D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad Chapter 2303 Of Six Houses Part 1

--- Kat ---

Kat let out a long sigh. She sort of just wanted to find a wall to slam her head against a few times. "Don’t do that," commented Lily from the side. "You’ll break the wall, and then we’ll have to clean it up."

Kat huffed. It was the closest she could manage to a laugh at the comment. You see, they’d found the street with the second of Lachlann’s targets lived on... but the bastard woodworker was a bit too generous it seemed. They knew it was the right street because of the noticeable, and sometimes quite large carvings. The problem? He clearly didn’t have enough space for them on his lawn so he’d gifted them to all his fucking neighbours!

"The weird time magic would probably save whatever I was introducing my face to... but I mean come on! Every house in this little... court? If that’s what you’d call it? Wait, no, don’t get distracted by road definitions. Point is, everyone here has a whole bunch of woodwork, and most of them have visible pelts as well! The ones that don’t might just have them inside. In fact, I think I can see one through that window over there,"

Their were six houses in the area. They were closer to the edge of town then Kat had assumed they’d be, but this had to be it right? Each house had a bunch of space and a lot of the extra lawn space was taken up by ornaments. There was also four with visible pelts lining the walls. For some, they were positioned in place of windows, another had them acting as curtains for a door, and the last didn’t have any visible... but like the pelt she could see through the window, that didn’t mean it actually had none.

"Well... we can start looking? Maybe?" offered Lily.

Kat sighed, "We can... but what if this isn’t even the right area. I mean, I can see more houses nearby, and while they don’t have such obvious bits of... art, we haven’t checked them all either. Heck, this might not even be the right place, we’re fairly of course aren’t we? It should be back somewhere closer to the main parts of the village?"

Lily shrugged, "Maybe? I think there are still two or three housing segments around this area so it’s still firmly ’in’ the village. If I had to guess, this was originally the edge, and then it grew out and around the bigger lots here... and Lachlann remembers his friend is no longer on the edge. I mean, surely there’s no other place with so much woodwork AND old pelts that’s in this area of the village?"

Kat rubbed at her temples as she looked around at all the houses. "Alright, fair enough. Now the question is... how do we work out which one belonged to the guy?"

"Probably look for a workshop of some kind? Well, a woodworking shop of some kind?" Lily offered.

Kat nodded and the pair slid up to the first house. The bear statue out the front was probably meant to look scary... but the carver had messed up on the face and looked more like Winnie the Pooh had traded his normal body for that of a real bear. It was an awkward look. Still, they slid up to the front ’door’ as this was the one that used the leather to pretend instead of having a real door.

It had helped them though. It seemed like, perhaps, the time freeze had happened a moment after the explosion because the leather was being blown out of place, leaving plenty of room to squeeze inside. Once she was inside, Kat found similar ’doors’ made of all sorts of things. All rattled at least somewhat, but not all of them allowing for free passage.

The main area they were in lead them to the sitting area, or perhaps it was the dining area? As just beside them was the kitchen. A door rested right at the back, and three more ’doors’ lined the right side of the house. The nearest to them was plenty open and pushing it aside revealed... a room full of fishing gear? "I don’t think this is the right house..." mumbled Kat as she slid past the curtain.

The room had a number of fishing rods up on the wall... and a few that appeared to be missing. Kat tried jostling one and found they were quite locked in place now. Kat supposed the missing ones must have been that way when everything was frozen. The rest was a mess of line, lures, and some sealed buckets that probably had bait in them once upon a time. "So... we calling this good? Lachlann didn’t say anything about fishing... even if there are other rooms to check."

"Make a note and move on," agreed Lily. "We don’t want to spend more time then we have to, and Lachlann didn’t mention his friend fished... so it’s probably fine."

Kat nodded and the pair made their way back out, moving onto the next house. This one had a bunch of bird carvings. Looking at them as a whole, you could see a clear progression as the carver got better at making them. On the other hand, the good ones weren’t all that the front, nor lining the path to the door, or really in any sort of order that Kat could figure out.

In all shapes and sizes, as well as various levels of ’success’ Kat could see them scattered all around the place but... why? They were all sorts of sizes as well. A particularly large bird that looked a bit like a crane sat next to some unholy cross of a bee and a hummingbird... while one further step down, a beautifully carved peacock-like bird.

Its body was wrong for a peacock, but the stunning feathers that made up its rear plumage were on full display, and it didn’t LOOK like a monster bird. Each individual feather looked almost like they’d been turned to wood instead of carved. The level of detail was unreal... unlike the hummingbird thing that didn’t even really HAVE feathers. Was this person just obsessed with birds?

The answer, was yes. Definitely yes. If the outside had a lot of birds the inside had... perhaps not more but the ones inside were packed far more densely. The layout was a bit different, but the sitting room on the right was filled with shelves and shelves of bird carvings just everywhere. The door on the left seemed to be a storage room... for more birds. These ones though were all embroidered. Just, stacks and stacks of them filling the room, with bins of more thread at the bottom.

Leaving that aside, the pair walked further into the house where it curved to the right and opened up into a kitchen and... a dining room? Sort of? The kitchen had all sorts of bird additions, not just carvings and embroidered things, but also poles for birds to rest on, bird nooks, and a few water bowls. On the other side of the room, massive cage. The iron rails weren’t anywhere near close enough to keep the birds inside... if anything, it seemed to be more for marking space.

And inside? A woman rested on the ground in a meditation pose. A bunch of birds surrounded her, some resting on her body, while others rested on nearby logs threaded through the cage. She seemed... at peace. Frozen there in place. Kat... didn’t know what that meant. Every creature inside that cage was frozen... did... that mean they were dead? Kat swallowed hard. After a moment she stepped into the cage via her water transformation and gently placed a hand on the woman.

There was no pulse of course, even if she wasn’t dead she WAS frozen in time. Still... Kat knocked on her neck a few times, then slapped her hand. Basically just... trying to get a reaction. Lachlann had woken up when they approached but... whoever this is produced no such response. "Do... do you think she’s meant to be dead?" asked Kat.

Lily chewed on that question. It was... oddly not eery. The woman that was. She seemed... so at peace that you just couldn’t think of her that way, or rather, you couldn’t be sad for her. With the light creeping in from the windows, and her clear love of the birds in her life around her... which really did make it weirder. "I want to say yes... but all of the birds also ’dying’ at the same time? I... my guess is she cast a spell or something but..."

"Yeah," agreed Kat. "Do... we mention this to Lachlann?"

Lily shrugged. "I don’t know? I guess. It’s weird enough to report... even if she’s clearly not the wood carver."

"Yeah, too interested in birds and knitting... hopefully she has some peace. Well, that or she’s fake. Do you think Thyme would pay someone to sit in a bubble of frozen time for weeks on end?" asked Kat.

Lily shrugged, "Maybe, maybe not... but why does it need to be that long? Thyme only REALLY needs to do it when someone is near this house."