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

--- Kat ---

Kat and Lily waited for Thyme to continue. Both swearing they could hear the non-existent creaking the pole Thyme was hanging from should have been letting out. As the silence stretched on and it became clear that Thyme was just going to wait. Lily rolled her eyes and asked, "So what's with the three from today?" 

"Right. Sorry, I got distracted," said Thyme. Nobody believed them and Kat tried to ignore the twitching of her eyebrow. "So, the easiest to explain are the flying machines. I worked on them with Oditr and an enchanter friend of mine who has asked to remain unnamed…" 

*You think it's that weird elf Marigold and March met, or that family at least?*

[That's a shockingly good idea. I hadn't even considered it but… now that you've brought it up it feels very correct. It might be the oldest of the family, or at least the most reclusive… though I'm wondering. Are they clones?]

*How did you jump from 'weird family' to cloning?*

[I dunno, I just sort of have that feeling.]

*Not sure how we'd prove it… but interesting at least.* 

"… now Oditr is trying to get them all flying without using any magic at all. I commend her for the idea, and I can even understand why. Once you go up too high you run the risk of magical monsters sensing you and trying to kill you. If you stick to unpowered machines then they could be great for sneaking through monster infested skies… 

"But Oditr is spreading herself a bit thin, at least in my opinion. She's trying to work out how to run things without magic, and how to make things fly, but she's trying to do both at the same time and failing so I borrowed some of her better designs and passed them off to be redesigned for use with magic. Low and behold, they all fly!

"Anyway, that challenge serves mostly as a test run. The two hours of 'flight time' is to test how well they hold up under a reasonable amount of usage, and the repeated tests from the four other sets of competitors should help us understand them in a mostly real world scenario," 

"Wait… did you control that bird?" asked March. 

"No, I didn't… though I did scare it off. It was completely out of Asteodia and Nixilei's weigh class at Rank 4. So when it started to think about attacking them, I released a lot of concentrated bloodlust in its direction. It assumed that my active bloodlust was its passive danger detection and so it didn't bother attacking," 

March wince, "Oh, Rank 4 is a bit much… I sort of wanted to fight it. Just a spar if it was like a pet or something but fighting it seemed like it would be cool," 

[March is crazy]

*Lily, I'm pretty sure we're all a little crazy. You especially.* 

[I don't want to hear it from miss 'it's just a bit of pain from all my exposed nerves']

*Still less crazy then binding yourself to an immortal demon.* 

[You agreed!]

*Hey, I gotta support my friends. Especially if I'd recently worked out I wanted to date said friend.* 

Lily's response was lost in a haze of embarrassment so strong she didn't even notice Thyme continuing the explanation. "So far we've gotten some good data. The plane and the balloon are the only ones that seem viable for what Oditr wants from them. Though there was another design with promise, it had a lot more blades, and honestly I didn't have the time to figure out how it was meant to work. So I just threw in the wingsuit, which was a design Oditr came up with for surviving falls from great heights before I gave her a better option in the parachute, 

"I don't want to drift too far from the question… but yes I was intending to use that round as more of a test. Distance and time were what I wanted people to aim for. Really ensure that all of the flyers got a good run and we'll have to see how the data shakes out from the other tests, but I'm pretty happy with it overall. 

"If the balloon continues to do well I might even offer balloon rides to visitors. Not sure how much work it would be to set up an easy to use system for people without mana, so whoever is in charge of the place might need the ability to use mana but that's not too hard to come by. Plenty of retired adventurers that would be interested. 

"As for the obstacle course? That was something the enchanter I was working with really wanted to do. I insisted it would be too large a project, especially all the different endings… but they insisted and ended up making it their price for helping out with a number of other things for this round of the tournament. 

"Of course, sadly, I was correct and it didn't get done in time so I had to brute force a lot of the space enchantments to get them to work. I'll admit my enchanter friend was closer then I thought they'd manage, but not obviously not close enough as it wasn't done like they promise. I'm not upset about that though. They just have a horrible sense of time, and I didn't exactly fight them too hard on it," 

"That's it?" asked Lily. 

"Well my enchanter friend… let's just call them En to give them an name. Anyway, En was sure it was going to be the next big thing. That it would suddenly become super popular for adventurers to run through and a great way to simulate the sort of old dungeons adventurers are always combing through. Allegedly it would cut down on death and help them train better. 

"Of course, it was massively over budget, essentially impossible to set up without thousands of hands, and fundamentally unfinished considering the whole point was creating something I wouldn't need to personally watch over… but I can't say it was a surprise," explained Thyme with a sigh. 

"Do you think it's likely to be improved further?" asked Marigold stepping forward slightly. "I know this is the sort of thing my family would be quite interested in, both practically and in regards to potential additional funding," 

"While the gesture is nice, you underestimate how much money I have, or rather, how much value I have in supplies for this sort of thing. Magical abilities on my level allow you to accrue a lot of stuff, and then you factor in the fact that one of my affinities is space and then it shoots into completely ridiculous. 

"I try to spread around the resources I horded as a younger tree, but for perspective, I personally have more money's worth of material goods then your entire kingdom. I was a massive hoarder once upon a time… and I still am really but at least I'm trying to move things around now," 

Marigold gaped at Thyme for a few seconds before shaking her head a bit and asking, "What how? The elven kingdom's treasury is far from empty… and if you're including everything produced by the people who live there as well… I just… how?" 

"It's simple really. There are plenty of places on the planet nobody dares to go because it's simply too dangerous for one reason or another. I can teleport in, take the good shit, and then leave. If that wasn't enough, I can step into space and steel asteroids full of precious minerals. Additionally, I'm one of the few people that have stepped foot on other planets. I could just claim them for myself, and say that all the resources are mine. I mean, most people can't survive in a vacuum so it'd be easy to enforce," explained Thyme with a shrug. Still upside down of course.

Lily couldn't help but ask, "Who else can survive in a vacuum?" 

"Well, I don't know for sure but I suspect Ulf could. I'm not certain who else. It really depends if it came down to just their own power or not. It's mostly academic at the moment because there is plenty of space here on the planet for people to go after. We don't really need to look towards space. I just went there when I was younger because… well it's very silly…" Thyme let out a fake cough and rapidly said "Iwantedtostealastar" 

"What?" asked Lily, before Thyme gave their best confused look. "No I mean why would you try to steal a star?" 

"Well it's not like I knew they were so far away!" retorted Thyme. 

"I learnt that when I was still a kid!" shot back Marigold. 

"Well yeah but remember, I grew up away from dryad civilisation. I had to work all of this out myself and I assumed the stars were like tiny suns that orbited the planet. Besides, a whole bunch of that information was theoretical until I confirmed it," insisted Thyme.