D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad Chapter 2196 The Steel Hard Facts Part 2

Kat ---

In the end, Kat and Lily spent a while focusing on Brook... but as they looked more and more they found their initial reaction to be a bit overblown. It was mostly the hair and glasses that caught her out, as well as a same general face shape. Her eyes, nose and mouth were all different in the specifics but that instant shock of her appearance had still been a major one.

Kat decided to ask a question just to buy a bit more time to sort out the cognitive dissonance. "So, how easily distracted, and how dangerous are these distractions?"

"Sadly... occasionally major. She’ll be halfway through carving out a rune and then start wondering if it can be used for a different project, and if she has no paper around to waste she’ll start carving her new idea into the same surface. It can be catastrophic if not caught in time, but luckily it’s not the most common thing. Just... common enough for it to be a worry. This is serious work and we wouldn’t have picked her if she was completely unreliable... but not being a spy was a lot more important then pure skill in this case."

"Alright... so how closely should I be watching her? I don’t think it would be too hard to catch her swapping runes mid-carving," sighed Kat.

Steel shook his head, "If only it was so easy. No, she’ll pause, and then think of a second fun thing to do with the runes and start writing the ’wrong’ runes for what she’s meant to be doing afterwards. Sometimes they’re smaller, but that’s also something that happens in normal enchanting so it’s no certainty that it’s a sign of issues either."

"Oh... that sounds like a pain. Is there really nothing I can do about it then?" asked Kat.

Steel shrugged, "I really don’t want to blow this out of proportion. She’s completed many jobs without getting distracted... just not usually ones quite so large. Usually, we call her in for smaller single item jobs or ones where we can supply her plenty of notebooks to keep her distractions contained. In this case we’re limiting supplies for a number of reasons but mostly to prevent someone slipping in something extra and disrupting things. Either through something explosive, a teleportation beacon that sort of things.

"I just want to warn you that if a fight is going on and she’s involved, I’d like you to de-escalate but likely side against her. I’ve got no idea how your lie detection will work if she considers her ’unique ideas’ to be what she’s meant to be doing. Because she is a researcher, not just someone who enchants equipment."

"Ah... so it’s technically enough her job, and it’s possible that if she’s thinking of it that way I won’t catch her in the lie," Kat said with a nod. "Alright I’ll keep it in mind. Who’s next?"

"Next is Scar, or rather, Steven, but she prefers to go by Scar," sighed Steel as he passed over the next picture. Kat wasn’t going to glance at it... but with a name like Scar, Kat just felt compelled to.

It was a dwarven woman... and her face was fifty percent burn marks. Perhaps the rest of her body was as well, but she was wearing some heavy robes. Still white, but her robes seemed to be extremely thick, perhaps to give more defence? Or perhaps it made the enchantments on them better? She was also wearing gloves and knee high boots to show as little skin as possible. That was when Kat noticed something else. "Wait, ok I get the whole ’Scar’ thing but why is her name Steve?"

Steel sighed, "Certain experimental medical procedures are available to anyone who asks, but they are not required to legally change their name. For some reason she chose not to."

Kat was confused for a few more seconds, before Appoline perked up. "Oh? I remember her now! I can’t believe she turned down the chance to heal her scars after getting such extreme work down elsewhere. I mean, I’m not one to judge when it comes to aesthetics but the burned skin that’s scarred over cannot be healthy long term."

Kat was starting to have a good idea of what had happened... but it felt really weird to ask and Kat wasn’t sure she wanted to know either. No reason to get confirmation anyway, it wasn’t her business. "So... hmm... I just call her Scar then?"

"Yes. It’s not legally her name, but well," Steel shrugged. "I truly don’t understand her decisions regarding that. I’ve worked with her for a while now, both before and after. She has options but..." Steel shrugged again. "Never mind.

"Scar here is technically part of the warding team and does have a good deal of experience, but she’s also acting a separate guard. The others don’t know about that part, and her burn wounds are the reason she doesn’t actively patrol anymore, but I wanted an excuse to have her closer to the enchanters just in case something happened. Her work will likely be slow as a result of the fact she’ll need to be watching everyone else, but I vouch for her... crazy as she is," Steel admitted with a sigh.

"I suppose as long as it’s a productive kind of crazy," sighed Kat.

Appoline however had other ideas. "I wonder if she’d let me fix her scarring now? It would be useful data and depending on what ingredients are in that facility could be something I’ll be making anyway. People always like to have medical herbs on hand after all."

"You can ask her," said Steel with a shrug.

"I will," agreed Appoline.

"Is the last person just as crazy?" asked Kat with a sigh.

"Nope," countered Steel as he handed over the last paper, well the last he was going into detail over anyway. Apparently the guards weren’t important enough.

"So the last person is named Carnation, but he’s adapted to the name ’Carl’ over time so I’ll be using that one. He’s an elf but... well he’s not too weird but he is a little sensitive about his weirdness," admitted Steel.

"I thought we were done with the weirdness," commented Kat. Steel handed over the picture... and Kat felt like she was looking at a kid. Not one too young thankfully, but he looked... maybe fourteen at the oldest and that was being generation. On the shorter side, still with a bit of baby fat and the fact he was trying to wear a proper lab coat just made him look silly even though it had clearly been tailored for him. "Ok... I think you know what I want to ask..."

"Carl has a rather unique condition amongst elves. He’s not too old, but he is in his forties," explained Steel.

Kat glanced at the picture and then back up at Steel, sensing no lie. "How?"

"Oh, I can answer that," Appoline jumped in. "It’s called a few things but ’Early Onset Elven Aging’ is the most descriptive explanation. For one reason or another his aging started to slow right down much early in life then is typical and so... now he looks like that. He’ll probably continue to look young for the next hundred years or so."

"Is this common?" asked Kat.

"Depends what you consider common? It’s about a one in ten-thousand chance... in theory. In practice, most of those cases are milder ones then Carl’s here. His likely started to manifest before puberty, or just after it began which is extremely rare, perhaps closer to one in a million."