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

--- Hunter ---n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Meg kept picking at the food as they walked but Hunter was quickly able to decide it wasn't worth worrying about. The food situation was well and truly handled for the current residence, assuming they even stuck around. It wasn't worth poking that bear over a few fruit. Especially not when she'd just been conned into giving Meg a way to keep in contact with her.

*I suppose I can always destroy the phone or change the number after we meet up. Perhaps a bit extreme but if she abuses the privilege I have no issue with paying for a new phone, it's not as though it was a recent purchase anyway… actually does mine even still work?*

Hunter didn't have a phone in the same manner as we thought of it, instead her phone was an earpiece that projected a screen in front of her when activated. It only worked within the same universe, and had issues with communication ranges above the planetary scale but it did technically work for that.

Even still, she'd had the 'phone' for around twenty years and it wasn't particularly special to her. Just a device she regularly forgot in her drawer.

Getting into garage was easy once you knew where the open garage is. Of course Meg did offer to break her way in, but Hunter just glared back at her at the comment. So the group headed for the broken roller door and then backtracked to the dumbwaiter. Kamiko blushed slightly as she stepped in last and the thing started to fall.

She wasn't the heaviest of the group, and because of Bower's scales he didn't weight that much less… but it was awkward to be the reason it started moving.

Hunter had hopped in first, with Meg hopping in afterwards to get the spot next to Hunter. Kamiko had waited for a moment to help Bower in case he needed it… but the look of disbelief he shot her way when she attempted it was mortifying, and part of the reason she was blushing so hard when the mechanism started to lower them down into the basement.

Kamiko fidgeted slightly as she looked around, not really sure what to do. Nobody else was talking and she didn't have any questions to ask at the moment while everyone else remained quite stoic. After another ten seconds though, she had a plan. "Um… Bower… what… what do you think you'll say to the people here? Like… are you going to convince them to leave?"

Bower loud a long sigh, "Honestly Kamiko? It's going to be a fucking mess. I'm quite sure that most of them will want to leave. The idea of going out and seeing the world as it is now? That's going to be a big draw for them. They're going to want to know what else is out there instead of feeling trapped, at least I'd guess they would.

"The problem comes with what happens afterwards. The facilities here are… much better then we have outside. I'd bet they want to come back in short order and I'm not sure that's going to be possible. We'd need to hire demons to get inside, assuming the wall doesn't drop when we're done… but that has it's own issues. If you can get back in?

The kingdom, the baron, viscount, honestly it could go straight to the king.

"Really whoever hears about it is going to want in. There's a lot of advanced technology here and as has been said… I can see it causing issues for us. Not just letting people get there hands on it but if the other nearby kingdoms find out about it there will be a bunch of spies crawling around everywhere and perhaps another war. I would really prefer it if they can't get back in…"

"Um… I don't think we're obligated to like… report any of the specifics?" offered Kamiko.

"Right but if the people here leave they will," countered Bower.

"Aren't you about to go on holidays?" asked Meg.

"Yes and? I'd rather a war not interrupt that," grumbled Bower.

"Indeed, but from what I understand you not only need a demon but you need someone familiar enough with the forest to get them through all the bubbles. Would there be anyone other than you personally who COULD do such thing? And if there isn't, you can just say we disrupted something and there's no path forward that you can see or whatever.

Let them spend centuries looking for a replacement," laughed Meg.

Bower scratched at the side of his face for a few moments as he considered that. "Hmm… I wouldn't say I'm the only one capable in theory… but in practice that may be true. Nobody else quite has my success rate and the other hunters that are close aren't going to be able to push through on such little sleep. So you might just be right… hmm… I can see it working.

Sure of the kingdom trains someone up they could perhaps get in but that will be the work of decades at least and they'll probably give up part of the way through,"

By the time Bower finished pondering out loud they were nearly at the bottom of the lift and everyone new they needed to get out early. Bower first, followed by Kamiko and finally Hunter and Meg jumped together with no issues. The lift had already started moving back up when they did so but that bit of extra difference wasn't important to them.

Meg confidently strode right up to the door and then started to hit it rapidly. Her firsts blurred though clearly in a knife hand position. Hunter stretched her aura quickly over the room to help prevent the residence from noticing.

There was a soft spark then Meg switch to banging the side of her fist on the wall… then all of a sudden the door just popped open with a slight creak as Meg pulled it open fully to reveal the room behind it. Didn't take longer then thirty seconds.

"What… but… how! Did you use another ability?" hissed Kamiko.

"Nope I'm just a good lockpicker," answered Meg.

"But… but you just hit the door a bunch?! It's practically a vault door and you were able get it open just by hitting it a bunch? How… how does that even work?" asked Kamiko.

While Kamiko was busy admiring Meg's skills Hunter glanced around at the newly revealed section. There were three rows of shelves up on the wall with a bunch of empty baskets on them and a few missing places. Behind that was a set of stairs with a rather sharp incline that probably wasn't the easiest way to carry food up.

Hunter tilted her head around to see if there was anything else, and found there was. A plate attached to what was probably a pully system you get put a basket on and then, probably, raise up to the surface.

"See, 'like a vault door' and 'actually a vault door' are two very different things. Sure this is a heavy duty door but it's main purpose is to keep the food here at a consistently cool temperature and perhaps prevent some bacteria from getting in, definitely to at least slow it down.

It was never designed to stop people from breaking back out, and even then it was very much intended to ensure it never trapped people in or lock itself in place. If everyone starved because the door broke and nobody could get in it'd be a real problem. Obviously.

"So all I had to do was first short the electronic part of the lock so that it could no longer get a clear picture of what was going on. Explore more at empire

Then I needed to bash on a few different parts to make the door think that it wasn't fully extended but only partially, then I kept hitting it until the mechanism hit the failsafe which de-tensioned the lock allowing the deadbolts to slide out of the wall and the door came open afterwards.

The best part is with a few extra minutes I can fix the electronic lock and the door should be back in working order… the real question is what are we doing from here?" explained Meg.

"I would like to investigate up ahead," said Hunter knowing she couldn't get away with not mentioning it.

"Well if you're going to do that I want to come with you," insisted Meg.

"You may be quite adept at stealth Meg but my skills far outstrip yours," added Hunter.

"Yeah but it's not like we're going up against trained spies or monsters with heightened senses. It's just a bunch of nobodies that have been locked inside for ages. There not going to have the training," said Meg.

"Are you sure about that? They clearly had a fight with the robots at some point they might have some stealth skills," returned Hunter.

"Yeah maybe, but that's assuming it's even the same people still alive…" retorted Meg.