Lucy and Maxwell: Spellsword for Hire Chapter two.

[ebugle]

Prologue
Chapter One

The entrance to the sewers wasn't far away at all, just as Pat said. A couple blocks down the road from where you left with Pat is a small building that allows access to the sewers below the city. All you had to do was open the hatchway and lower the rope ladder and viola, you are now standing in the sewers along with your new kobold buddy.

Looking around, you can see you're in a dimly lit cavern, not the sewers proper yet. Either that, or the sewers here aren't as extravagant and filled with pipes as the ones you imagine are common to the elves and grander human cities. The walls are dirt and stone and you're fairly certain they formed this way naturally for the most part

On the wall beside you is a goblin lantern, the sole source of illumination for the room. It's attached to a hook and easily removable. Closer inspection tells you it was almost certainly made by humans.

Before you is a (presumably) human-made chasm with smooth sides. You can't see all the way down, but you can hear water rushing through it, theoretically it's where the sewer waters run. The water sounds as though it's moving towards your left.

On either side of the chasm is the remains of a metal bridge, removed by unknown means. You can see a path through the far wall, but it's currently unreachable unless you can find a way to cross the chasm.

The chasm continues through the walls to both your left and right, with just enough space for you to walk along side them. Presumably they go quite aways.

Finishing your initial look around the room, you consider your next move.

Comments

[ebugle]

You are currently in control of Maxwell, and actions may only be given to him. Pat has joined your party as a companion and Maxwell can ask him for assistance as needed.

You may transform back into Lucy in 2 hours. You must transform back within 10.

What do you do?

[(Anonymous)]

Well first we need to grab the lantern for sure.

Second, uh, see if we can sense any source of magic? Or a direction where it's stronger? Flip a coin if it really doesn't matter which way we go.

[ebugle]

>Well first we need to grab the lantern for sure.

First things first, you need the lantern. Heck, it's even named after you. Well, it's named after what you are, but really, is that all that significant a difference?

As you take the lantern off its hook, Pat speaks up. "Perhaps I should hold it?"

"Oh hey, good idea!" That'll keep your hands free for combat should the need arise. You hand him the lantern. "Here, take Maxwell."

Pat smiles and takes it without comment. Man, he's no fun at all. What's it take to get a reaction from this guy?

>see if we can sense any source of magic? Or a direction where it's stronger?

The magic seems strongest from across the chasm. You're not surprised, things always work out that way it seems.

Both your left and right feel equally subdued magic wise.

>I'd say go upstream rather than down.

Upstream it is!

You walk along the side of the chasm with Pat following. With the lantern closer to the edge, you can see the bottom now, but it's definitely a further drop than you'd like to experience if you didn't have to. You make a mental note to not fall fall in.

It's not long before the path opens up into another small cavern. This one's smaller than the one you were just in and its only exists are alongside the chasm.

On your side of the chasm are three storage cabinets alongside the wall to your right. On the far side, you don't see anything of note at the moment, but you still can't cross over so you can't rule out something outside your current range of vision.

[ebugle]

Sorry for not posting multiple times yesterday like I said I would. I was kind of giving other people a chance to see chapter two started, but I guess people were busy. No matter, onwards and upwards!

[(Anonymous)]

Check all the cabinets!

[ebugle]

>Check all the cabinets!

Well, the obvious thing to do here is to see what's inside those cabinets. Besides, you love taking stuff that's not yours!

You head on over and open the first one. Inside is a rope! It's coiled up, but you estimate it's about tenish meters, give or take. Ropes are generally rather useful, so into the carpenter's pouch it goes! You're sure whoever actually owns it won't mind. Then again, you're going to take it even if they do.

"You're not even going to consider that this rope belongs to someone else, are you?" Lucy asks, exasperatedly.

"Why Lucy, I'll have you know I absolutely did consider it," you explain. "I just decided that our need for it is greater than some random sewer worker's. Lucy sighs. You ignore her, eager to see what else you can scavenge.

After making sure nothing else of note remains in the first cabinet, you attempt to open the second. Unfortunately, it appears to be locked. Frowning, you try the third. Also locked. How frustrating!

You turn to Pat, hand still on the handle. "No chance you moonlight as a sewer worker when not doing all your clericy stuff and just happen to be carrying a key to these under those robes of yours, is there?" Pat just smiles and shakes his head. Oh well, worth a shot.

Guess you'll have to find another way to rummage through the belongs of other people and take Whatever strikes your fancy. At least you still nabbed a free rope!

[(Anonymous)]

use MAgic! either blow the lock off, or maybe throw some kind of light source across the chasm to see?

