The party had quickly found themselves in a fairly difficult situation.
Specifically, if anyone saw them, Lild calmly explained that both all of them and she herself would all be put to death.
As such, each of them had needed to find spots to sleep in Lild's chambers.
"Master, I'll be right here next to you. If you feel the need don't hesitate to use me if someone," Miki looked at Lild, "does something weird. A few quick stabs and I'll take care of it okay?"
Ren laughed nervously. "I-I'm sure nothing like that will happen. Thank you, though."
Of course, that didn't stop Ren from waking up to a bang on the door suspiciously close to a certain dragon lady.
"Uh. Lild."
She stirred a little, opening her eyes slowly. "Hm?"
"I didn't go to sleep in your bed."
She took a moment to process this. "So you didn't. Look at that. Force of habit, I guess."
Another, louder, series of thumps.
"Someone should get that," he pointed out.
"Go ahead."
"I can't. You're squeezing me."
"Oh well. Someone else can do it, then."
"Lild, if we die because someone gets worried about you not answering your door, it's going to be your fault."
Val was already awake between her negative feelings about this whole affair and a little dragon deciding he was too excited to sleep. With every squeak he made, the more she felt like lighting something ablaze. Valentina loved Sam, she really did, but she really, really just wanted to sleep.
It didn't seem like her wish was about to be granted any time soon. The thumping on the door suddenly returned, much louder, more rapid, and unceasing, as if some enormous woodpecker had decided that the best use of the talents it would be using for the rest of its life would be as the world's most irritating alarm clock.
Kheire's face was blank as he sat curled up in his cocoon in the corner. "'Tis a visitor, come knocking at your chamber door. Only this, and nothing more." He turned in his cocoon to try and block out the noise.
Lild sighed. "I'm going to kill him."
Slowly, she got up, swung open the door, and roared in the face of an unfazed man in light armour.
"Quiet down, sister," he frowned.
Her eyes narrowed and her expression quickly shifted to one of an utterly bewildered attempt to deal with stupidity.
"I… You…! It's two in the morning, Elian."
"You wanted help."
"For tomorrow, bare minimum. Why are you here n… Oh."
"Yeah. I'm not about to train up the products of your mitosis for the hell of it."
"This is not how you one-up Iselotte."
"As riveting as it is watching you all sleep, are we going to train soon?" Miki voiced his thoughts from behind Lild, inspecting the newcomer over the woman's shoulder.
Elian met Miki's gaze, and then gave Lild an ambiguous look.
"Don't give me that," Lild said.
"They're fine with it, see?" he retorted.
"That one is a ghiest."
"So?"
"So he doesn't need t--"
"It was a rhetorical question. Do you want to do it now or in broad daylight?" he said. "Get them up. We're going to the waterfall."
Val prayed that Lild would answer in a way that would allow them to sleep, or even just Val, but she wasn't stupid. She knew that this was the best decision, even if her body really didn't want to move.
Sam and Zeph, however, were ready to get out of the room. Zeph, being a bat, was royally pissed when she found out she couldn't leave the room, and Sam was just always ready.
"Where are we going? What's happening?" Ren crawled about a bit, raising his head to look at the two dragons.
"Training. We're headed to the waterfall," Elian said sharply.
"When?"
"Now."
"No."
Ren rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.
"If we go now I can carry him the rest of the way there." The ghiest volunteered.
"I'm not going," Ren said firmly. "You can't make me."
"Ghiest, pick him up," Elian shrugged dismissively. "Someone wake up the bird and the bee over there too."
Miki looked down at Val, cupping his hands over his mouth, "Master, what are you doing. Stop stripping in your sleep." in a complete monotone in hopes of doing something.
"I'm not asleep, you know," Val muttered, sitting up with a baby dragon tangled in her hair.
"I would like to point out that I am not a bee, and that my insect-like traits originate from a moth." Kheire voiced his opinion on the matter as he rose from the cocoon.
