D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad Chapter 2275 Dark Green

--- Green --- Time Unknown

"Progress, progress, progress! We’re making some good progress aren’t we!" Green cheered, trying not to feel like bashing her head into wall... EXCEPT SHE COULDN’T EVEN DO THAT.

Green was currently surrounded by a thick ball of light, her only bulwark of the darkness for the area she was currently inside of. It felt almost like she was underwater and the helmet she’d picked up to help with breathing in gas was helping with this too... but she had no idea what was going on. It sure felt like water, but it wasn’t possible to swim. No, it was far too light for that...

And yet, Green felt herself being weighed down, in multiple ways in fact. Her steps felt heavy. Moving forward, or in any direction really made it feel like someone was pushing her back. Even moving her head around was a tough task. Despite the helmet keeping her breathing the pressure on her chest made it a far more difficult task.

The final piece of this annoying puzzle was the darkness. It wasn’t pervasive, it didn’t exist everyone. It pressed in close. Kept at bay by her shining lantern... and nothing else. It almost seemed to leer at her from beyond that barrier of light, trying to sneak in along the edges, desperately trying to get a grasp on her.

The fact there was almost nothing else around made this worse. Under Green’s feet was grey lifeless sand. It was soft but not too hard to work on and the occasional rock proved that they weren’t just stuck in an endless loop... but that was just due to the slight variations in rocks. Rocks! Green was reduced to examining the intricate details of random roadside rocks to determine if she’d seen any of them before.

It also wouldn’t stop her if she was making a curved turn. Sure it felt like she was heading forward but with the weird gravity effect or whatever it truly was... well it made things very hard to examine. Was she walking forward, or was the pressure being applied slightly unevenly to ensure that she turned? It didn’t SEEM like that because of a few tests she’d done almost immediately.

Green had asked Timmy to draw some intricate arrows in the sand. One moving forward was completely open and clear, the one to the left filled with swirls. Right had extra lines and the one behind her had triangles filling the entire thing. It meant she could reset back to her intended path.

Walking carefully along any of the other arrows was easy. Well, not entirely easy. She suffered the same drawbacks as everywhere else in the area, but that was the thing. The drawbacks were the same. Her footfalls were steady and remained in straight lines, or at least... they matched the arrows. Any arrow, and even walking in the middle of each seemed to keep her on track. Looking at her footsteps they seemed to be a straight line...

But that was the major worry. All that she could see was maybe five metres across. It was a far cry from her normal vision range. Not even the extended views she could experience from the top of a tree or cliff, but her normal average view. Heck, she saw more inside of buildings. Though admittedly, that was usually through windows and in the details.

Here there was just... a disturbing amount of nothing. Green hadn’t been attacked once either. It felt like hours, and her internal clock was pretty good... but her orb bracelet was telling her that wasn’t true. That she’d been her less time then that... so which was correct. "You’d tell me if I was going insane... right Timmy?"

Green couldn’t find it in herself to care that she was speaking out loud at the moment. Sure maybe someone would hear her, or maybe something. A monster? A person? Green did not care. The darkness here was far more dangerous then whatever random attacker she might face... and if they’d been stuck in here for as long as it felt like for her? Then they’d likely be quite willing to team up.

"Hmmm... what if I try firing an arrow?" Green mused, raising her bow and pointing it off to the side. She gently lit the arrow on fire and then loosed it into the darkness. Of course, as had happened the last few times she’d done this, the arrow vanished as soon as it left the light surrounding her. Green let out a massive sigh. "What sort of magic IS this lantern dammit. Fine whatever..."

Shaking her head a few times Green looked down at Timmy. "You know little guy... I want nothing more than to lay down and rest. I love sleep, as I’m sure you’ve picked up during our time together... and even I worry what would happen if I took a nap in this sort of place. It feels... wrong. Unnatural. Is that just because of the darkness? Is there something else I’m missing here? I don’t rightly know. I do not, rightly, know.

"That bothers me. This whole place bothers me. I can’t even safely go back because that could be another endless I leave behind footprints in the sand sure... there is just the slightest bit of wind. Just barely there, something you can hardly feel. Heck, I can’t feel it... but my eyes. They can see it."

Green swept her hand through the air before pointing down at a single grain of grey sand that was rolling across the ground. "Except that right there, is proof that there’s wind about. If it lesser here in my little bubble of safety? My ears can’t here SHIT outside of it. If I actually did turn around would I find my path gone? Those arrows were fine when we tested things all the way back at the start... but how long would they stay that way?

"Can I trust myself to move back in a perfectly straight line? I’m already worried that I’m heading somewhere I don’t want to go. The idea of turning around and getting even MORE lost is quite daunting you know. So what do you think I should do?"

Timmy of course, had no answer for her. "Is it me? Like, am I the one who is cursed? First I was stuck in that fucking administrative building. Then I was stuck in the crumbling palace’s pocket dimension. Now I’m in some eternal darkness. Is this supposed to be a warning to me from higher powers? Is Thyme intentionally fucking with me? Is it really just random chance? What the hell am I meant to take from it anyway?

"Is it that I need to sleep more? Sleep less? Give up on adventuring? Find something more fulfilling? Or should I adventure more? Is this some sort of mental test? Because I’m feeling preeeety fucking mentally tested right now Timmy!" insisted Green, though after a few moments she sighed out a long breath of air. Not the best idea because it was almost a struggle to get more back inside her lungs, but still, it was fine.

Green was exaggerating to amuse herself... somewhat. A lot of the frustration was real. She’d entered what she had thought to be a final climactic series of battles for a great prize. What had instead happened to her, was sitting inside for days on end. Normally she’d love that. Inside was safe... usually, and you could sleep all the time. Not so here. Each of them stole away her sleep for one reason or another.

Which was what made it feel so targeted. The first time she missed sleep because the ever present glow of the windows meant she lost track of time. Sleeping less because the time slipped away. Inside the palace she was sleeping less because what would happen if she missed the exit. Sure she needed to sleep sometimes, and Timmy MIGHT be able to spot the exit for her... but she had no idea what Timmy’s visual range was.

Now she was in a whole lot of darkness... but sleep felt like a poor idea. The idea, for once, really set her on edge like never before. So... was someone making fun of her? Or was it really just coincidence. Green was sure there was plenty of horrible places to sleep on the island... it just really felt like she’d found all the worst ones.