[ebugle]

Today's update will be late (and currently is, obviously). I'll be posting from work.

[ebugle]

>use MAgic! either blow the lock off, or maybe throw some kind of light source across the chasm to see?

Oh sure, you'll get right on those things as soon as you turn into Lucy. Do you look like you're attuned to fire? No, of course not. As your mask implies, you derive your powers from the moon, which makes water your element. A goblin's elemental affinity is determined at birth and nothing can change it. Besides, water is much cooler than fire anyway.

Since water is your affinity, you can manipulate water and ice to some degree. Additionally, you can create small quantities of water and ice and shape them. Sadly, nothing you create will last long as magically created matter vanishes after awhile, so you can't go around doing thing like creating grand ice statues of your magnifficant personage and leave them for all to see, but it's handy for solving short term problems.

As a spellsword, you can also imbue your weapon with water or ice granting it enhanced properties. That will likely come up at some point eventually you're sure.

Oh, you can also reduce the temperature of things. That can be great fun.

But what you can't do is blow things up or cast light. Well, you could throw Maxwell accross the chasm to light it up, but you only just named him! It. Whatever. Besides, Pat is holding it. Him. Yeah, definitely him. No one, be they goblin or lantern, can bear your glorious name and not be male.

What were you thinking about again? Oh right, using magic to open the cabinets. You've got a good feeling that it's possible, but not the ways you've been thinking.

[(Anonymous)]

Fill the locks with water, then freeze it!

[ebugle]

>Fill the locks with water, then freeze it!

A simple matter. Hardly worthy of your time, but it gets the job done you suppose. In no time at all, the two locks are rendered worthless and you have access to the contents. The exercise barely drained any of your mana, even.

The first newly unlocked cabinet has a toolbox inside. Inside that is a hammer, a pipe wrench and a whole lot of air. Why the owner of these items felt the need to carry all of two tools in a toolbox is beyond you. Then again, considering such matters is beneath you anyway. Pilfering the toolbox, however, is not. Into the carpenter's pouch!

The last cabinet just has a sheet of paper underneath a small pile of of silver masks. Whoever owns these cabinets must be the most boring person ever if he needs three cabinets for what amounts to almost nothing. Ah well, no sense worrying about it.

You yank the paper out from under the coins and look it over. At first glance, it looks like a crudely drawn wagon wheel. Then you notice the words in the center saying "Stay away from the center." Weird. Possibly useful, possibly not, but definitely weird. Shrugging, you shove the paper into the pouch in case it's useful later.

You stare at the small pile of coins for a minute before closing the door. Even you can't think of a justification for how stealing the cash would help you save the kobold girl you're looking for, and it's probably not worth the nagging the cleric will likely give you. Then again, considering how he's been acting so far, he might not even say anything. He sure has been oddly quiet while you broke some random guy's locks and stole all his stuff. Eh, best to play it safe. You turn away from the cabinets and ponder your next move.

[(Anonymous)]

Go Elsa on that chasm, and build a fancy bridge out of ice!

[(Anonymous)]

If we don't have a way across the chasm, might as well keep going onwards. There might be more lockers full of garbage! er. treasure. whichever.

[ebugle]

>build a fancy bridge out of ice!

That's a great idea! Except creating a bridge long and wide enough to span the chasm would probably take all your mana, leaving you with none for future problems or combat. And while, yes, there is water in the chasm for you to use which would solve most of those problems, it's too far below you to be of much use to you right now. So it's a great idea apart from the fact that it's a terrible idea.

>If we don't have a way across the chasm, might as well keep going onwards. There might be more lockers full of garbage! er. treasure. whichever.

Doesn't look like there's much else to do here at the moment, you may as well head further in. You continue walking upstream on the path alongside the chasm.

After a significant time of walking, far longer than the trip between the previous two rooms, you see that the chasm ends up ahead. Well, kind of. Where the chasm would be is a rock wall, which conveniently is only as tall as the surface you're walking on now, meaning you'll be able to walk across it easily enough it. As you get closer, you see that the wall actually has an opening that the water is coming from, possibly a tunnel. Looking closely, you can see a metal walkway of sorts closer to the surface of the water, which you can only assume continues to follow the water upstream through the opening in the wall, but you're too far away and it's too dark to see for sure. You don't see any obvious way to get from the path you're on now down to the walkway below.

As you reach the far side of the pathway, you notice you're actually at a crossroads of sorts. The path you were on, as well as the one parallel to you on the other side of the chasm, meets up with another tunnel going to your left and right. Looking down the tunnel in both directions, you see this new path curves slightly, as though it's part of a large circle with the center somewhere behind you.

