D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad Chapter 2346 The Remains

--- Lily ---

It turns out exploding out of your body as a form of rapid regeneration is a really poor way to leave behind ingredients. It’s even worse if ’someone’ had rotted away large chunks of the corpse as an attack. It was annoying, but did make some sense. Why spend any energy at all to keep the old body alive. The monster had somehow pulled EVERYTHING from the larger versions of itself to try and be as strong as possible even when it was smaller.

Appoline theorised that the smallest snake would’ve had a LOT of magical punch to it... if Lily had instantly killed the thing before any of its magic had been able to settle. Of course, the other side of the coin was that they might not have been able to kill it had they given it any time. Maybe it would’ve developed super speed or been able to tunnel through the mud like it was water or something.

Whatever the case, the two corpses they examined where they fell, and the final one back at the portal were all useless. However, that poking around did lead them to find something. Wiggles was tapping his foot in what looked to be a normal patch of grass outside of the ruins... but Wiggles was being pretty insistent about this, so Lily and Appoline made their way over, not letting the portal distract them just yet.

Once they were clearly giving him their full attention Wiggles started to drag his foot along the ground in... oh it was a square. He was outlining a square. Appoline caught on before Lily did, as she was simply more used to the idea. "Lily, can you dig down in the square Wiggles is outlining? Just a tiny bit if you please,"

Lily nodded and her shadows plunged into the ground... and then slid over a bit, digging in further. There was something there... and Lily was able to drag her shadows around into the square, or at least three sides of it. Though by this point even she’d worked out what this was. A trapdoor! Ripping away the grass revealed a very dirty trapdoor with rusty looking hinges. Even still, Appoline was able to bend down and throw it open with only slight creaking. Apparently the rust hadn’t fully ruined the hinges just yet.

The same could not be said for the ladder or staircase that had once been there. It was unclear which it even was once upon a time as all that was left now were some rotting splinters and the stone was covered in vines, hiding whatever impression the stairs might have made if they were in fact stairs. Still, it wasn’t a big drop and all three of them were perfectly capable of making it down.

Appoline then practically teleported over to the centre of the room was it was revealed that this place was an old alchemist’s lab, complete with a series of cauldrons and old potion stocks. "Huh, this doesn’t make sense..." mumbled Appoline as she examined the shelves with glowing potions on them.

Lily could already recognise the health potions... and maybe a water breathing one? The rest she wasn’t sure about it. Transforming to ask, Lily said, "What’s wrong?"

"Well, these potions here SEEM like they were just made... perhaps a week ago," explained Appoline.

"Clearly they were under a stasis enchantment," commented Lily. It was an easy conclusion to reach... but Appoline was shaking her head?

"No, can’t be. You see, potions can be stored like that long term but there are subtle signs when something like that is done. None of these have been under any kind of time enchantment recently. I mean, the runes I can see on the shelf seem like they could’ve been for a stasis enchantment, I’m no expert...

"But I can sure as shit tell you that with more than half of them broken due to cracking wood they wouldn’t be functional. Except, how did the wood crack like that if it was meant to be frozen in time instead of burning out?"

"Ah... not sure..." *"... but they’re still good right? What are they?" asked Lily.

"Well, you can probably recognise the healing potions across the bottom shelf," Lily nodded as Appoline continued. "Then above that we have water breathing, bounciness or high jump depends on what you want to call it, alongside... I think that’s a regeneration potion and lastly a poison meant to give you horrific stomach cramps."

"Wait what? One of those things seems not like the others," commented Lily.

Appoline shrugged, "Might be a way to combat thieves? Could also be a failed potion to help with menstrual cramps. Hard to say just by looking at it. Seems remarkably stable for a failed potion, but I suppose it’s not like the effect is hard to produce nor is it all that strong at the end of the day..."

"Horrific stomach cramps FEELS pretty strong based on how you described them, as you know, horrific," commented Lily.

Appoline shrugged, "Oh if you were a mortal the pain would be crippling... but that’s the thing it likely will only work on mortals. Your own muscles are too strong for the effect and mine would likely resist most of it as well. It’s why I said it might be a failed product, as if it IS meant to prevent thieves by mixing in something that could cause issues if you drink it... well the issues might not even show up if they have a decent amount of training."

"Alright... is there anything else worthwhile here?" asked Lily.

"Nope," stated Appoline. "The cauldron is worse than the one I have and the only ingredients that aren’t rotting are for some more basic healing potions and really, I could stumble blindly through the woods and find more of those. Still, might as well take all but that one potion. No reason not to."

"Not worried about the alchemist coming back?" Lily mused, but honestly wasn’t counting on it. There was plenty of evidence to say they wouldn’t... and Appoline was about to list them off.

"I can tell you’re just poking at me, but to go over everything? This cauldron hasn’t been used in at least a decade, the ingredients are about as old, the grass growing over the trapdoor might’ve been potion generated but the door underneath looked like it had been buried for that same decade, there is of course the giant snake... oh and the fact that the house is rubble," listed Appoline.

Lily shrugged, "Yeah I had the same thoughts but I did have to ask. Is there anything we want there? Any equipment?"

Appoline shook her head, "Nothing fancy here. Just a few spare bottles which I guess I can take,"

Appoline finished looting the cupboards and then the group made their way back upstairs. Even just those few extra minutes saw the corpse of the snake decay further. It seemed like it had been rotting away for weeks though thankfully the smell wasn’t as bad as it would be if that was truly the case. Clambering over the more solid sections to avoid ending up in decaying snake guts, the group stared through the portal. It had a clear, expansive lake going across it. Somewhat familiar but... hopefully not the same one as below.

Stepping through, Lily had to breathe a bit... and the other two had to breathe a lot. Wiggles managed to recover pretty quickly, and might be using some magic to cheat. Appoline had to take deep slow breaths for a while, and even then, she was breathing heavily and obviously. "I’ll be fine... probably. Potion is still working but we’re quite high up not. Much further up."

Lily nodded and turned her attention to the area they’d found themselves in. The lake was still there of course, but now they were on this side you could see it was crystal clear, absolutely perfectly clear in an almost unnatural way. What stood out even more though was the waterfalls. Somehow, they were still in operation. Floating up above the lake in a scattershot manner were a bunch of small bits of land, all overflowing with water that ended up in the lake.

And this fish! Oh the fish. Lily didn’t like admitting it but just looking at them was making her hungry. There were hundreds or maybe thousands of beautifully scaled rainbow scaled fishes that roamed the clear waters. Light shining off their scales... despite the fact that the sun was nowhere near them and even the lightning bolt wasn’t at the right angle. Oh and the whole thing was technically sideways if you wanted to get pedantic about it but that was normal at this point.

Lily wiped at her mouth a bit. Pleased her paw didn’t come away wet. It would’ve been embarrassing if she was drooling.