D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad Chapter 2291 Glassy Eyed Snow

--- Kat ---

The trio slammed into the snow and you could hear it crunch under their bodies as they rolled. Lily breathed in after landing only to start coughing. Soon, she’d wrapped a shadow around her mouth and was extending two other shadow limbs for Kat and Appoline. On Kat’s end the ’snow’ was very dusty but she wasn’t having similar breathing issues. Kat wanted to stand and pull Lily against her... but attempting to do so just had her falling sideways.

"It’s glass," Appoline commented as the shadow wrapped around her mouth. She was also slower to stand up, carefully moving herself off the ground and onto her feet. It seems weird gravity was going to be a longer running feature. For whatever reason, the gravity was now pulling them sideways. Likely to do with the rotation of the ground they were on. If she looked ’up’ you could see the sky and also the ground. They were at a roughly ninety-degree angle. Very roughly.

"Should we be worried about swallowing glass?" Kat asked as Lily’s shadows wrapped around her mouth. It seemed to be working to keep the glass out when she breathed, though Kat herself was mostly fine with it. The issues weren’t major. Though it did taste strange on her tongue.

"You are likely to be fine as it stands, but I wouldn’t recommended Lily breaths in too much. Glass isn’t toxic but it’s not something most creatures can digest properly either. The main issue would be breathing it in and damage the lungs... but frankly I have no idea how much of an issue that is for you two. A little is probably fine... maybe. Hmm... I can probably make a potion for us to stop it being an issue," said Appoline.

Kat had managed to stand at this point. It was still awkward and moving was going to be another, hopefully short, learning experience. Hearing that this could be an issue was a bit worrying but... "How do you plan to make a potion that works for all of us?"

"Just need to make something that you can apply to your face, mostly your mouth and nose, and then it should keep the incidental glass out. Might break if say, something tried to force feed it to you, but that’s not really the point. Though... hmmm... where would it be safe to setup. There’s a lot of glass around and while I do need to include some, having too much blow into my cauldron could be an issue..." grumbled Appoline.

Kat took a proper glance around and saw that they were on a sharp peak of the mountain. Off to their right was a bunch of outcroppings and a rather sheer cliff face. Down below was a lot of spikes. The whole thing was dusted with what seemed to be snow, but was actually glass. It just raised so many questions. Like, why is the glass remaining in place? Surely if there’s wind it should all blow away. No further glass seemed to be falling from the sky... unless it happened as an occasional thing?

Looking upwards gave no answers. As established that just showed the various areas leading up to the mountain as well as some of the sky. The ground was too far away, and the sky too empty to be the source of all this glass. So... did that mean it was here for some reason before that?

Regardless, Appoline’s issue of where to put her cauldron was still in place and Kat couldn’t see anyway to fix them. The area they were standing on wasn’t large, and everywhere else nearby seemed to have even less space. The cliff here seemed to have sort of retained its original gravity in that if you ignored the feeling of being pulled sideways, you were still standing on the side of a mountain. Climbing it, or flying up were your best choices to cover ground.

That meant said ground wasn’t often very wide, or spacious. From what Kat could see, which was limited by the intense curve of the mountain section they were on, no caves to hide in happened to be nearby. Then again, Kat didn’t know if they’d be filled with glass as it collected in one place. Offered Lily.

"Lily says she can block the glass with her shadows, and... I can’t really see any other options. Nothing nearby at least. Also, will that potion still work on me considering everything just slides off my skin at an accelerated rate?" queried Kat.

"It shouldn’t... that’s not really how I was intending it to work. The idea is your pour it over the area and then a magical bubble appears around it, draining away slowly as the magic inside eventually dissipates. You’d then need to apply it again of course, but it’s still quite functional. I’m not anchoring the effect to the potion... residue? Liquid? It’ll be meant to turn more into a paste on contact with air though..." mumbled Appoline.

After a few more moments of this, she shook her head and said, "It shouldn’t be a problem, but do let me know if it is. It’ll be interesting data. Also... while Lily shielding the cauldron with her shadows has some extra implications from the brewing, it shouldn’t be anything I can’t counter. Though is that going to be too much mana? This is going to be something like a half an hour brew,"

Lily relayed to Kat what she wanted said. She considered transforming to say it herself, but the risk that glass got... well everywhere was a bit to high. At least with her fur it could be brushed out. "Keeping her shadows up and moving isn’t hard, it’s when she need to apply or resist force that it really drains her mana. So, keeping a bit of glass out isn’t going to be much of an issue,"

"Alright then. Full shadow including the ground please. Some will fall off us surely, but that’s fine. Actually let me just..." Appoline started to brush herself down flicking out her sleeves and pants as Lily set up the shadow area. After a moment Appoline sat on the edge and started to take of her shoes, allowing a shocking amount of glass sand to drain out. Kat glanced at her own shoes. You could see a bunch of the glass over them.

Deciding it would be best not to further contaminate the area, Kat took a few steps back as she asked, "Do you not have something to clean yourself off swiftly? Seems like the sort of thing that would be useful."

Appoline sighed, "Not anymore. I HAD an enchanted setup for it, but frankly it’s not as useful as you’d think it would be. Or rather, making a potion for it was never worth my time. You either don’t need to worry about it at all, because the miniscule contaminates have nowhere near enough magic to influence the final result in most cases... and the ones where it does matter? It’s so strict that potions basically can’t do the job."

Lily poked at Kat to ask, "Why not?"

Appoline put her shoes back on and started to work on her potion. Well, presumably, once Appoline got started Lily closed the shadow up for the most part, leaving only a few angled slits so that light could get in but hopefully not too much glass. Though while Appoline could see inside, Kat could not.

Still, they could hear Appoline answer, "The issue is the residue from whatever you use to clean off everything. The constant fight between cleaning thoroughly, but not so thoroughly it soaks into your gear or rips off a few layers of skin. Except sometimes you do need to go that far to help ensure nothing at all gets in the potion. It’s easier to just have an enchantment that removes a bunch of stuff that isn’t keyed into it."

"Wait... does that mean you’ve needed to brew potions naked?" asked Kat.

"Yes it does," acknowledged Appoline. "Though what I ACTUALLY do, is take off my first set of clothes, go through the cleaner, and then grab a second set of clothes that have been just as thoroughly clean and aren’t prone to fraying. I have two sets, one that’s enchanted for self-repair, and one that isn’t, because that’s something that can cause issues with some really sensitive potions.

"Then there’s the jars that need to be carefully treated, but only on the outside, or rather, cleaned properly first, then have ingredients added, then the outside. Oh it’s always such a big mess. I’m half glad that setup was destroyed because I can turn down requests for that shit now. Such a massive pain in my pert ass. You don’t even want to know what it was like when I had to brew a bunch of potions in that style for a week straight. My skin was bright red, I looked like I’d been boiled..."