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

Chapter 1918: Chapter 1918 Give Me a Hand

— Kat —

Hedera and Lily were shivering in the cold as Kat glided them all down to the base of the hole they were aiming for. Lily was providing a windbreaker with her shadow to stop it being quite so bad for the pair of them… but it was still rather cold. Hedera was in a princess carry with Lily sitting between Kat’s boobs. It meant the shadow shield just needed to be forward and the left or right depending on where the wind was coming from to block most of the snow.

Getting to the bottom wasn’t hard but it was a bit slow. Kat found she actually had to fight against the wind a bit to keep on track. It kept trying to blow her around. It also explained how the entire hole got covered in snow, the place acted like a small cyclone, spinning the snow around the entire bowl and throwing it downwards.

When they finally did reach the bottom, Kat touched down lightly… and immediately fell down further. The layers of snow not up to holding the weight of two people… or even just Kat herself really. Now she was sitting neck deep in a pile of snow next to… some sort of pillar?

Lily swept aside the nearby snow with her shadows giving space for Hedera to hop down from Kat’s arms. She immediately got hit with a renewed feeling of cold, but she gripped down on the desire to shiver. She’d committed to helping out properly and now wasn’t the time to show that sort of weakness.

“Hmmm… going to have to clear this out,” mumbled Kat as she looked at what might be the tip of a spire. “Lily would you mind…?

Hedera’s eye’s lit up at the statement. “Wait! Timmy should be able to clear this out right?”

Kat’s eyebrows shot up as she glanced around for a few moments, wondering where the small guy was. She certainly hadn’t carried him down. Just as she was trying to work out where he might be, Timmy popped out of the snow next to her. Kat stared down at the Timmy then glanced behind him. None of the snow had been disturbed. *Aren’t these guys not meant to be able to teleport?*

Kat decided not to voice that question, lest Thyme think about the answer to it. “If he can that would be great,” agreed Kat.

“Timmy! Clear the snow please!” stated Hedera. Timmy seemed to stutter in place for a few seconds and Hedera got a bit worried that this would count as interfering with an orb challenge. After about five seconds though Timmy vanished and snow started getting moved around.

The area around the spire was first to be cleared, and a pile off to the side started growing in its place. As they watched, the little spire of stone was revealed to actually be a raised finger. A lot of the detailing had been buried under the snow but as Timmy pulled layer after layer away it revealed the knuckles and even other fingers.

Eventually, they could see a full hand and a bit of the wrist. It was all made out of exceptionally smooth stone. Any little imperfections seemed more like an attempt to imitate skin rather then a failure on the sculptors part. Timmy had also stopped moving at this point. Kat frowned, not sure why… until Lily chimed in. [Timmy has cleared out the snow. It’s just ice after that.]

Feels a bit pedantic.

[Well it MIGHT be that clearing the ice as well would count as helping towards an orb challenge, or it could just be because Thyme’s feeling amused… or perhaps the translation didn’t cover just how clear Hedera was about getting rid of snow and only the snow.]

Kat glanced over at Hedera who seemed more interested in examining the hand then noting the fact Timmy had stopped. “So, what do you think?” asked Kat.

“Well it’s clearly been created using earth magic and it’s a shockingly detailed hand… but it’s not like I recognise this one specifically,” offered Hedera.

Kat raised an eyebrow. “I might… should we dig further? What does it mean to find a hand here? We can’t see deeper that well but presumably there’s a whole statue below it. Is it worth spending whatever time it’s going to take to dig out the rest of it. Why… why would you think you could recognise that hand?”

“What?” asked Hedera. “I just said I didn’t recognise it,”

“No but…” Kat started but trailed off swiftly. “Never mind actually. My other questions?”

“Eerrr…” Hedera glanced back at the hand. “I don’t know what it means to find a hand here. If the rest of the statue is present I’d think there was either an orb, or an entrance to a dungeon we can find orbs. I can just ask Timmy to keep digging to see what the likely answer is. Um… I think we at least try to uncover it. We spent the time coming down here and we’re not currently on a time crunch. I think that was everything?”

Kat shrugged, “Yeah pretty much.” Hedera stared back at Kat for a few moments, waiting for the rest of her sentence. When there wasn’t more coming she tilted her head to the side, indicating she was confused. Kat matched her… except she also kept shooting her eyes over towards Timmy.

“Oh right,” said Hedera before mumbling. “Cold is getting to my brain…” Hedera gently slapped herself in the face twice before turning to Timmy. “Timmy, keep going through the ice until I tell you to stop or the statue is completely uncovered.”

This time, Timmy didn’t move. Five seconds, ten seconds, twenty. Nothing. “I guess the next part counts as an orb challenge,” sighed Kat.

“Yeah seems that way,” agreed Hedera with a similar sigh. “What do you think the challenge is here?”

“Well… I’m not sure if there’s ALSO an orb somewhere in the ice, or if it’s too close to the entrance to a place. If it’s just orbs? Then I’d guess they’re embedded in the ice and maybe the statue and you’ve got to be careful not to break them when digging. If you just need to make to the bottom and then walk in? Not sure if there would be a challenge or not…” offered Kat.

440

“Ah… hmm…” mumbled Hedera. “We’ll probably want to be careful then. Thoughts?”

Kat glanced around but the ditch they were in was pretty baren. At least, from what was visible. The snow took up most of it. “I think for me I’m best to try and carve out an ice pick or shovel of some kind and reinforcing it with my demonic fire. That should keep it cold and… hopefully solid enough. Lily?”

Lily glared up at Kat and refused to transform in the cold. Laughing Kat relayed her girlfriend’s idea. “Lily plans to try using a shadow drill and if that doesn’t work she’ll swap to something similar to me, though made from shadows.”

Hedera frowned. “I’m really not sure I have anything like that I can manage? It’s not like I can use my arrows and my weapons aren’t so sturdy I’d be willing to blunt them like that. They’re just backups so I might have skimped a bit on the enchantments.”

Lily poked Kat with another suggestion to share. “Can you order Timmy to clear out… the ice directly AROUND the area? Not sure if it’ll count or not, because we’re definitely using it to help with the challenge, but arguably we’re just making the ’challenge area’ more clearly defined.”

Hedera nodded. “Timmy, clear out as much ice around the challenge area as you can. Starting with the closest and working your way outwards,’

Timmy didn’t even hesitate this time. Blurring away as he got to work. Kat wasn’t entirely happy when she noticed just how far away from the hand he was starting. It was basically the edge of the bottom layer they were standing on. It was as far away as Timmy could possibly be. Still, the little guy was making good progress on clearing out a massive amount of ice.

“So what’s the plan?” asked Kat as she ice was removed in the background. “Do we wait for Timmy to be done and work in sideways? Do we instead just dig down around the hand? I’m open to whatever because it’s going to take time either way,”

Hedera sighed. “I think… we might as well get started on the stuff around the hand. Maybe as we get lower the ice will be clearer? Also might eventually be able to see in from the sides. It’s not ideal… and if this starts to take too long we leave. Though um, don’t be too safe? Like… if we’re working at a fifth of the speed and only end up with a handful of orbs we’ve wasted so much time. Best to just go at it I think,”

Kat nodded with a bit of a sigh. “If I was allowed to use my full strength it wouldn’t be so bad… but this is going to take us a while as it stands.”

“We don’t have to do this…” mumbled Hedera.

“No, best we check it out. The rewards might be worth it,” countered Kat.