“Holy brattiraptor dung,” cursed Cove.

Dax and Sera, his friends, family, brother, and sister, were encased in blissfire. Their faces were soft, their bodies relaxed, and neither tried to escape.

Their prisoner was being disassembled, not eaten. He should be screaming in silent horror. Instead, his glazed eyes fixed on the ceiling, and moans of pleasure left his lips as the insects chewed off tiny bits and carried them deep into the hive. They were efficient. His arms and legs were gone, bone and all, and the skin of his torso was vanishing as Cove watched, amazed that they kept their prey alive, preventing him from bleeding out as they worked. The little blood escaping the man’s body glowed with power and crackled when it came in contact with the air.

“Cove,” said Grettaluna, “the cinderweavers are going slow. This is yer chance. Run! You might have ten minutes before they start on the lass. Go, laddie, get out of here!”

“I cannot leave Sera and Dax!”

“Then pick one, and carry them—“

“No. I am taking both of them with me.”

“Ye don’t have time!”

“I will not abandon my sister and the man she loves to die.”

“What can ye do in nine minutes?”

Cove’s eyes locked on the remaining pile of Azure while his mind dove into the technical manual for Dóiteáin and cross-referencing with the Stoneshaping text. Heartbeats later, he found the part he wanted, along with exploded diagrams. Awe filled his voice as he whispered, "It can't be that simple...."

“Six, lad. Quit dreaming and start doing.”

He carried the chunks of Azure, stacking them around Sera and Dax, then knelt between their heads.

“Three, boy! Time for action, not prayers.”

Cove drove his power into the earth, shooting tendrils to draw the required minerals as other fingers of energy molded, assembled, and energized his construct. With a ray of energy, he carved the stone underneath his family. One by one, the stacks of Azure dimmed to clear blue glass.

“By the gods, lad,” whispered Grettaluna, "where did ye learn to do that?"

"I took a class in underwater inverted basket weaving."

"What?"

"That is my question, not yours."

The ground snapped, and an oval platform lifted from the ground. A few pieces of Azure tumbled off, but Sera, Dax, and the bulk of his treasure floated a meter into the air. With firm, gentle hands, Cove pushed the flying gurney out of the hive’s cavern.

An angry buzz thundered from the hive: No! They are the compensation for what you have taken. Return them to us!

“Oh shite, laddie. You’ve tipped the master’s chamber pot into his dinner.”

Cove leaned into the platform, poured Elystria into his legs and arms, and sprinted. His words huffed between breaths as he said, “That has got to be the most disgusting thing you have ever said.”

Grettaluna’s snicker was cut short, becoming an unintelligible spray of ancient curses as Cove banked into a steep sharp, dashed across the wall for several meters, and accelerated.

“You,” Cove said, “did tell me to run.”

“Where in the nine hells did ye learn to turn like that?”

“Mazer.”

“Ye do that on a bicycle?”

“Yes, if you want to win.”

“With two tons of cargo in your hands? How are ye liftin’ it?”

Cove pitched to the right and ran along a long curved wall as he said, “I am not carrying the load. I built floaters into the bottom.”

“You Stoneshaped a complex piece of eons-old technology in under a minute?”

“I had a good teacher.”

“Not me, Laddie.”

“I looked it up and followed the instructions.”

“Books? You found the design for floaters in your library?”

“Everyone, hold on,” said Cove as he tilted the platform up and dug his Azure armored feet into the road, gouging parallel grooves as he pulled them to a stop.

“Cove, you dropped this,” Pipster said as he held up a tiny chunk of Azure.

“Thank you. Please get on,” said Cove as he laid a hand on the wall next to the sealed door, activated his ultrasound gland, and probed the stone. There was another cavity a little more than two meters away.

“Hurry, lad. Yer admirers are almost here.”

Cove looked at the platform and its cargo and set to work. He sent Elystria into the limestone and shaped a tunnel a few millimeters taller and broader than his loaded flying sled.

“They’re here!”

“Ouch, no eat, Pipster!”

Darkness fell as the clouds of cinderweavers swarmed the team. Nothing touched Cove through his armor as he maneuvered his friends and cargo into the hole, but that didn’t help the little raptor or his children. They cried and wailed as the insects attacked.

Cove climbed in, shoving the floating gurney ahead. Once his feet cleared the wall, he Stoneshaped the passage closed, sealing the last part of it as he dropped into the dark cavern. The chamber echoed with the sound of enraged insects and terrified brattiraptors. His arms shot towards the brattiraptor and his family, grabbing them in his hands. He reached through their bodies, found the bugs, and pulled the Elystria from them, popping the pests and filling the air with the stink of burned blissfire.

After an uncountable amount of time, the buzzing faded into silence.

“Pipster? Are you alive?”

“I hurt. Blue Feather hurt. Spice,” Pipster said with a hiccup, “she has no eyes.”

“I… I am sorry. I don't know if Sera can restore her eyes, but I will ask her to try when she has recovered.”

