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

— Kat —

“Of course, of course,” said Weaver with a large nod of her head. “I allowed myself to be distracted, and I will miss the company… but I have the perfect request to solve both issues. You see, now that I’m… perhaps not completely free but the door has at least been opened, I can start getting to work on re-establishing my web-ways across the island. How widely available I’ll make them is another issue… but talks should at least begin.

“I can provide the pair of you… hold are you planning to continue traveling together?” asked Weaver after her momentary paused. Kat and Lily nodded, with Hedera joining in a few moments later. “Good. In that case what I can do is provide you with a connection node. They look like this…”

Weaver spun her hands over the empty space for a few moments as threads danced and started to bundle together. Soon she had a dense ball made of webs that resembled a monkey’s fist knot somewhat. The threads were thick and often looping around each other to solidify the ball and give it some heft. “This isn’t a true node, I just made it in a few seconds and it contains almost none of my power… but this is exactly what they look like.

“What I’d like you to do is take this to one of the settlements on the island and speak with the person in charge, whatever they’re calling themselves these days. Mayor, King, Emperor. Really it doesn’t matter. Just get a meeting with them and work out if they’re interested in my offer at all. If they are, you can take the orb someplace and activate it with some mana…

“But if they’d rather chat to me first, pulse mana through the node signalling me to open a small, temporary connection instead. It will allow my voice to travel through but nothing more. Keeping both parties safe from… potential issues.” Weaver shivered. “I’m still not sure how interested I’ll be in re-opening things… but I am more than willing to allow you both, I mean, you three the use of my passageways.

“If the person in charge refuses the request for a connection, simply leave the town and activate the node there and you can use it as you wish, I simply won’t allow anyone else access under any circumstances. Once you’ve completed that, I can send you off to other areas if you’re still interested. That way you can get travel around the island swiftly and visit me along the way!”

Weaver paused for a moment. “Though… I will also offer rewards for food. I should have done that before um… hmm…” Weaver glanced around. “I don’t really remember what people use for money these days… I’ll have to check in on that. I do however have a few things I can offer you. Think of it as an advanced payment for the job, if you accept, as well as an initial payment for the food.”

Weaver turned around slightly, and a number of threads sprouted from her fingers off into the distance. As they were doing so she spoke, “So… I have some old armour and weapons but a lot of them are falling apart. You’re still welcome to choose one if you want but I don’t really recommend it. I’ve also got two chests that I was never able to open and I’d be willing to hand over one of them… and I think I have an old chunk of rock lying around. I don’t know if it’s important but I never could damage it and throwing it away had it return to me on three separate occasions so I kept it around,”

*Hmmm… well that rock chunk SOUNDS like a piece of that ‘I win’ item. Not sure if we want to go for that or one of the chests. Like, the chest seems like the obvious option but we already have one and no keys.*

[Counterpoint… we can always ask for the rock piece later if we want… and honestly I think we’ve ‘claimed’ this quest chain. I’m not sure if anyone else, except Hedera, would be able to get it. This might be a safe one to skip out on grabbing, plus we can always just… you know, ASK her to let us know if someone does pick it up? Say something like ‘we’d love to destroy it just in case it’s connected to this thing but if you can’t we probably can’t either’ or something like that.]

[The other thing to consider is that, if we’ve got 2 chests we can just say one is Hedera’s. That seems pretty fair? And it means should we be offered a choice between other stuff and a key we’ve got a good reason to pick the key unless the other item is really good. Of course there is like… the armour and stuff but we’re being discouraged from picking that. Perhaps for a reason.]

*I mean we can just ask.* “If the armours falling apart… why offer it?” asked Kat.

Weaver shrugged, “I know some people really like history. I guess it’s different for other people but I LIVED through a lot of it. I’m older than I look you know. So… for me ‘uncovering the past’ is a lot more like ‘remembering the past’. I’m sure you could sell that armour to the right person for a lot of… whatever they use as currency these days. I mean… it’s either that, chests you can’t open, or a rock you can’t do much with so… I know it’s not much but I do promise to look for better stuff you might want in the future.

*OF COURSE. I wasn’t thinking about it from her perspective. The chests and the rock, assuming it is what we think, are quite valuable… TO US. To her? They’re just random junk she’s kept around that might be useful. I suspect the reason she recommended the chests is more because, in story, they survived better then the armour did and the rock is indestructible by her reconning so you could use it as a shield or something.*

[I hadn’t even consider something like that. We’ve been thinking that the orbs would surely be currency… and maybe they ARE currency but they just as easily could be using… like sand dollars. We never considered how ‘in character’ some people might be acting. Weaver here doesn’t know the chests are important to her they’re basically junk. It does make her a bit of a cheapskate… but she also isn’t asking us for anything too difficult, from her perspective at least. Just a short walk. The real value is access to the tunnels, it’s why she’s going to find ‘something better to pay us with’. Though does that mean she won’t offer the rewards next time?]

*I wasn’t thinking of that either. She might insist on us taking something ‘more valuable’ as a way to limit what ‘good’ loot you can get from her. Though… why offer two chests if that’s the case? They’re basically the same to us because there’s no way to know what’s inside of them.*

[Hmm… that complicates things. Do we really want the rock then? And if we do want it, specifically to destroy… would Hedera agree?]

*Ah that’s an angle I didn’t consider. In that case… hmmm what if we just turn this over to Hedera? I mean… I have no strong feelings here.*

[Pretty sure the poor girl will freak out but sure, go ahead.] “You want to pick something Hedera?” asked Kat.

Hedera looked like Kat had just asked her which knee she wanted shattered and seemed to be paling at a rather alarming rate. “Hey, calm down,” said Kat. “We’ve got one chest already, and we don’t really want to go for the rock. The armour… probably isn’t worth getting but we don’t even have-” Kat paused, “we don’t even have a way to open the one chest we’ve already got so…”

“Oh… um…” Hedera glanced around before her eyes landed on Weaver. “Do you have a recommendation?”

Weaver shrugged. “Honestly I feel a bit bad I’m offering this stuff. Anything even a little bit useful has either degraded over time, been eaten, or was used in a failed attempt to help me escape from my prison. All of my good stuff is honestly gone. If you want anything proper… well that sort of rewards isn’t going to come fast, sorry,”

“Ah, no, no, it’s fine, it’s fine,” insisted Hedera. “We’ll um… we’ll take on of the chests? Someone might be able to open it for us?”

Weaver shrugged, “If that’s what you want,” Weaver tugged on the loose strings she’d sent off and a few moments later two chests flew in through the window and thudded against the floor. One looked to be covered in ornate spiderwebs while the other seemed to be made of insect wings. If that had any relevance to their contents… Kat had no idea.

“Take your pick,” offered Weaver with a slight wave.

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