Sacred Grounds

"Doesn't it have gills or something??" She asked Zane, ignoring the merman's protests. "Not to mention, it might not make it through the snow. But hey, who am I to spoil your fun??"

As Dwyrin noticed Rei standing, it dawned on her that she had legs again.
"What happened??" She gave Rei's legs a thorough look-over, as if to make sure they weren't an illusion.

Rei simply shrugged. "The best I can guess is that that lobster...monster somehow turned me into a mermaid. That mermaid" -- she also ignored his cries -- "said we might be able to take it down together. It clearly worked quite well. Good work, mermaid." She flashed the merman a hearty smile and thumbs up, then dropped all expression from her face and stared at the humans on the ice.

"So, we should probably get out of here before we all freeze."

Zane smiled. "His scales should be worth something, even if he dies on the way," he told Dwyrin.

He nodded at Rei's explanation. "Sounds good to me, except," he looked over at the place. "For what reason was all those, if we aren't even going to look inside the sacred place--whatever this is?"

She frowned. "Killing something for it's hide?? That's low. Besides that though - you've got a point. What did we come in here for??"

Dwyrin had originally been following Rei, to A) retrieve the files she had given Rei to hold onto way back at the beginning of this journey, and B) to make sure she didn't die, of course. Thinking about those files now turned Dwyrin's frown into a grimace. By now, they were undoubtedly mushy scraps of paper floating at the waters edge or something.


Then she thought of it. "Didn't military man take you here??" she asked Rei. She turned to look at the silent Des andwas suprised to see that he was not there any more.

"Low indeed," Rei muttered, though she made no effort to change his mind.

"Here? Where, to the outside? Yes, for some nonsense I don't even remember," Rei said hastily, resisting the urge to spit. "As for why we came in here, I believe that was either your doing or the other military man's decision." She followed Dwyrin's gaze and found that the man was indeed gone. "I'd say that we make a run for it, but he'd probably hunt us down if we did that."

Zane shrugged and looked at the merman. "I guess you're spared today," he said and dropped it. Sad. All that wasted energy for nothing.

"Well," he thought for a while. "After that, we went in here to... check out the sacred grounds? Well, if he hunts us down, what do you propose to do, Rei? Dwyrin?"

She ignored the plunk of the merman falling back into the water.

Looking back towards the hole in the ground as if she could see it through the walls, Dwyrin said, "We didn't really come down here on purpose. We kinda fell... I wonder how he got down here," she pondered, wondering if Des fell also. "I'm not sure why he would, but if he hunts us down?? Well, I suppose I would be forced to react in the same way I would if anyone else was hunting me, you know??"

Rei simply shrugged.

"I say we either finish exploring this place or leave. I'm wet and cold and starting to get hungry." She stuffed her hands in her pockets and looked at Zane.

"If he hunts us down, we fight back," he agreed with Dwyrin.

He crossed his arms and looked back at Rei. "Then let's get moving. I don't want to leave things unfinished. And if you're hungry, there are still bits of the lobster left."

Dwyrin almost gagged at the thought of eating something so putrid smelling, but if Rei was that hungry... All the power to her!

Looking down, she realized they were still all standing around on the alchemy-spawned ice and decided she wanted to be off of it. "Where to?? Does anyone have some sort of light?? Maybe a torch that's not soaked??"

"Nothing isn't soaked to my knowledge," Rei said, staring down at her clothing. She sighed and rubbed at her left arm. "Most of my alchemy is useless right now without an operating arm, too. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to act on them."

He looked at Dwyrin. "Can you make a fire with alchemy? I think it's best you two dry yourself first. I'll go check further in but I'll come back, or you can just follow me in. Or something." This time, he looked at Rei.

She took off the heavy coat she had been wearingand tossed it to the shoreline. Now that it was wet it was only serving to weigh her down, anyway.

"I could make one if I had something combustable, I suppose. It seems like every time I need a fire I'm in a cave or something. And there's never any wood, somehow," Dwyrin answered a bit sullenly, trying to wring out her other clothes while still wearing them.

"Zane, are you dry? We could burn some of your clothes to get it started, I suppose." Rei pondered a moment what the chances were that he would agree and was glad to find that she wasn't actually suggesting such an idea. She turned to the merman. "Don't suppose you have a way to light the dark?"

"I see... Hm. I'm not completely dry..." he said. "But I guess drier than both of you combined."

He silently contemplated but he put his thoughts on hold. Not till the merman thing says he has no light, anyway. He was pegging that the thing has though. Saves them time and the hassle.

The merman disappeared below the surface of the icy water and out of sight.
"I guess that answers that question," she said with a sigh. Walking around in the dark wasn't something she was looking forward to. Though the area they were in was partially lit, it wasn't going to stay that way after a few twists and turns.

As she was about to open her mouth to reveal that she was idea-less, something hard hit her leg. She looked down just as another piece of something came flying out of the water, and dodged at the last second as it flew by her midsection. Dwyrin scrambled away from the hole in the ice and watched a score of rocks sail through the air. Zane and Rei had similarly stepped away until the barrage stopped.

The merman did not pop back up through the hole and they slowly meandered back towards it. Fist-sized hunks of rock sat around the hole and to her amazment, started slowly to glow. Dwyrin picked one up.
"Phosphorous!" she cried gleefully, holding up the mineralized rock for the others to see.

Rei smiled and picked up another of the rocks. "Excellent. Now he just needs to toss us some hunks of gold and silver and we'll be ready to go."

Zane smirked. "Gold and silver sounds good," he said and picked up two of the rocks. "But this will do."

He turned to the two. "I take it we're going forward, then?"

"Absolutely!!!" Her mood was looking up as she collected a few more glowing chunks. As they dried the glow they gave off was increasing. They weren't incredibly bright but at least the three of them wouldn't be poking around in complete darkness.

Rei smiled, then turned around in a circle. "Forward ho, I suppose," She said as she pointed away from where they had come. "And here's to no giant lobster things."

"Forward we go then," he repeated and walked forward, still holding the glowing rocks.

Dwyrin followed Zane deeper into the cave, holding a piece of the glowing rock aloft. As usual, their footfalls sounded obnoxiously loud as they bounced off the tightly enclosed rock walls, but to make things better, they squelched with every wet footstep. It was cold in here. They hadn't gotten very far when the path branched off into three. "I wish we had breadcrumbs or something," she said to no one in particular.

"I would suggest splitting up," Rei began, peering curiously down a tunnel. "But I have to admit that I'd be afraid to be too far from someone I know down here. Someone I, er, trust." She looked back at Dwyrin and Zane then shrugged.

"Unless one of you have a better idea, I vote we choose one at random and follow it until it ends or we die. You know, whichever comes first."

(i forgot. my bad)

"I don't think splitting up is such a good idea but if that's the majority's vote," he looked at Dwyrin. "Then I'm all right with it."

He was pretty sure Rei didn't trust him so he figured it was probably her way of shooing him off.

"That is most certainly not the majority vote, I think," Dwyrin declared, sure these two were aware of her aversion to water. "We're pretty close to the water-table somehow. I don't feel like swimming again and Zane's pretty handy with large bodies of H2O."

She didn't need to bother suggesting power in numbers, it was obvious from the earlier cooperation with the giant lobster. "It will end before we die. I promise."