You suppose you'll have to figure out which direction to go from here.

[(Anonymous)]

Follow the circle path on the opposite side! Watch for large hadrons though

[ebugle]

>Let's get a closer look at that walkway down there. Tie Maxwell to the rope and dangle him down so that he can light it up.


"Hey, can I see Maxwell for a second?" you ask, getting an idea. Ted wordlessly hands him to you. You pull out the rope from your carpenter's pouch and tie one end to Maxwell. "Down you go!" you cheer as you slowly lower your new best friend down the side chasm. "Let me know what you see!" Maxwell says nothing.

Despite Maxwell lighting up the tunnel, you can't really get all that good a look into it as the entrance isn't all that big. The water and platform continue on as far as you can see, though. You briefly wonder what it's even for as you reel Maxwell back up and give him back to Pat.

>See if there's any strong magic readings coming from anywhere.

You can barely feel the magic anymore from where you are, but it's definitely still coming from behind you and to the left. You could conceivably get to it by back tracking down the path on the other side of the chasm, but then you might be able to get to it by taking the left path as well if it curves enough. It's hard to tell at this point without exploring more.

You don't detect any new sources of magic either.

What next?

[(Anonymous)]

Might as well go check out the other side of that broken bridge.

[ebugle]

>Might as well go check out the other side of that broken bridge.

You figure there's no reason to change the plan at this point. You set out to check out what was on the other side of that bridge, and you may as well find out. You cross over to the other side of the chasm, and begin the journey back the direction you came from. Pat follows.

When you get back to the cavern you were in previously, the one with all those tools you liberated from those cabinets, you take a look around and see if there's anything of note. There doesn't appear to be, so you continue on.

As you walk along the ledge of the chasm you suddenly hear a large crash from somewhere up ahead, causing you to stop in surprise. You don't see anything that might have caused it, though but then again you can't see very far with only Maxwell for light. You're beginning to rethink continuing forward. It could be nothing, but then again, who knows?

"Shall we keep going?" Pat seems unfazed by the noise. In fact, he almost sounds a little eager, as if curious to see what could have caused the noise.

Meanwhile, Lucy has the opposite idea. "I don't like the sound of that. My gut's saying turn back." Maybe you should listen. You two have been stuck with each other for awhile now, and her gut feelings are right more often than not. Not always, though. Still, there's something not quite right about this whole situation.

What do you do?

[ebugle]

Well, looks like no one responded today, so I'll be doing a "Break" update instead. We'll try again tomorrow.

[ebugle]

>Motion Pat to stay still for now so that Maxwell won't give us away, then quietly move forward and peek around the corner of the pathway. Whoever it is, they'll hopefully have brought their own light source.

As much as you love your new best friend, he might give you away. You wordlessly inform him to stop moving. Pat too, for that matter.

Hoping you'll have the element of surprise, you move as quietly as you can towards the corner. Fortunately, goblin armour isn't all that noisy.

"I'm telling you, this is a bad idea," Lucy reminds you.

"Sometimes the bad ideas are the best ideas," you reply, undeterred. There are so many reasons why you should figure out who this is.

As you get to the corner, you prepare yourself for the worst then peek around it.

Unfortunately, you don't see much of anything since it's rather dark. If only Maxwell were here. No wait, that would be bad. Despite the lack of Maxwell's illuminating presence, you can vaguely make out the outlines of various shapes. Most notable is something blocky in the way of the pathway, but unfortunately you can't make out anything that might be your mystery guest.

You're about to turn back and report your findings, when a woman's voice calls out. "I know you're there."

Well, shit.

[(Anonymous)]

say nothing, dont move, watch for movement

[ebugle]

>say nothing, dont move, watch for movement

You remain motionless and survey the situation; it's possible she's bluffing after all. But to your dismay, you see a figure rise up from behind the blocky thing and point directly at you. So much for the element of surprise...

"Come here. I want to talk." Her voice is full of authority, as though she's accustomed to people listening to her. "And bring a goddamn light with you."

Well, at least Maxwell's invited to the party.

[(Anonymous)]

Get Maxwell, and comply grudgingly, but keep your magic at the ready

[ebugle]

>Get Maxwell, and comply grudgingly, but keep your magic at the ready


Ugh, talking is so not how you wanted this encounter to go down. Guess it'll have to do for now, though. "Fine. I'll be back."

You return to Maxwell and Pat, who seem to have already heard your brief exchange as Pat is handing Maxwell out to you. You take him wordlessly and turn around again to go confront this mystery lady.

