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

--- Kat ---

"Sorry for sort of just… taking over there," said Marigold. "Would you like to tell your story about Floura? I think I might know who she is, and if so, I'll tell my own story about her later… though Floura isn't her real name," 

"Care to share her name then?" asked March. 

Marigold shook her head firmly. "No, if she's chosen to rename herself I'm not going to but in there. I know more than most because of my status as a princess, and I could be wrong. If Floura's mother is anything like the daughter sounds to be, then I could just be thinking of her mother instead of Floura herself. With elves age can be quite hard to tell," 

March let out a grunt of… something. It was hard to say if it was annoyance or acknowledgement. Perhaps both. Afterwards she took a big bite of the food in front of her before starting the story again. "So Floura had called me in. She was trying to develop a cheap and easy way of measuring how strong someone was. I'm not sure what units she was using on the display, she called them 'Flourens' but they didn't line up with any other measurement I knew, so she may be forced to change it if she actually wants to sell the idea. 

"It's been a few years actually, now that I think about it. This was back when I was Rank 1… hmm… maybe I should go check up on her with the team after this is all over. Or just write a letter. Perhaps a letter first? Anyway, I was still Rank 1 and considered the strongest in the area so I was requested by name. Everyone else in the team was off doing other things, it was meant to be a vacation week.

"So it was just me, and the money was… frankly horrible. It was barely worth going out for it… but I was bored and I was one of a few names on the request form so I decided why not? It would give me something to do other than just cooling down from workouts so I headed over. 

"The place was a mess. I already described Floura, and the house she lived in wasn't much better. Oh the outside was fine, great in fact. A nice neat little garden. Thick stone walls carved elegantly. Two stories, with tinted windows. It all looked quite nice outside. Inside was a different story. Floura had specified on the note to just come inside the front door, it wouldn't be locked. Which… seemed mightily silly to me, but what I didn't realise was that the quest acceptance form I was carrying also had a token attached to it that keyed me into the wards," 

Burnice jumped in to add, "If Floura is as skilled as she seems to be, both with this sort of lead up and with Marigold's knowledge of her… I'd say the front door is more of a trap then anything else. The wards would be her real protection and if she had issues with the Aes before then… I imagine they'd be quite serious wards indeed," 

March shrugged and said, "I never felt any wards on the house, but I'm no good at that sort of thing so I couldn't vouch for or against their existence. I can however say that it was a mess. There was paper everywhere all over the floor. Most of it scrunched up but others not so much. There was a few clear pathways around the place… but that's what they were. Pathways. Pathways carved between all the random shit that was just lying around. Most of it was paper, scrunched up and thrown away, but some of the junk consisted of broken wooden contraptions, a few steel weapons and at one point I think I saw a stuffed animal corpse, but that might have just been my eyes playing tricks on me,"

Vanya chipped in with "Might be where she hid her defences," 

March shrugged and continued, "So I walk through the house careful not to break anything that wasn't already broken. A bit hard because the pathways were made and used by a very small and thin elf, not a large and muscly human. Anyway, I made it to her lab, which was a big stone door set into a stone wall and knocked. 

"She pushed it open with surprising ease, though there were wheels on the bottom so perhaps it wasn't too hard, before greeting me with a smile. I was invited into her lab… and…" March paused and considered how to properly convey it. "The whole place was spotless. It practically gleamed. I cannot properly explain to you how strange it was to walk through a mountain of trash and then into a new room that looked to be so clean you could see yourself in the stone. The difference was so stark… it seemed almost unreal. 

"There were all sorts of inks lined carefully behind glass cases. Three tables that had all been pushed against the walls and a number of other cabinets with various things in them I didn't recognise. Oh, and her tool rack. On the back wall near the door behind thick wooden doors of their own they sat lined up. A few were missing and the cupboard doors were open, but they were nice looking tools. 

"In the centre of the room though, was this big… well it was just a big chunk of wood really. Quite thick, easily larger then I with a stand next to it that had numbers on it. Floura explained what it was for. She was certain that it could accurately judge the force behind a punch and that nobody who was Rank 1 could break it…" 

Kat and Lily snickered, already having figured out where this was going as March continued her tale. "So I explained why I was here, she nodded and then pulled out like seven different forms from her pockets looking for the correct one, and then nodded and told me to go nuts. I… didn't listen to her at all. 

"I started off with light jabs and then eventually got to testing, trying to make the numbers go up in fives. Ones was a bit too hard even for me, but I had excellent control. After a while she asked a few questions, 'Did the redout seem accurate, did I hurt my hands at all' things like that. Which, I had to point out the redout was consistent… but made little sense. It was just numbers. 

"Anyway, she was happy enough with my answers, waved off my concerns and then asked me to hit it as hard as I could. I told her, at least three times, that I was probably going to break it… but she insisted it would be fine. That nobody under Rank 2 could break it, perhaps nobody under Rank 3. So I shrugged, pulled my fist back, considered using my steam for a moment, and then… put my fist right through the contraption," 

There was a round of polite giggles from most people though Kat and Lily struggled to hold back their snickering. It was a funny image. "Yeah Floura was surprised, and mad, but not at me, herself. She pulled out a notebook and started trying to work out… something. Anyway, she got distracted for a while. Not sure how long it was, but eventually I cleared my throat and asked if that was all, and she said 'Oh? You're still here I thought you'd have left', and when I pointed out that she hadn't paid me or signed off on the fact the job was done she panicked… and then we had to spend another twenty minutes trying to find where the job slip had gone. She had enchanted her pockets to hold more you see…" 

Marigold burst into full blown laughter, "Yup, I know that family alright. Not sure if Floura is a new one or not, but it's definitely that family. Does the story get better?" 

March nodded, "I suppose it might. You see, after I left and was paid, I was worried about what I would be doing for the rest of the week… well lo and behold, only a day later I was invited back. Did some more testing, more punching, and a full strength punch didn't break it! Of course when Floura asked me if I could possibly punch harder well…" 

Marigold snickered and said, "You admitted to your steam boost?" 

"I admitted to my steam boost," confirmed March. "Which lead me to breaking another one… and Floura not understanding why. So I asked her, just sort of offhandedly, what she was doing to ensure my fist wasn't bleeding from the effort… apparently she was just spreading the force across the whole thing, instead of pushing it into the ground of softening the blow. It was all rattling around in the post, kept at bay by the enchantment… and it just built up and so when she figures that out from my comment she says 'Well it's good it didn't explode',"