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

--- Lily ---

Lily hadn't managed any further major breakthroughs while playing with shadows but that was fine. Especially right now. Every team had gathered in the lounge area the inn had. Thyme had remodelled it a slight amount for the announcement, with a few normal chairs being added. Lily was enjoying the chance to sit on Kat's lap… and she'd even decided to stick to her human form.

It wasn't necessarily more comfortable… but it did feel more properly intimate.

Lily wasn't going to say she was ready for anything crazy. Even just sleeping with Kat in her human form still seemed a long way off… but despite her worries Lily wanted to push forward a step. So she was abusing her new bodies more mobile spine to mould herself against Kat in the beanbag chair they'd commandeered.

No she didn't have courage solely because in Memphis form she couldn't see over the stuff in front of her. Not at all.

Thyme walked up on stage in… well in some ways it was a normal costume but for Thyme it seemed so strange. Thyme looked overweight for once, with a suit jacket that seemed to be straining at the seems. The pants Thyme had chosen looked like they could fit both Lily and Kat in just one of the legs. Then there was the hair.

Thyme had a very clear wig, that you could've easily spotted in the dark, let alone as it was now. Half falling off while Thyme looked like they were sweating buckets. Mint was even trailing behind with a mop.

"Right, I would normally speak appropriately for the disguise but that feels annoying and like I'd be taking the joke too far. Obviously things got… a bit hectic in regards to the runner up. It's become a whole big thing, and despite not wanting to go to royalty to get things straightened it became a massive shitshow.

"I'm not even entirely sure why. I suspect that there's some political game being played that I missed… but the only reason it worries me is that my royal backup didn't seem to know what was going on either. Perhaps it's some new grunge flaring up, perhaps someone is messing around in the shadows.

"This is the part where I'd complain about the lack of sleep from being awake so long, but being a dryad means I don't have a normal sleep cycle and even then, I tend to sleep very little compared to my pears… and when I do need sleep I cheat with time magic to make it seem like I didn't need any. So honestly I'm just playing it up at this point.

Mostly for my own amusement… but also to give an excuse to let you all know a bit behind the curtain…

"Because I'm not talking about the tournament committee or trying to influence major political decisions using my position as the one running the tournament this time around. Nope I'm just taking the chance to show off my new look and explain it a touch. RIGHT?" said Thyme, massively enlarging their eye to wink at the crowd.

*Well that couldn't have been any less subtle if Thyme had broken out the neon lights. How much of a worry do you think it IS for us?*

[Hard to say? I imagine it'll be completely meaningless for us unless we get summoned specifically to deal with it… but Thyme isn't really providing any details here Lily. It's just a blanket 'weird political stuff is going on in the background' and not only do I not have the political grounding to guess what that means… I don't have the cultural or historical one to guess either.]

*Ah… yeah sorry. I'm not sure why I expected you to have an answer*

[Do I need to get you off of your apology train again?]

*No?* Of course, despite Lily's answer the temptation to find excuses to apologise until Kat started embarrassing her was tempting. Sadly for the horny part of Lily's brain, before she could get too lost down that road, Thyme started speaking again. "Right, now that you've all had time to get over the shock of my outfit…" more than one person scoffed in background, "I can go over the final verdict.

"After considerable discussion, and I do mean considerable I even brought out some time magic for this… Blue has been declared the runner up.

I'll go into it later… but March has also been awarded one free treasure pick for her team… and it was later agreed on that I'd offer EVERYONE the chance to purchase one of the treasures at half of the market rate if you sign a contract stating you won't resell it for fifty years.

"Now, there are a few caveats to the offer… but let's ignore those for now. I'd like to go over the reasoning for why Blue won over March. The two major factors in Blue's favour was that she happened to be eliminated last, and that she'd collected the most treasures out of anyone by quite a considerable margin. She even managed to steal treasures March had earnt in the arena.

I… didn't plan for it to be such a large source of treasure but the point stands.

"The major factors supporting March was that Marigold didn't collect any of the treasures that were nominally March's. Another matter is that she actually had those treasures ON her when she was eliminated. As Lily proved, Blue didn't have perfect awareness or control over the water around all of her items…

"That was actually the main sticking point. If Blue's collection of treasures actually 'counted' as being 'owned' by Blue at the time she was eliminated. There were other factors as well, but those four things took up the main bulk of the arguing with one taking considerably more time then any of the others.

"So… yeah it got quite heated for a while there. In the end, the fact that Blue lasted longer was probably the deciding factor because the other facts could be argued over forever… but the fact that Blue was the second last person in the area? That's not something that can be argued.

"Well, some people tried, pointing out that she went unconscious due to blood loss and that meant she lost control over the treasures, thus making them not hers anymore… but the person who brought that argument up clearly didn't read the rules before coming in to complain because I remember addressing that specifically in the book.

"Anyway, I'm getting off track. That's how things shook out in regards to the decisions. Now, what does this mean for the prizes? Well, originally I was going to hand them out in a different way but I've scrapped that idea. The new setup is in the basement. I've got ever single treasure on display with their name on it.

They will remain there for forty-eight hours.

"Everyone that is eligible for a prize will be given a form to fill out that's basically just a numbering system. You'll put in the treasure you want the most as 'one' and the least as 'five'. If you're on the same team and multiple people put the same item on? I'll ignore the entry so TALK to each other.

"At the end of the time limit, I'll be handing out the treasures based on the winnings. So Marigold's team gets first pick, then Blue's team, with March's team getting final pick. If Lily's team wants anything they'll get a fresh duplicate. Oh yes, that's something to keep in mind. I'll be fixing the items up if they've been broken at all… unless you're buying them. Then you get them as is.

"As for how the buying is going to work? You'll have a similar form and the same time limit. At the end of the time limit, I'll send out messages to everyone after the same item and we can come to an agreement as to who it goes to. Though, do keep in mind, while technically it's one per person, quite a few treasures DO have duplicates so perhaps keep your eye out for those?"

*Is that something we're interested in?*

[I'm not sure. We don't really have the money to pay for it… but we might be able to ask D.E.M.O.N.S to convert some of my money into like… gold or maybe native currency? Worst case scenario we'd have to ask for someone else to lend us the money and we can pay it back later when D.E.M.O.N.S is working again. Though… how do you think this will affect your deal with Marigold?]

*That's a good question… I imagine not much? She'll probably pick out her own treasure and then buy whichever is cheaper? Though Thyme didn't say how much anything was, just that it's half price so… I'm not sure if they'd want to buy them or not. I imagine some will be reasonably priced… and others less so.*

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