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

--- Kat ---

"HALT!" boomed a voice all across the battlefield. Kat paused, and noted that everyone near to her had paused as well. They hadn’t let their guard down, but they were clearly willing to listen to the voice. Glancing around Kat saw similar things everywhere else… though Meg was leaning backwards with a cocky smile on her face while twirling her needles and just generally trying to look as provocative as possible.

Glancing over towards where the voice had come from, Kat could see a man dashing forward… or perhaps dashing was the wrong word? His legs were firmly planted on the ground and it was the ground itself charging forward. Based on the glowing spell sigil with three rings beside him it was easy to work out who this was.

The man in question, ’Pebbles’ or ’The Mountain Shaker’ was only imposing due to how he held himself. He was almost exactly of average height, meaning he stood rather close to Kat’s own height and lost out if you included her horns. He had dirty brown hair and brown eyes. Honestly, just his face screamed ’dirt’ or ’earth’ making it easy to guess what sort of mage he was. From the head down anyway.

Below his neck, the man was wearing an absolute riot of colours over steel armour that notably lacked any shoes. Perhaps to keep him more in tune with the earth or something? The steel was nice and had a faint blueish tint to it and stood out against the bright red tabard he wore with no markings. His shoulder pads looked to be made of leather instead of metal and were bright neon green. His tasses weren’t metal either. They were studded leather… and hot pink.

It was very strange to compare him to the rest of the assembled crowd that were getting the stuffing kicked out of them. They all had normal, if well made armour. It made for a jarring contrast and made Kat wonder how intentional it was. Still, seeing that Meg was willing to stop Kat let herself relax. She wasn’t scared of a sneak attack anyway. Though she did keep an eye on Lily’s side of things.

Lily it seemed, was going for intimidation. When she stopped attacking she’d gathered up a bunch of shadows underneath her and she was now sitting on a shadow throne while looking down at everyone. It was… honestly kinda funny. Lily had clearly made it proper ’throne’ sized. As in, sized for a person. Currently, Lily hadn’t transformed so she was still a Memphis. Though perhaps that was sort of the point. It looked sort of imposing, but mostly just adorable as this small kitten tried to look scary on an oversized chair.

Pebbles soon made his to the mass, and raised himself up and over the other bandits, putting himself between Meg and the rest of them. Mostly. He was closer to Meg and blocking more of her line of sight but he was blocking as much of Kamiko’s vision as he could. Though as she was further back and had mostly been dealing with the force that had tried sneak attacking he wasn’t doing a great job.

Meg continued her smug look as Pebbles asked, "Who are you to intrude on my town? My home?"

"Well, we’re a couple of demons and a police officer here to collect something," said Meg with a smile.

"Yet you burst in with weapons draw instead of simply asking?" queried Pebbles.

Meg raised an eyebrow, "Oh? I was under the impression you lot were bandits. We’re here to steal something you already stole after all… so isn’t it only fair we try to steal it back? Besides, you had your boys and girls lined up ready to fight us. It’s only now that most are lying defeated that you come and speak out,"

"We were simply reacting to a perceived threat. The force of so called peace keepers were on their way to slaughter us," stated Pebbles and Kat felt her eyebrow start to twitch. Rather unfair of him to state that, especially considering a bunch of them were working on his orders.

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"Oh? Slaughter? Well I happen to notice that for a slaughter everyone around me is still alive. In great pain sure, but very much alive. I could change that if you like though?" offered Meg.

"What callous disregard for the lives of my men! Have you no respect!" hissed Pebbles.

Meg shrugged, "I mean… not particularly no? What do I care for respecting a bunch of bandits?"

"Slanderous lies! We are not bandits, simply individuals who wished to leave the restrictive grasps of the mining companies! The stronghold they have on the mountains, and our various towns is simply too much! We are branching out! Creating something new!" stated Pebbles.

*Which is REAL interesting to say when Not didn’t seem to believe any of this. Despite being a spy and ostensibly in the know he still saw them all as bandits. Which… is weird now that I think about it, considering he allowed his family to move here. So what’s the truth? Well probably a mix of things I’d guess.*

[I’m not sure it matters. Though… I suppose we never did check how regularly the bandit attacks happen… and I do wonder if all the reported attacks were actually these guys. I’m sure a few smaller groups could use them as cover.]

*Urgh… I already hated this quest. I mean, I get that we need that crystal and we haven’t injured anyone too badly here… but like… it really does feel like we strolled into this town and started beating people up for no reason at all.*

"Meh, potato, potato," said Meg with a shrug. "We’re here for the crystal and perhaps a bit of cleaning but if you want to just hand it over… well then I can just call it a job well done,"

"What!" shouted Strdl from the second floor of one of the nearby houses. "How can you let these fiends go! They mean to destroy my home!"

Meg shrugged again, "I mean… it’s really not the job we signed up for. We needed your assistance to get here and we did promise to help with the bandits… but I can easily argue that you lot attacked us first. Sure Not was a traitor but that’s still not really my problem. Heck, I could argue we already dealt with ’the’ group of bandits during that trap,"

"You… you would simply allow such injustice to pass?" asked Strdl horrified.

Meg glanced at the window Strdl was now leaning out of. "Um… what part of ’this isn’t the job we were hired for’ did you miss? This is a messy situation clearly, and while I’m down for a good fight… it’s not my job. So… if promising to stop attacking in exchange for the crystal is what it takes? Then that’s just how it goes,"

Strdl glared hard at Meg but she didn’t say anything else. Instead Pebbles spoke up, "I see. What crystal are you even looking for? While I am loath to simply give up riches to a group of demons acting as the real bandits… it is clear that my underlings are outmatched and I would not wish to endanger their lives further,"

*Do you think he actually doesn’t know at this point? I mean we weren’t super quiet about it…*

[I’m… actually not sure. The big question is how much this guy knows. We know that Creep has made him into the figurehead of the movement… but it’s not clear how much Pebbles knows, or is involved with. I mean… I doubt he’s telling the complete truth and simply a super stand-up guy… but maybe he does think the mining companies are an issue?]

*Yeah but I would’ve thought that if they WERE an issue Drl or Dav might’ve mentioned it? Cause like… this seems like a pretty big deal.*

[I’m just playing devi’s advocate both with my previous point as this one but… is that really the sort of thing you just talk about with strangers? Like ’hi welcome to our town. We’re run by the mining mafia’ plus we had a delivery for one of them… a delivery that was for ’advanced mining tools’. A delivery MEG AGREED TO. Honestly the more I ’speak’ the more I wonder…]

*Ok yeah the fact Meg was willing to deliver it is actually really suspicious. Did… did we get conned into doing a mafia job?*

[No defiantly not.]

*Oh well that’s good then…*

[There was no conning involved. If anything shady happened then Meg DEFINITELY knew the entire time.]

*Not so good… but are they part of some sort of mafia or not?*

[Look… I’d say it’s complicated Kat. I think it would take a lot of investigating and I’m sure the mining companies are at least a little corrupt because they work with the nobles. Like… maybe it’s all technically legal because of loopholes specifically added to the laws or something like that. Just… I don’t know. I don’t think we can know.]

*Urgh… so what’s the plan then?*

[Keep buying time for Hunter I guess…]

*Yes and after?*

Lily had no response to that.