nagpurpolice Chapter 1659 Can We Get Any Higher?
Chapter 1659 Can We Get Any Higher?
--- kat ---
kat flew further upwards parting some of the low hanging clouds that had congregated around the mountains. it was harder flying then it really should be, but kat was easily able to work out why. hunter had clearly gotten the message. kat was tempted to clear away the clouds immediately, but decided to wait on it. once above them kat hoped hunter would be more visible and willing to explain what the heck was going on. plus there were sufficient holes in the clouds to see the ground if she really wanted to.
so kat ploughed ahead, water condensing on her wings and clothes as she flew through the cloud. hunter appeared as soon as the water made contact, shivering as she did so. "are you alright hunter?"
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"yes. the cold simply does not agree with me. i need to actively circulate my demonic fire to stave off some of the effects. as a lamia i am more sensitive to cold temperatures even in this form... though you may be interested to know that my alternate form actually handles the weather better," explained hunter.
"wait really? that... yeah i don’t really get how that works," said kat with a shrug as she broke through the cloud layer and quickly moved off to the side. they’d made a bit of a hole going through it and while it would be hard to make out hunter specifically it wouldn’t be too hard to see that it wasn’t just kat up here if they looked.
"i do not know the specifics either. it’s not something that always happens, but it is common enough that i was warned about it during my training. it is a shame i ended up with this slight deficit but i had other dice rolls go in my favour so i cannot truly complain," stated hunter.
kat nodded, "right well... i suppose if you don’t know you don’t know. um... what exactly am i looking for up here? i know meg told me to check how far the blockage extends... but how much of that is actually what she wants me to do and how much of it is an excuse?"
"that is... a difficult question to answer and i suppose it also depends on what you consider an excuse. meg rarely does things for one reason and i suspect she does wish to know how far the ice extends. if she can extract some sort of payment from the people here to clear the way she will," stated hunter.
"wait... payment? if meg is concerned with payment then why didn’t she ask for anything when we freed those people from the mist wall?" asked kat.
"right... well... how do you feel about that exactly?" asked kat.
hunter shrugged and said, "i don’t feel much about it at all. perhaps if they had been starving things would be different but this is merely a matter of losing coin. something all merchants must deal with over time. i see it as little different then stalking your prey over the course of hours or days only to find it dead at the end of the trail. you can either accept your loses, or try to hunt the thing that killed it,"
kat’s mouth thinned slightly, "right... but i don’t see how they can get their money back from the snow..."
hunter shrugged, "i cannot be all that certain either. i am not a merchant myself... but simply exchanging their wares with each other while they are stuck here is likely to make them some amount of coin. especially trading with the adventurers who did not bring sufficient supplies. a premium because of the crisis... but not so much that it spoils relationships with customers,"
"still not sure that’s really gaining them money... but i suppose i understand your point. now... how are we going to do this? i can sort of make out where we came from but the clouds are in the way. honestly this is a lot less helpful then i thought it would be," grumbled kat.
"ah, then allow me. please ready your ears. perhaps some earmuffs. you are likely not used to the sound..." stated hunter. kat was about to ask what hunter meant when the lamia pulled out her rifle and started to empty the chamber. quickly realising that hunter was about to load special ammo into her rifle and fire it... right next to kat’s head the succubus started to look into her storage ring.
eventually finding some earmuff, ones that would hopefully work with her horn, kat moved to quickly put them on... only to realise that hunter had already finished loading the weapon and was clearly waiting for her. feeling a touch silly for rushing kat placed them securely around her ears and gave hunter a quick nod.
hunter nodded back and then fired. a massive woomp came from the barrel as an explosion of wind came from the bullet. as it travelled it seemed to realise periodic bursts of air that shoved away more and more cloud cover revealing the landscape bellow.
kat took off the earmuffs and asked, "what the heck kind of bullet is that? or well... i mean what is that even for normally?"
"that bullet is designed to suck in the nearby air and then throw it back out. it has a few uses but the one it was originally designed for was to take in poison around the shooter and then throw it back at the attackers. it was not entirely successful with this, but there are a surprising number of situations that shoving away air at regular intervals comes in handy so i keep a few magazines of it on me. though it is not a bullet for rapid firing. one is almost always enough,"
kat nodded as she took in the ground below. the road was annoyingly nowhere in sight. even looking for areas that could potentially be the road was hard. the valley seemed to be filled with snow for as far as the eye could see, or rather as much as they could see before more clouds interrupted things. kat was struggling to find any useful information in the scene. well, other than the fact that there was going to be more mushrooms in their future. perhaps hunter could tell more.