Once illuminated, you can see that the pathway goes on for a bit, but the entrance is lined with several tall shelves of stuff on them. One such cabinet appears to be the blocky thing you could make out before. Given the broken glass and such around it, you assume it was the source of one of the crashes from before.

But your eyes don't stay on the cabinets for very long, as you're a little more preoccupied with the heavily armored woman standing behind the cabinet, a poleaxe of some sort strapped to her back. She's about your height, though a fair bit stockier. You can't see her face behind her helmet, but you still get the impression she's pretty mad about something.

But there's something very strange about her armour; you've never seen any like it before. It doesn't look like it was made by any of the races in the Nation of Five which would mean...

"Oh, this is bad..." Lucy warns. "I think that's a dwarf."

A dwarf? How every interesting, you've never killed a dwarf before! Granted, that's probably because they, along with the Slith and the Minotaurs, lost a war with the NoF centuries ago and haven't been seen within the boarders for just as long. Sure, they'd occasionally harass the boarders, but for the most part they seemed to know fighting the NoF was a losing battle.

This ultimately means that you don't know much about dwarves. All you've heard is that they can learn black magic like goblins too, but they're all attuned to earth, no other element. They also tend to live underground, which might explain why they only ever get attuned o earth. On top of that, they worship dark gods that like ritual sacrifices. Typically of the living, and, preferably, non-dwarven.

You're beginning to piece together the puzzle of what exactly has been going on in town... but still, you're days away from the boarder. What the hell are is a dwarf doing here? And how'd she even get here?

Before you can ask, the dwarf speaks. "In case you couldn't tell, goblin, I'm not from around here. You and I need to chat."

"But of course," you reply with a bow. No need to be rude after all. "Though may I ask what the purpose of our little chat is?"

"You're here for the little girl." It wasn't a question. "It just so happens, I know where she is."

If your mask had eyebrows, you'd raise one out of suspicion. There's no way this is going to be that easy. "Do you now? And where would that be?"

The dwarf shakes her head. "It don't work like that, goblin. Your kind and mine ain't exactly friends. I ain't saying anything more unless you and your little pal agree to help me out."

You wait a moment for her to elaborate, but she keeps true to her word and keeps quiet. Guess you'd better say something first, then.

[(Anonymous)]

Grudgingly agree to help her, so long as she swears the girl is unharmed.

We can always go back on our word and kill her later if that's what we need to do.

[ebugle]

>Depends what she needs help with, first.

No way you're going to just agree to some mystery deal at this point. Not without at least trying to get more information. "So what exactly is it you want me to do? I sure hope it isn't to clean up this mess because I left my broom at home." You gesture at the knocked over shelf.

"It ain't smart to make fun of me, goblin." You can practically feel the dwarf's hatred emanating from her helmet. It's a glorious feeling; first encounter with a new race and already you're well loathed. "Keep it up and you might just find out just where the sewer water goes first hand." Oh, this will be a fun one.

"But you're lucky. I can't do this on my own and what I want is also what you want. I want you to take the girl out of here. Alive."

Well that's certainly convenient. Almost a little too much so. You find yourself wishing your mask had eyebrows again. "You're not telling me everything."

"And I ain't going to until you agree." Guess she's pretty instant on keeping quiet.

[pianistofraielin]

Agree to it, but be ready for a double-cross. You've got Pat with you, so you outnumber her, should be fine.

[ebugle]

>Agree to it, but be ready for a double-cross. You've got Pat with you, so you outnumber her, should be fine.
>Grudgingly agree to help her (in order to not sound too keen and arouse suspicion) and be ready to kill her later should the need arise.
>It is very tempting to decline and press on, and try to force the dwarf to be more accommodating or else not get any help at all. But it's a dwarf, and she might just be stubborn enough to not give in. At least if you agree and hear her out, you may know what you're walking in to.

"I suppose I've got no choice, do I?" You shrug, hopefully conveying that you feel helpless in this situation. "So tell me, just what exactly is going on here?"

"Awfully trusting, ain't you?" You can't tell whether or not she's being sincere at this point. Still, she relaxes her posture a little. "Short version is that my companions are being morons and I want them to fail. Taking the girl out of here alive will accomplish that."

Despite the lack of details, that's actually pretty interesting. Still, you need more to go off of. "So there's more dwarves down here, then?"

"Five of us." You wait for her to continue, but that seems to be it.

Guess you'd better steer the conversation yourself. "And what exactly are they planning on doing?"

"Sacrifice the girl." Okay, her brevity is officially getting annoying. "You need to stop them."

"She's a big help." Not really accomplishing much yourself, Lucy.

"This would go a lot faster if you'd just let me know the entire situation."

