Chapter 1600 Who Are These Two Again?

--- Kat --- (Day 13 Evening)

While the other team was dealing with a bunch of yelling teammates Kat and Lily were snuggled up in bed with way more blankets then necessary, mostly for the fun of it. Lily was in human for once and happily relaxing against Kat while wrapped up in blankets all around them both. Kat was moving a bunch of demonic fire across the ceiling while trying not to make any weird shadows to disturb Lily.

Lily was mostly just enjoying the atmosphere, relaxing after a long day of practice.

At least, until the message came through. Kamiko had compiled a big info-dump explaining what they’d been up to, glossing over a lot of the early hardships in favour of spending the extra words to try and explain what the heck was going on inside of the facility. Even with most people still undecided the fact that anyone was going to leave meant that there was some cause for concern.

It also meant they, and by they Kat meant everyone except Meg, wanted all hands on deck for the evacuation.

What this meant in practical terms, is that if the drake rock Kat was watching could be secured for a little bit, perhaps with Lily watching over it, Kat was to leave it behind, meet up with Meg, and then bring them together. Apparently this worked because the one in the facility didn’t have any rock around it and Meg could reform them together or something and then destroy the whole thing.

Kamiko had gotten a bit vague at parts and a bit rambly in others making it hard to tell the specifics. She also hadn’t provided too many names so Kat had no idea how many people they’d be watching over because ’at least one group of workout buddies plus Pip’ was not at all helpful for estimating things.

Kat let out a sigh. "I can already see this being a mess. I think… I’m being expected to fly over, grab Meg and fly back maybe? But Kamiko wasn’t quite willing to put that down in writing because she doesn’t know if I can fly with Meg and the drake part they have… or maybe she doesn’t know? What are your thoughts?"

"Yeah… I’m wondering who let this get sent off. I get that maybe they’re a bit rushed but this hasn’t exactly told us much. More of a vague suggestion… and I’m not entirely sure when either. It’s missing a date see. Are we meant to head out tomorrow? Tonight?

The day after? Kamiko hasn’t given us any indication of when the message was sent even though we were meant to track that stuff.

"Which… I guess we just send a message back asking for clarification of when you need to be there? It’s day 13 at the moment… and we can tell them that but yeah with no idea how fast these messages are being delivered it’s hard to say…" mumbled Lily, unaware that due to the importance of the mission messages between the teams were being expedited to avoid issues.

Kat narrowed her eyes, "When I need to be there?"

Lily shrugged. "We’ve got that fancy wall now, the rock is super heavy and quite secure. Honestly I think we were silly for worrying about it but Meg kept us off balance and used it as an excuse to spend more time with Hunter. This way they HAD to come back here, and maybe the smaller grouping was nicer? Maybe she was jealous? I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’m really not worried about an immovable bolder getting stolen at this point and I’m confident I can protect it,"

Kat nodded along, "I agree with what you’re saying but that seems like a list of reasons it would be ok for you to come with me,"

Lily shrugged, "Just because it can’t be stolen doesn’t mean there won’t be issues. I could see monsters sitting around the rock to empower themselves or something similar. We’ve had to fight of a few waves, mostly during the night when you haven’t been working recently. There’s been nothing I couldn’t easily handle myself so far, and if it’s really a problem I can mentally call you back,"

"I’m still not sure…" added Kat.

"Well at the end of the day you’re a lot faster then I am. If I stuck with you I’d need to either ride along with you, have you intentionally slow down, or get left behind. If I just choose to be intentionally left behind as a guard it’s not a problem. Besides, if you and Meg are both travelling at maximum speed I bet you could probably get to the centre and back in a day.

"From the sounds of things they had to be really careful not to charge right into a bubble. If you can fly over them all it should be fine… and even if you can’t fly, fly, surely you can jump and glide at regular intervals. Worse comes to worst you can probably bring the drake part back here, then return for Meg if you can’t carry them both," explained Lily.

Kat let out a long sigh into Lily’s hair, tickling her ears as she did so and causing them to start flapping about a bit as a blush crawled up Lily’s face. "I guess that’s fine. It’s probably something I should test. Not sure how many logs it would weigh… but I can probably test things. Hmm… maybe I can do something to move faster with my water technique? Probably not anything I can come up with soon.

Great for dodging attacks it may be but not all that swift moving around…"

Lily nodded, "Besides we have that nice wall to protect me,"

"Lily… it’s a subpar wall at best and useless at worst. All of the things we’ve been attacked by have either snuck under it or jumped over it. Without enchantments it’s just a basic wooden palisade that you can jump over. You don’t even need your wings for it!" retorted Kat.

"Eh, but it’s YOUR wall, which means it’s still a nice wall," said Lily smugly.

Kat shook her head, "I really didn’t put that much effort into it. Just another thing to kill them time basically. I sanded it down and didn’t bother with spikes… or driving them all that far into the ground. I was actually expecting that any attackers would just barrel through them. In my head I was thinking of it more as an early warning sign.

If I hear a bunch of logs breaking or falling I could move out to defend before they started trampling the cabin or something. I actually put work into that,"

"We will have to leave it behind eventually," said Lily with a shrug.

"Yeah and I’m not too worried about that… but remember we’re sleeping here. If it nocks down a wall the whole place could collapse. Quite survivable? Sure but not a good way to wake up. I can imagine us panicking pretty majorly," said Kat. Though she couldn’t help but notice and agree with Lily’s unsaid point that it was still a shame.

Not ’too worried’ was not the same was ’not worried at all’.

Kat shook her head, "Regardless, what do you think of… well this," Kat gestured at the large amount of fiery text in front of her. "A whole hidden community that may not be hidden for long. Do you think they made the right choice with how they’ve gone about it?"

"I… I’m really not sure what else they could do. Well, other then Meg’s idea which is just… yeah. Not sure how to treat her after hearing it mentioned though I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Hunter did warn us. But yeah I mean… what else can you do?

They can’t stick around forever and if the generators are going to fail sooner rather then later it’s a tough choice but one that needs to be made," said Lily.

"And waking up Corela?" asked Kat.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Definitely worked out for the best… not sure if I’d have done it myself. Maybe waited for Pip to do so and then take advantage of it? Sort of scummy but Pip’s age is super unclear and I just don’t know what I’d decide. Corela seems to have been necessary to ensure things move smoothly along… but I’m not sure I would’ve thought of it from that angle.

Oh, and the fact she knows what a demon is and doesn’t inherently dislike them. I imagine a bunch of the shock from the whole ’beings from beyond the mist… and the world entirely’ was blunted just by Corela keeping everyone on task," explained Lily.

"A fair point… very fair point. I guess that means we’ll need to draft a reply then? Or should we just send off a ’what time do you want us’ type message right now before working out a more proper response afterwards?" asked Kat.

"Might as well do it right the first time. Shouldn’t delay things too much…" answered Lily.