"Ma'am, perhaps you should place the boomrock into your bag," Adan suggested.

"What good does that do?" Cronur asked.

"It's a special bag," Iris said quickly to Cronur before addressing Adan, "don't call me ma'am."

"I apologize," Adan said.

"No, it's fine--" Iris started

"Can we focus on the bomb?" Autumn asked impatiently.

"Right," Iris said, turning her attention back to the large glowing rock, "putting it in my bag is the way to go, I think, but can we get it in there before it explodes?"

"Could blow the instant Kigo lets go," Cronur pointed out.

"What about Abby and Littletooth?" Autumn asked, "what if it we get it in the bag, and it blows up anyway? Would it hurt them in there?"

Iris thought back to what she had learned about the void within her bottomless bag. It wasn't the true void – or at least, it was a corrupted version of it where things like light and sound could exist. If those could exist within the bag, why not things like temperature and vibration? The more she thought about it, the less confident she felt in her initial assumption that it would be a safe method of disposal. If it did work, then there was still the problem having a massive volatile bomb floating around in there -- she wasn't exactly sure how that might present itself, but couldn't imagine it would be good.

"Okay, new plan, maybe I blip it."

"Blip it where?" Autumn asked.

Iris looked carefully around the room. There were no windows, but there was a door on the back wall of the room. With her Awareness of Matter ability, she was able to detect the shape of a ramshackle balcony on the edge of the alcove, overlooking the giant's hall beyond.

"Out into the hallway," she answered, "if I place it in the open air, the explosion shouldn't even reach the walls."

"Do you have that kind of range?" Autumn asked.

"It's more about if I have the mana. There's no hard limit on how far I can send stuff, but it costs more mana the further I go."

"What is a blip?" Ferum asked.

"It's like a teleport," Iris answered, "but not exactly."

"I don't like this plan," Cronur said, "maybe it doesn't blow in the air, and hits the ground. Giants would be very unhappy with us."

"Got any other ideas?" Iris asked.

Cronur thought for a moment, "maybe we spin it the other way 'round."

Iris blinked, "would that work?"

Cronur shrugged, "probably."

"What about me?" Kigo asked nervously, "I don't want to spin."

"This does not seem like a practical plan," Adan pointed out, "far too many opportunities for it to go wrong."

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Wait!" Iris said suddenly, "you said that touching a glow stone with a boomrock turns it into a boomrock, right?"

"Yeah," Cronur answered while the two gargoyles beside him nodded.

"And you think spinning a boomrock in the opposite direction might turn it back into a glow stone. What if we spin a regular glow stone in the opposite direction?"

"Hmm," Cronur thought about it.

"Doesn't work," Juvu said, "tried it. Just makes vibrating non-boom rock."

"That's perfect!" Iris shouted, pointing an excited finger at Juvu. Her sudden movement caused everyone in the room to gasp and stare at the boomrock in Kigo's hands, "let's make a non-boom rock, and touch it to a boomrock, and see what happens."

Cronur's face lit up, "you're a genius!"

"Nope," Iris said proudly, "I'm a wizard, remember? Now, how do we do this?"

"Spin machine's outside," Juvu said.

"You probably shouldn't move," Cronur advised Iris, "even a teleport that close to the boomrock might make it boom."

Iris slumped her shoulders slightly in disappointment, "yeah, you're probably right."

The others carefully filtered out of the room, leaving Iris and Kigo behind. When the door shut, Iris looked to the nervous gargoyle and smiled calmly.

"How are you holding up?" she asked.

"Not well," Kigo said, his voice quivering slightly.

Iris grimaced and nodded, "I'm sure. Listen to me, though. We're going to get you out of this, okay? I promise."

"I believe you," Kigo said, "they say wizards can solve anything."

Iris was filled with dread and anxiety that she wasn't a real wizard, and couldn't actually solve this problem, but she pushed it down and put on a brave face, "yep, they say that because it's true."

Outside of the tinkerer's shack, the trio of gargoyles led Autumn and Adan towards one of the many strange machines scattered around the alcove. It was a large contraption made of carved marble gears and several rope pulleys, and was somewhat encased in a wooden frame. At the center of the contraption was something that resembled a three-dimensional vice, with six total points of contact at the end of silver cylinders that could be manually moved back and forth with the use of small knobs. The vice was mounted on the end of a long shaft that extended up into the framing of the contraption, presumably connecting into the gears. Beside the contraption was a horizontal wheel with long handles extending off of it, not unlike the wheel used to lift an anchor on a ship.

"Put the glow stone in like this," Juvu demonstrated as he placed a small chunk of marble into the vice and adjusted each of the cylinders until it was held in place, "then we push the wheel to spin it."

"What about the vibration?" Adan asked.

"Vibrations come from imperfections," Ferum explained, "whole thing kind of rattles."

"That's on purpose, right?" Autumn asked.

"Of course," Ferum said simply.

Juvu swapped out the example marble chunk with a small piece of glow stone, and then the three gargoyles took up their positions at the wheel. They each grabbed a peg and began to push. The largest wheels began to turn slowly, causing the smaller wheels to turn even faster, and eventually began spinning the vice. After a minute the contraption seemed to reach its max speed and began to shake rather violently. Another minute later, the gargoyles slowed down, and the machine soon slowed to a stop as well. The glow stone in the vice was now glowing intensely, like the larger one that Kigo held.

"Smaller rocks more stable," Juvu said as he delicately plucked the small boom rock from the machine and placed it gently on a nearby table.

They waited a few minutes while Ferum made the necessary adjustments to the machine for it to operate in reverse, and then completed the process. It unfolded much as it had the first time, with one noticeable distinction. Rather than developing an intense orange-yellow glow, this time the tiny glow stone turned a soft blue color, putting off a slightly dimmer light than its counterpart.

Juvu removed the blue stone from the machine and handed it to Cronur, who attempted to hand it to Autumn, "go touch that one and see what happens."

"Why me?" Autumn asked.

Cronur shrugged, "wizard's apprentice."

"I am not her apprentice!" Autumn snapped.

Adan reached out, took the blow stone from Cronur, and casually walked over to the table which held the small boomrock. "If something happens to me, find my father. He can fix me."

Without waiting for a reply, Adan reached out and tapped the boomrock with the blue stone. There was a snap of energy between to the two rocks, not unlike a tiny lightning strike, and the stone and the table was sent spinning and bouncing away. Everyone but Adan turned to shield themselves from an anticipated blast as the stone fell off the table, but all that came was the sounds of clattering.

As they looked up, they each saw that both stones had returned to their normal dim yellow light, and neither had exploded.

"It works!" Cronur leapt off the ground in excitement, then pointed to Juvu, "spin it up again, bigger stone this time."