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

--- Kat ---

Once Corela was bundled up, pushed through the instant-wash and dressed in pyjamas they carried her off to a spare room. Malt 'mysteriously' vanished for a few minutes during the changing process and Kat was actually a touch impressed that he managed to return just a few moments after they were done.

Perhaps she missed some kind of hidden signal between him and the twins, but it was something to keep in mind.

With Corela off sleeping Kat wasn't sure what to do… until she noticed Meg at the end of the hallway. Meg beckoned them over as she said, "I've got some information that I need to share with my group. If you wish to continue hanging out you can arrange a meeting place for later,"

Kat grimaced and glanced backwards, "Um… what are your plans for the rest of the day?"

Malt shrugged, "We were going to relax, perhaps play some games together. Hadn't really decided. I guess… putting us on the spot like this? We'll head to the cinema and boot up some multiplayer games. You can find us there if you want to chat, or we can just meet up at dinner time,"

Kat nodded and soon the group was off. Meg lead them through an odd route, twisting, turning and doubling back on itself more than once until eventually they came to the gardens, specifically a corner with a few lawn chairs and an umbrella stabbed into the ground to provide some shade from the potentially artificial sun.

"What's the issue Meg?" asked Kat, genuinely curious. Meg might've just been coming over to mess with them… but she seemed more serious then normal. An act perhaps… but if Meg wasn't so competent when it mattered people wouldn't put up with her, so Kat was interested to see if this was a trick or not.

"The next piece of the drake, and likely the last one we need to find is moving," stated Meg bluntly.

"What?!" hissed Kat.

Meg nodded, "I know enough about the drake now that I can sort of intuit how much of it needs destroying before the rest destabilises. It wasn't exactly in a great state before now, and with the destruction of the previous two pieces we were basically done… just not quite.

I could probably call the mission done if I really wanted to, but of course I like spending my time with Hunter… wherever she is at the moment."

Meg shook her head, the little cap she had bobbing from side to side as she did so. "Never mind, I can worry about the fact I'm being avoided, it's just part of the game at this point. No, the issue is that the next piece is definitely moving,"

"Before we get to that," Lily cut in. "Do you mind telling me why we could potentially call it here?"

"Oh, because while the drake can potentially still reform it would likely take more time then the planet has left. Don't get me wrong, the planet isn't dying anytime within the next thousand years, but the drake is going to need a couple hundred thousand, perhaps a few million to reform itself… but if the planet goes boom and the pieces end up somewhere else?

Well that would just up the timeline once again. Eventually getting to the point where they're separating by too much for the reformation process to make up the difference," answered Meg.

The three nodded at Meg's explanation. It made a lot of sense. Sure the drake was trying to reform but if it was being separated not just us a planetary scale but a universal one? Well they could all see why the energy requirement would go up exponentially. "So… it's moving?" offered Kat as a way to get the conversation back on track.

Meg nodded, "Yes. Based on the heading between yesterday and today the drake piece is definitely moving… and it's definitely moving away from the village Bower comes from. The direction we likely wanted to head. Now, this leaves us with a bit of a conundrum. I don't mind waiting around for these guys… but it's unclear what's carrying the drake piece.

I have no idea how far away it's going to get should we wait say… a week.

"Which means we're going to have to decide a plan of action and soon. I might not mind stretching things out a bit… but if we take too long to destroy the next piece people might start looking closer at our decision making process and we may get in trouble. Maybe not.

It's not as if we're going around causing trouble but eh, potential political openings I don't want to just offer up," said Meg with a shrug.

"So… we need to leave soon?" asked Kat.

"Probably. As I said, I don't yet know how far the thing is traveling or why it's traveling to begin with. Did it fall into a river and is liable to stop soon? Did a merchant find a shiny rock and decide to sell it? Migratory bird monsters? I have no idea.

I've been checking before this of course, ever since we found out where the one here was… but it didn't seem to be moving before, or at least not enough to make a difference at whatever distance it happened to be at," explained Meg.

Kat nodded, "Right… and if we're committing to taking the people here to the village that's going to be at least a week out of the way… which would be bad. Even if we step up the speed it'll probably take us another week to find the crystal minimum and that's without taking into account the fact it's still moving, and the fact nobody here is ready to leave just yet…"

Meg made some agreeing noises. "Exactly. In an ideal world we could swing back around and help these people out," Kat rolled her eyes at the fact Meg could get away with saying that. It wasn't lying, so Kat was surprised but she felt perhaps it should be. "But that's not how things work. So we need to get them moving soonish… or split up again,"

Kat winced, "Yeah… not super keen on that,"

Meg shrugged. Kat was moderately sure Meg had wanted a chance for just her and Hunter to head off together but that was more of a guess based on her personality and recent track record not anything Kat could make out from her face.

"What… what are we going to tell everyone? I mean… we just sent Corela to sleep… and she NEEDED that… but um… if we're moving the timeline up for them then that's sort of bad right? And… it sort of looks like we planned that?" said Kamiko.

Meg shrugged with a very 'not my problem' look on her face. Kat glared at Meg for a few moments. "Did you plan this?"

Meg chuckled, "Obviously not. You came up with this idea all on your own! It just turned out much more amusing for me then I'm sure you all expected,"

"So… what's the time limit?" asked Lily.

Meg shrugged, "I don't know. I mean, nothing is super set in stone and in the best case scenario we could give them two weeks… but that's very much a best case scenario. I say we give them three or four days to wrap everything up and make a final decision before forcing them to ship off. I wanted to sound Hunter out to see what she thought… but as I said I can't seem to find her at the moment…"n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Why ask Hunter?" queried Kat.

"Well I might not be willing to risk busy-bodies putting a black mark on my record for nothing… but if it was Hunter's idea? AND it was an idea that gave me more time with her? Then I'd be willing to risk that black mark. Not sure if I'd throw her under the bus or not but having the option to do so is practically a necessity to make it worth it. Ooh, I do wonder what faces she'd make.

Alas, I haven't seen her around so I can only be disappointed in myself for my lack of success,"

*Right… well that makes sense. I mean, it makes as much sense as anything Meg ever does is. Though… it's a bit annoying the piece is on the move. I was sort of hoping to relax a bit here and look around. Maybe find out what information we could from such an advanced civilisation.*

[Not much actually.]

*What why?*

[It's likely going to be one of those 'we need the tools, to build the tools, to build the tools' type scenarios where I don't have enough general knowledge about things that are meant to simply be obvious to people who work here. Remember, it was a high end biological research facility. Everyone here was meant to be a distinguished scientist or support staff for them.

Even with the translation ability it's going to be dense… and maybe not applicable to our home dimension. Plus with the no uplift rules we'd probably get in trouble if I did understand things.]