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

--- Kat ---

Kat let out a sigh as she was teleported away. After Lily and Marigold had won a bunch of permanent finish lines had popped up all over the place. Kat had booked it towards one and… a flash from behind Kat was March strode out, clearly she'd managed second place, or perhaps third depending on how things were set up. 

In the room, Burgandy and Burnice had disappeared but Mint was still around and Thyme had arrived as well. For some reason Thyme was pretending to be a monkey, hanging upside from their tail and everything. Kat decided not to question it too much as she walked over towards Marigold and Lily. 

As soon as Lily spotted her, she jumped straight into Kat's arms. "I see how it is!" wailed Marigold with fake sadness, "You just use me for the win then go right back into the arms of that demon temptress! How can my heart recover from this betrayal?" 

Lily transformed in Kat's arms and a slight adjustment later she was in a bridal carry. Lily reached up and kissed Kat long and hard before separating and saying, "I'm afraid it was never to be Marigold. My heart has, and always will, belong to my beloved demoness. She promised me power and forbidden knowledge and I just couldn't say know," 

Kat rolled her eyes as Marigold 'collapsed' onto the floor, hand over her heart. "Oh, woe is me. Destined to be alone and unloved now that I have been abandoned so! Never again shall I trust anyone! It would be too painful," 

This is when Vanya appeared at Marigold's side and kicked her right in the boob. "Nothing is too painful for you, you overly dramatic masochist," 

"Then why are you giving me the pain I desire?" asked Marigold, "Surely it's better to leave me to wallow in sadness!" 

Vanya rolled her eyes and smiled, "It's your reward for winning you idiot. As much as it galls me that you won by teaming up with Lily, it was a smart play and you DID come in first, so I have to reward you somehow," 

"Ah my love, I shall never stray!" cheered Marigold. 

"Were you not just talking up Lily?" asked Vanya dryly. "About how you will never love again after the pain of such a betrayal?" 

"Ah it twas but a passing fancy, pay it no mind," said Marigold as she stood back up and pretended to dust herself down. After a moment the pair broke out into laughter and shared a kiss. "Seriously though, how was my acting? Did I manage to properly sell my heartbreak and devastation?" 

"No, three out of ten. You were completely over the top with it and you had to fall to the ground and hide your face to prevent everyone else from seeing the massive smile you've been rocking the whole time," stated Vanya. 

"Boo! Too harsh!" whined Marigold. 

March just rolled her eyes and strolled over to the couch, sitting down on it heavily. She was waiting to see what Thyme was up to. Kat and Lily had a similar idea now that Marigold had finished her skit, so they moved over to Thyme and waited for them to speak. 

"So, congrats on the win Marigold and Lily. Technically speaking Marigold should have come first, leaving Lily behind, who would then have come second assuming she touched the platform before the finish line moved. Though, depending on how things interacted it might have stayed in place considering, well, Marigold finished. Of course, this is all unofficial, and I likely would've called it a tie anyway, but I felt it was worth mentioning," said Thyme. 

"Isn't this something you thought of?" asked Lily while still in Kat's arms. Being part cat meant her back was perfectly fine draped over Kat's arms. "Why did the teleporters work on two people at a time then?" 

"Ah well, that gets into the design decisions behind the obstacle course… which… hmm as long as you promise not to share it with any other contestants I can tell you. Not the ones here, the other tournament brackets that is. This is the first to happen," explained Thyme. 

"Sure, I promise. Not like I'll be in this dimension all that long, and I don't even know who I'd tell," said Lily. A round of similar promises followed and Thyme nodded in acceptance. 

"Right, well in this case the teleporters work on two people because in the planning stages I had assumed that everyone would start to converge on the leader. With a relatively clear path forward, even with some movement, it would've been easy to follow whoever was in front and eventually fight. 

"It was assumed that you'd have either one or two front-runners with the rest of the contestants following up behind and then fighting until someone lost, or was thrown off the side, before they would continue forward taking the top spot for a while. Alas… that really didn't happen. There were a lot fewer fights then I was imagining when I designed this whole thing. 

"As for why the teleporters work on two people? Well it's so that if you're fighting someone and you're close enough you can keep fighting even after teleported or trapped in one of those question boxes. It seemed like an elegant system to me. Not sure how I feel about the team-ups though. It makes determining a proper winner a bit difficult, but I do like the sportsmanship. I'd probably have allowed it because that's sort of theme with this round… but I'm not sure I'd let it slide in other ones," 

"Hey so, actually, what was the plan with this whole thing? I know you want to do resorts, but what about all the games? What were they all testing?" asked Lily. 

"Ah that's easy. I won't go over my ideas behind the final day until tomorrow night, but I can talk about the rest. The first set of games was intended, at initial design conception, to be ones that anyone could play and that scaled well. Possibly even well enough that mortals could compete with higher ranked people. 

"Twister was the only real success there. Table tennis was close, and the fragility of the bats made for a wonderful balancing mechanic. Originally I just made the rule 'no breaking them' because I didn't want to be personally called on to provide infinite replacements, or enchant it a bunch and require the players have enough mana to keep them solid. 

"In the end though, it added a nice layer of challenge that allows higher and lower rank players to play against each other without it being a complete stomp. Mortals do still suffer a bit but… eh, you can't please everyone. So Table Tennis and Twister will get rolled out to the public once the tournament is over. It should be a big draw.

"Dodgeball, I will say, was a complete failure. I just couldn't find a way to scale it up properly for harder difficulties. I mean, even with my powers of space manipulation and balls that exploded if you didn't handle them with care… it was still relatively easy. Not completely easy, but for Rank 2's? Horribly easy. Doesn't scale at all, and yet much too hard for Rank 1's and mortals.

"As for the second days… that was more for people of the same Rank. The idea with them was to have multiple areas around the resort blocked off for… well I hadn't decided if they should be say… 'the log chopping area' or 'the Rank 2' area. Both ideas have there benefits. Anyway, because it's all outside there's a lot more space… yes, I see the looks on your faces. Sure it's not a problem for ME but I want this to be something other people can run and maintain so I can't cheat too much. 

"Now, those games were mostly 'what you see is what you get'. A daily sandcastle contest, not sure if that one should be separated by Rank, but the rest? Definitely. Volleyball… apparently takes a lot longer then I thought it would and I think I need to revise the rules on that one. It took too long and water users have a massive advantage. I was mostly just worried about earth or ice magic but apparently, I wasn't thinking properly. 

"The log chopping was nice. I liked the balance of speed, and creativity it introduced. I do wonder if people would enjoy it more if it was a simpler challenge, but I can always set up a normal station for that sort of thing without much effort. I didn't think much of it at first when the idea was pitched to me, but it was a surprisingly popular idea once I asked around and explained it a little. Plus, easy to set up, even the more complicated versions, so on the list it went," 

"Today's are… well two of them are more complicated. The skydiving one was simply something I thought was fun, but I'm not sure if it will stick around because it was harder to set up then I thought. Perhaps with time I can R&D a good way to summon those rings, but perhaps not. As for the obstacle course and the flying machines? Well…