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

--- Kat ---

The turning point started slowly, and entirely by accident. Before that point it was very much a matter of trying, and usually failing to contain them in some way and just prevent more copies from showing up and screaming like lunatics.

Things changed when Meg casually threw one of the Trvis into another near to Kat. It was sneaking up behind her, and while Kat was aware of it, she did appreciate the assist. The funny thing was, glancing back, when the blob reformed it split into two people. At first Kat didn't see anything wrong with it. Just something niggling at the back of her mind. Of course there's two Trvis, that's normal.

Meg clearly noticed something odd as well and threw a few more Trvis over Kat's way. Some of them split into two… but others split into four. It was Lily watching from above with a clearer view of things. [They don't split as much! If you 'kill' two at the same time with each other they just reform as if only one has died!]

Kat's eyes went wide and she quickly started to test this, grabbing nearby Trvis and hurling them into each other. It didn't always work. Sometimes Kat did a bit too much damage to the Trvis before the throw but the pattern was clear, and Lily was right. "Killing them at the same time with each other stops them spreading!" yelled Kat.

Meg nodded, "Try getting three at once if you can!"

So Kat made the attempt, with directions from Lily. It quickly turned into a major pain. Even if three collided 'around' the same time it quickly become apparent that wasn't quite enough. Kat's first attempt was when she simply grabbed two of them and threw them into a third. Timing wasn't even close and she ended up with four Trvis at the end of it. At least it wasn't six.

Kat's next attempt was pulling two of them together and into a third. It took a lot of set it up, but two charged at her from the sides and one was close enough to her front that she could get them all hopefully. Kat wasn't sure what went wrong in the end, she slammed them together, crushing the third's skull between the other two… and sadly she still ended up with four Trvis at the end of it.

Lily did you see what the issue was there?

[Not really. I mean, I was looking and from here at least it SEEMED like you got all three of them at the same time…]

"It works!" shouted Meg. "Killing a group with each other only makes two spawn! Not sure how we'll clear out the last two but for now it does work!"

Kat glanced over and obviously didn't see anything, Meg had already succeeded. [Kat!] Turning back Kat had to doge several slashing attacks from the nearby Trvis that were going after her. She'd let Meg's success distract her and she was paying for it. Kat dodged… and of course the Trvis all cut themselves up. Grumbling Kat sent a request to Lily to watch what Meg did and report back.

Over with Meg it seemed she had similar ideas to Kat, finding ways to drag them into each other… but she was also just better on the timing of things. Meg was able to take two Trvis and throw them at a third leading to all three dying without any issues. Lily watched this several times and was unable to work out what exactly was different for a while.

Kat kept the number steady while Lily studied Meg's actions, ensuring that whenever a Trvis died it was via colliding with another one. She was a lot faster then they were and it's not as though the thing was very smart. It could talk sure… but that was really just a repeat of the same few words. Despite seeing Kat deal with copies of itself over and over it never stopped to think that perhaps charging in and swinging blindly was a bad idea.

It took around a minute for Lily to work out the difference. Meg didn't just ensure that all three died at the same time, they all had to be in contact when they died. It was actually Meg's occasional misses that gave Lily the hint. When all three died at the same time, but two of them, usually the thrown ones, weren't in contact with each other the 'merge' failed and it registered as two separate deaths.

When this was relayed to Kat she decided to start some further testing… after making sure it did work. She wasn't quite so confident with her throws and settled for just ramming them into each other. It took a few attempts to get the technique right. You couldn't just ram two into the side or front of another because the two on edges wouldn't be touching.

Instead, Kat had to manoeuvre it so that all three of their heads collided in the centre. This was actually easiest done using any that snuck up behind her, and allowing her tail to help position things… but even then it took multiple attempts to even get it down to that and the Trvis army was still growing all the while. The ones not nearest to Kat simply attacked each other somewhat incidentally which was… not great. Meg was getting quick with her throws though.

Once Kat had the technique down she started testing things. Did they need to 'die' at the same spot? Just all be touching. Once Kat was sure she knew what she was doing, Kat pulled three together, while pressing their wings together. This was quickly proved to be a failure. Wing contact, even if they were overlapping each other wasn't enough. That was ok though, the wings were only semi-solid and might not count.

Kat next tested trying to make them touch hands while dying. This proved to be a massive pain the ass. Trvis had long claws instead of nails and even just trying to keep the backs of their hands touching swiftly revealed itself to be more trouble then it was worth. Kat wasn't sure if it was actually killing them, or if the early damage differentiated them somehow but if they picked up a slight cut the triple merging would fail.

Next Kat tried for shoulders. It was… a bit awkward and the wings were definitely overlapping as well but Kat was hoping that wasn't a problem. Her first few attempts were failures, the angle was wrong and the Trvis would 'die' before making contact with their shoulders but eventually Kat managed to get a proper test going… and it worked!

"They just need to die with all three touching!" shouted Kat.

"Got it. PEBBLES CRUSH THEM ALL IF YOU CAN! IF YOU KILL MULTIPLE AT THE SAME TIME AND THEY'RE TOUCHING EACH OTHER IT ONLY SPAWNS ONE SET OF CLONES" Meg shouted. ṛâΝÖΒÊṧ

Pebbles didn't say anything in response but soon a large BOOM echoed out as a slab of stone was summoned and dropped on the pile of Trvis trapped inside the box. A bunch spawned from this of course, and Pebbles couldn't see inside… but he could sort of feel it, that there were now less inside the box. He repeated the action, crushing them all down at the same time, abusing the fact they were pressed together already making sure to dismiss the slab so the copies would spawn on the ground and he didn't need to keep building up.

This continued until there wasn't quite enough of them in the trap to continually reduce their numbers. Which was now still a problem. He was running out of mana and they weren't quite close enough to kill off in batches. If he started to bring the walls in that would likely 'kill' them before they properly died resulting in more clones not less when they died one after another instead of all at the same time.

Meanwhile, outside of the trap Kat and Meg were making decent progress on the horde. They'd definitely missed a few that could have wondered off but in the immediate area there numbers were reduced down to below fifty mostly by Meg's stellar work. Kat wasn't slow… but she wasn't all that fast either and she still needed an almost perfect setup.

Meg was able to calculate their flight speed in an instant and as such was able to pick up two different Trvis and throw them from different angles at slightly different times with slightly different speeds to hit a charging Trvis and have them still only split into two. Sometimes Meg even managed to get four of them at once by throwing one up into a lob and having it land at the impact sight. Though even for Meg her success rate when attempting four at once was less then fifty percent. Of course, she did still get the basic three every time so it was arguably still progress, or at least, more delays.

One minor detail Kat didn't have the mental bandiwitdh to wonder about now was… where did Strdl disspear to?

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