Elian hammered a fist against the doorframe. "Nerd!" he yelled disapprovingly.
"How are we getting to the waterfall?" Miki pried Ren's body off the bed with some difficulty and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of rice.
Kheire was muttering about how just because his body isn't incredibly masculine and he enjoys intellectual pursuits just as much as those of a physical sort, it doesn't automatically make him a nerd. He did this while cleaning up his cocoon and definitely not pouting.
Standing while throwing her backpack on, Val made a clicking sound to signal her pets/torturers to come to her. It didn't really work, but once she acted like she was leaving them behind Sam squeaked in fear and ran behind her. Zeph just came along for the bugs.
"I hope you kids are good at climbing," Elian said simply.
Kheire waved his many different appendages, hoping they wouldn't be forbidden.
"Val, you can leave Sammy with me if you like," Lild offered. "I can get to work on teaching him a little speech while you're off with Elian."
She seemed nervous at this, but it would be nice for Sam to learn some way to talk, and Lild seemed trustworthy, even if Val only thought this because of her treatment of Ren and Sam, respectively. She agreed, and Lild moved to pick the small dragon up to stop him from swooping out the door at the last second. Sam was not happy with this.
"Come now," the dragon lady said softly. "You're safer with me than you are with him."
"With who?" Elian and Ren said simultaneously.
"Who knows?" she said, continuing to try and ease the baby off of Val's backpack.
Sam was attempting to scream a word in his weird vernacular that Val had figured out was his name for her.
"Here, here… Are you hungry? Val will be back soon, so how about a midnight snack?"
Now, that's a word Sam would understand in any language. He crawled slowly to Lild, opening his mouth wide.
"There we are. Let me see…" she tried offering a bowl of fish slices and seeing how well that went down, while meeting the eyes of the three children willing to move and gesturing for them to go.
Val grinned, tip-toeing out slowly, her back facing the door.
The waterfall was… unconventional, to say the least. Water was deliberately being made to flow down a ledge into a ridiculously deep pit, with everything being smoothly and carefully carved out to preserve its momentum.
Elian took the group a good way down it before saying anything at all.
"I suppose at least some of you are wondering what this is," he speculated.
"Do you want us to climb it?"
Elian raised an eyebrow, shaking his head and patting Miki's shoulder. "Would I want a bunch of kids to climb a several hundred meter smooth surface with massive amounts of water flowing down it at high speed?"
And, with a single shove, threw him down it into the mist below. "You're a sharp kid."
"Uh oh," Ren mumbled, but was not even close to fast enough to avoid Elian shattering the entire ledge they were on with a single stomp.
Val instinctively sprouted wings and flew, "What are you doing?"
"Nice try."
An arrow shot towards her left wing quicker than lightning.
Val crashed towards the water, her wings crumbling to ashes as she goes under.
Ren quickly reached out and grabbed her just as she broke the surface, dragging her up against a current.
Kheire slid down the wall towards the bottom, thinking that this should be fun.
Elian floated down, flapping his draconic wings, just enough that he was in view.
"To clarify," he called, "this is a water processing plant. Climb. No magic, no special tricks. If you fall and get dragged down, then… Well, you'll be in trace enough amounts to not make anyone who drinks you sick, let's just say that."
With that, he flew off again, leaving them with a thought.
"By the way, I'd get out of there before the workers start their shifts if I were you."
Ren scowled. "Son of a…"
Kheire was trying to stay stable as the water pushed against him. "How are we supposed to do this? Wings are out, meaning pretty much everything involving magic and anatomical advantages must be out too."
Miki scrambled to get a stable hold on the solid slab. "That type of person is always... interesting."
"Of course you would think that, Miki." Val pretty much growled. She then proceeded to completely transform and launch herself towards the wall, murmuring curses under her breath, figuratively and literally.
Then her claws chipped and broke at the ends.
"Fuck!" She screamed and pushed herself and landed back on the ground.
"Val, stop!" Ren cried. "You're hurt and you're making it worse!"
