Lobster Food Inc.

It seems like I'm always trying to plan escape routes...

They were being prodded down the hall like cattle and it was starting to become very annoying to Dwyrins already frayed nerves. She would give anything to have telepathy right now. Not only would it make the whole Zane-suspicion clear, but it would be helpful in knowing who in this little group of captors was alchemically skilled.

They were brought up, through the stairs, much to his confusion. Usually cells were at the basement, but he guessed they had other ideas.

In the end, they did end up in a prison cell. A glass casing that reached a few feet before the ceiling, in the middle of a lobster tank. Incidentally, the lobsters were huge. Bigger than both he and Dwyrin combined.

This was just not a good situation to be in no matter how she looked at it. Maybe their fate was being decided as she dallied, making sure no one saw the way she was trying to manuever her hands.
Waiting for the right second, Dwyrin slowly slipped the ring from her finger, grateful they had not taken it, and morphed it into a thin rod. This idea was going to hurt and she knew it, but from this angle she didn’t have much of a choice. Heating the end of the little metal stick until it glowed, she gritted her teeth and thrust the tip between her skin and the cuff. The instant burning sensation made her want to yank her hand away, but that wouldn't have been a good idea - there was more lobsters to worry about. She gave the rod a few quick jerks and felt it slide through the softer metal of the cuff on her left hand then released it with some relief as she worked her hand out of the broken cuff.

Dwyrin strode quickly over to Zane, ignoring the smell of burned flesh. The metal of the ring had cooled, and she changed it's shape on her way to him. "I love making lockpicks," she told him, finally taking in their surroundings more fully.

He looked at her. "Doesn't seem like a very painless way to make it though," he replied. "I take it that you don't think I betrayed you anymore, yeah?"

Zane looked up. The casing was way too high. He looked at the sides, outside the casing was water and swimming gigantic lobsters.

"Your wound," he said. "I think I have some bandages somewhere in my stuff, if they haven't taken it."

She blinked at him in suprise, then made her way around him, to his hands, hoping he hadn't caught a glimpse of her expression. "I never said I thought you did," she said evasively.Unlocking one of Zane's cuffs was much easier now that she had the use of both her hands and an actual pick.

After they were both unshackled, she looked down at her blistering wrist. "It's not too bad I suppose."

She followed his previous gaze upwards and tried to think of some way out of here. She couldn't help feeling like they were being watched. Maybe it was the lobsters.

"You didn't have to say anything," he chuckled. He thanked her for releasing him from his cuffs. "One look was all I needed."

He then walked towards one edge while looking for a bandage. He found one eventually in one of the pockets and tossed it to her. "Better to treat it anyway. So getting out. This will be tricky."

Dwyrin looked down at her shoes, almost ashamed that she had doubted him. Then her common sense came into play and her gaze went back to his face, "Just considering all the possibilities. I hope you don't hold it against me." And I hope I'm not just easy to read.

Smiling, she caught the bandage and started to clumsily wrap with one hand. "Do you have a plan?? And shouldn't there be someone standing guard or something??"

He looked back at her and smiled. "It's fine. I don't hold it against you at all," he said. "Self-preservation, was it? Something like that. It's understandable."

"Hm," he looked around. "Unless you count the lobsters as guards, then no. I don't see anyone. Which is bothering. It makes things feel wrong."

Glad he understood, she nodded and finished wrapping her wrist.

"It makes me think they have something very unpleasant planned. That's usually when everyone starts running," she said, thinking of the times she had been in a similarly precarious situation, "including the guards - if they have any."

"Well, if they had, those guards sure are good at running," he commented. "There hasn't been anyone else here. Neither could I hear anyone," and anything else was enough for him to be suspicious of what's going on - or the lack of it. "You'd think that after capturing us, they'd do something more than just ignore us."

"Maybe they're just going to let us rot away in here," she suggested, "which is a boring way to do it, really. So, to prevent death by boredom we should make our swift escape, don't you think??"

