“So, Mother, do you have a good plan to deal with that Guardian?” Lia asked as we were sitting down together, going over the things we had seen throughout the day. Or night, in Lia’s case. At the sa ti, Luna and I were eating dinner, and I would give Lia a drink of blood, topping off her reserves. Sasha and Silva were nearby, eating their own food and listening in. However, the differences in language and in habitual planning ant they didn’t really join in the conversation, unless they had sothing important to convey.
“A good plan?” I couldn’t help but snort, “No, I don’t have a good plan. A few ideas that might work, if we are lucky, but nothing I consider good. Not even close,” I admitted, a touch of annoyance creeping into my voice as I spoke. The thing was a horrible match-up for , though it might simply be a trendously powerful foe in general, simply because it was so incredibly durable and resilient. Sure, it had obvious weaknesses, its slow speed chief amongst them, but taking advantage of that weakness was an entirely different question. Unless a group had a very well-fitting counter, I doubted anyone would have a good ti against it.
“I might have sothing,” Luna admitted, her tone slightly hesitant, showing just how little confidence she had in her idea. That alone made curious, and there might be ways to increase her confidence and our chances of success at the sa ti, so I nodded, an encouraging smile on my face.
“You see, I started to think what can break earth and rock and ca away with two ideas,” she began, her voice gaining confidence as she spoke, “One was to use water, to try and lure the guardian into a valley, especially a narrow one, after preparing a large reservoir of water above said valley. Then, once it’s inside, we can do our best to trap it within while unleashing the water. If we use enough water, the guardian has no chance but to be swept away,” she explained, making nod in agreent.
It was a plausible plan, though one with nurous troubleso aspects, especially when it ca to the proposed trap. There was no guarantee that the guardian could be lured or that it wouldn’t just burrow into the walls of her proposed valley, hiding underground until the water finished rushing past. Additionally, we might be able to increase the damage by adding so projectiles to the water. We might be able to use rocks and hope that the rushing water interfered with the guardian’s control, or use wood, sacrificing so impact power for an elental advantage. Or maybe we could use both, if we went down that road. But my daughter wasn’t finished speaking, and she had ntioned two ideas.
“The other idea is a little more vague, and it needs your help, Mom. You see, plants always burrow their roots into soil and around rocks, right? What if we manage to make a seedling that feeds on Ice and uses it to fuel its growth, so it burrows through the guardian, feeding on the Ice the thing uses in its form? Shouldn’t that destroy the guardian fairly quickly, or at least greatly weaken its form?” she asked, making think for a mont.
The idea was quite interesting and fairly in line with a few of our past experints. We had managed to give plants and a few animals an innate elental bias during so of our past experints. This would, in many ways, be a natural expansion of that idea, especially if we managed to tie in so of Lia’s vampiric nature, as her entire schtick was to feed on Astral Power.
“How would we direct that? And keep it from spreading, there’s a lot more Ice Astral Power in these mountains than what the guardian controls,” I asked, curious if she had answers to those questions.
“Directing it is the easy part; we just change the seeds and throw them. They make contact with the guardian and start sprouting on it, no need to control or direct them,” she explained, answering the easier of my questions.
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“But I’m not sure how to stop the spread. We might be able to limit the maximum amount of power the plants can take in. We’d have to guess how much power the guardian has, and how much of that power is Ice, but if we err on the side of caution, that shouldn’t be a problem. The plants might devour so of the glacier if our estimates are wrong but I don’t think we could be wrong enough to cause serious trouble to these mountains,” Luna continued, the idea starting to sound more and more like a workable plan.
Or at least more of a plan than anything I had managed to co up with.
“The idea of using a plant sounds fairly usable, though I have no idea how we get it to grow by devouring Ice. You know as well as I do that Ice is one of the worst elents when it cos to supporting Life in any way, shape or form,” I reminded her, curious if she had an idea how to deal with that problem. Ice was, by and large, an elent of extre death; the only cyclical part it had was when it ca to lting into water, thus effectively changing itself.
“Not really, no,” she admitted, “But it can’t be harder than so of the vampiric plants we made that devour all life in the area until they burn themselves out, right? We managed to create a few of those, so we should be able to make sothing to devour Ice; it can’t be harder than one based on Death.” She shrugged, trying to play off her lack of confidence.
“Those plants were devouring Life, not Death, even if they were centred around Death. If we used that concept, the plant would devour heat, creating an incredibly cool area. Not quite as useful when it cos to dealing with the guardian, right?” I poked a hole in her idea, only for her face to turn pensive.
“But they exploded into a wave of death afterwards, rember?” There was a gleam in her eyes that made a tad uncomfortable, “What if these would explode into heat and fire afterwards, once they managed to tunnel their roots through the guardian, sapping it of the little heat the thing uses to move? We might get one big, big boom,” she grinned, the idea apparently quite exciting to her.
“Might work,” Lia suddenly threw in, the grin on her face mirroring that on Luna’s, “I’ve been trying to co up with a good way to make explosives, though that part of Alchemy had been more Alex’s speciality compared to mine. I might manage to make sothing interesting, though I’m not sure if it would be as interesting as your idea, Sister,” she explained, only to add in a quiet voice, “Or as explosive, for that matter.”
“I’m sure we can work together to get sothing suitably spectacular.” Luna’s grin was only growing wider, showing a side of my daughter I hadn’t seen expressed in this way before. I wasn’t sure if this enthusiasm frightened or excited , though I think it was a bit of both.
“Better keep things simple for the start,” I gently warned them off, “Otherwise you will continue to overload your project as you are trying to cram more and more ideas into it, until it doesn’t work at all.”
Both of my daughters nodded at my words, though the gleam in their eyes told an entirely different story. Nearby, Silva was chuffing quietly, her version of amused laughter, a realisation that made groan softly.
“How about we start with sothing simple, plants that feed on general, elental energy, not necessarily Ice. We did so of those before, focused on heat, and we’ve seen a few things that fed on Astral Power, you know, other than Lia over there,” I told the pair, trying to channel their enthusiasm into a sowhat safe direction. Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs novel⁂fire
“Well, I know that I can use Ice Astral Power to fuel myself, but it’s not all that efficient,” Lia admitted, making curious if she could sense the differences in Astral Power as she fed. I just infused my blood with the whole mix within , but that didn’t an much, given how strong my Ice Affinity was.
“We could take another look at the way your body and soul use the Astral Power you take in. As long as we are careful, it shouldn’t hurt,” I suggested, making a small incision in my hand to provide sustenance to my daughter. Maybe this would give us a good idea of where we could start the guardian’s destruction. Hopefully, without causing major damage to the surrounding area in the process, I wanted to keep the area, not turn it into more of a wasteland than it already was.
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