I feel like with magic we sort of moved past traditional physics a long time ago. Though I’m not certain we could do something like this back home. With higher energy locked down it’s likely that physics, our version of it, has a tighter grip on the whole system.]

*Alright I can see how that makes sense... still feels wrong on a lot of levels, but I can see how it makes sense at least.*

Appoline was of course adding other ingredients as she went, but it was as if she was trying to ensure that the liquid really remembered the essence of glass or something similar to that. Alas, whatever their plans were meant to be, something had to interrupt. The howling wind outside seemed to double in volume and speed over the course of just a few seconds. Lily moved to block the increased glass flow that had somehow made its way around the rock barriers they’d left up in an attempt to contain the weather...

But it was hammered down. Not by the wind, but by a fist made partially from glass. It looked like someone had managed to tape glass shards to the wind and it was NOT happy with them. Lily swiftly reformed the barrier a few steps back as Kat moved forward to try to deal with whatever this was.

The arm had of course been attached to a larger figure somewhat vaguely humanoid in appearance. Though it was more of an orb with some additions. The arm it had used of course, made of glass shards that surrounded a core of wind so swift it had become visible, yet it was tightly contained enough not to be effecting the immediate surroundings. A similarly matching arm was on its opposite side.

These arms were connected to a central orb that acted as the body. It was mostly spherical with some wobbles in it at multiple points. None of these slightly wobbles looked anything like body parts, simple places the sphere was a bit less perfectly shaped. The entire orb was decked out with thick layers of rotating glass. Unlike the arm that seemed to have only the one layer, the central orb was at least thee layers thick potentially with more.

Atop this orb say what might have been considered a head. All you could see was a vaguely triangular bundle of glass that floated lazily around the top. It wasn’t tightly compacted at all, and from certain angles you could think of some parts like eyes... but it was more a case of the mind looking for, and finding, patterns then any true intent.

At the bottom of the orb was a tail of glass that extended away from the central body, though how attached the tail was to the rest of the body was up for question. It seemed to be more like a trail that followed the orb itself and seemed to be unwinding into a fierce windstorm even as Kat stared at the thing. Well no more.

It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t too far away. It was certainly deadly. Demonic fire was the answer. Kat let fourth a long breath of it, purple flames immediately getting sucked into the thing. The flames started to mix in with the air even as the glass frosted over. The flames ballooned in size, apparently being fed by the wind this monster was made up of. It didn’t seem worried at all despite this.

Many other monsters seemed to sense some sort of inherent danger in her flames. A deep, primal fear that had them try to do whatever they could to remove it from themselves. This monster did nothing of the sort. It simply backed up a bit, puffing itself up a little and turning to glare at Kat... or at least positioning its arms to strike at her as she exited the cave, and the thing likewise retracted the arm it had used to snake around through the entrance.

Kat stared at it. It stared back. If what it was doing could be called staring. Kat was happy to wait. Her demonic fire was everywhere inside this... elemental? Surely it would die sooner rather than later... right? Clearly the monster didn’t think so, or perhaps it was sick of standing around. A fist made of glass flew towards her location and Kat let herself turn to water to avoid it.

Unlike other monsters, it didn’t react with confusion, no instead the glass that made up its hand exploded and started to shred through her watery form, scattering it as far apart as it could manage. If anything, it was more aggressive now. Even as the fire burned through its insides it continued to tear into the water it could find.

Let it happen for now. It wasn’t fun, and it through her perspective all over the place... but it wasn’t painful, didn’t cost her any extra demonic energy and reforming wouldn’t be much harder from the waiting. Sure it was sending her water as far away as it could... but the caveat to that was mostly physical force. The wind wasn’t taking her water droplets away and the cave at her back limited the spread.

What Kat hadn’t been ready for, was it to decide its job was over and then move through the space she’d occupied to ready another attack against Lily’s shadow wall. Kat swiftly pushed the image to Lily so she could reinforce the wall with more mana and reformed using the largest puddle of water she could to slam into the thing’s back. This didn’t do much. The glass crunched under her hand, breaking apart in places and moving out of the way in others...

But it was a giant ball of glass shards. Making those shards smaller didn’t effect its cohesion at all. It also didn’t have eyes so it didn’t need to turn around to attack Kat. No, instead its chest cavity opened up like a giant maw and had teeth made of glass shards try to bite her in half.

Kat split up into water again as the teeth went through her... and then a massive suction force pulled the water deeper inside the burning purple flames. For some it might have been disorientating... but at this point she was already made of water and the worse that happened was the spheres that made up her vision changed size a bit. It was easy enough to deal with, and the lack of stomach meant there was no nausea... of course the problem was how to deal with the monster.

*Genuinely want am I meant to do against this thing? Is it even a monster? It’s survived my demonic flames really well so far. I guess I could use more? Would that help? Thoughts?*

[Well it doesn’t actually hit that hard. I can feel it hammering on my shield and it’s taking some mana... but nowhere near what I’d assume it should. I can probably keep this up for... ten minutes even if it keeps attacking? We’re not in a rush.]

*That’s... hmm... that’s not ideal. Or maybe it is? I wonder how trapped I am right now. I can’t really free my water from its grasp but I could just transform back, and I can sort of feel that the droplets are close enough together to reform into one body without much if any extra cost, despite the fact they aren’t technically connected. I guess ’good enough’ is sufficient in this case.*

[Um... hang on let me talk with Appoline I think I have an idea...]

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