D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad Chapter 2258 Icy Flight

--- Kat ---

The three stepped out into the winter chill, though only Lily was feeling it. Kat was fine of course, and Appoline had taken a potion to prevent it causing her issues while also wearing some thicker clothes. When Appoline noticed Kat’s gaze she said, "If you’re expecting me to offer some of this potion to Lily, then I can’t. It doesn’t even work on dwarves. I have NO idea what it would do to Lily."

"Oh, I mean... I wasn’t going to ask," which was true... but Kat was going to think slightly poorly of her for not offering. Based on the dry look Appoline was shooting her way, Appoline probably had a good idea about that. Lily was far more awake now, and was staring out of Kat’s kimono at Appoline a question in her gaze. One Kat voiced. "Why is that? Healing potions work on everyone right?"

Appoline nodded, "Healing potions do, for the most part, work on everyone. You can make healing potions that only work on certain races but it’s much harder and you essentially have to poison them against the other races rather then enhancing something for one of them... or at least that’s the way I figured out how to do it," *

Appoline continued, "The main reason this is, or at least, the main reason I suspect, is because of just how many things grow and heal. Everything does that and they all do it in a similar enough way conceptually. What I’ve done here is completely alter the way my body responds to the cold. Elves and humans respond similarly enough, but dwarves don’t. So... it just doesn’t work for them... and honestly I have no idea how Lily does anything she does. Especially not the transformation, and a potion like this could mess with it.

"Now, if I had a higher tier one made from rarer ingredients that involved creating a barrier around the drinker to ward off the weather, something like that would work just fine. What my potion instead does is limit the amount of temperature alteration I can undergo by... it’s not quite hardening my skin but also sort of like that from a conceptual lens?"

"I see... and dwarves don’t do that?" asked Kat.

Appoline shook her head. "No it’s more that dwarves already do it. It’s how the potion works. Now they’re more fireproof then cold proof, but it still works somewhat both ways. If the potion just improved that function it would be fine, but instead it’s copying it over and enhancing it. The fact that the potion does both would cause a LOT of issues for a dwarf. I don’t know exactly what would happen... but they’d either grow an extra layer of skin you likely couldn’t easily remove or they might turn to stone."

"I’m sorry what?" Kat intoned. "Why the heck is that what happens?"

Appoline shrugged, "It’s a surprisingly common side effect of giving dwarves potions that improperly enhance their natural attributes."

Kat felt like she’d just been told, that the world actually WAS made of cheese. "Wait does that mean elves turn into trees or something?"

Appoline shook her head. "No not at all. If that’s what happened you could manufacture dryads using elves and I’m sure someone would have used that to create an army or drastically enhanced their race that way. No instead elves tend to grow flowers in their hair."

"That seems a LOT less extreme then turning to stone," mentioned Kat just before pausing. They’d found the first cliff. Opening her arms Appoline hopped into them and Kat started to glide them downwards. The snow made it impossible to see if they’d need to fly up the other side, but better to be safe then sorry and get shot out of the sky before they could see it coming through the snow.

"You’d think so, but it’s actually a lot longer lasting, harder to cure, and the flowers use up nutrients from the elf they’re growing on. While dwarves just grow a layer of stone over their skin and breaking it will free them. Bit of a suffocation worry, but if you break the stone swiftly then it’s fine. It’s something most people prepare for," explained Appoline.

"Do other races have common effects?" asked Kat.

"What other races?" Appoline asked with a deliberately slow look.

"Right..." mumbled Kat.

Appoline shrugged. "Sorry but yeah, can’t really tell you about that."

With Appoline technically unable to say anything else, or so they were assuming, the flight ended up being rather quiet. The wind made it so that Kat did have to concentrate somewhat on her flying and it did end up being a ravine instead of just a sharp slope. Kat decided to just keep flying with Appoline in hand. As the cold wasn’t hurting anyone for the moment it seemed like the best way to keep up the pace.

Because of how the bracelet worked, it clearly didn’t know how to properly register her flying. She had a speed limit sure, but it was faster then her ground speed by just a touch, assuming Kat was actively moving her wings anyway. Though maybe that’s why? Because she could simply build speed with a good angle? Regardless, it certainly didn’t set her back down to Rank 2 strength in what she could carry.

Time ticked by as they travelled. Occasionally points of interest would pop up when the snow cleared up a little, but they didn’t detour for them. The group had a goal, and they wanted to be at the centre wall as soon as possible. Though now Kat was thinking about it, she wasn’t sure how much that mattered.

See, the reason they wanted to be there early was for the timed lockout system that may or may not apply to the centre. Assuming it DID apply. Would the timer start from the moment they first touched the mist? Or would it start when they first touched the mist... AFTER the centre was technically unlocked?

Kat and Lily killed some time arguing back and forth about it but there really just wasn’t a way to know. They were mostly using it as a conversation topic. For Lily it was a way to stop thinking about how could she was. Even pressed right up against Kat’s boobs and hidden in as much warmth as Kat could give her... it wasn’t like her kimono was particularly weather resistant. *

Of course, apparently this was tempting fate because just as this occurred to them, the pair slammed into a ’solid’ wall. A solid wall of mist. Kat managed to hold onto Appoline and stop herself before she started to fall too far. "Oh... I guess we’re here. Damn that looks like it should be more snow. Sorry about that Appoline."

"It’s fine. It didn’t hurt much and it was clearly a mistake. Why don’t we go down and see if we can find any potion ingredients nearby?" asked Appoline.

"Sure just let us check the wall first," Kat agreed. As they reached the ground, Kat put her hand out... and could barely see the response from the wall. Kat was pretty sure it said ’Unknown Time’ but the snow made it really, really hard to tell.

"Well... it still seems fairly dark out," said Kat slowly. "Not knowing exactly when this wall is going to open is a pain, especially as we don’t want to get too far away from it... hmm..."

"We can just travel the edges," offered Appoline. "It’s not like I saw anything else too close around here. I’m just looking for any plants that grow well in the extreme environment, well that or waiting for us to be attacked. Monsters make great potion ingredients!"