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

— Kat —

“There are some other minor details about the bands that might come up later but for now,” Thyme placed the bracelet back with the rest. “Let’s talk a bit about these balls. They’re the main feature of this survival island and keeping yourself stocked up with them is going to be important. I suggest, if you don’t already have one, finding a way to acquire a backpack of some kind…

“Because these orbs come in a few sizes. The smallest ones,” Thyme pulled out a small glowing orb about the size of a marble “Give you one extra hour of life. Above that you have…” Thyme curled a hand over the ball before taking it away to reveal one the size of a golf ball. “These ones are two hours,” Thyme waved his fingers over the ball and it grew in size until it was about the same as an orange “Three,” Thyme spun the orb until it was the same size as a rockmelon “Four,” Thyme slapped the orb shattering it and letting it scatter… only to take out a soccer ball sized orb from behind is back. “Five…”

Thyme ended it off by placed the orb done and sneezing… only to reveal a large orb about the same size as a watermelon. “And these final ones that refill a full twenty-four hours worth of charge. Keep in mind your bracelets can only hold up to forty-eight hours of charge at maximum AND they can go into the negatives. So no waiting until a few minutes before the end of the day and topping up with just an hour or two. You’ll need to overcome all of your negative time first before you’re safe.”

Thyme noticed that a few people had raised their hands but Thyme made a slow downwards motion with their hands. “Calm, I’ve still got plenty to explain, we’ll get to any questions later. There is no rush. Despite pulling you away already, you will have the entire rest of the day to plan things out before being sent into things early tomorrow morning. Though do note that I will not be answering any questions alone. Either everyone hears the answers or nobody does,”

Thyme eyed the contestants for a bit more until everyone settled back down. “Alright good. Now, these orbs are a somewhat limited resource but they do regenerate. There are certain fake magical implements that will recharge them, alongside direct access to sunlight. They recharge at roughly half the rate of time passing while exposed to direct sunlight… but if you put them too close together a lot of that be lost.

“Each extra orb will split the charge into thirds. With one half going to each orb, and the last third simply going to waste. It means that keeping any number of orbs together and hoping they’ll recharge much if at all is a fools errand… but that doesn’t mean they’re gone for good. If an orb is sufficiently damaged, it will shatter!”

Thyme tapped the orb a few times until it cracked lightly remaining intact. Thyme then kept tapping as the cracks spread and suddenly the orb shattered, the pieces disappearing soon afterwards. Thyme then summoned a grandfather clock that quickly spun through the hours and soon afterwards the watermelon sized orb he’d destroyed returned, glowing as well. “If an orb is shattered it will return a random time later, with it taking at least twelve hours, and no more than triple the time it contains after that. So… for the little ones fifteen hours is the maximum but for the largest orbs it could take over three days to return. It’s a risk you might want to take… especially because they’ll be returned to place they were originally found.

“We’ll get more into a brief overview of challenges later but for now just know that if you needed to perform a task to get the orb the first time you will likely need to repeat it on your return. Not always, and most of the time these challenges will be changed slightly but not always. Plenty of orbs will simply be scattered randomly around the island where you just need to notice them. Those will be right where you left them, free to grab after an appropriate amount of time has passed.

“But…” Thyme suddenly snapped to look at everyone. A pair of glasses and a fake moustache appearing during the motion. “When these orbs reform they let out a large burst of light. It won’t travel forever… but if someone just so happens to be around that DIDN’T know about the orb beforehand? Well… now they do!”

Thyme brushed their hands for a few moments as the orb vanished when Thyme glanced away. “Still… you might be thinking that this doesn’t sound too hard and maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m being a bit to easy on you… well… there are a few surprises in store that means I disagree with you… but they’re surprises so we’ll save some of them for later.

“One thing that isn’t a surprise though? Is that this whole thing is taking place on an artificial island. Personally raised from the sea floor by me and a team we put together just for this! Moved a bunch of problematic monsters here just to make sure they weren’t bothering anyone important,” Thyme gave off a smug grin. “There’s also the fact that it’s called the ‘Island of Seasons’ for a reason.

“The island is split into five sections, and while the weather will be changing far more rapidly then could ever be natural, each of the four sections will represent a season. So the winter area will be more prone to ice and snow, while the summer area will be more inclined to scorching heat… but what’s this? Didn’t the beautifully handsome dryad say there was FIVE sections not four?

“Well that’s because after your first week of surviving on the island, if any of you are left, I’ll be opening up the centre biome! A place of madness and riches for you to fight over. Inside there you can find one of these!” Thyme pulled out a chunk of stone that looked like it was cut from a rock wheel. “It’s a piece of an ancient wheel,” Kat felt her eye twitch but ignored it. Thyme was setting the scene not breaking real artefacts. “If you can find all the missing pieces, put them together… and then enshrine them in the centre of the middle biome?

“Then your team will automatically be crowned the winner! Be warned, there are actually two complete wheels worth of debris. So just holding onto one piece won’t necessarily mean that you’re safe from this victory method… but they do NOT respawn when broken. If someone goes around and throws them all into the sea then you all might just be stuck on the island for a long, long time,”

Thyme fell backwards as if swooning until they fell behind the table and popped back up wearing a widows garb, complete with black veil and dress. “Still… there might be ways to change things… to… to preven the worst,” Thyme clicked their fingers and a treasure chest appeared. It had intricate vine designs on them and a comically large keyhole at the front.

“If you find one of these chests, you can use the items inside to alter the rules! Chests are rare and so are the keys! You can use any key to open any chest but only ONCE. Regardless of if you like the contents are not the key is gone and the chest is considered ‘used’. Inside you might useful items… but what you’re really looking for…”

Thyme turned their finger into a key and jammed it into the lock, forcing it to click open. Inside Thyme pulled out a weather looking scroll with two of bars through the middle. “A scroll of change! These here can introduce new rules, or change old ones! When holding the scroll you must shout ‘I ACCEPT THIS CHANGE’ to alter the rules. A lightning strike will slam down on your location revealing it, but doing you no damage.

“If you don’t like the change, you can either say ‘I REJECT THIS CHANGE’ causing the scroll to catch fire and turn to ash… or simply hide it away. That leaves it open for someone else to find it of course… but you might not want the change immediately, so perhaps it’s worth keeping it around? You can try destroying it yourself… but I doubt anyone here can manage it,” Kat felt her eye twitch as Thyme glanced in her direction.

Thyme continued without missing a beat, “These changes ARE impactful. Perhaps your bands will drain twice as fast, maybe the orbs will no longer respawn. Perhaps not even enemies can get close to each other without their time draining away! I’ve made thousands of these scrolls but not even fifty have made it into the various chests around the island so not even I know what their effects will be! Even with an ‘instant win’ disk on the field these chests might be the single most important thing to search for! Well, alongside their matching keys that is…”

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