D.E.M.O.N.S: GETTING SUMMONED WEEKLY ISN'T SO BAD

— Lily —

Lily blinked slowly as she registered what Mint had just said. “Um… Mint this is sort of important. Like… really important,”

“Ah… sorry Lily I wasn’t… I wasn’t expecting anyone to show up so late at night and I was cleaning the inn… and then there’s the fact that Thyme didn’t have too long to explain so I was mostly coached on what to do if some busy body came up. I don’t think they mentioned contestants… like at all,” explained Mint awkwardly.

“Wait… so Thyme is caught up in something?” asked Lily.

“Aaah?” Mint intoned.

“Oh… right I bet you weren’t meant to give that away…” mumbled Lily.

“Well I wasn’t exactly trained for this,” whined Mint. “I was taught basic customer service for rich merchants and low level nobles! The higher end ones were all meant to go to other inns run mostly by Thyme’s aspects with assistance from other dryads. Plus, I… ah bugger it. I only recently got the news so it’s not like I’m properly prepared for this!”

“Ah…” sighed Lily. “That… ok, so… hmm…”

While Lily was trying to work out if she should still ask for help Mint butted in to ask, “Hey how did you find this tree anyway? Thyme was planning to add a bunch of signs that said how old each given tree was just before the round was starting to see how long everyone took to find the right one,”

“There’s so much extra mana in this one tree,” answered Lily.

“Isn’t there enchantments to avoid that?” asked Mint.

“Yes… but if you get close enough they stop working and I was going around sniffing trees,” responded Lily.

Mint gave Lily a very confused, and slightly disgusted look that she quickly hid away. “Why were you smelling trees? That’s… kinda weird,”

“Because I needed to talk obviously!” hissed Lily before reigning herself back in. “Sorry, that was… a bit much. It’s just that everyone has been jailed on false pretences and things are not great for the team at the moment. Someone is deliberately sabotaging us and we were hoping Thyme could come and glare menacingly at them to sort things out,”

“Oh… that… hmm… I don’t exactly have much authority to help there… and I’m not really sure I can call Thyme away from his current… task,” Mint had a pained look on her face. “But you guys are friends… I just… hmm… I don’t really know what I can do here,”

“Thyme can’t just pop over for a bit?” asked Lily.

Mint shook her head. “I… hmm… I…” Mint struggled to determine if she should spill the beans about the specifics or not. Thyme had warned her NOT to do exactly that… but that was for politicians and people looking for favours. Lily wasn’t that, she was a friend… but Thyme had warned her against people trying to be friendly… but she knew Lily already before this all happened.

“No, Thyme can’t,” admitted Mint eventually. “I really wish he could but… look I won’t betray Thyme’s trust in saying what’s happening… but I think you can guess that it’s a big deal. I’ll also say that… some combat may or may not be involved,”

Lily’s eyes widened. “There’s something that can FIGHT THYME?”

Mint shook her head rapidly. “I really can’t say anything more Lily. Thyme’s not at risk of dying… that’s all I’ll give you on the topic,”

Lily winced, feeling somewhat bad for wheedling that out of Mint. The poor dryad was trying but her social skills weren’t up to the task for politely rebuffing Lily. How Thyme expected the poor girl to know how to deter more practiced politicians Lily had no idea.

Of course, Thyme didn’t expect one of the contestants to come up and speak with her. He’d given Mint a stack of cards to read over that gave her a bunch of great responses and they were organised based on how friendly the person in question was being. Mint could read them with her other body and then answer with the one in the city. Plus the slightly wooden facial expression would make it harder to tell when she wasn’t paying them complete attention.

Had it been anyone else, Mint probably would’ve been fine. Perhaps more than a bit insulting but Thyme was hardly concerned with that. If they stormed off in an indignant huff that was just as effective at buying time… and if Thyme themselves needed to listen to complaints it was easy to split up across multiple bodies. Normally anyway. Seeing a large, powerful monster so close to his people’s major city was a huge concern.

Unlike what Thyme had told Mint, they were watching EVERYTHING in the area. The fight was distracting sure, but the real mental sink was the surveillance Thyme was employing in and around the dryad grove. Already he’d caught a few ‘rats’ trying to take advantage of the chaos to sniff out some things. Mint didn’t need that extra pressure though, so it hadn’t been mentioned at all.

Lily sucked in a deep breath as she tried to calm down. “Right well… Kat got imprisoned for trying to sneak into the city as a demon. She’ll be let out early tomorrow but Kat quickly decided breaking out would cause more trouble then simply waiting it out would. This is doubly true now that we know they were watching us for a while…

“But they didn’t need the excuse. A guard was told that Kat had already escaped and pinned the blame on the rest of the team, despite Kat still being in the jail cell. The charge was ridiculous and nearly avoided completely… but then the guard got hit with some sleeping drugs or whatever.

“Soon after, a bunch of guards rocked up and arrested the group for the attack and blamed the incarceration on the fact that only one of three people can look at the recordings, all of which were unavailable. So now everyone’s locked up in jail. Gareth and Kress are mostly fine but being kept awake. They tried to do the same for Green… but she just fell asleep and stayed that way. Nixilei…”

Lily paused as she tried to figure out how best to explain that situation. “Nixilei is… well technically she’s in solitary confinement and they have implied they were trying to torture her… but no real damage was done and Nixilei seemed to be having a good time messing with the ‘torturer’ instead of the other way around. I’m still a bit worried but she didn’t seem to mind and even encouraged me to go look after the others. She didn’t smell afraid either but…” Lily finished with a shrug.

“That… that’s awful. And probably illegal?” offered Mint.

“Right… but the issue is that investigating it all is going to take time. Time we don’t have because the final round of the tournament is starting. We’ve got no real hints as to who could possibly be causing these issues. Heck, we don’t even know if we’re the only team being targeted. It’s possible that only one team is safe, or maybe someone just really hates us for some reason? Like… maybe the fact we knocked Marigold’s team out of the tournament? She is an elven princess after all,”

“Marigold really didn’t seem like the type,” said Mint with some embarrassment in her voice. The only reason she wasn’t blushing is that her current body literally couldn’t. “I can’t imagine her doing this… well… not unless she was planning to have you all attack her at the end in revenge but… it seems like… not something she’d do…”

“Right I agree. I’m not saying she WOULD at ALL,” insisted Lily. “I’m saying someone else might have taken offence on her behalf,” *Though… now that I think about it… and it is a bit out of left field… but considering Nixilei’s worse treatment? Could it be Asteodia’s family? Hmm… I have no idea if they have anything to do with the region. I also probably shouldn’t mention it.*

“I… I still think that’s a bit silly but it’s more possible. Um… I mean… it sounds bad and I do wish I could help you guys out… but I don’t exactly have any real authority here. Thyme was also not wanting me to cause a scene if I could help it… but this seems pretty extreme… hmm…” mumbled Mint.

“What are you thinking?” asked Lily.

“I was thinking of pretending to be Thyme to get them all out… but I don’t think I could pull off the act. I could maybe say I’m acting on Thyme’s behalf… but if they start to challenge that we could all be in trouble because Thyme’s not going to show up to back me up. The best defence I have is that I’m a dryad… but that’s not exactly the same thing as acting in Thyme’s name. If they come here, that’s different. Thyme did claim this spot for meeting up but… hmm… I just don’t know what I can do to help without making things worse potentially. If we get caught… and I don’t feel like I can prevent that long… then it might get worse for your friends…” explained Mint with a sigh.

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