D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad-Chapter 1885 A Little More Mushroom…

--- Kat ---

Kat needed a new strategy now that she was completely lost. Spending her time, taking it slow and looking for mushrooms wasn’t going to cut it. If Weaver was awake she might have more options but a quick double check with Lily confirmed that the spider-woman was still asleep. Hedera was shifting a bit and might be close to waking up but she’d be stuck just like Lily so that didn’t really help.

Kat’s initial plan was arguably good, but misguided. She wanted to use the curve of the giant separator walls to figure out where the ocean was and then rush in that direction before looking for the spot she’d been before and heading to the town shortly after... but Weaver was asleep, the secret tunnel might not even be there and ultimately Kat wanted to get back to that little town not retrace her steps.

So Kat had to do something else. She decided on picking a direction and running around looking for indications that she’d past the place before while looking for major landmarks that might indicated the town was nearby. Fresh water, those cliffs, maybe the mushroom that sent her here in the first place. Stuff like that.

The first hour wasn’t all that stressful. There were a few monsters about but none of them were game enough to attack Kat. The monster bird flock she encountered, the ones that looked like a woodpecker and a toucan had a kid just screamed at her as she passed. This did summon a much bigger monster from the ground. A giant toad that seemed to have chunks of earth grafted to its skin with a tongue made of silver.

It took one look at Kat and dug right back into the ground. When it did so the bird that had been screeching looked almost offended and took off into the night. It was... all in all a bit of a weird moment and arguably an anti-climactic one. The next monster Kat found was a slime. Just the one, single slime with an orb inside its body next to its core. Kat yoinked the orb and left it to its life. The slime didn’t even seem bother by her action. It didn’t wiggle menacingly or chase after her... it just kept resting in place.

In the second hour things were not anywhere near as calm. Perhaps the slime had called in its friends or something. It was unlikely, but funny to imagine because five minutes after meeting it and moving into the second hour of her exploration a bunch of wasps attacked. They were small, and easily swatted away... if they came at her one at a time. In groups they were able to get past her defences at their stings actually hurt. Not for too long, her regeneration dealing with the toxins without too much trouble but there was quite a few of them and it felt a lot like being electrocuted.

After escaping the bees Kat was attacked by a group of mushroom creatures. They’d disguised themselves as mushroom bushes and when she’d gotten close they’d risen up out of the ground and even had their own small weapons made of fungus. Kat was... honestly a bit surprised she hadn’t seen something like this before. Considering they had mouths and stuff, Kat tried to say hello, thinking that perhaps Thyme was just controlling them.

That was a poor decision. They’d ’spat’ in her face, though because it was a fungus it was just spores. They... were probably toxic in some way with paralysis or perhaps just straight up poison. Whatever it was didn’t effect Kat at all so she just beat them up. Kat was tempted to take their corpses to try and exchange them as mushrooms... but surely people who live around here would know the difference... and they probably weren’t that valuable right?

Kat ended up taking the least damage mushroom cap from the squad. Which lead Kat to a swamp. Sadly, not the original swamp but it was something. Kat could tell it wasn’t the original because it was filled with mangroves that had razor sharp leaves. The swamp water had a LOT of blood in it. Kat honestly wondered where it was all coming from. Sure the leaves were dangerous but what was bleeding so much?

Of course what’s a bleeding swamp without a few monsters? Kat ended up getting chased around by these tiny little tiger beetles that looked like real tigers. Their midsections being the one exception. They had tiny feet and paws with a tiger’s face and Kat just felt bad squishing them because their last breath was inevitably this pitiful meow. Kat wondered how they even survived so took off, trying to get away from the things.

After brushing them off Kat ran into a wall that had half well over a dozen different faces on it. All looking exceptionally detailed and lifelike with various expressions and a notably blank square. Kat had assumed, falsely, that she needed to add an extra head to it but Lily had swiftly pointed out that it was just a sliding block puzzle to avoid Kat getting any crazy ideas. She was right, but it really was just to stop Kat doing something reckless.

In the end, the trick was that you had to align the different rows so that the different faces showed the same expressions, while the columns were for the different races of the world. This was made easier by the fact that some of the heads were stuck in place and required you to work with them as they were. It was still somewhat hard working everything out.

Thyme hadn’t made the faces look similar, nor had they bothered to ensure that they were even the same gender. At the very least the elven and beastkin heads had unique features to put them into place without much issue... but with the lack of colour it was hard to figure out the difference between dwarven, human, and fae. Kat wasn’t sure if she couldn’t figured it out at all... but a there were two dwarven, two fae, and one human head locked in place.

From there it was just a matter of swiftly shuffling through combinations, and once you knew how sliding puzzles operated it wasn’t too hard. Granted Kat hadn’t known at all, but Lily was easily able to guide her. A bit of demonic energy to allow for super speeds when thinking and moving it all and the puzzle wasn’t actually too large of a time sink. Perhaps thirty minutes all added up together.

Kat let out a deep breath as the wall glowed in a variety of colours. Signalling it was over. Probably. Kat waited a few minutes for the lightshow to finish as she calmed down when a CLANK rang out from the middle slot, the one that had been empty the entire time. It now had... a helmet? Kat reached out and grabbed the headpiece. Really?

It was an interesting piece of armour. Its base was vaguely Irish, or what Kat would know it as. The metal helm was a smooth, domed base with a number of additions. Steel flaps with leather bolted on the inside as pads. A nose piece that hung down from the main body. A fancy Mohawk styled brush thing across the centre. If that was all it would be a respectable helmet. frёewebηovel.cѳm

The issue was that on the side was a bunch of vines that were actively pulsing, and looked to be growing into the helmet. It covered a good chunk of the right side, the vines hadn’t destroyed the metal... mostly. It was just sitting atop in most areas but in a few spots in dug through the metal completely.

*What the heck is this even meant to do?* Kat had no idea, and after carefully trying and failing to push some demonic energy inside realise that she had no way to find out either. Kat tapped it a few times and it sounded like metal... which was really all Kat knew how to test it for. She had no idea what made a good helmet, had no way to test the enchantments and wasn’t even sure it was worth anything here on the island.

*Well this has been a waste of time and effort.*

[Um... hmm... I want to say Hedera might use it but I’ve got no idea. That vine thing attached to the side makes it questionable at best as a piece of headwear. If it’s weakening the metal that’s bad... and if it’s stronger than the metal you have to wonder what it’s doing and if it might cause other issues. Imagine if it was trying to burrow into your skull instead of just the metal.]

*Creepy imagery aside think it’s worth taking? I don’t have infinite room after all and a lot of the space is already filled between the chest, the mushroom, and the stuff we packed to take with us.*

[Ah but there IS space so I say you might as well. If we find something better or decide we want something else? We can just replace chuck it out then.]

*You make a fine point. I just don’t really want to carry around the creepy thing...*