D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad Chapter 2269 Thunderous Amongerus

--- Kat ---

After resting for as long as Appoline required, or at least as long as the elf would allow herself to rest, the group moved out and back into the lightning scorched area. Did it count as a dessert? It was mostly rock and not all that much sand so Kat wasn’t sure, and Lily didn’t actually know either. Appoline had no way of knowing... so it was just ’the rocky area’ for the moment. What was more interesting to note was that when you looked up at the mountain it was notably closer.

They had no way to know HOW much closer, both with the teleportation and the thing’s sheer size. It couldn’t block out the sun because of how the sun decided it wanted to do something different. So judging distances was even harder. It was impossible to say really, other than the fact that it was notably closer then it had been before. Though at least when Kat checked her memories it was the same distance it had always been for this area. The mountain wasn’t moving. Though for the few moments she had that thought it was a rather scary one.

As they made good time running deeper into the area, the lightning became a bigger issue. Out on the edges it didn’t strike as frequently nor with as much power but as you went further in not only did the lightning strikes get more common, but because of the frequent and unending supply of electricity, the ground and pillars remained highly electrically charged. They learnt this when walking past a glowing pillar.

They had assumed it was cooling down, and they were deep enough that everyone’s hair was constantly standing on end. In the literal sense. The static charged kept it all puffed up. For Kat and Appoline this wasn’t so bad... but for Lily it was a little hellish. It played massive havoc with her whiskers and she’d taken to burying herself deep in Kat’s clothes, face against Kat’s chest. It still felt uncomfortable along the rest of her body, but her face at least was mostly fine.

This meant that when they got close enough for something to happen, Kat’s options were more limited then normal. The glow from the pillar was reaching out to them and Kat’s mind slowed down. It was clearly about to strike her but Kat couldn’t simply allow that with Lily curled up against her. Kat couldn’t simply throw her backwards either. Lily was hiding in her outfit and getting her out would take time she simply didn’t have.

So Kat ensured her entire arm exploded. Everything from the shoulder down became a torrent of water heading downwards to the ground. The lightning struck the water as intended, steaming it and throwing most to the ground... but some still got through, coursing through Kat’s body and jolting Lily awake as the same happened to her. Kat pushed herself backwards in between locking joints and complaining muscles but she managed it.

Kat countered as she started to reform her arm. It was slow going, and required that she first collect the few droplets that survived the lightning strike to reform it at all... but that was probably just due to how rushed she’d been when making use of the technique. After thirty seconds worth of work her arm was as good as new, but her demonic energy was much lower then it should have been. Perhaps forcing things had cost more? Looking back was impossible because Kat hadn’t checked on the cost at all when it was happening.

Appoline spoke up after Kat was looking better. "Is everything alright? Are you and Lily both fine?"

"Yeah, apparently. It hurt but I recovered and Lily apparently wasn’t damaged at all," commented Kat. "Do you have anything to prevent that happening again? I might be fine but Lily has not been enjoying the atmosphere at all."

Appoline shook her head. "No I’m afraid I don’t really have anything for lightning of this calibre. If I did I would’ve recommended we use it against the axolotl. If you want, however, we could collect some of the charged metal from these pillars along with some other ingredients, perhaps more centipedes and then turn it into a lightning resistance potion for us to use."

"That would mean backtracking a good deal..." hummed Kat. They were fairly deep into the area after all. "And none of the monsters we’ve killed on the way were enough? Not even the few we found in this zone?"

Kat and crew had killed a couple things during their journey through the area, but only a couple. It seemed that the main monster in the area were these electrically charged goats, but they liked to stand atop the lightning pillars and hadn’t bothered coming down to attack. No they seemed to like to move around to catch more lightning for themselves. The only thing that attacked them were these scorpion things that blended into the ground and had tried stabbing at Kat. They’d all been Rank 1 and rather weak.

Appoline shook her head. "Sadly it’s not quite the right sort of ingredients, at least, not in large enough quantities anyway. I could maybe make a batch large enough for one person... but well..."

"Yeah I get it," sighed Kat. "What’s the main issue?"

"The problem is that too many of these items work WITH the electricity. The balance of the potion would be all off. It’s the sort of thing that you could maybe try baking into a suit of armour to make it act as a lightning rod to protect the party... but the actual protection would be from the armour itself and not the potion. Too many of the things here ’eat’ lightning essentially.

"I could perhaps make a potion that ’eats’ lightning to extend its duration but that’s the sort of thing I’d need to make a few batches for and test them. The other issue is that with lightning, it’s all fine until suddenly it’s severe organ damage and death. So... no, I’m afraid I can’t simply make a potion for this one. We didn’t have to deal with much lightning back at home, not really."

"That’s fine... but we need ideas I think," sighed Kat.

"Could you use that potion on me to make me attract the lightning?" asked Kat.

"No probably not," offered Appoline. "Not with any sort of long term reliability. If it was applied to the skin it would slip off, and internally you’d burn through it too fast. I suppose it might make you attract lightning for five or so minutes, but it would take me longer than that to make the potion and we don’t have infinite ingredients."

"Alright so that’s not the best plan... do we have anything else? There isn’t much here to BUILD something and I don’t think the supplies we’ve got stored away could fix that. Not if it was large enough to protect even one person... I guess we could try going around? Or hmm..." Kat glanced around. Nearby all of the lightning pillars were glowing but further out some weren’t. "We might be able to take a very careful route? Or would trying to just go around still be faster? I don’t know how far we’d need to go..."

Appoline shrugged. "I’m not sure what you’d want me to say. I don’t have any better knowledge of the terrain here and the closest thing I can think of to a ’solution’ would be growing some plants rapidly to get wood. It wouldn’t be good quality nor last long, but it would be more materials. Problem is, that’s not going to hold up to the lightning anyway."

Kat clicked her tongue and continued to scan the area. There HAD to be a way through, even for normal teams. She just wasn’t sure what that was. Thyme might like making things difficult, but they never made things like this impossible...