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

--- Kat ---

Lily was shivering as they walked further down the streets, still taking more than one odd turn into what looked like a building. More and more they were seeing signs of neglect. The roads were dirty, especially around the gutters. The light from the 'sun' wasn't always present, and the streets were encased in near total darkness. Lights shone from a handful of windows with some broken into. More than one house looked like it had been crushed where it stood. "What… what's with this place?" asked Lily.

It wasn't just the view either. With her spatial senses Lily could feel that everything here was being slowly crushed down around them. It barely felt safe to walk down theses streets as it was. Nel let out a long sigh. "I suppose it's to be expected that you can feel that… but honestly? I don't know,"

"What do you mean you don't know?" hissed Lily. Even as Sue shot her a 'leave this to me' look that Lily ignored. Sue was now standing on Nel's foot and holding onto his leg and just… going along for the ride. She wasn't even walking anymore but was allowing her… assets to bounce more than they should be with everyone one of Nel's steps. For what little good it was doing her.

"I mean that it's confusing and I don't know. I asked my Master once and I was given a half answer. Then I asked our neighbours, and a number of clients and got another set of answers. Then I reported my finding to my Master assuming she wanted me to find out myself… and then I got a third, detailed, but completely different explanation then the one she gave me the first time. Discover exclusive content at My Virtual Library Empire

"So I don't really know if it's a secret, if there's something about the place that confuses people, if nobody knows the true answer but likes to imagine they do or if there was some serious misinformation campaign set up in the distant past that nobodies remembers,"

"Oh?" asked Sue before Lily could, making sure to press her chest fully into Nel's side. "Why not tell us what YOU think? A smart man like you must be getting a few ideas,"

Nel swallowed heavily, flushing a darker tint as the blood rushed to his face. Apparently compliments to his intelligence were more effective then anything else Meg had tried so far. "Well… there are three big theories that sort of all overlap with the different details. The thing you need to know before all of that though? Is that this place is OLD. It's one of the oldest districts in the Hub and might even be the first.

"That means that the people who created it? Might not have been limited to Rank 5. That immediately changes the paradigm… and because nobody in recent memory has made it all the way to the bottom of the spatial spiral? That produces a lot of rumours… like the idea that whoever made the place might still be down there. Waiting at the bottom."

"Kyaah, spooky. Hold me!" said Sue in as cute a voice she could manage.@@novelbin@@

Nel just ignored her and continued speaking. "So there's that. Now, people can't seem to agree on WHY this place was made. There's the 'it's a test' camp. The 'it was a mistake' camp, and the 'it's a test' camp, though different kind of test. The further down you go the harder it is to maintain the spatial bubble for your workshop and while the top area of the district is technically expanding…

"Everything eventually gets pulled further down. It's why you're seeing so many abandoned buildings here. They're workshops and homes that the person living in decided to stop updated the protections. Maybe they died and the descendants couldn't maintain it. Maybe they decided the effort wasn't worth it. Perhaps they just weren't good enough.

"So that's the first 'test'. That someone set this whole thing up to not only force our space enchanters to get better, but that they needed to constantly test their skills. To endlessly refine their ideas or be crushed under the weight of the space. There is… a decent amount of support for this especially because the roads themselves? They never get crushed. The person who set them up originally and made them to automatically expand? Intentionally or not they've NEVER collapsed.

"Of course that brings us to the other side of the test. Perhaps this isn't meant to be a practical test of skills but a long term social project or a test of the enchantment itself, whatever it might be doing in truth. Perhaps we can only see a little bit of it. We don't know if there's a person maintaining it or if it's all self-sustaining after all. There's some evidence for it.

"Like how the land here is always suspiciously cheap. That while the roads have never broken down they DO stop getting repaired in clean as more people move off the street. The enchantments to let more normal people visit start to unravel… but never in catastrophic ways. Certainly never to the point of exploding. It's all just a bit… convenient.

"Though some people really do believe it was a mistake. That the person who set this all up thought they were smarter then everyone else and they could do the impossible. Make a self sustaining and infinitely expanding area of space and only sort of managed it. Sure technically the place is infinite but it gets really hard to move around in the true depths of this place without some heavy duty enchantments to protect you. Though once again…

"Is that by design or accident? Nobody can agree on it one way or the other and I'm personally not to sure what I think. Though… the person we're going to see makes me wonder," finished Nel.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Kat.

"Eh… well you never know what to expect with them. My Master has given them half a dozen names over the years, and the few times I've visited they always look different. I'm guessing they're a shapeshifter but it could all be illusions. It's not like I know how to enchant anything to see through them yet. Heck they don't even keep their gender the same. Nor their voice," answered Nel.

"Anything they need to know when talking to them?" asked Sue.

Nel shook his head, "Nothing I can tell you. They act completely different every time I visit, but I mean… I've only visited four times so far which isn't exactly a huge sample size…"

After Nel trailed off things got quiet for a while. The streets got darker and more distorted for everyone not just Kat. The paths they took started to get weirder, with Nel taking stares upwards only to immediately turn around just before reaching the top… and yet still ending up in a completely new place.

They passed a few plots of farmland that looked to be overgrown as well as a whirlpool that was just… existing in the middle of one of the streets. The sky turned pink for a bit but honestly that was mostly just something the group shrugged at and kept going. Compared to everything else it was fine.

When they finally got to the place Lily was constantly glancing around. Visible, even to the others were jagged cracks in space that seemed to come out of the wall at impossible angles and looked ready to skewer anyone that moved off the path. At the end of said path was a forge, a jewellers desk and a pile of discarded rings all just sitting out in the open with what looked like a woman hammering away at the forge.

She wasn't wearing much and was comparable to Sue in appearance. This was… probably intentional because the first 'she' did was run over to Nel shouting his name as she latched herself to the leg opposite to Sue. The two seemed to star at each other few a few, silent seconds as Nel failed to work out what was going on.

The two perverts nodded to each other and the woman smiled, flicking a ring out of her cleavage at Kat and Lily. "There's your ring. No stop bother me, I've got a hunk to seduce,"

Kat looked down at the ring she'd just caught. "Um… aren't we meant to pay for this?"

"No, now fuck off," said the woman.

Kat glanced at Sue who smiled and said, "Don't worry Kat. I'm quite sure that I'll find a way to catch up with you when you finally manage to exit this place. I won't delay the group outing… much…"

Kat glanced at Lily and they both decided together that it was probably best to leave. It was a bit like abandoning poor Nel… but the guy wasn't complaining and Kat didn't really know him. Plus she couldn't just let Kamiko stay and watch! That would be… immoral or something.