“Miss Sera? Mister Dax?”

“I don’t know what to do,” sighed Cove. “There is blissfire in their blood, so converting it to Azure could kill them. But if I don’t do something soon, they will die from an overdose. I need Bree, but she is with Keeva on the cliff, and I don’t know how to get to her.”

"The first thing ye must do, lad," said Grettaluna, "is free yer friends from that goop."

"How? I don't have enough energy to convert the blissfire to Azure."

"Forget the Azure. Use your brain. If that was mud, how would you do it?"

"I would wash them, but I don't have water."

"Where does yours come from? And don't say a tap or hose bib."

"The cities get it from a river or a well dug into an aquifer."

"And?"

"What are you driving at Gretta? I'm exhausted."

"Find an aquifer or an underground stream or lake. Yer below ground."

"Gretta, please?"

"I'm trying to teach you, boy. Think! How did you gather the minerals to build this floating gadget?"

"I extracted it from the rocks."

"And while ye were lookin', did ye run into any?"

"Just the ocean... oh..."

"Now, put that brain of yours to work, puzzle out how to get a bit of the sea into this cave, and help your friends."

"But, what about the blissfire?"

"What about the blissfire? Do you want to keep it? The bloody stuff is killing your friends; be rid of it."

Cove nodded, knelt on the floor, and sank his mind into the stone. Straight down, a little over twenty meters, was another cavern, more of a bulge in an underground river. He pulled on the liquid, trying to grab and draw it to him, but it slipped away. Frustrated, he growled, “I found the water but cannot get it up here.”

“Ye need a pump and a pipe.”

“I can form pipe and fix an electric motor, but building a well from scratch is beyond me.”

“Start cutting a twelve-millimeter shaft while I upload the plans into your library.”

Cove began shaping the narrow cylinder as he said, “You have designs for a hand pump?”

“Yes. I have patterns for over a thousand basic, hand or wind-powered machines, and no, I won’t clog the limited space in your head with drawings and information you won’t require for months or years.”

“Do you have designs for a bicycle?”

“Why? If there’s one machine you don't need my help to build, it’s a bike.”

It took Cove almost half an hour to form the pipe down to the river and another twenty minutes to harden and make his pipe watertight. The plans sent by Grettaluna were simple and, in retrospect, made sense. He formed a hollow cylinder, like a food or drink container, with holes in the top and bottom. Within the little barrel, he placed an inverted cone. As the simple machine dropped, the plug floated up, opening the lower hole and filling the can. When the can rose, the cone fell and plugged the bottom. Cove added seals to the cylinder's outside, a metal pole, a fulcrum, and a handle, and the pump was complete. Concern built in his mind as his sore arms worked the pump for several minutes, pumping with even strokes, but the first splash of ice-cold liquid brought hope to his heart.

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He shaped a piece of rock into a bucket, filled it, and started washing the gunk off of Sera and Dax. Tainted water began to pool, forming a sweet-smelling puddle near the sealed door. The pond splashed against his Azure boots when Dax and Sera were clean.

Exhaustion threatened to drag Cove into sleep. The emotional toll of the day, the battles, converting the blissfire into Azure, racing to save his friends, and knowing that he wasn’t done weighed on his soul. He rested momentarily, fighting his drooping eyes with a snack from his pack and a drink from the well.

His mind wandered as he watched the tainted water drain into his well. Several years ago, he and Missha published a paper proving the connection between groundwater tainted with the byproducts from blissfire harvesting and the childhood disease Jelray Pox. It led to many new regulations to improve water quality, laws most communities couldn’t afford. I wonder where this water goes… probably out to sea, so it won’t be a problem.

Cove shook Dax and Sera, knocking a few pieces of Azure into the pool. "Why aren't they waking up?"

"The drug is still in their bodies. Remember Wendy's Sowing Festival story? It was days before her mind returned to normal, and she only consumed a handful of blissfire drinks and buns."

Cove sighed and nodded as he said, "We need Bree's cleansing talent."

"Start pushing, lad."

"At least there is only one way they could have gone," said Cove as he repacked the bits of Azure that had fallen off. He pushed, pulled, and shoved his floating platform for endless hours. He used his Stoneshaper skill to widen and reshape the tunnel, allowing him and his cargo to fit. He paused at intersections to rest and enable Pipster to scout.

This new armor is good, but there is a significant opportunity for dramatic improvement. The plates rattle and clank and move like I've strapped two dozen marble cutting boards to my body. I'm coming to understand why the knights of legend wore padded underwear. There has got to be a better way. How did Essie make Keeva's bodysuit flow like EtherStretch? Cove lost track of time as he compared what he'd seen to Dóiteáin's repair manual and the text on Takamot crystals.

