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

--- Sylvie ---

Sylvie was excited for today. After the day of board games she'd also been over to visit Alice's family twice… and still hadn't met Penny's 'family' outside of a few brief conversations. Callisto and Vivian had technically been around the entire time but they'd disappeared with Hank pretty quickly so Sylvie and her friends had really just had Sharoon around to watch them for most of the day.

Alice had first shown off her collection of models, though from the sounds of things mostly the newer ones. They took up a lot of space on this big shelf that lined the hallway. Sure it was a large hallway and the shelf sat indented into the wall but Alice had a lot of models, some more complex then others. With a basic Eifel Tower that, while looking nice only had a few pieces all the way up to a rather intricate looking mansion that, if you glanced inside, had all the rooms visible and furnished, when Sylvie commented as such Alice had said, "Yeah making all that furniture was a pain,"

Sylvie waited for the follow up as they headed out into the back but nope, apparently that was all she felt needed to be said on the matter. Out in the backyard Sylvie could see a few remnants of a younger Alice. A disused swing set, one of those poles with a tennis ball stuck on them. A trampoline that was really tiny. These were all small items though. The largest thing taking up more than half of the backyard was the shed. It was quite large, and once inside it became clear the place functioned more as a workshop.

Sure, it had some gardening supplies but they'd been shoved in the back and mostly forgotten. Well except for the large ride-on lawn mower, that had its own little tarp draped over it on the outside. Sylvie thought it was a decent idea with poor execution because just a glance showed more than one hole in the tarp. That alongside no small amount of grass made her wonder how well taken care of it actually was…

Still, the inside of the workshop was cool and rather clean. It had a bunch of stuff for woodworking and more general engineering. Sylvie didn't think it was particularly safe to have electrical equipment like circuit boards and batteries around so much wood dust… but they were at least sealed away in containers so perhaps that was fine.

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The main activity for the day had ended up being one of Alice's architecture kits. Sylvie had no idea where Alice, or really her parents, had gotten the thing. It was an exceptionally complicated wooden model of a Galleon. The reason it was so complicated? Not only was it to scale and based on instructions going to larger then all of the girls… the entire thing was in pieces down to nearly individual wooden planks. Sylvie realised then and there that they'd have to build it plank by plank.

It ended up being an interesting experience. In a way it became a sort of three dimensional puzzle for them to put together. With the instructions it was only a matter of time… but with so many pieces that amount of time climbed upward and upward. When the end of the day came the ship wasn't even done. Alice promised to save the rest of it for next time they came over of course… though Sylvie herself had mixed feelings about 'getting back to it'. On the one hand, time had flown by. On the other, Sylvie wasn't sure she had really enjoyed her time. With it…

So the fact that they were heading for the beach instead was probably a great thing. Hank was taking charge and had first pulled in to grab Penny before heading to Sylvie's house to pick everyone up. He kept looking into the back and grinny widely though, so Sylvie had a suspicion that something strange was going to happen. Sure they had swimsuits and beach equipment… but that grin meant that something was up for sure.

Sylvie couldn't help but wonder if Vivian or Callisto knew anything as the only other adults on the trip. Penny's guardians weren't interested in showing up at all… and while that did meant they only needed the one car, as Sharron had begged off as well… it was still a bit of a squeeze. Alice, Penny and Sylvie were all in the middle, with Callisto and Hank at the front and Vivian in the back seating area and storage. Theoretically Vivian had the most space…

Though in practice she had essentially no foot room and the supplies for the day were taking up slightly more than the half they were assigned. It meant Vivian had to share her seat with a bunch of towels and could rest her arm on the esky that was right next to the chair. Her knees were up against her chest and it was all around a bit awkward for her, Vivian kept insisting she was fine when asked.

"Alice do you know what your dad's up to?" asked Sylvie.

"Nope," said Alice with a shake of her head, which sent her loose her flying into Sylvie and Penny's faces. Alice had ended up in the middle of the middle, situated between Sylvie and Penny. They'd been watching a movie on the back of the chairs… though Penny was currently asleep and the movie just sort of cut out halfway through.

"Do you know why the movie just sort of died partway through?" asked Sylvie.

"Not really," answered Alice.

"Why don't I believe you…" grumbled Sylvie.

Alice shrugged, "Well the movie thing is a surprise. Normally it just works. Well, no sometimes it sort of skips or dies when the car restarts or stops too long but this and that are completely separate issues,"

"And the beach trip?" asked Sylvie.

"Noooo idea," sing songed Alice. In response Sylvie just rolled her eyes and turned so that she was leaning right on Alice and pretended to fall asleep. Alice didn't seem super happy with two of her friends clinging to her 'asleep' but she couldn't really do anything to Sylvie without potentially waking Penny who was actually asleep… and chewing on her hair again!

--- Sylvie --- (Some time later)

When they arrived at the beach Callisto hopped out and walked around to Penny's side of the car. Gently shaking the girl Callisto said, "Come on Penny, time to get up..." While that was happening Hank was messing with the video player in the console to see if he could work out what had gone wrong during the trip with essentially no results.

Sylvie herself had fallen asleep at some point during her stint pretending but the slightly abrupt stop had woken her up. Opening up the door and sliding herself out with Alice behind her that just meant Vivian was left. She had to wait for both Alice and Sylvie were out to leave herself.

Theoretically she could do this by pushing the chair back down and the raising the whole thing upwards and just going out the door. In practice… you just had to push the chair back down and then slide across instead. Vivian managed it with some grace and only a small amount of complaining.

Once everyone was ready Hank locked the car… with everything still inside. The group glared at him while he responded. "Hey we've still got something cool to see first. Sure we could unpack but we'd just be leaving the equipment around where anyone could pick it up,"

"Won't things get too hot?" asked Vivian.

Hank waved the concern off. "It's fine. It's not too hot out and the perishables are all in the esky for a reason. It should last long enough for us to go see what I'm hoping to show you all and come back,"

With that the group set off onto the beach. It was fairly quite at the moment with just a few people scattered around. Hank walked passed all of them, heading up along the sand until they hit the nearby cliffs and then just kept going. Sylvie was thankful she had proper shoes unlike Hank himself. Though Alice and Penny did have proper footwear as well at least.

They spent a while climbing up along the rocks, heading deeper into the rocky terrain. There were a few moments where one of the smaller girls needed to be carried by the adults, not for lack of skill but simply due to the fact that they needed to step over gaps too large for them or reach for a handhold too high. Luckily everyone was fit enough it never became an issue.

After perhaps an hour of climbing they came to a cave entrance mostly blocked by a large rock. Hank pulled out a hardhat with a torch on it and placed it on his head. At the same time Callisto and Vivian pulled out sets of helmets for everyone else from their bags. Apparently they DID know what was going on.

Once everyone had the appropriate headgear Hank marched forward, torch in hand right into the darkness…

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