Iris looked down at the gargoyle bowing at her feet with as much concern as uncertainty, "I think you've got the wrong girl."

"Nonsense," one of the two standing gargoyles said as he stepped up closer to Iris. He wore a pair of goggles on his forehead, and had a thick layer of dust over most of his skin. "Hat, robes, staff," he pointed at each object as he spoke, ending on her walking stick, "you're the wizard that came from the boat."

"Ah, well," Iris stammered as she began to feel self-conscious, "I'm more of an aspiring wizard, really." She held up her walking stick, "this isn't even a real wizard staff, it's just a stick."

The third gargoyle stepped up, "I saw it with my own eyes, you leapt off the ship and landed on that staff like you'd only hopped off a small ledge."

"I mean, it's a special stick, yeah--"

"Hat, robes, special stick," the third gargoyle said, pointed at each of them as the second gargoyle had, "wizard."

Iris sighed. Normally she’d be delighted to be mistaken as a real wizard, but she wasn’t keen on being expected to solve problems like one, "okay, yeah, I'm a wizard -- I guess. I'm still new, but if you really need a wizard and can't find anyone else, I guess I can try to help."

The gargoyle on the floor finally rose to his feet. He reached out and grasped her hand, shaking it vigorously, "thank you, kind wizard! Follow me!"

The gargoyle twisted in place and scampered off on all fours, soon followed by his two companions.

Iris looked to Autumn and Adan, "well, you guys up for an adventure?"

"Hell yeah!" Autumn exclaimed, slapping some coins down on the counter as she scooped up a handful of jerky and hurried after the gargoyles.

The trio of gargoyles made little effort to wait for the adventurers, instead they bounded off across the street, climbed on the roofs of buildings to leap and glide between them as they raced down the length of the market. Iris blipped onto the roof tops and chased after them, soon joined by Adan as he sprinted across roofs and leapt over gaps. Autumn followed on the ground below, shoving her way through the shoppers on the street.

Iris finally caught up to the gargoyles as they reached the far wall and paused in front of a small crack. Unlike most of the other cracks in the marble blocks which served as passageways, this one was only a few feet tall before it grew far too thin for anyone to fit though. The gargoyles had no issue crawling into the small space, since they were as comfortable on all fours as they were on just their feet. For Iris, Autumn and Adan, however, it proved to be a tight squeeze and a rather uncomfortable crawl.

The crack opened up on the other side of the giant marble block into what appeared to be a gap between two other blocks. It was only a few feet wide, but was a few dozen feet tall, and shaped like a long, tall hallway with a dead end on either side -- which provided ample vertical space to the gargoyles that used the gap as a passageway connecting several cracks in the blocks.

"Come on," the gargoyle with the goggles said as he climbed the wall of the gap towards another crack in the upper corner,

"How are we supposed to follow you?" Iris called out, already exasperated.

"I got it," Autumn said, reaching out and digging her hands into the marble, which molded into handholds at her touch, "this marble's easy to work with, just follow me."

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Autumn formed handholds one after the other as she scaled the marble wall, joined by Iris and Adan following after her. After a few minutes, they reached the top of the wall, where they followed the gargoyles down yet another cramped crawl-space crack in the wall.

When they exited this crack, they found themselves in another alcove of a missing brick, with one side open to the giant's hallway. The biggest difference was that while the market had been built in place of a completely missing brick in the marble walls of the tunnels, only about ten percent of this brick was missing, making space substantially smaller. One of the three walls of the platform was made of the remaining portion of this brick, and was rough and sloped from where it had been broken off.

Though the available space was smaller, it was thoroughly packed with structures and equipment. Various contraptions made of wood, stone and ropes dotted the space, their purposes unclear at a glance, while a long wooden building built near the edge of the platform overlooked the giant's hallway beyond.

"In here!" one of the gargoyles called out waved before ducking inside of the building.

The adventurers hurriedly crossed the alcove and entered the wooden building. Inside were yet more esoteric machines, various half-finished projects -- one of which appeared to be a small cannon made from marble next to a pile of marble cannonballs -- and more than a few weapons and tools also made from marble. The projects and products were scattered about and cluttered the space, and there was no clear indication of which ones were currently being worked on.

"Alright," Autumn sighed as she caught her breath, "who the hell are you people, and what do you want?"

"I'm Cronur," the one with the goggles said.

"Juvu!" the one who had bowed to Iris raised his hand.

"Call me Ferum," the third one said.

A fourth gargoyle, standing in a small clearing amidst the junk-filled room and clutching a hefty piece of shining glow stone with both hands, introduced himself with a stammer, "I-I'm Kigo. Are you here to help?"

"Absolutely," Iris said, blipping just in front of Kigo.

All four of the gargoyles screamed, and then froze in place.

"Nobody move," Cronur said, "just-- stay perfectly still--"

"Why?" Iris turned to look at him.

The gargoyles screamed again.

"Stop!" Cronur shouted, pointing a shaking finger at the glow stone chunk held by Kigo, "that's a bomb."

"What?!" Autumn shouted.

"Oh dear," Adan sighed.

Iris slowly turned her head to look back at the chunk of glow stone. The stone was glowing intensely, sure, but that alone didn't imply it would explode. As she focused on it, however, her Awareness of Matter ability picked up on something her vision could not -- the stone was vibrating. The motion was too feint to be seen by the naked eye, but the speed was quite intense. To the senses of her ability, it actually felt like the exact boundaries of the stone's position in reality were blurred. Meanwhile, Kigo looked well and truly terrified, and Iris guessed that gargoyles must not sweat or else Kigo would have surely been drenched from nervousness.

"What did you do it?" she asked the room.

"Not much to work with in Gellorn," Cronur began to explain, "lots of marble, lots of glow stone, some silver, but--"

"Okay, but what did you do?" Autumn asked, making the annoyance and urgency in her voice easy to hear.

"Well-- the mine boss wants to dig with bombs," Cronur skipped ahead, "we have lots of glow stone, so we try to make glow stone bombs."

"How, exactly?" Iris asked, still being careful not to move.

"We start by shaking it a whole bunch," Ferum said, "that didn't work, so then we spin it really fast. Then we do both, really fast, for a whole day -- the rocks start shaking all on their own, and that's how you get boomrocks."

"How do you know it'll blow up?" Autumn asked.

"Well, our small scale tests were very successful, lots of tiny boomrocks," Cronur said, "safe enough to throw at the ground by your feet. Then we figure out that gently clanging a boomrock against a chunk of glow stone turns the whole stone into another boomrock. That's-- uh-- how we got here."

All eyes lingered on the huge glowing boomrock held by Kigo.

"The bigger the boomrock," Juvu said, "the bigger the boom -- but also, the more sensitive it gets. We think if Kigo even puts it down the change in temperature and pressure could make it boom."

“Why the fuck did you—“ Autumn was cut off by Adan.

"Approximately how large is the anticipated explosion?" Adan asked.

"Um--" Cronur looked nervous, "for that chunk? It would probably double the size of this alcove."

"And destroy everything and everyone within it?" Autumn added.

"Yes," Cronur answered simply.

"I see why you wanted a wizard," Iris said, a pit rapidly growing in her stomach even as the first ideas formed in her head, "I guess let's see what we can do."