D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad Chapter 2249 Fresh Report

--- Kat ---

The group finally made it out. Kat almost wanted to laugh as they escaped. Steel was waiting nearby with a second group of guards and was quick to move everyone away from the quarantine barrier. Even with the quick warning about the worm... Steel said, "It’s not something to look into right now. You all deserve a break, and it shouldn’t be too hard to track something that big. Best to simply let things be for now. Not like there are any innocents at risk. The wards will hold... right?"

When he got a round of confirmations on that fact, the matter was settled. The guards, the ones that had been down with them anyway, were all dropped off at the nearby guard barracks. From there, Steel lead them the rest into the city with their own set of guards. Steel took them to what seemed like a normal park, but a hidden switch opened a pathway down.

It was at this point that Appoline narrowed her eyes and threw a small dagger towards Steel. Kat was shocked, but didn’t really know what to do in response, neither did any of the guards, having not expected it. This meant everyone waited long enough for Steel to just... watch the dagger bounce off his armour. "Ok... why?" asked Steel after a few seconds.

Appoline blushed, ears wiggling as she looked away. "I... sort of thought you might be an imposter? Like getting rid of the guards that would protect, replacing them with substitutes and then attacking afterwards, maybe finding an excuse to have Kat leave..."

Steel then gave her an even more confused look. "Then why admit that to me? How did the dagger prove anything?"

"That’s because it doesn’t, yet," explained Appoline. Multiple people tensed up, waiting for something to happen... but as the seconds past and nothing did... some relaxed but most did not. "Alright you pass."

"I’m still confused," admitted Steel. "What did that prove?"

"Special poison was on the knife! After finding out that Brook not only managed to disguise herself with one of my potions, but that she got away? I had to make something to counter that. So... it’s a subtle poison that makes your skin fall off. Tweaked in such a way that it doesn’t really work on a normal person, but if say, your skin was a weak magical construct?" Appoline explained.

Steel nodded and picked up the dagger, examining it closely and noticing the faint sheen of liquid that had been hidden by its silvery appearance. "Alright... I feel like I should probably punish you in some way. I mean, attacking a guard is an offence... but I also understand things have been tense. Now get inside so that we can properly debrief."

Appoline nodded and the whole group squeezed down the stairs and into the generously sized conference room. Steel had also gone out of his way to provide food for the table, giving everyone a chance to eat if they wanted. It... couldn’t have been less like an ambush if he’d tried. Then again, perhaps Appoline had reason to be worried considering they’d been going back underground.

It was pretty clear that everyone had their favourite foods prepared, or at least, Steel, or someone working for him, had gone out of their way to find food for everyone to enjoy. Some of it overlapped, and Kat didn’t notice anything for her specifically... then again she hadn’t exactly shared what favouritism she did have for a few fruits with anyone. Lily of course, went straight for the fish.

Appoline however eyed every bit of food like it might be poisoned. It wasn’t, Kat was sure that the elf would’ve said something if there was so much of a speck of anything anywhere. Apparently she was even more on edge now. Kat wanted to ask WHY that was... but it really wasn’t the time, not when they were in such a public place. Steel didn’t look offended at least, instead he just grab a chair towards then end and started eating his own bit of food.

Kat glanced at the guards around, and Steel noticed. "They all just started their shift. They all ate before... if they were smart about it."

"Ha," laughed one of them. "Not all of us are Jim."

"Hey I remembered to eat today!" insisted the guard that was probably Jim. It did not save him from the needling, and the light-hearted atmosphere continued to grow as the jokes, mostly at Jim’s expense, continued.

Once everyone had eaten at least a little food, Steel asked for reports from everyone present. Apparently he’d get to the guards later, but for now he wanted to know what everyone had done while away, and how easy it was to set up the wards. Sadly the answer was ’not the best’ and ’annoying’ mostly due to ’Brook’s’ interference. The fact that they still didn’t know who she actually was annoyed them. There was also the fact that they didn’t know where the real Brook was. Or if she was still alive.

At least until Appoline added in a comment, "That potion doesn’t work properly when mimicking a dead person, or at least it shouldn’t. I would suspect that at the very least, before we caught fake Brook the real one was still alive. It’s been quite a while since then though..."

Steel sighed, "We did look around for her after the word went out but we just don’t know when she got replaced, nor how long she was under observation for. That makes it hard to find her, assuming we still can. The answer that would be most annoying, but seems more likely, is that she was forcibly extracted from the city at some point."

Kat sighed, but accepted the answer. It wasn’t like she had any suggestions. Even if Lily could track her by scent the fact that it could possibly be weeks since she went missing was an issue. Appoline said they only had limited doses for the potion... but if they used all of them for this one play? Then it was quite possible Brook had been gone for a week or more. They just didn’t know. The imposter clearly knew enough about warding to fake Brook’s abilities, and could use her ’absentminded experiments’ as a way to excuse any real mistakes as zoning out.

Steel continued to hear reports from everyone else until it eventually came to Kat and Lily. Kat of course had the standard stuff that everyone saw to talk about, but she had two major things she wanted to bring up nobody else was likely to. She did go over everything else first though of course, no need not to be thorough.

"The two things that stood out to me, was that time I got attacked while helping Appoline gather ingredients and the fact they were able to shrink me down. We still don’t really know how that all worked, and the people that attacked us then were just... awful. Really, really bad at fighting. They did more damage to each other. Um... wait did we hand over the sketches?" said Kat.

Scar shook her head. "No the guards have those, Maryland specifically."

Kat nodded, "Right well... we can’t see if they were important or well known but they were... exceptionally weak. I fended a few off with a warning shot and then they all turned on each other. They killed more of the group then I did and incapacitated... well basically everyone. The few that didn’t end up unconscious pretended to be. Maybe to avoid me going after them? I don’t even know."

Steel nodded, "I’ll take a look at those and try to let you know sometime soon, but it likely won’t be until tomorrow. There’s a lot that needs doing at the moment and I’d prefer to give you a bit of a break, especially after technically being ’on assignment’ for multiple days in a row.

"As for the fact you were shrunk? I’m not sure there will be any investigation into that. I mean... it doesn’t seem to be a permanent effect, you’re fine and I’m not really sure what else you would want done. Scar might have the runes necessary to look into making it again, but we have no idea how it connected to the rest of the wards, if it did, if there were hidden sigils, things like that. It would take a lot of manpower to solve something that might only work on you,"

Kat shrugged, "I just thought it was an interesting experience and I more so wanted to bring it up. Then again... I guess I just assumed it was more viable then it seems to be? If it can be done once, and we know how it was done... but I guess we don’t know exactly how?"

Steel nodded, "Even small changes can have massive ramifications for the final wards. We’d need to talk to the one wearing Brook’s face..."

"But we don’t even have her anymore," sighed Kat. "That’s fair enough. As I said it was more of a curiosity and something to report."