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

The first thing that happened, was of course Bodeir Jr’s escape from the ropes. Though… escape is overly generous. After a few hours whatever force was making them unbreakable just fell away and Bodeir tore his way through them before stomping off to go hide in his room. Kat and Lily didn’t see him at all after that. Apparently Sue did… but Sue phrased it rather strangely at the time, “What a poor bodyguard, I’m perfectly aware of what Bodeir has been doing. I’ve seen him a few times,” but Kat was pretty sure Sue just snuck a look in through a window or something.

The cafeteria food was alright. Nothing amazing, but nothing horrible. The sailors were a bit noisy during meal times but Kat and Lily didn’t hold it against any of them. The first meal, the evening dinner, a few crew members pulled out old beaten-up instruments and starting singing sea shanties. It put a smile on people’s faces, and Kat promised to sing on stage tomorrow night. It was easy to agree to. These weren’t professionals at all, just a few sailors singing sea shanties, and Kat was happy to lead the chorus for such simple songs. It wasn’t like she was going to forget the worlds.

The next day there was a few attacks from various animals and things, but what the cannons didn’t scare away, or kill… well… Kat offered to help with one and lobbed a decent sized fireball containing 20% of her demonic reserves. It quickly froze the beast, sending it careening out of the sky. Apparently it was a Rank 3 spirit beast. Kat’s mind flashed back to that giant snake… and just how much easier it was to take out this flying one.

*I wonder if I really am that much stronger or if the snake was an exemplar of its species. Besides, I don’t actually know what killed this one, technically speaking. Sure the wings froze and it fell out of the sky, but it’s not like I know if it actually died from either the impact or from having its insides turned into an ice cube. Might be something else to test.*

After that, Kat was called up whenever something a bit too scary for the cannons was flying around. Sometimes just throwing some fire casually at these monsters was enough to drive them away, fleeing into the clouds to get as far away from the, honestly rather slow, fire. A few others thought they were hot shit and tried to simple tank the slow moving projectile. They became fast moving projectiles, destined for the ground. Not a single thing that tried attacking during the whole flight could withstand more than 20% of Kat’s demonic energy.

Kat wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. Was there nothing tougher along this route? Or were the strong ones smart enough to know attacking them wasn’t worth it. *It’s also possible that this route was picked specifically because it doesn’t step on the toes of any ancient dragons or something. I imagine that with so many deadly creatures around, flight paths are just as reliant on being safe as they are on having favourable wind conditions. Though… how much that latter actually matters is hard to tell.*

Mostly because there wasn’t really any wind. Oh sure the sailors all bundled up to keep warm, and obviously nobody was suffocating, but there wasn’t any billowing wind. It was all gentle and calm. This stood in direct contradiction to the sails. They seemed to be perpetually full and normally pointing towards the front of the ship. It did occasionally lean to one side or the other… but when that happened the rest of the ship was sure to follow, lining things back up again.

It seemed like the ship actually steered more with the sails then the rudder. Well, that is if there was a rudder at all. Kat hadn’t checked and wasn’t sure if it was necessary to keep the ship on track. Lily actually tried to ask for specifics, through Kat of course… but the sailor in question just laughed and said, “That nonsense is too complex for me. I just know how to keep the ship running and to avoid falling off the edge! Important lesson that,” which… wasn’t really helpful at all.

.....

When Creshe was asked, she apologised and said, “While I do know a considerable amount of the technical details, I’m not allowed to share them with anyone. Perhaps the patriarch would’ve main an exception for you had he been asked, but without permission I’m afraid I just can’t risk my job to satisfy your curiosity,”

Which was a shame. That being said, Kat did get to cuddle Lily a bunch to cheer her up before they got back to their training. So Kat ultimately considered the endeavour pretty successful even if Lily didn’t. The only thing Lily did manage to understand, was that the ship was more complicated then it looked, with a central control room that was off limits, quite a few removable panels with glowing sigils hidden underneath them, and so many sailors that, now she was looking, clearly had a purpose below deck. What that was… she didn’t know and that irked a bit.

Kat singing later that night made up for any issues though. Kat wasn’t amazing at singing, she didn’t have the practice to make it a truly spectacular performance, but her voice was smooth and able to easily handle shifting pitch. Practice from yelling over excited children also gave her the projection necessary for her words to carry across the room. Towards the end… when some sailors were… perhaps a little tipsy. Not drunk of course, they were sailors… Kat was asked to sing with her demonic voice. It was a very strange feeling… but the cheering was nice.

The next day, they arrived at their destination a little before lunch. It was about eleven in the morning. Kat and Lily were pretty happy with their practice, and time aboard the ship. Well, Kat was pleased with Lily’s progress. Kat herself hadn’t really made any advancements with her own water form. Kat had gotten better at getting everything in place and her mind was rapidly adapting to being able to see so much all around her…

But Kat hadn’t been able to move yet. Any attempt to try and break apart and travel, or just flow in a vaguely humanoid shape from one point to another was miserable at best and useless at worse. Kat also had Lily try to attack a few times and… well… Kat found she could switch to water fast enough… but the paper Lily launched still knocked around said water causing havoc with Kat’s feelings of perception.

On Lily’s end, she got quite a few spells working. Everything from a small, exceptionally sturdy and sharp paper arrow all the way up to swarms of paper birds to harass an attacker. Lily’s progress was beyond anything she’d come to expect after labouring heavily in worlds that suppressed mana. It turned out all that time and effort she’d been putting it had very much been worth it.

Lily’s favourite spell had to be her ‘giant’ paper aeroplane. Sure she could fly with her wings, but flying around while sitting regally on a paper plan just called to her for some reason. It was a pain in the ass to control, because you had to set the spell up in such a way that the paper always went forward with respect to the pointed bit of paper at the front. This meant that to refine the movement Lily had to tilt herself and use a bit of paper manipulation to tilt the construct.

Which was both easier and harder then moving random bits of paper. The paper in question was already filled with her mana, so that wasn’t an issue… but it also had a set of instructions to obey. It was very easy to disrupt those instructions if Lily wasn’t careful. She needed to focus only on moving the paper directly, instead of accidentally trying to force the spell to change which caused the paper to disappear if she messed with it like that.

All in all though, it was a good time. The sailors were nice, the view was nice if a bit samey a lot of the time. Kat got some more training done, even if she didn’t make the kind of progress she’d been hoping for, Lily made great progress that helped soothe a lot of the confidence issues Lily had been feeling lately and Sue… well she was probably doing Sue things. Neither of the two really wanted to ask for the specifics. The smell was answer enough.