What the fuck even is that—
Holy shit, it's right behind me.
I was running at full speed now. My stamina was draining fast. Wanora did warn me.
The buckets—I had them protected. A wall. Using the Clarion of Touch, I formed a marble barrier around them. Sealed tight. But the problem wasn't just the buckets.
It was them.
No chance to rest. No room to breathe.
I turned, dropping my hand to the ground—
CRACK—!
Marble needles erupted from the floor, impaling the two blob-things mid-chase. They didn't even screech, just... squelched.
It bought me seconds. That was enough.
I sprinted, boots scraping on the cold floor as I hit an intersection.
A well.
How the hell do I know it's this one—
No, wait.
I do have an idea.
I looked back. The blob had already wriggled free of the needles—its body was too strange, too loose. No real shape.
I jumped across the well, hand slamming down on the stone rim just as the thing lunged.
Its touch met my skin—
but—
A marble hand shot out from the well, summoned by the Clarion, grabbing the thing mid-air and dragging it down into the darkness.
Clarion of Touch. Best tool for keeping distance. Like... earthbending, but nastier.
Then—
"Ah, it stings?" I muttered, looking down.
My arm—where it touched me—
Red.
Infected.
Skin decaying.
"Ahh fuck..."
I sealed the well shut with a thick slab of marble before the thing could crawl back up. My hand throbbed, but it didn't matter. Not now.
BZZZT.
The signal.
"...Oh yeah, that's the signal this is the wrong one."
WAIT—
"This can work."
I'll just shove them all in the wells.
---
Wanora's eyes widened.
"I see..."
The wells could be used like that.
If Heide could solidify the water somehow—then maybe... maybe it was possible.
She didn't hesitate. She ran. Fast. Toward the place they left the buckets.
Above her—
The ceiling groaned.
The black blobs. Thousands. Crawling through cracks, oozing between stone.
At this rate, it was going to collapse.
Wanora snapped her head back. The barrier Heide made—still holding. But it stuck out. Obvious.
Too obvious.
She snapped her fingers—
BOOM.
A blast cracked the ground, clearing the space for her to grab the water. Two buckets in each hand.
She sprinted through the corridor, hitting every well she passed. Splash—
Splash—
Splash—
Each one returned a sound.
BZZZT.
BZZZT.
Not it.
Until—
CLANK.
Gears.
She froze. Burned the location into memory. Marked it with a snap-explosion.
She had a plan. Simple. Drop some water in each well. Listen for the five CLANKs.
The problem?
All five wells needed the exact water from the five buckets. Under normal conditions, that would be impossible.
But she had Heide.
She knew for the current him it'd be hard—even if he understood the idea.
But there was no time.
If he could solidify the water she dropped in the wrong wells—the ones that buzzed—he could collect them. All of it. And pour it back into the right ones.
Five liters per bucket. Five wells. No waste.
It might just work.
CRASH—
The ceiling in front of her gave way.
And the blue blobs poured in.
Wanora didn't stop. She slashed the air with her hand—
FWOOOOOSH—
A path of fire opened. Blobs turned to steam.
Through the smoke, she saw him.
"Heide!" she shouted.
"GO IN EACH WELL AND START COLLECTING THE WATER I DROPPED! THE ONE WITH A EXPLOSION MARK IS THE CORRECT ONE! POUR IT IN THEM—EACH WELL WITH A EXPLOSION MARK SHOULD HAVE 5 LITERS OF WATER IN THEM EXACTLY—DON'T WASTE EVEN A SINGLE DROP!"
She took off.
Heide blinked.
"Huh?"
He looked down at his infected arm.
It had stopped decaying.
He'd cut off the rot—not physically, but conceptually.
That part of his hand...
Wasn't his hand anymore.
With the Clarion of Touch, he could change bodily laws. Declaring something not his was a valid workaround.
He had already sealed five wells, filled with blobs.
But now—
His goal had changed.
He and Wanora had two completely different approaches.
But her method—
It made more sense.
They agreed.
Just one problem—
"I CAN'T SOLIDIFY WATER, WANORA!!"