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

--- Kat ---

While everyone else was resting Kat and Lily got to work testing things. This mostly consisted of Kat doing something stupid while Lily watched and ensured that nobody got permanently harmed by the testing. The first test? Was to use on of the tents in the storage ring as a shield, to see if it would get destroyed by the sands. Good news? It managed to survive the sand quite well. Bad news? The plan was a bust.

See, Kat was strong, more than strong enough to fight through the winds. The problem was that while she did weigh more than a human of equivalent size she didn't weigh too much more and the ground was entirely sand. Once the tent caught the wind it tried to blow away. Kat simply tightened her grip straightened her arm… and was promptly pulled sideways herself.

Kat dug into the ground… but not all that far and the sand simply shifted with her. Kat gave up and yanked the tent back to safety to look it over. The material was fine, no sand had broken anywhere though it did get stuck in some places. Still… it wasn't all good. Kat was realising that walking through a sandstorm might be a bigger problem then it first appeared. She knew the winds were fast and strong, but being able to tank the sand against bare skin had massively distorted Kat's understanding of just how fast the wind was blowing.

A few more tests, each with Kat trying to have better footing simply confirmed her fears. Unless she wanted to sink herself up to her waist with every step the wind was simply too powerful. The problem wasn't that she lacked strength, but that the sand would let her slide or fall sideways. Her wings which would normally help combat such things just made it worse because they would catch on the air as well.

It did however make Kat remember the shields that they'd used when fighting the drake. Pulling one of them out Kat grinned at the large, and more importantly weighty metal construct. This one wasn't half melted from drake explosions which was also great. Walking into the sandstorm Kat found… it was ok.

The problem was that it was heavy, and while large it wasn't so large as to protect a vast swath of area behind her. Kat could barely protect herself with the shield. The wind and sand quickly whipped around and if she got the angle slightly wrong sometimes the sand will still clip her wings even folded back as they were. Which, once again, wasn't good enough.

*Dammit! The extra weight is actually nice but it's meant to be a proper shield not something to block out the wind. It can take the rain of sand all day but I could only really protect one, MAYBE two people with this… and even then protecting two people with this would be off the table for Craunch, even assuming he can lift one of these shields. Guess we're going to have to go with your shadow shield Lily.*

[Right… see… I realised a problem with that as well. The plan was to rest up in the tent. Correct?]

Correct.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

[Yeah… can we even use the tent? Like I know it's strong enough to survive the sand and the ropes are probably strong enough that snapping under the strain of keeping the tent grounded is unlikely in my books… but the pegs aren't going to stay in the sand. They're going to get torn up straight away.]

*Oh… oh yeah that's really not great. Can we dig down far enough to keep the tent stable?*

[It's going to have to be something else to test… but I'm thinking that even if there is solid ground down there somewhere we might be better off with like a tarp or something because I can see the hole slowly getting filled in with sand and locking us inside the tent. Which I'm sure you can power through but the sand would go EVERYWHERE. At least with a big tarp we bundle it all up or if we just sat in the hole it would be a little bit at a time.]

*Guess I can test that.*

Heading to the edge of the circle Kat pulled out the tent again. Just to be on the safe side she hammered in two of the steaks in the safe zone and then tried to do the same in the sandstorm. It quickly became apparent it wasn't going to work. Before Kat had even started on the second set the tent had already been blown off the ground. Kat was glad she'd kept hold of the ropes.

Kat found herself sliding away even as she tried to pull the tent in closer so eventually she gave up, jumping upwards and placing her hand on the tent proper and shoving it into the storage ring. That jump was enough to carry her away from the safe zone but once she landed Kat quickly tried to make her way back.

This quickly became an exercise in pain. She had to go directly against the wind and her footing was not stable. Putting her full effort into it just blew away the sand under her feet a lot of the time and any progress she made was quickly unmade by the fact she didn't slam her feet into the sand to anchor herself.

Kat grit her teeth and moved down onto all fours and slowly crawled along the sand, getting it EVERYWHERE and eventually making it back to the safe zone. Keeping a low profile had helped stop the wind from pulling her away but it did not help with the sand all that much. Kat glanced over at the others, and picking up on what Kat was thinking Lily raised a black curtain of shadow to hide Kat from view as she stripped off.

Dirt might not stick to her skin but it did get caught in places sometimes. Kat had to brush it out of her hair, out of her elbows and knees, the gaps around her neck. Her ears! Oh there was so much sand in her ears and Kat was really not happy about that fact. The eyebrows were a pain, especially when you wanted to avoid getting sand in your eyes. Eventually, when she was mostly clean Kat put her kimono back on and gave Lily the ok.

*Right… probably going to need to wear something else when we go out there. You might as well… or maybe not if you're going to stick to Memphis form?*

[Hmmm… I was planning to just hide in your kimono honestly but if you're not wearing it… I might need something. We haven't exactly tested how strong my skin is and if the sand here can damage me. I mean, I know it's not a huge deal because even if I'm not fine the four dragonkin probably won't be so I can use that solution… but yeah. I'll think on it.]

Kat glared at the wind for a bit. Was it getting slower? Faster? Honestly it was hard to tell. Even comparing the current storm to her memories of first arrival didn't really help. Kat had no proper understanding of how to tell this sort of thing. Even if she could slow things right down and track individual grains... she had no real sense of how much she was mentally speeding herself up which still made it nearly impossible to tell.

Your next chapter awaits on empire

Sighing Kat turned to the place the tent's poles had nearly been ripped out and pulled out a shovel. Might as well see if there was a ground underneath all this sand anyway. Kat made sure that she was throwing sand into the sandstorm, no reason to get it over everyone as she dug.

Kat was able to quickly remove sand… but not all that quickly enlarge the hole. She was trying not to take up too much 'safe' space which meant she needed to dig, at least partly, in the area of the sandstorm and it was rapidly depositing more sand into the hole. Kat found that even digging as fast as she could, the hole would fill up not too long later. It didn't really get deeper so much as it got wider as the sand fell in from the edges, then more sand piled up from the storm, which fell into the hole she was trying to dig.

*Dammit! I want to just glass this sand. I don't think I've ever been annoyed that I have icy-fire instead of fire-fire for my demonic flames… but right now? I feel pretty annoyed. If I had normal fire I could just blast this all into glass and use it to shore things up. As it stands though I'm not exactly making progress here and it's not going to protect us from the wind. We might be best just like… taking out a big sheet, wrapping everyone up in it, and running for as long as they can hold their breath or something.*

[So… as dumb as that idea is in a lot of ways… it might actually work.]

Kat took a moment to consider the idea bit more seriously. *

Huh… maybe it would Lily. Maybe it would…*