She just made a sound that was a mixture of a whimper and a snarl, her broken wing lying at an awkward angle and her hands and feet bleeding.
The small boy hurried over, doing his best to heal her wounds with magic.
"I'm sorry, I need to calm down," Val stated, letting her bird monster form go, where it became apparent how tired she actually was.
"It's okay. He's Lild's brother, but he's never really been a nice guy, especially to kids," Ren explained.
"I wished we still had that sticky potion..." Val sighed.
"Somehow I'm not sure he'd let us do that…"
He frowned, suddenly deep in thought.
Kheire, meanwhile, is slowly working his way up the wall through sheer strength and will. "I think we can actually do it!" He tried to shout over the sound of the crashing water, before a spark of electricity threw him into the pool below.
"Don't compare us to you Dorm Advisor!" Miki attempted to mimic Kheire's actions with no real success. He tried a different approach, leaping from the waterfall to the adjacent wall with resounding failure as he was blasted off.
Kheire fell, electrocuted, with a discouraged expression. Misteloph floated beside him, the most social of his spirits and the unofficial leader. "I am sure you can figure this out. Stop and think about what you know and what you should do to learn more about your situation." Kheire nodded and sat down, bringing out Gemma from her core. "Do you think you could give me that new healing aura?" As he pet the leviathan, a blue glow formed a bubble around him before fading from sight. "Thanks, Gemma." After returning his little friend to her core, he decided to take inventory of his possessions.
Val decided to try the same thing. It was impossible to tell if she was just wanting to one up Miki or if she thought it was actually a good idea.
What a frustrating thud that was. Failure.
Ren, meanwhile, was simply wandering around the room, examining it.
Val was now going to run up the divider. Like an idiot. Back on the floor again.
Kheire tried to scale the wall with his crafting tools, Octavia cheering him on, 「You've got it! Climb and embrace your inner spider! I had a grandmother in a similar situation, only she was much smaller than I and trying to scale a water spout…」 Kheire smiled at her support before getting distracted and falling back to the bottom. "Sorry, Octavia. It was a nice try."
"M-Maybe be careful with the electrified parts," Ren suggested. "They use them to extract ions from the water to filter it properly."
"That's nice Master. Any other obvious thing we need to know?" Miki leapt towards the wall again, this time from a dry wall with unwavering results.
"Um… The dry walls zap you harder," he said. "And don't touch the metal micropellets."
"Why don't we all just run into each other, it'd work just as well," Val sighed.
Ren considered this for a moment. "Well, it would halve the jumping distance, so if we can deal with the electricity for long enough…"
"You know what, sure. Let's do it," Val laughed, even if just because she was too tired to care.
"Not like it can go any worse than it has so far."
Ren pulled as neutral a face as possible. This was not going to work at all. He didn't have to consider much to realise that was the case.
But screw it. Why not?
"Where should we all run?" he asked, trying to give the impression that he was one hundred percent behind this idea.
"Ren, you should probably ride on Kheire's back."
Ren was about to protest, but then realised that there was no way in hell he was skilled enough to do something ridiculous like this. "As long as I don't weigh him down too much."
Kheire, abruptly lifted Ren to carry him like a sack of potatoes. His spirits were giggling behind him, forcing him to try and fight the urge to grin. "This okay?"
Ren sighed. "Yeah. Thanks. Why was I even born with legs," he pondered sarcastically in Miki's general direction.
"Maybe to distribute weight to make you easier to carry? It helps." Kheire forced a straight face before grinning where the glowing marshmallow couldn't see.
"Of course. I'll make special effort to grow a handle for you guys in future," mumbled Ren.
"Can't you use your sari to get a better hold? Like if you tie it around Dorm Advisor?"
"I would really rather we did not do that," Ren said, in monotone comparable to the gheist himself.
"...Duly noted. Are we going to try this?"
"I'm up for it if you are." Kheire shrugged, trying not to jostle Ren too much.
