D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad Chapter 2287 Like Baby Deer

--- Kat ---

Kat wanted to cheat. If she was flying, then her brain just said ’Alright we’re flying now’ and completely ignored the odd contradictory feelings regarding gravity. Her flight just worked, and it let Kat move around far more easily then Appoline’s struggling attempts... so of course Lily and Appoline insisted she learn how to actually walk properly in the area.

Kat could’ve countered with something along the lines of ’what if you need to walk’ but Lily had proven that she could also fly and ignore the odd feelings so Kat just sighed and decided to get into the practice of things. It wasn’t too bad really, and they’d needed to wait for Appoline to get a hang of things anyway so learning how to walk properly wasn’t a real problem for Kat.

In the end, Kat decided the best way to learn was to drop Lily off in the grass... and then simply try to run around. It was awkward, her arms and tail flailed everywhere, and Kat fell plenty of times, but forcing her mind to just... deal with it seemed to be working better than Appoline’s attempt at slow acclimatisation. At the twenty minute mark, Kat could already run without issue... assuming it was in a completely straight line.

Appoline meanwhile was still having to walk slowly to avoid falling over. Kat grinned a bit at this. "Seems you’re being a bit to careful with this," Kat said with as much false smug cheer as she could manage.

Appoline didn’t take the obvious bait, simply sighing and returning with, "Not all of us have a tail to correct our less egregious mistakes. If I tried learning the way you are, I’d fall twice as much and make even less progress. I’ll manage it."

Lily, transformed to ask, "Could you make a potion that gives you a tail?"

"Hmmm... maybe?" Appoline said after a few moments. Wobbling a bit as Lily’s question distracted her. "I don’t know that I could make one for an elf... or it would take more effort to give me one specifically. Dwarves might be the hardest to manage... or maybe easier then elves? Hmm... it certainly depends on the kind of tail. It would be easier to give myself an appendage that acts like a prehensile vine rather than a true tail. It would also probably be easier to make it hair..."

"That is not the answer I thought I’d get," mumbled Lily.

"Well you exist so quite obviously it’s possible. I suppose I could just use a potion to transform into a beastkin if I had some examples... but I don’t know how my brain would react to that sort of shift. Might be somewhat dangerous. My point is that it’s a lot harder then it would seem to have something like that feel natural, and having it be both short or long term would come with their own issues," explained Appoline.

Lily nodded, and was going to let Appoline go back to practicing... but it seemed like the distractions were actually helping her. Appoline was walking steadier until she’d stopped explaining and only then stumbled when turning around. Seeing this, Lily decided to ask. "Well, what’s the problem with using vines for a tail?"

"Instincts and muscles mainly. It’s not that hard to just... grow vines on elves but making them DO anything is the hard part. In fact, changing your hair into leaves and vines has long been considered a nice beginner potion for elves once they move past healing potions. They’re simple, but not quite SO simple you can manage with a bunch of mistakes. Then you can teach them to refine it better to add flowers, or different kinds of vines.

"The issue is that vines don’t naturally move. They have no control or muscle adjacent structures, so you have to account for that. Then for them to be useful as tails, you’d need to work out how to also download the instinctual instructions on how to use them. It’s all one big mess you see. All sorts of ways it can go wrong. It’s just not really something I’d consider worth it," explained Appoline.

"Then how do haste potions work?" asked Lily. "Surely that would cause issues..."

"Surprisingly no. Especially not when you’re thinking faster alongside moving faster. It tends to remove any issue from having one or the other acting out of sync. Though, that comes with the whole burning out your nerves as a potential issue," explained Appoline.

Lily nodded as Appoline finished a full lap without issue. Appoline still seemed distracted enough for her steps to remain steady. She wasn’t running yet, but this was major progress. More progress then she’d made in the previous ten minutes. "Well, what would you do for dwarves?"

Appoline shrugged, "I think I’d just cheat and give them an oversized tail that remains on the ground. I can’t really think of any monsters that possess such qualities, but I’m sure they exist. Dwarves are usually a good deal heavier and stockier so the added weight isn’t like to send them falling over the way it would do for other humanoids. They are also lower to the ground which would further help."

"What about wings? I know before I got mine I always thought that would be a cool idea," Lily questioned. "Also you might want to see if you can speed up a bit."

Appoline nodded and started a sort of loping jog, with one foot taking larger steps then the other. Still worked though, so Lily didn’t comment on it. "Wings are in some ways easier, and in some ways harder. Simply having your arms transform into wings is the easiest way to deal with it, though that comes with some complications. It is still likely the most plausible way to go about it.

"Adding wings to someone’s back and keeping their hands free? That would be a pain. Similar issues to tails but much larger surface area. I think at that point it would be better to make an enchanted set or just work on a potion that lets you fly without them. I mean, I can already think of potions that levitate you and a few that let you fly. There’s no reason to make wings for that sort of thing," Appoline explained.

"Oh... huh, I guess we just associate them with flying," mumbled Lily.

"Well they still act as ingredients," confirmed Appoline. "Various wing parts and feathers are often used to make levitation potions. It’s just that make the wings themselves is... well it’s overcomplicating things essentially. The effect is meant to be temporary, and unless you want to do a long term potion regiment for slow changes then there’s no reason to grow wings that allow you to fly. They’d need to be comically large to have you fly unassisted so magic would need to be involved in some way... so it just comes back to the main point of, either you make fake wings and enchant them, or you don’t bother with them at all."

Lily nodded, as Appoline tripped over. It was nearby, and Lily’s shadow shot out to catch her before she hit the ground, but still, the elf was making good progress, she could jog now... mostly. She had just fallen after all. Meanwhile, Kat was showing off in the background, with jumps and flips. Apparently once she got her head around it she really got her head around it.

"What’s the easiest thing to add then with potions? Another set of arms?" asked Lily, now rather curious.

"If it’s temporary the easiest thing you can do is actually add additional eyes," Appoline countered. "Well, technically the easiest thing you can do is replace the vision from one eye with a different one, usually floating around or perhaps in some other spot. The brain is oddly good at dealing with it. Then, if you take it further, you can add extra eyes... and it just sort of works out?"

"What do you mean?" asked Lily.

"Well, some people go insane, but for MOST individuals, if you up the number of eyes slowly and give them time to adjust they can just... deal with it. I don’t really know why that’s the case. Perhaps it’s just how our brains are wired," Appoline admitted with a shrug.

"I’d have thought eyes were one of the more complicated things," grumbled Lily.

"They are, eyes are a massive pain to make properly... but if they’re just magical constructs that vanish after a certain amount of time elapses? Then that part is easy. It’s the permanence that’s a problem. Regrowing eyes is a problem. Having an eye in the sky connected to nothing? Surprisingly easy. You just feed that info back into the brain and it just... handles it for the most part. There is an issue with overload if you try to go from two eyes to twenty with nothing in between, but that’s all," Appoline elaborated.