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

Hedera was running along the ground for a bit until she managed to leap up onto a roof and continue without having to worry about running into people. Hedera was watching the roof much more closely than Lily was, and she could already tell the person in question had gotten away. The ice had frozen a bit too close to the edge of the roof instead of further back where she thought the shot had come from.

Hedera was proven right when Lily flew above the roof and saw this to be the case. There was a rather obvious square in the roof that they archer had likely ducked inside to avoid any follow-up attacks. Hedera was not quite so lucky. Lily had kept flying around the roof to see if it anyone suspicious so she hadn’t stepped on the roof. Even if she had, she might not have weighed enough to set off the trap that followed.

An explosion of fire went off as the hidden runes on the roof lit up, covering Hedera in the flames. Lily reacted quickly, using a shadow hand to reach in and pull the elf out, but she was looking a little crispy. Hedera’s skin was bright red and the tips of her hair were smoking. Nothing too serious, but it was a slight concern. Lily wanted to transform and ask if she was fine... but there might be more traps and it didn’t seem safe to risk setting them off either.

Lily did her best by giving Hedera an awkward pat on the shoulder using a tiny shadow hand that was reaching out of the finger on the larger one. ”I’m fine,” sighed Hedera. ”I shouldn’t have rushed in. Can you smell the archer?”

Lily sniffed at the air... and found that it smelled mostly of burnt hair. That wasn’t too good for her. Flying down a bit Lily glided down through the hole in the roof and was careful not to touch anything. Sniffing the air she was still overwhelmed by the smell of burning hair... but there was something else. It was faint, unbelievably faint and smelled almost like nothing. Except she could detect it and it was leading down further into the house.

*That... is super odd. How can something smell like a nothing that is actually something?*

[Maybe they’re using magic to supress the smell and you can smell that? Or you can smell the absence of anything and that’s also weird?]

*I guess so.* Lily didn’t want to spend too long on it. Assuming this was in fact a trail they could follow. There was a worry they’d remove whatever was making the scent but something new popping up out of nowhere might be the same. Lily sent a shaky thumbs up back through the hole.

”Alright, I’ll wait outside for now. Make sure to grab me if the trail leaves the house, otherwise just give some sort of signal,” asked Hedera.

Lily nodded, then realised Hedera couldn’t see that so grew a second hand at the end of the first to send off a second thumbs up before diving into the house. Lily could smell that other people DID live here... but were notably absent. Following the scent trail led her immediately downstairs and to the kitchen cupboard where there didn’t seem to be anything odd. Well, other then the scent vanishing into nowhere.

Lily sniffed a few times and detected only older scents then the one she was following so there had to be some sort of secret. A small debate went on in her head for a moment before she checked the scent once again, where it seemed to vanish into the ground. The shadow under her foot changed into a giant drill and slammed into the tiling on the ground, shattering the trapdoor that had been hiding the seams among the grout.

Lily debated going for Hedera but technically this wasn’t leaving the house just yet and she wanted to see if she could catch the attacker. Charing into the secret space Lily rushed after the only ’scent’ she could spot. The fact that it was just a single straight tunnel made it much easier to follow. When she reached a dead end, Lily simply smashed through once again, revealing a ladder up to the surface.

Lily popped her head up into the alleyway near the house she’d just entered and quickly went off to grab Hedera. They’d taken long enough for them to disappear into the crowd, perhaps they’d even waited for the fire trap to go off as a signal it was safe to leave the alley unobserved. Hopefully they hadn’t gotten too much further.