D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad Chapter 2270 Umbrella Plans

--- Kat ---

Working out a solution wasn’t speedy, or rather, getting one that worked to prevent the thunder taking them out. Lily’s first suggestion was to use her shadows as a defence, letting them take the lighting strikes, and zaps from nearby. Kat wasn’t keen on testing it... but a compromise was reached. Lily would use her shadows to protect Kat, who would be the one inside the shadow dome.

Kat walked to the nearby glowing charged pillar, and waited to be struck. She could hear the lightning against the shadows. The pillar discharged two strikes before stopping.

A shame, one that Kat explained to Appoline, but it was good to know. In a pinch, Lily could safely block the lightning for a while but they could all see a lot more glowing pillars then Lily was capable of blocking so that plan was out.

Next up was flying high enough to avoid the pillars. Of course, there was the worry that if they were too high they’d still get attacked... but surely there would be a sweet spot? Or at least, that was Kat’s hope. If the pillars counted as the ground there should be plenty of airspace... The issue with this, was that Kat had to go and test it alone. It also, didn’t work at all.

There seemed to be some sort of electrical charge that hovered around the entire area. As Kat got higher, she could feel more and more static, and then at a certain point a bunch of lightning strikes came at her from multiple angles. It wasn’t the devastating one that would that could take out even Kat, just lots of smaller ones. Lots of smaller ones that were still quite capable of making her wings seize up in sufficient numbers so Kat ended up falling from the sky, and taking more lightning zaps for her trouble as she felt past the pillars.

On the bright side? It cleared out a good chunk of nearby pillars of excess lightning. Downside, they found out that if that happened too much, then the pillars nearby would discharge into the ones with lower amounts of electricity into them, sharing the charge somewhat. It meant things were still safe-er to walk through, but that clearing out an area wasn’t a valid option.

"What if we dig down? Not sure it would be faster then going around but we could try it?" offered Kat.

Appoline shrugged. "I think I could make a potion to soften up the ground here but it wouldn’t last all that long. I mean, the duration on any bit of rock would be substantial but we’d need to keep splashing the walls as we moved forward so we’d use up the bottle. I don’t think I could make too much. Those crocodiles would be the main ingredients and I think I can make two batches... but that’s still not enough to cover the likely rather substantial distance."

Kat sighed and the three went back to brainstorming. They considered a few sillier options like, just booking it, or trying to make a wall... but eventually Lily had a suggestion. Transforming to explain properly, she asked. "So... what if we make a big umbrella?"

"What?" asked Kat and Appoline.

"Right so, Kat is fairly strong, and I can lift stuff with my shadows. What if we use that potion Appoline was talking about to dig up a pillar, preferably one back a bit behind us. Then, we left it above our heads and use it as a mobile lightning rod. I’m not sure if we’d want to keep it connected to the ground with the central pole and push it along, or if we could be quick enough to dig it back into the ground.

"If it’s not too heavy we might be able to add some more material to the sides to make it like a faraday cage protecting the inside. I’m not sure how much we’d have to worry about the ground, but if that proves a problem I think I can block at least some of that with my shadows without using too much mana."

"What’s a faraday cage?" was Appoline’s quick question. It required a short explanation on the mechanics but they were easy enough to understand the practical applications of. If you had a metal cage, anything inside of it would be safe from getting electrocuted as long as it wasn’t connected to the metal of the cage.

In this case, they couldn’t make a real one, not if they wanted it to move... Lily switched back to speaking out loud before finishing the thought. "Unless we could turn it into a metal ball? If that potion works to make the pillars here easy to shape... could we make it a hamster ball esque thing and roll it? That would be easier to move than the umbrella idea... maybe safer?

Kat rubbed her chin. "I’m not sure the pillars here are pure enough. I mean, I don’t know too much about faraday cages, but I’m pretty sure they’re meant to redirect the lightning not store it like these pillars are. If it stores too much energy it would melt and THAT would be an issue."

Lily nodded, "Ok yeah that’s a good point... hmmm... Appoline? What are the limits of that potion?"

"It... might be capable of separating out metal?" Appoline said after a few moments. "It’s not quite what it’s designed for, but while it makes materials softer, that’s just it. Makes them soft-ER not the same degree of soft. With a bit of effort we could probably get something setup to separate the metal... but then I don’t know how you’d process it properly after that. I can get you forge temperatures, maybe, but I don’t know how to contain that fire properly. We’d need to build a makeshift forge first to even try."

Kat tapped her chin. "So... umbrella idea first? You said you could make two batches at least, and surely making that wouldn’t take up even a full batch?"

Appoline nodded, "I don’t think it will. Let’s just... find a slightly safer place for me to set up. My large metal cauldron is likely to attract lightning so close to the active spires, and that WILL change the final potion quite substantially."

Kat winced but nodded, backtracking a bit was probably fine. They moved the way they’d come, keeping an eye out for the more open areas. It took about fifteen minutes of searching to find something that sort of fit the bill. Lily decided to go even further, and summoned up numerous walls of paper to surround them. Kat wasn’t sure how much any of them would slow down lightning should it appear, but it was something.

Appoline got to work soon after, though she did wave her cauldron around a bit just to make sure nothing was going to strike at it as soon as she got started. After that, it was, in many ways nothing they hadn’t seen before. All of the interesting bits were going on in the pot, hidden to those with the ability to sense mana. For Kat, that meant she spent more time watching the sky. Lightning did strike nearby, but none got so close as to be a threat for the duration of Appoline’s brewing.

When it was finally finished, the potion itself almost looked like it had failed. The resulting liquid was a thick, goopy muck that glowed a rather displeasing brown. Still, Appoline was smiling at it so that did imply she’d managed to make the potion without issue. Appoline was able to fill quite a few bottles before packing everything away. "It’s done, we can pick the spire we want out now. I can also confirm that we have enough ingredients for a second batch. Not quite a third though,"

Kat nodded. "Alright that’s good to hear. Do we have an idea for what one we want to choose though? A larger one can take more lightning and is likely sturdier... but I’m not sure how large a pillar I can left with this bracelet restricting me."

"Counterpoint, why not just pick the biggest one we can and then chop it down to size afterwards if it’s too heavy to lift?" Lily added.

Kat looked at Appoline who gave her a confused look as if to say ’why are you even asking me’. Sighing Kat just nodded back to Lily. "Yeah that seems like the best way to go about this. Not sure we can do anything fancy... but we don’t need fancy, we just need it to work. Though... I worry that we might get struck by more than our fair share of lightning if it’s too tall..."