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

--- Kat --- (Same day as last chapter but early morning)

Kat looked at the broken roof and let out a sigh. Apparently having all of the weight resting on just the one post was a bit too much. Sure the wood from this forest was stronger… but it was also heavier and Kat had clearly pushed things too far. It seemed fine while she was still holding it… but the fact that she was still in contact with the 'roof' was part of the problem.

"Ok… on the one hand I'm glad I waited for today to do this so I have the time to fix things… but man is it annoying. I really don't know how I'm going to add the extra support in… I really wasn't planning for it…" grumbled Kat.

"What's so hard about it? Just add an extra pole or two," said Lily. "I don't see how that's going to be hard?" returned Lily.

"Eh… it's more that I have to carefully carve out some more posts, then carve indents in the posts and in the planks I'm using to hold it up… and maybe replace a few planks as well? It looks like there's some warping there… and obviously the broken bits need to be replaced," explained Kat.

Lily shrugged, "At least you're having more success with your woodwork then I am with space magic. I want to keep at it because space magic is super cool… but I might just be wasting my time. I'm sure there are better ways to go about it. I mean, in theory.

Being surrounded by mist that can warp space really should make this easier but… either I don't have it unlocked, I'm not compatible with the mist for some reason… or I can only use the mist after I have a foundation perhaps?"

Kat grabbed one of the spare wooden poles she'd set aside before. It was originally discarded for being too small but now that she was adding more supports that missing height was a good thing. Kat moved over with the pole in hand and sat down next to Lily. "Eh, we're mostly just guarding that big rock over there. If you want to spend time working on your space powers I think that's fine.

I mean, I'm ignoring my fourth ability at the moment, I'm sure it'll come to me," said Kat with a shrug.

As she was speaking Kat got out the knife she'd been using for detailed work and slowly started to chip away at the wooden pole. It was… difficult but great practice. The wood was tougher then normal and required that Kat use more than her 'safe' strength but going above that made it very hard to control things. Chipping away at the enhanced wood ended up being a great control exercise.

Perhaps not the best, as it was still quite solid and mostly required the same amount of power but it was probably helping. Your journey continues with empire

"I get it… I just… it's frustrating because I really want to do cool stuff with space. If I could manage to make a pocket storage in my shadow we could take all the cool stuff in the rings without issue and it just… feels so much like the next step you know? Like I could somehow make my shadow a lot more if it had that extra dimension to it?

Maybe it's using space magic to leapfrog ahead to more advanced stuff I don't really know…

"But yeah the gist of it is that something in me, and maybe it's nothing proper, but I FEEL like space magic should be possible for me now and it's the best way to rapidly improve my capabilities. Heck, even if I can't get that pocket working properly I bet I could store a bunch of magically charged paper in there. My affinity with all three should make it a lot smoother and fairly intuitive…

"At least that's what I'd guess. The problem is I NEED to be able to grasp space to do that and I don't seem to be able to for some reason.

I didn't have this problem with shadows or paper… I dunno if that's because I had a better idea about them both, if I had a naturally deeper connection for reasons I could probably guess at… or if I need to be Rank 4 or something and I'm not actually there yet…" grumbled Lily.

"Well… how about you tell me what those guesses are? If they make enough sense maybe you ARE missing something," said Kat.

"Oh… um… well shadows seems obvious enough in this context. I'm a black cat and they are really good at sneaking around and blending in with the shadows. Memphis might even have some natural affinity with shadows naturally but I can't be certain about that. As for paper? Well I've always been about learning and I spent plenty of time around books growing up. The internet…

"Well it's not exactly a new invention but when I was much younger if I wanted to know something I still went to school library or, occasionally, the town library. Now googling things is so easy but before that I practically lived around books until Stella pulled me away to go do something… so I can pretty easily imagine that books and paper are imprinted onto my mind.

As for space though… nothing," explained Lily.

"Hmm… I mean that all makes enough sense to me. Though, I did think of an interesting idea. What about waiting for when we get summoned home? Or probably back to the Hub first? But the point stands. That's got to be some high level space magic and if any kind of spatial magic was going to kickstart you… I'd guess it'd be that one," said Kat.

As she finished speaking Kat pushed herself up and went over to her discard pile for more wood. Her first additional pole had come out well but she needed more… and didn't seem to have one. Shrugging and deciding it was fine to knock down a few more trees if necessary Kat turned her eyes to the large branches to see if any of them would do.

When Kat spotted one that seemed acceptable she jumped up and broke it off the tree, allowing the branch to fall to the ground. From there she carried it over and back to Lily and got started on stripping the smaller branches attached to it as well as the bark.

"So you're saying I should wait for that?" asked Lily.

Kat shrugged, "I'm not going to make you do anything… but it might be for the best? Unless Meg has some kind of space related skill. We know she has that weakness finding one, and I refuse to believe she's any lower then Rank 3, probably Rank 4… so she might have some useful powers,"

"Yeah…there's no way I'm going to be asking Meg for help with this. It's not worth the risk," said Lily.

"Then is it really worth the risk messing around with space and getting nowhere? I don't want to make you too worried… but if you mess up space here you DID say that it would end up being really bad," said Kat.

"Um… ok yes, if I used sigils… probably," answered Lily shakily.

"Right…" said Kat, not sure she entirely believed Lily. "Question though… shouldn't sigils make spells safer? Not more dangerous?"

"Um… yes but also no. Proper spells are much safer if you actually know the spell. It's… it's when you start breaking out into unknown territory when things start to go wrong. The problem is that you tell a spell to do things… and it does. It… it's sort of like a computer? It's not quite the same and there is a component of understanding and will to it.

Spells work better with practice and if you know exactly what you want them to do…

"But if you don't know what it's doing and don't put proper limits on things it might just spiral. Especially if I can't properly limit the spell to just my mana. Which is normally not too hard… but space is all around us and so is the mist. I'd be writing a sigil… IN the mist and that's more than enough of a bridge to cause issues.

It's much less of a problem with like… fire or water but space is everywhere," explained Lily.

"Ok I guess I can understand that. Why don't people carve sigils into their preferred mediums then?" asked Kat.

Lily just shook her head, "Because that's not how it works at all. If it was just normal water without much magic nothing would happen, and if there WAS magic you have to be real careful because if the spell is designed to use the medium it's written on… well it starts to break the spell circle down as the spell goes off quickly ruining the spell. Look, it just isn't practical,"

Kat looked down at the now bark free branch and nodded. "I guess that makes sense and I can see why it's more of a problem with space… so maybe leave off practicing then?"

"I'm telling you, if it's pure space manipulation with no spells it's fine!" insisted Lily.