D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad-Chapter 1825 - Familiar Faces
--- Kat ---
The familiar team had to have been last intentionally. Kat wouldn't have her mind changed on this matter, especially not when they rose up out of the ground following behind a giant familiar that looked like some combination of a bear and a mole. It had large front digging claws, thick bag legs that let it stand up and it was about the same size as a family sized car. Its brown fur was laced with clumps of dirt but apparently that was normal for the thing and acted as a spot for earth magic. It mostly helped defend from things attacking its back and behind.
It was uncreatively known as a Molebear and apparently they were split into two species in truth. One was hyper aggressive, constantly digging around and searching out prey while the other type was known to be exceptionally passive and care more about maintaining their tunnel empire and growing food inside it. The easiest distinction was their tongues. The calmer of the two had long prehensile tongues while the more aggressive had one of a standard size and much stronger jaws. There were other smaller difference but they weren't entirely universal.
This particular Molebear could be either, but Nixilei suspected it was a crossbreed between both. It had the enhanced jaw muscles of the aggressive species alongside the extra spike on its back legs and yet it had retained the extended tongue and rather passive temperament. All in all, a good companion and one able to move earth in great amounts and with moderate force.
It was similarly easy to distinguish which of team members the familiar belonged to. With the exception of their demon teammate they all had thematically appropriate armour to reflect their chosen familiar. The Molebear was named 'Fluffles' and was in truth a beloved childhood pet for Gardor Eartharmour, who actually had water affinity and acted as the teams tank.
His armour consisted of lot of layers. A basic shirt to prevent chafing, then chainmail, then proper plate and then finally a bunch of fur layered on top. It was a massive amount of weight but protected him from just about anything. The armour for his legs and arms looked like Fluffles' claws. They were technically a mix of claw shavings and metal. Apparently it was a strong mix and it did help with the colour. His shield was made in a similar vein and his spear kept up with the theme looking like a claw as well.
Hearing about this all from Nixilei was one thing but it was crazier to see in person. Gardor had even good so far as to have clumps of dirt mixed in with the fur on his armour… which of course just added more weight. Having him charge into someone would probably be more dangerous then the spear on his back.
Next up was the fae of the group, complete with their own set of custom armour made to look like they were an insect. Their name was Ash to accompany their spotty grey hair that was hidden under a full-headed helmet with what looked like compound eyes. Kat had to wonder if that distorted the vision at all or was enchanted to avoid it. Their familiar was of course a bug, to be specific it was a 'Zipper'. They were dragonfly-esque bugs that were about the same size as Lily depending on how you were determining things. Wings included they were probably a bit larger.
The zipper's name was Trudy and could be a major pain to fight. Zippers dashed around leaving afterimages of themselves that could then act independently for a short time. It was highly suspected that they could maintain a link with the temporary clones and see through all of their eyes as well. They were also a pain to take down because they could swap places with their clones whenever they felt like to remain alive and unharmed. Though it was unclear if they were literally swapping places, or if they were 'deciding' which clone was real at a later point in time.
The annoying part, was that, with some energy limitations, nothing was stopping Zipper clones from creating their own clones and quickly turning into a swarm all by themselves. The only weakness was that each clone was limited to the same timer. So, say the Zipper could create a number of clones for twenty seconds, and then five seconds later they created another batch… the new batch would be limited to fifteen seconds if they came from the clones so no truly infinite swarms. The issue? They could last a lot longer than twenty seconds if they wanted to. freeweɓnovel.cøm
Back to Ash though. Her armour made it look like it was made from chitinous plates all stuck together but Nixilei had quickly pointed out that it was made from a steel-mythril mix that gave everything a blue tint and was definitely metal. Ash's weapon of choice was a bow and arrow that was pretty normal and didn't really fit with the rest of the themes. It was just a solid looking set of bows and arrows.
The final note, was that Ash didn't have enough affinity with mana to actually cast spells. They were strictly limited to whatever enchantments they had at hand and Nixilei had made note of a few of the import ones. Ash Cloud, Ash Blast, and Ash Wall that all did what they said on the tin, and a final move Nixilei had dubbed 'Ash Doppelganger' but it did a few things. It created an ash clone of Ash, pushed her back a good distance, and exploded after a short time.
Next up on the docket was the human siblings and their matching wolf companions. Allegedly they were raised by wolves but Nixilei disagreed. It was… sort of true. Their parents have wolf familiars as well so it was more accurate to say that the whole familiar unit was a combination human family and wolf pack. These wolves in particular were Shadow Wolves and could work quite well together with their humans.
The wolves were named Stantin and Surge. Stantin was the male wolf teamed up with the brother Sen, and Surge was female, teamed up with the sister who was named Shoal. Apparently that was tradition within their family. The siblings were called Sebastian, or Seb and Sienna who refused her own nickname. Apparently everyone in the family, wolves and humans included all had a name starting with S. It made them easy to investigate at least.
The siblings had similar outfits and weapons. Wolf's head helmets that looked a bit more like jackals, probably to keep it streamlined. The suit of armour was half plate, with bits of metal for the most important sections and black fur similar to their wolves. Finally, they had one long and one short sword with half plate armour to guard their sensitive bits and fur armour covering the rest.
It really did look like they'd used wolf pelts for the armour… but considering how close they were to each other Kat wasn't sure if they'd be willing to use wolf leather in the making of their armour. Perhaps when the older members of the pack past away? Or maybe they used something else. Nixilei didn't have that info when Kat asked for it so she just shrugged it away in the end.
The pair were rather aggressive fighters. Charging in with their familiars and managing to deal some significant damage. They could even sink into the shadows like their wolves… though only for exceptionally limited amounts of time. Nixilei wasn't totally clear on the limit but it was somewhere between three to ten seconds seemingly based on environmental conditions. Kat wondered how they'd stack up against Lily. It would be… interesting.
The last member of the team had been crouching down to walk through the tunnel. A pit fiend, and a particularly tall one at that. Funnily enough despite their huge tower stature, the wings, the giant hands. Everything… they were actually the healer of the group. They'd been summoned specifically to BE the healer of the group and hadn't participated much in fighting so far.
It was unclear if that was some limitation to make the contract cheaper, if the pit fiend in question, Ugalaz, had something against fighting or if they were just saving his other tricks until the final round so that everyone would be unprepared. He did act as a bit of a tank sometimes. Taking damage for his team and then healing it up. His healing was a lot slower than Kat's own but he could share it which certainly made it more valuable.
Though… Kat had the sense he really was only Rank 2. If healing was his first ability what was his second? Never once had he used anything other than his healing touch ability. Perhaps he had some other healing ability he kept hidden, maybe it was something else entirely. Regardless though… if there was ever a time to reveal that hidden card now would be it.