Each of the three took various positions around the room, Val by the water flow and Miki and Kheire by the dry walls. Simultaneously, they ran upwards. Overcoming the electricity, they managed to reach where they needed to in an instant, all leaping off simultaneously.
They flew towards each other.
Their feet connected.
Their feet slipped.
All four fell to the ground with a crash in a pile of limbs.
"Ow," Ren squeaked.
"This, was not how I pictured being in a pile of limbs being like." Miki planted his face back into the water, not trying to dislodge himself from the others.
"Urf. Miki, what's down there, anyway?"
"The processor…?"
"What does it look like? I kind of want to know. If someone holds onto me, can I check?"
Miki pulled himself out from under the others and reached a hand out for Ren. "I'll help."
Ren dislodged himself and squirmed out of his sari, taking Miki's hand. "Could you?" he asked, his eyes lighting up.
The ghiest abruptly let go of Ren's hand, grabbing ahold of his ankles and practically throwing him over the edge. "Like this?"
Ren flailed in sheer panic, having no idea what the hell was happening and freaking out just a little bit, before stopping entirely and looking at the processor with curiosity.
After a few moments, he looked up at Miki and gave a thumbs-up.
He pulled the white haired boy up with more finesse and caution. "What did you see?"
Ren folded his arms with a thumb on his chin, a posture that looked plain bizarre with him upside-down.
"It looks like a metal ring being used as some kind of alchemical circuit. There are these two interconnecting vortexes of Exin that convert everything that passes through it into pure water. That's why they remove the ions and put them back in later, I think," he explained. "That's odd, though. If it has pure water constantly running through it, how in the world doesn't it rust?"
He blinked for a moment, and then an expression of realisation crossed his face.
"Oh. That's what it's for."
"What? Please don't be so vague."
"The, uh, you know!" Ren tried to spin around in Miki's grip, pointing wildly in all directions. "That thing! In the middle!"
"You are not making things any better Master."
"P-Put me down a second! I'll show you!"
"Oh, right." he lowered Ren onto the ground and looked at him expectantly.
Ren pointed at the divider between the two channels of water. "That thing! Why would you have to split the flow in two if it all ends up in one pool?" he said, then grinned. "Choose one of the following answers. A) It does something to the water on the way down that requires it to be split. B) It makes it more cost-effective to electrolyse the flow. C) It doesn't, that's stupid."
"D) Get to the point."
"No, come on, work with me here," Ren begged. "It'll be fun."
Miki sighed, "Fine. C."
He beamed. "Correct! So, this must be here for a reason, right? But maintanence. How does one raise a circuit up from twenty metres underwater when it goes all away around the outside wall, you can't touch the inside, and you can't turn it off while it's underwater? You'll need something to haul it up, of course."
He thrust a finger at the divider. "There's a chain or rope of some kind inside that stone thing! And it goes all the way up to the top!"
Kheire is sitting to the side. He raised his hand, "How are we going to get to it?"
Ren's chest puffed up with pride, feeling like a teacher. "I'm glad you asked. Miki, give me your shaft!"
"Wouldn't this count as magic?"
"Ah. Good point. Do you have those swords still?"
"This?" He unsheathed a plain looking sword, passing it off to the white haired boy.
"That's the one!" he said sunnily, taking it. "Who's strong?"
Kheire raised his other hand. "I believe that would be me?"
Ren handed him the sword and his sari. "If we lower you down to the column, can you use that and make a hole in it somehow? As long as it's big enough to fit a chain link through, it doesn't matter what size."
"I should be able to manage that, yes. Lower me when ready." He went over to the edge, wrapped the sari around his waist, and threw the other end to them.
Ren nodded, holding tightly. "Nothing has ever made me let go of this against my will. You're in safe hands. Go for it."
He hung off the edge with one hand before falling, trusting them to catch him or his wings to help carry him back up.
Ren held tight, pulling back enough to stop him from falling further.
