“So then it’s safe to assume some of the danger spots on the map are the mutated squirrels, and I’m guessing at the very least the leaders are going to have some kind of channeling abilities.” Cal sighed. They would need to find the mana pool that was being used for this. While it could be useful, but at the very least, it needed to be cut off from the squirrels.
“Seems that way. What do you want to do?” Ethel asked him. She was helping the elder squirrels drink water.
“I think, yeah, okay, I’m taking Jen and Albert with me to the closest pool. There were no signs of danger on the map. So we go there. One of them gets a mana infusion. Their choice of who. You stay here and guard the grove. Since the giant squirrels were nice enough to make it so defensible, we can use that to our advantage and make this our base of operations for as long as we can. When I return we can secure a path between the last two groves and start planning out the squirrel liberation as well.” Whether they had the time or not, and considering they possibly had unlimited time, Cal thought liberating the squirrels was the right thing to do. Even if it didn’t carry over to the next loop, learning how to do it would be important for whenever the final loop came, assuming it ever did.
“Take your dad. I can handle things back here with Frank and Onelder; you may need the extra muscle, but otherwise, I agree. I’ll tend to the elders while you’re gone.” Ethel nodded approvingly at Cal.
“Thanks, good luck. I’m going to grab them and head out as soon as possible. I don’t want to leave you all here without us for too long.”
***
“Splitting the party is generally never a good idea,” Albert said as they walked out of the grove together.
“When do we consider the split? I mean, yeah, we just made our party even smaller, but there are at least two other groups of us in different spots currently, and who knows how much Andy has split his own party.” Cal countered. He didn’t entirely disagree despite his words otherwise. Splitting the party was always a tactical gamble and he’d prefer this split didn’t last overly long.
“Huh, good point. So we are at least the fourth split of void house residents. I wonder if we should work on balancing user classes in parties,” Albert said.
“I’m not sure real life works as well that way. Strangely, there seems to be less physical rules on what we can do than in the games.” Cal suppressed laughter at the idea of trying to convince Andrew of class balancing for missions, not that they weren’t already doing it to some extent.
“Oh yeah, I was mostly joking, trying to distract myself from the possibility of the magical powers I’ll have either very soon or relatively soon,” Albert replied, laughing softly.
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After several hours of walking they were closing in on their destination. “We may have a problem,” Stan shouted back, having scouted slightly ahead.
“Based on your shouting, dear husband, I’m guessing it’s not a fighting problem,” Jen said through clenched teeth.
“Oh yeah, sorry, no. Nothing dangerous, just a problem.” Stan ran his hand through his hair as he answered, looking away from his wife.
Cal jogged on ahead to see just what his father was worried about. Once he cleared the end of the tunnel, it became very obvious: The temperature in the cavern plummeted,, and the pool itself was frozen over. “Uh, yeah, this could be a problem, I wonder when this happened. The squirrels didn’t seem to know anything about this when they made the map.” Cal said.
“Recent and quickly enough that one of them was caught by surprise, it looks like,” Stan said as he pointed to a squirrel frozen into a chunk of the ice.
“Guys, I don’t do extreme cold very well. Can I skip this spring?” Albert asked.
“Yeah, you’re good little guy. I’ll take it if we can figure out how to melt it,” Jen answered.
“I have an idea. Hey, Dad, is Excalibur willing to be stuck deep into the ice at the center of the pool?” Cal asked.
“He sees where you’re going with this and welcomes the new charge of mana. Jen, you are going to want to stay close to the sword to avoid the pool freezing back over when you are in it. Just make sure to grab him when you get out.” Stan froze briefly before answering. Cal wondered what it was like talking to a sword in your brain but realized it was probably similar to the mana spirits he communed with all the time.
“Good, please do the stabbing then.” Cal started channeling energy into his palm as he waited on his father. He didn’t have to wait long. Stan quickly stabbed the sword deep into the center of the built-up ice and climbed back off it.
“Ready when you are.” He said once back on firm ground.
Cal answered by arcing a strong lightning blast into the hilt of the sword, down through the blade. He repeated this several times as the sword heated up more and more with each blast. Soon steam was rising out from where the sword had been stabbed as it sunk deeper and deeper into a thawing pool of water. Once the hilt disappeared below the ice into the melted water, Cal placed a ball of lightning directly over the sword, letting all of the energy of the blast hit the ice and sword. This had the combined effect of blasting a bigger hole and allowing the sword to absorb even more mana, increasing the heat it was pouring out.
“Alright, Jen, go hop in. I don’t think we can do much better long term. The sword should have enough mana to keep this melted for a couple of hours, so good luck and try to make it relatively quick,” Cal instructed.
“You realize I have no idea what to do, right?” she said as she plopped into the still, extremely cold water.
“Just focus on the water around you and try to relax. It will come to you. Hopefully.” Cal said.
“Oh, hi there,” Jen suddenly said, completely ignoring Cal’s instructions. She was focused on something only she could see.