D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad-Chapter 2151 Flaming Reminder
--- Kat ---
Nobody was hurt but once again, the area was filled with flames. Worse, in this case, there wasn’t an easy place to shift the goop too and there had been even more golems. The flames reached up so high that Kat was unsure if she could safely fly Furen over the top of them. "Alright... what’s the play here? We could explore those two halls back there to kill time, or I could try just blasting this with my own demonic energy."
"Why not just do that? In fact, why didn’t you do that before?" asked Furen.
"Well... the main worry is that I have no idea what that will do to the floor. It’s clearly meant to withstand high temperatures because it seems fine even with all this fire burning over the top of it... the cold? Who knows. There’s also the fact that I have no idea how the liquid will react either. If it explodes again from the temperature difference it might go flying everywhere. I can certainly try, but Lily would probably be best shielding the hall with her shadows..." Kat slowly trailed off.
Lily sighed seeing as she was being prompting to continue. Hey, it’s technically your expertise. [Yeah but you already know the answer!] Lily rolled her eyes. "But I simply don’t have enough mana or shadows for it. The hallway is too large and paper obviously isn’t going to defend well from this sort of fire. It’s probably safe, but that ’probably’ is doing a lot of work here and we don’t need to be taking this sort of risk."
"Can you try just a little bit?" asked Furen.
Kat sighed, already having a decent idea of what would happen. Still she signalled Lily to be ready with her shadows and threw a bit of demonic fire in. As Kat expected, the fire already burning simply consumed her demonic fire. What Kat didn’t expect, was the flames to then almost twist in on themselves before burning a familiar purple. They were clearly still hot... but apparently she’d converted that puddle into demonic fire? Ok that was not part of the plan. What the fuck is that liquid?
[I don’t know but I am suddenly much more scared.] Furen was equally concerned with the now purple fire. Kat was just glad she’d chosen a small patch that wasn’t connected to anything else instead of chucking it into the main mass.
"As you can see... while I might be able to overwhelm it there are a lot of risks involved with even just testing it. We still might be able to fly you across... but you’ll need to deal with the heat," explained Kat.
Furen tapped her foot a few times on the stone. Shew as a fair distance away and the flames climbed quite hair throughout the hall... but looking at it she wasn’t sure that the flames were an further than halfway up the wall. In that case, she’d probably be fine?
Furen of course wasn’t properly taking into account that hot air rises and that flying directly over the flames would indeed by FAR hotter then the little spot she’d found. Worse, she was currently standing behind Kat, someone who acted as a massive heat sink just by existing as she was mystically resistant to heat, not just physically. That meant that the heat didn’t ’bounce off’ so much as it moved into her and then simply failed to change her temperature.
Still, Kat and Lily were unaware of this minor miscommunication. For Kat the flame was basically nothing, and for Lily it was hot but more ’Summer Day’ and less ’Boiling Alive’ so for them it wasn’t even a risk, not if they were quick about it. So... they got to work. Kat pulled Furen up into her arms and then the trio took flight. Kat made her way quickly over the flames with Lily following behind... and Furen quickly found that she’d made a mistake.
Before she’d even made it halfway across the flames she was sweating profusely, her breathing was heavy and yet that same heavy breathing made her lungs feel like they were practically on fire as they tried to deal with the burning air. Kat noticed this... but there wasn’t anything to do really. By the time she even realised it could be an issue they were halfway and turning around would just take more time.
Lily didn’t have any great ideas either. Her shadows couldn’t really block the heat up here, not when it wasn’t the flames themselves providing it so much as it was the fact that all the air near the top of the room was tens of degrees hotter then the space down below. Kat considered recommending Furen breathe less... but that might just set her to panicking so instead, Kat gave a mental signal to Lily.
It would slow her girlfriend down, but Kat could see that Lily was dealing with the heat much better then Furen was. Lily gave a mental nod of acknowledgement and the plan began. Kat angled herself and pulled her feet in as Lily sent out a shadow wall. A moment of mental syncing later and they acted together. Lily wound up and slammed the shadow into Kat’s feet as Kat pushed back, just slightly to help guide her flight.
Kat found herself launched towards the edge of the flames, but that wasn’t quite enough. Gliding over to the edges, Kat kicked off the wall to speed herself up a bit more and eventually landed on the ground. Kat had no choice but to land somewhat heavily, but with her tail working to keep her balance she managed to land without needing to roll. Even if the ground cracked a bit. She continued on with Furen for a few more metres at full speed before slowing and gently placing the elf down on the ground.
Furen did the dumb thing and quickly sucked in as much air as she could, which did nothing for the air she’d already sucked up so this just let to a lot of coughing and hacking as the air mixed together in her lungs. Kat had no idea what to do here and Lily knew some information... but it was more about smoke inhalation and for all that the fire in the corridor was hot, it wasn’t smoky at all.
So the pair just... let this happen. Kat sent out her calming aura and hoped that it helped Furen work through this but it was hard to tell. For a while she just continued to have issues breathing and even when Lily landed there wasn’t really anything that they could do. So... the pair just sort of had to sit and watch. Kat almost reached out to put a comforting hand on Furen’s shoulder but her aura should’ve already ensured that she was calm and the potential for that to startle her, or for Furen to thrash into the hand was just too high.
So... Kat just sat there. Eventually things seemed to calm down, as Furen heaved out a long sigh and flattened herself further against the ground. After a few seconds where she wasn’t twitching or groaning Kat felt the need to ask. "Are... are you alright?"
"Somewhat," answered Furen, her voice broken and husky. Kat cringed a bit upon hearing it.
"Um... hmm... that’s... hmm... will you be ok?" asked Kat.
"I think in some ways I’ve done more damage to myself then anything else. At least I hope. I think my lungs are fine. I can breathe fine now, it’s just my voice that’s pretty bad. It was probably all of the coughing that caused it," explained Furen.
*Is... is that how it works? Shouldn’t she be tougher now?*
[Well... technically if it’s caused by bits of her body crashing against each other or whatever then it might be possible?]
*Yeah sure maybe. I’m surprised I can’t detect a lie from her... whatever I guess she can be Appoline for a potion if she really needs it.*
"Alright, that’s good. Let us know when you feel up to moving deeper... and also remember not to get too close to the fire next time. I can try my best to keep it to like, half of the room or something, but no guarantees," sighed Kat.
"I don’t understand. The flames weren’t that hot... or I mean, they were hot enough to be uncomfortable but I didn’t think it would be that bad..." mumbled Furen.
"Do you want me to explain it?" asked Lily. "I actually do know the mechanics behind what happened,"
"Ah... maybe. I’m not sure how long I want to be here on the ground for..." mumbled out Furen.
Lily looked at Kat. Kat looked back at Lily. Suddenly, an understanding past between the two of them. [I mean... if she’s going to nearly kill herself it’s only right that I educate her on the error in her logic.]
*Yes. That DOES sound fair. Exceptionally so. Why, if she tries to stop your lecture I might just have to keep her in place to ensure she hears the whole thing.*