"Okay, all he needs to do is make the hole and drag the chain out to us…" he mumbled to himself.
Kheire stabbed the sword into the mechanism, forcing a hole open big enough to grab the chain before tugging on the sari to let them know he is ready to go back up.
Ren got the signal loud and clear, hauling back up to the surface against the pull of the processor. "You alright? Did you get it?"
"Yeah, here you go." He handed the chain to the little one.
Ren grinned with something like pride. "Alright. Everyone together, let's pull the top half and then the bottom half."
On a count of three, the group did exactly that, and something came loose. Ren slowly hauled the chain out, though not for lack of haste. Rather, it seemed a six hundred metre chain was just very, very long.
"Miki, can you throw this chain at something small or far away if you needed to, do you think?"
The brunette nodded, taking the chain from Ren. "Where do you want it?"
Ren coughed, and cleared his throat. "Uh. Elian's arm."
"Got it." Miki took aim and threw the chain at Elian.
The dragonkin hadn't noticed what was happening until it already wrapped itself around his limb.
He looked at it in bemusement, then irritation.
"Miki, quick, let go!"
Miki released the chain as if it was on fire, giving a slightly confused look to Ren.
Ren bit his lip a little, then grabbed it himself just as it was pulled hard off the ground, lifting him up to eye level with Elian.
"What are you doing?" the dragon demanded.
"Sorry," Ren said meekly, before pulling himself up and launching his body from Elian's head.
Needless to say, Elian was less than pleased, furiously aiming an arrow at the boy in freefall.
And then he stopped.
Ren had thrown the chain upwards, looping it around ever so slightly so as to wrap around the top of the divider.
There was already a loop in it.
A knot tied itself.
Ren was also falling at a high speed towards the pool. Uh-oh. Um.
The processor was still there.
On the other hand, there was someone fast enough to plead to and still make it in time.
"V-Val, help!"
Val shot up from where she stood, berating herself for not already being there. Her wings unfolded, the hurt one opening painfully, but functionally. She almost fell out of the air when Ren's body collided with her, but she pulled out of the awkward maneuver without hurting herself or anyone around her. Well, except for Elian, he got slapped with a wing. This did not help their current situation.
Ren quickly found himself clinging to her, but he gave her a look of severe concern. "You're hurt. You didn't have to fly. Are you okay?"
"What did I tell you about worrying about me, Ren."
He pulled a face. "I can't help it when you do things like this!"
"We'll talk about this later, okay?" Val seemed preoccupied, "Right now, we have a problem."
"W-we do?"
"There is a lack of room to land," Val stated, and in reality, there was a lack of room to even fly correctly. Val was mostly gliding a little and kicking off a wall to just repeat it a moment later.
"That should be okay," Ren nodded. "Just grab the chain over there."
"Ah yes, thank you -----."
On the next cycle, she aimed them toward the chain, but about half way there she realized that they were gonna smack into the scary dragon man.
Elian seemed to have finally come to his senses, and was practically steaming from the head with anger, glaring so hard to felt as if he was going to split the pair into pieces with his eyes alone.
"Tch." But he moved. "No point shooting you two down now. Even if I did, you'd just climb anyway. It was a bloody stupid plan, and so was everything else you came up with down there, but I'll be damned if that walljump thing wasn't the most creative streak of idiocy I've ever seen. A win is a win."
The climb up was easy enough.
After Val landed and set Ren down, fussing over him for a moment, she calmly stepped over to Elian. She then feathered, her aching claws being put to good use by decking him in the damn face.
Elian's glare snapped back at her for but a moment. Then he sighed, and then he shrugged. "Yeah, I probably deserved that. I took you all for fools, honestly. But I'd give a few good men to have stupidity like yours in my guard."
"If you let Miss Val hit you in the face like that would that mean the rest of us can have a shot?"
"I'll take the one from the bird. That's it," he said firmly. "I'm a knight, not a punching bag."
The rest of Elian's training was a little more forgiving after that.