Dwyrin looked around them and stepped away from the glass as a huge shadow floated by on the other side. She supressed a shudder.

"Agreed," Zane said as he looked around. Really huge lobsters. It was going to be tricky. "Any ideas as to how?"

She looked around, considering their options. Not that they had many. "We could always try that little trick from earlier. But then we'd have to go swimming in a giant lobster tank. That's not even the worst of it," Dwyrin said after further thought, "because of the amount of water outside our little cell, the glass might implode if we put a hole in it."

"In short, we're in big trouble," he said. "Because even if we survive the impact of the water imploding, we'd be minced meat by the lobster. If only we could," he blinked. "Oh, ice alchemy. We can use that."

Hands on her hips, she squinted up toward the top of their prison. "We certainly can't, but I know you can. I'm pretty close to useless in this situation." Dwyrin looked back down at Zane and smiled. "Got a plan??"

He grinned. "Not possible now," he said. "They took my specialized gloves. Usually, that's pretty much enough for me to use ice alchemy in this scale."

Zane tapped the glass. "And I have nothing to draw a transmutation circle with. Aside from that," he pointed to a lobster that seemed to have taken notice of them and made its way towards them. "Seems like the lobsters see us as potential food now."

She stepped closer to the glass, thinking for a moment then turned and smirked at Zane. "You always have something you can make a circle with. You bleed, don't you??"

He blinked a second before he ended up laughing. "Okay, you got me," he said. "Those gloves make it easy for me, you know? For convenience sake. But ah, you're really going to make me work, hm? Got a blade?"

"It can't be all that bad." Dwyrin commented while removing her ring again. The metal warmed slightly as it transmuted between her hands into a neat, little blade-like sliver of titanium. She handed it to Zane with a shrug and a wry smile, "I'd do it if I knew I wouldn't mess up and kill us both."

"You're right," he said. "You're teaching me not to be lazy."
He took the blade and nodded. "Well, that sure boosts my ego," he smiled and cut himself, drawing enough blood on the floor and proceeded to draw a transmutation circle with it. It was fairly a bigger circle than he usually would draw but he figured it would be easier for him to control that vast amount of water with it.

"All right," he looked at Dwyrin. "Ready?"

"As ready as I'm ever going to be."

As usual, Dwyrin mentally went over any possible plan of action she could take should things go wrong. This wasn't a situation she liked. Though she trusted in Zane's skill as an alchemist, she wasn't fond of being next to useless.

It was tricky but he nodded anyway and instantly started the transmutation. The glass broke, shattering and the water streamed inside the broken container. But before it reached any of the two, the water started freezing and eventually stopped altogether, frozen. Including the lobsters.

Zane fell back on his back, tired, breathing heavily. He doesn't always use ice alchemy and after this, he decided he should stop being lazy and practice more. "I'm so hungry."

Luckily, as the glass shattered and began to fall most of it was touching the water as it froze, keeping myriad shards from raining down on them in a hail of death. Dwyrin had only a few to dodge or knock away from Zane while he finished his transmutation.

As he fell back, she relaxed and looked around at her companions handiwork. The huge lobsters were blurry through the feet of ice separating them, and for that she was glad.

Dwyrin walked over to Zane and looked down, smiling. "If we get out of here, maybe I'll buy you some food." She extended her hand, then looked around at the icy cylinder they were now at the bottom of. "But you could have made stairs, you know," she teased.

He grinned at the idea of free good food. "We're definitely going to get out of here then. I'll hold you on that, Dwy."
He took her hand and stood up. He blinked at her comment and sighed. "Man, you're totally right," he looked around and saw ice covering the whole of their surroundings. "Really, this is going to ruin my reputation as an awesome and very talented alchemist," he joked.

Ha, at least I didn't offer to cook it, then.

She smiled at him. "I swear I won't tell anyone about your blunder if you can come up with a way to get us to the top before someone comes running." That shattering glass hadn't exactly been silent.