An idea came together. If Cove was honest, it was more of a fantasy; he'd never gather enough Azure or Elystria, but what a theory. He pressed forward, exploring the concept, fleshing out possibilities, and pulling apart flaws. It would work. He snickered. It could be done if he could find tons of Azure, terawatts of power, a big caldron to cook it all in, and a willing subject. He considered who he'd like to dip into a molten pot of Azure and chuckled; Cove would only risk himself, and Keeva would stop him. It didn't matter; he'd never get to test his theory. Nevertheless, he continued his musings. Yes, it kept his mind off the rashes growing on his joints and the blisters forming on his feet. It was a proper mental workout, but experience had taught him to follow an idea through to the end. Why? Once he had the penultimate solution, he could carve off pieces and use them to make incremental improvements to this and future creations.

Cove's intellectual exercise was all but complete as he followed Pipster's waving hand around a corner and up a steep incline. He was pondering the best way to soften the soles of his greaves when his thoughts were interrupted by the thunder of falling water. Sweat pooled inside his armor as the humidity rose, and he had to look down to see if the splashing noise came from within or without his boots; it was both.

Pipster shrugged and pointed as he thought: That way. Keeva went up the waterfall.

Cove gazed at the stream thundering down the forty-five-degree rise. An eon ago, there may have been stairs. An hour ago, it might have been dry. Now, the concave channel was more suited to an adventurous park ride with a nasty stop at the bottom. "Holy shite," he whispered. "How..."

Grettaluna snickered.

"Gretta, I am open to suggestions."

"Wait until it stops raining?"

"If it's pouring hard enough to create this," Cove said as he waved his hand at the cascade, "it must be hell up on the road."

"Not necessarily. This could be part of the original drainage system."

Cove nibbled on his lip, his eyes searching the slope and the floating platform before returning to the passage. He glanced at his armor and noted its opaque, soft blue hue. There was sufficient Elystria for one more clever idea if, and only if, the light in the distance was the end of the tunnel.

"I know that look, lad. What are ye planning?"

Cove gathered Elystria, channeled it through his Stoneshaper glands, and sent it into the loose piles of Azure on the sled. Over several minutes, the crystals merged into two giant cocoons, one containing Sera and the other holding Dax. He created openings at the top and bottom for air and to drain any moisture that got into the bubbles.

It took a moment to position the platform, angle it, and braced astride the cascading waterfall. Cove aligned his Stoneshaper system, focused on the ground, channeled power through his feet, and ran into his Azure sabatons. He muttered a few choice curses while removing the soles of his boots. Several inappropriate words echoed up the tunnel as he slipped on the smooth floor and face-planted in the stream. Icy liquid poured into his armor, sucking the warmth from his skin before pouring past his toes. He pressed out of the water and thumped his head on the sled. “Ouch! Shite!” Cove reached over his head, pushed the floating platform forward, and carefully pulled himself back to his freezing feet.

Hi armor drained as Cove gathered power and, one foot at a time, shaped the ground into a step with a slip-resistant surface.

After a hundred steps, he took a moment to catch his breath. Four sharp cracks echoed through his skeleton as acute pains stabbed through his feet and calves. He spun the platform, jamming the corners into the walls, bracing it, and supporting weight as his legs cried in agony.

“Hold on, Lad,” said Grettaluna. “Ye picked the wrong time to advance your Azure crystals.”

“What? I didn’t choose anything.”

“Why in the names of all the gods would I decide to do something painful halfway up this waterfall?”

“Ye stopped to rest. That’s all the signal yer body needs to begin advancing.”

“Nine hells, Grettaluna, how long will this take? My toes are blue, I am starving, my friends are dying, and I need to pee!”

“Then eat a piece of jerky and piss on your toes. Yer droui glands will heal the bones cracked by the expanding Azure once they’re grown and focused.”

Cove vainly rubbed the greaves protecting his calves, saying, “I will not piss on my feet. How long?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why?”

“Lad, it will take as long as it takes.”

“It hurts. In my games, skill and rank advancement come with a light from heaven, not disabling pain.”

“Who would play yer games if they caused ye real pain? This is real, and learning always comes at a price.”

“It was boring but not painful to learn my multiplication tables.”

“Your math doesn’t let you shape stone. What was it like to learn Mazer?”

“Gods… I got more road rash and broken bones than I want to count; the memories are torture.”

“I bet it took days or weeks to heal from those learning experiences. You’re droui system will have you back in the saddle in a jiffy.”

“JIffy? What in the nine hells is a jiffy!”

“Calm down. Ye might be sore, but you’ll move again in a few minutes.”

“Why are the glands connected to my skeleton? It would make more sense to let them float.”

“You are asking me? You’re the biophysicist.”

Cove flexed his toes and legs, grunting as he stretched. He placed his feet and energized his Stonshaper system. He hissed, sucking air through his teeth. His bones were still sore but were bearable. The flow of power felt cleaner, more focused, and more efficient. The rock squished like fresh mud until Cove released it to become a step. He worked his way up the tunnel one foot at a time, and half an hour later, he pushed the floating platform out onto the road.

His eyes searched the rain-drenched, crumbling highway for any sign of Keeva, his family, and friends. What he found made his heart race like a drummer on an amphetamine high.