--- Kat ---
Kat tried and failed to find so subtle way to bring her understanding of Hunter and g's relationship up to them. Instead everyone had a nice but quiet dinner, Lily fell asleep early and Kat volunteered for night watch as a way to think on the problem so more. Nothing really ca to her. It was just a constant night of wheel spinning where one potential solution opened up several other problems.
In the end, Kat decided to ignore it for now and perhaps the right mont would present itself.
When breakfast ca along, and g called everyone's attention to her, Kat wondered if perhaps that mont had co. Sadly, it had not. "So, I've been checking the device and I have so good news, and so bad news," said g.
Kat glanced around and saw that everyone else was still eating. *Guess I'll be the one to indulge g this ti.* "What's the good news?" asked Kat.
"The good news is that the piece we're looking for is pretty close!" answered g with a smile… clearly waiting for the follow-up.
Kat bit back the urge to roll her eyes as she asked "What's the bad news?"
"I'm so glad you asked!" said g with a smile. Kat spent the small gap wondering how g could get away with saying it at all. "The bad news is I'm not quite certain that it's ended up underground sohow,"
Kat made agreeing noises as she picked up her glass of water. g saw that Kat didn't know what the next question 'should' be and decided to bring it up on her own. "What this ans is that way have two real options. The first is we take a winding path to the goal and look for various caves or whatnot to use. The second option is to just go straight for it and dig down.
Personally, I suggest we go for the winding option,"
Everyone imdiately heard the unspoken 'It can also cost us a lot of ti' in there as well. Kat debated for a few seconds ntally before shrugging and saying, "I vote we just dig for it. We don't have a good idea of how large the major pieces are at the mont and I'd hate for it to be like… a toe or sothing that so small critter took into their borrow because it was shiny.
The 'cave' might not be big enough for us even if it exists,"
g clicked her tongue but didn't say anything to contradict Kat, she was right after all. Lily of course nodded along with Kat. Even g's slightly sour face wasn't enough to change her mind. It was Kat's idea, and it sounded right so Lily was happy to go along with it. It even lined up with her plans to practice more shadow magic.
Lily was planning to work out if using her shadow as a shovel was more efficient then using her shadow to hold a shovel, or multiple if she could manage that.
Kamiko just sort of shrunk downwards while nodding and trying not to draw attention to herself. Hunter looked ready to agree just because it was the option g least favoured… but Bower had other ideas. "Now, I get what's going on here… but my old back really won't be good for helping you young girls dig.
I might still be fairly strong, but the ground here is tougher then it seems and thick with even stronger root systems. If ya'll doing this I'm afraid I'll have to supervise,"
Kat shrugged, "That's fine,"
"Um… yes… well… I don't mind either…" mumbled Kamiko.
g nodded along in agreent as well, to the shock of many. "Yeah you can just relax old man. I might not prefer this course of action but I ain't going to force you to injure yourself,"
"Well, as long as you all know," said Bower with a shrug.
That seed to be the end of it. Not much else was said over breakfast and the team quickly got moving. It took all morning, and trekking through two separate bubbles to get to the dig site. So debate over if they'd bother with lunch was had and ultimately it was decided that those who were hungry could eat leftovers if they want. Which basically amounted to Hunter and Bower.
The rest got to work, even g. She first marked out the area the piece 'might' be in, as the compass started to spin wildly once they got too close. g implied it was probably in the centre but not certainly. So instead everyone got a section of the squared off area and then started to dig.
Looking above it was an interesting site to see. Kat quickly got into a rhythm with the provided shovels. She'd simply dig what was nearby and throw it up into her pile and keep going. The ground was harder then it looked but not too hard. The only ti Kat needed to pause in her regular digging was when she encountered roots.
Kat simply threw so demonic fire at the roots in question and then got back to it. Minimal fuss.
g on the other hand, looked quite chaotic with her digging. She'd pick so dirt from here, and then so over there, making full use of her assigned are with a clear focus on structural weak points. g always picked the area that would give her the least resistance, and when it ca to roots she dug around them until they could be cleanly ripped out with a hand.
Despite this, her piles of dirt where a bit smaller then Kat's. Though in truth it was unlikely g was putting in her full effort, simply enough to be seen working without looking lazy.
Kamiko made slower progress. Mostly because she couldn't quite get the shovelling technique down. The quick dig, and then over the shoulder motion that Kat was able to make use of regularly resulted in dirt flying everywhere when Kamiko attempted it, getting dirt both on her and back in the hole.
It was not a comfortable ti so she switched to this side to side motion which was limiting the dirt she could gather. At least she could remove the roots just as easily.
Lily was going a bit wild. She had a bunch of shadows all around her digging and it was eating into her mana a decent amount requiring her to take the occasional break but all in all she was making pretty good progress. At the mont she had the largest dirt pile but the others would catch up next ti she was on break. As for Lily's experints?
She was finding that using shovels ant you didn't need to spend as much mana, but it was harder to keep multiple sets of them digging. If Lily was using a bunch of smaller shadows to dig or even one big shadow she could get a lot more dirt out… but the mana cost shot up. So it was a balancing act between focus and mana.
Hunter took a unique approach that different drastically from everyone else's. She wasn't bothering to dig at all for the mont. No instead she'd dug until hitting roots and then split off into a bunch of tiny snakes turn burn away the entire system. Sure she was dipping into the other areas, but it was fine. Soon she'd have a completely root free section and would be able to dig rapidly.
Already her section had 'collapsed' in a number of places, loosening the soil a bunch and showing her work to the others.
It was this thod that let her find sothing interesting. Slightly off-centre she found rock. Ridiculously hard rock. A few more tests later and Hunter made her way back to the surface to reform. "I think I've found it guys!"
Everyone paused in their work to look over and Hunter continued to explain, "I think the things encased in so type of rock or ore. Ridiculously hard and not reacting to my demonic fire much. It's in the centre but slightly more towards Kat and g if anything. I'm betting the piece is trapped inside sohow,"
g shrugged and moved over to the centre and started digging. Kat, Lily and Kamiko joined in to help and not long after they struck taphorical gold when the shovels bounced off the hard surface. A bit of clearing up later and they could see the top of the rock. "So g… can you tell if this is it?" asked Kat.
g pulled out the compass and moved it closer to the rock. When she did so it went from spinning sowhat loosely to spinning around rapidly. "Yup this is the rock… but I'm not sure how we're going to get into it. Have to excavate the area around it and see if there's any weak points…"
"Wait can't you see that already?" asked Kat.
"I can… but it doesn't have any convenient ones so far. I'm hoping with it out of the ground I can make a better assessnt," answered g.
*I thought her weak point spotting ability was much broader then she's currently implying… hmm…*
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