D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad Chapter 1935 A Sneaky Bug

--- Ash, Featuring Trudy ---

Ash was hidden up in the trees. Well, calling them trees was perhaps incorrect. They were mushrooms. Anyway, she’d been napping in one for some time, but Trudy her little dragonfly had come and woken her up. Normally, Ash would be more annoyed at this... but Trudy was smart enough to know the difference between ’get up I want attention’ and ’you need to wake up and do it quietly’

So here she was, a tree away from two other people who seemed to be cooking dinner. The only reason she knew there was two, was because Ash could pick out two different actions. One of them seemed to be cleaning their weapons, while the other was poking around with the fire. Personally, Ash felt the fire was a bit of a risk but it’s not like she knew what did or didn’t attract monsters in this forest.

Ash projected her thoughts to Trudy, who buzzed twice and then split into three. One of the duplicates walked up the side of the mushroom before looking over the edge and bouncing twice in place, signalling that nobody was watching for the moment. Ash carefully pulled herself up the side of the mushroom, making sure not to disturb any of the vines hanging off it. Rustling one of those might set off movement in their line of sight and Ash was looking to avoid that.

Skye was easy to make out. Her outfit was fairly recognisable compared to everyone else... and she wasn’t really under the mushroom anyway. Ash could make out her whole body without issue. The second person? Completely hidden by the big mushroom. Perhaps if Ash was willing to take a few more risks she could figure out who it was... but right now Ash couldn’t see a good way to do that.

The mushrooms were sturdy sure but leaping from one to the other would disturb whatever she landed on at least a bit. Perhaps slipping down to the ground would be better? Ash had a few ways to make sure her landing was silent... but those required mana and left a bit of a splash visually and she couldn’t quite remember the size and shape of the trunk for the mushroom she’d been napping on. *

The other mushroom in question was a chonky example of a mushroom tree. It was about twice as tall as the others and happened to be leaning over the top of the mushroom she’d claimed as a napping spot. It kept the sun out of her eyes and would hopefully also prevent any flying monsters from spotting her. That mushroom could certainly hide her landing ’splash’ but she might be caught dropping down to it.

Ash listened to the sound. Scrape, scrape, scrape. Nope. No idea. Ash didn’t exactly have a lot of experience with cleaning weapons nor did she pay much attention when her teammates did the same. Was that too long for a dagger? Did the sound feel curved somehow because it was an axe or a scimitar with a curve in it? Or was that just how weapons changed in pitch as you cleaned along the length. Why did they have a whetstone at all? Shouldn’t they be self cleaning?

Ash was honestly more confused now that she’d tried to work out who it might be then she was before. Still... she could work out a few things. Firstly, she doubted it was anyone from her team. She’d, likely, be able to hear familiars playing around if they were also there but she couldn’t hear anything, implying that it was probably someone with a Timmy.

Ash wasn’t sure if that would eliminate the dwarven team that spent money on broken familiars... except maybe that one guy with the dog. *

Ash glanced over at Trudy who was remaining remarkably quiet for the moment. It wasn’t worth risking them spotting her zipper friend. Even if Trudy would be fine should they be attacked... the whole point of this procrastination was that she didn’t know if it was best to sneak away, attack, or wait until they’re asleep to be safer with whatever she decided to do.