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

— Kat —

With no better ideas, they decided to ‘say hello’ in what was hopefully a polite way. Kat raised an uncertain boot over the thick webbing before stepping down heavily, once, twice, three times before retracting her foot and waiting. They could all hear the scrabbling of legs for a few moments before the small door was stretched open and… a puppet walked out.

Whatever was controlling the puppet wasn’t making any attempt to disguise its artificial nature. It was held up by thick web strings that were going into each limb along with a few for the head and one for the torso. The puppet sort of floated down towards them until it reached the halfway mark. As it was approaching Kat could just barely making out the faint webbing that served as an alarm system being lifted up into the air.

The approaching puppet looked a bit like… well an old mourning widow. Clearly Thyme had a theme in mind for this. Though… would the joke even translate? Perhaps it was a coincidence? Regardless, the puppet was wearing a long flowy black gown that went down past her ankles… it might even be scraping the floor. It was a little hard to tell when the puppet was floating.

The top of the dress revealed wooden cleavage though not like a dryads. It was hidden behind a spiderweb meshing and the wood underneath had a layer of varnish over it that made the wood seem a bit paler then it perhaps was. It didn’t look human at all, but it wasn’t really trying. The hands weren’t hidden at all and the joints all had visible gaps so that they could move easily. The wrist even had a ball joint for a full range of motion impossible for a person. Well, for any of the races in this universe.

The eyes and mouth were the creepiest part. The eyes were just made of glass and had no life in them. It was sort of obvious why… but after seeing how lifelike Thyme and the other dryads normally were when inhabiting their puppet bodies this one seemed like a crude mockery. The mouth didn’t help either. There was a painted on thin smile but the mouth itself was clearly a large square block that could open and close on command and had nothing to do with the lips drawn on at all.

“Hello, it’s been so long since I had any visitors,” ‘said’ the puppet. The voice was sort of raspy and echoey disguising the gender of the puppets owner. Kat had no idea HOW it was speaking. When the mouth opened it did so to a blank space behind the box it had for a mouth. There was no tongue, no throat. It was just a plan wall of wood. [Enchantments Kat.]

*Oh. Right. Duh. Though… how much are you willing to bet this is a trap?*

[I’d say… it’s probably not? That’s just a guess though.] “Hello, my name is Kat, and this is Lily,” Kat raised her girlfriend up a bit. “And our companion Hedera. We were exploring the area after coming in from a long, possibly teleporting corridor filled with broken doors.”

“Oh? That old thing is working again? Those doors were cursed you know. Never to be opened again. My name is Weaver and I used to allow the communities of this island here to remain connected even through their harsh weather. Alas, someone got it in there head I was using the passages to murder people and feed on their essence so my connections to the outside were sealed and then shifted elsewhere. Perhaps to that tunnel you mentioned. Though… you say the way is open now?”

[I am suddenly no longer certain this is a trap.]

*Yeah… this… might have bigger consequences then we thought. Weaver may or may not attack us but it accessing this place may have made us into someone’s enemies. I’m also willing to bet they’ll just ‘know’ it was us ‘somehow’.*

[It could be argued there was an enchantment on the doors to work out who freed Weaver, assuming it IS free… but eh we’ll see.]

“I’m not sure if I’d say it’s entirely working,” said Kat as she noticed Hedera starting to shiver. Carefully, Kat squeezed Hedera’s hand a bit just to show it was… probably fine. “The doors still collapse easily but we were able to keep one together long enough to open the way here,”

The puppet nodded stiffly. “That is still an improvement. It will take me some time to reconnect everything so don’t expect miracles. Though… would you all like to come in for tea? I still have some supplies around. Oh, and don’t worry about the webs. They aren’t sticky so you can simply walk over them without issue,”

Kat glanced at Hedera who didn’t look entirely happy about the request. Kat shrugged and made a slight gesture to try and ask if they should go or not… but Hedera seemed to just interpret it as ‘we’re going’ as evidence by the fact she started to walk forward. “That would be nice, thank you,” said Kat before Hedera could get too far.

The puppet nodded and then retracted itself back towards the house. Stopping just before the door. “Are you both capable of reaching the door yourselves?”

“Yes, we’ll be fine,” said Kat as they walked across. It didn’t take too long and they were both capable of jumping up to the door. Hedera was good enough to aim for the door and Kat was able to use her wings to compensate for the slightly bad aim.

Inside the door was a set of hammocks hanging from the ceiling in place of chairs and a table top suspended from the roof via four thick strands of silk. This was clearly more of a lounge area though… there was a big curtain covering half of the room. The puppet moved over to the curtain and said, “Please don’t be too concerned…” as it pulled back the curtains. “They’re old wounds,”

Kat had been expecting a giant spider, perhaps an Arachne so the reveal wasn’t too much of a surprise. The wounds the puppet mentioned? Those were. Behind the curtain was an Arachne that had seen better days. Or well an ‘Arachne’ because Kat was looking close enough to see the makeup that smoothed over the wooden features that made up this much more masterfully completed puppet. This was probably Thyme acting as part of the tournament… but that didn’t mean they were entirely safe.

Had it been a real person they would be in horrible condition. A good half of the humanoid part of the spider had been completely destroyed. They were wearing a similar black dress to the puppet, but the right half of it was being supported by a fake silk limb. On the face, Kat could see the obvious scarring running downwards though most of the head was intact. Deep chemical burns marred the visible areas and clearly extended underneath the silk wrapping. One eye was covered and potentially destroyed.

The rest of the body wasn’t much better. All of the legs on ‘her’ right side had been destroyed at some point and were now in the process of growing back. Though for the moment they were exceptionally short and only about half as long as Kat’s arms… and considering the size of the Arachne that was nothing. The abdomen was covered in scars, with large patches of fur missing in certain areas.

The left side was mostly better but the front leg had been similarly destroyed and there was scarring on the human fingers that made it seem like they’d been broken in multiple places but managed to heal leaving only scarring behind.

In Weaver’s one good eye socket there was an eye with four red pupils. One large one, and three smaller ones all rotating around the first. Her hair was bleach blonde and her skin was similarly pale but considering the storyline here they probably hadn’t seen the sun in a century or more.

“Don’t stare too much, I might blush,” said Weaver in a voice almost as raspy and distorted as the one that came from the puppet. Apparently it was more due to having part of her throat destroyed then the enchantment on the puppet.

“I’m sorry… it’s just… those are horrible wounds…” apologised Kat.

“They are old now, very old… and while they do slowly heal that was never my specialty,” sighed Weaver. “The best I can do is use my magic and threads to literally and metaphysically keep myself together. It helps with the symptoms but not much else. It’s only the strength of my body and heritage that allows me to continue and somewhat regenerate. The food quality I could snatch for myself has been… lacking,”

Kat thought for a few moments. This was definitely just a dryad pretending… at the same time though… if the act was meant to be treated as real it was a good idea. “Would you be interested in a decent amount of monster crab meat?”

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