"I ain't telling you anything you ain't gotta know," you can't see her eyes, but you get the feeling she's glaring at you. "We ain't buddies, we're enemies with a common cause. I ain't exactly gonna be spilling sensitive details without reason."

Ugh, this woman's more difficult to deal with than Lucy, and that's including the fact that you periodically lose your body. Guess you'd better think of things to ask if she's not going to be forthcoming on the details.

[(Anonymous)]

Where is the girl? How do we get there from here? How is she being held? What sort of resistance should we expect? Is there a way to sneak in undetected? If not how early will they know we're coming? What will they do with the girl when they realize we're trying to take her?

[ebugle]

A million questions come to you in an instant. Not that it's hard, there's a lot about this situation that needs answering.

>What's her name

Let's start with an easy one. "Well then, enemy with a common cause, what's your name?" It's not like you can just keep calling her "dwarf" all night long.

The dwarf gives a single rude laugh. "As if I'd tell you. Names are for allies and friends, and you ain't either." Well that was a little rude. Clearly wherever this dwarf was raised, she wasn't taught proper manners.

The dwarf continues with her dismissal of your question, "You're Goblin. I'm Dwarf." She points to each of you in turn. "Keeps it simple."

Apparently you can call just keep calling her "Dwarf" all night long. Silly you, thinking that wasn't an option.

>why is she/her group here, what exactly is she hoping to accomplish

Now that you've properly introduced ourselves, in traditional dwarven fashion you're sure, time to gather some real information.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Dwarf," you give a small bow. "Now that we're such darling friends, how about you tell me what brings you and your friends to this fine city?"

Dwarf doesn't respond at first, as if unsure if she should answer or not. You're about to give up and ask another question when she says "Suppose you need to know if you're going to help." You admit you're a little surprised that you're actually getting a straight answer for once.

"The morons running the Council seem to think now's a good time to invade your idiotic country," her voice changes into what you can only assume is a mockery of whomever she's talking about. "We've been waiting a long ass time and now's the time to strike, blah blah blah." She gives another curt laugh. "They're morons and they're going to get dwarves killed for no reason. Your stupid nation off five idiots has never successfully been invaded, let alone by dwarves, and there's nothing I can see that will change things now."

"You'll tell me your country is planning to invade but won't tell me your name?" You chuckle a bit at the situation. This girl's got to get her priorities straight. Nothing is more important than a glorious introduction, after all.

"I'm telling you because I want you to stop us. Maybe if we fail here, those idiots will pull their heads out of their asses and do something useful for once."

Well, that is interesting! Dwarf here is a traitor! "Stop you from doing... what, exactly?" You tilt your head as you ask her. Everyone knows tilting your head when asking questions makes the other person more likely to answer.

"Nice try, Goblin. I ain't telling you our mission. We still ain't friends." Clearly dwarves have some form of natural immunity to tilted heads. You'll have to remember that the next time you meet one. "Just rescue the girl. If you succeed, we fail and hopefully this stupid invasion will be cancelled." Interesting. Not terribly pertinent information, but interesting.

>Where is the girl? How do we get there from here?

Now's as good a time to inquire about Sam as any. "Well then, I suppose I'd better get to rescuing her! For both our sakes, yes? Your cause sounds almost as noble as mine, after all." You place your hand on your chin and tilt your head the other way. "Small problem, though. I'm afraid I still don't know where she is, or how to get there. Good thing I've got a dwarven guide to lead the way, then, isn't it, Dwarf?"

It's probably your imagination, but the slit on Dwarf's visor seems to narrow in anger. "She's that way." Dwarf points in the general direction the water in the chasm is flowing towards. "Our base is in the center of the sewers." So you picked the wrong direction to head initially. Why is that always how these situations seem to work?

"About time you got some useful information from her," Lucy is clearly not pleased with your interrogation thus far.

"Why Lucy, I'm wounded. You don't consider a dwarven invasion useful information?"

"Not unless it gets our hands on that sword any sooner," Lucy points out dryly. You admit defeat this time. Priorities, after all.

>How is she being held? What sort of resistance should we expect? Is there a way to sneak in undetected? If not how early will they know we're coming? What will they do with the girl when they realize we're trying to take her?

Moving right along, you need a plan of attack. Something tells you that you won't be able to just waltz right in, ask for the girl, and be on you merry way, after all. "So I just head that way until I find four angry dwarves waiting to kill anything that interferes with their mysterious plans? Sounds delightful, but I think it would be useful to know a little more than the general location I should head in."

"You want details? Fine." Your charming personality seem to have finally won her over! No one can resist your diplomatic tactics forever.

"The girl is in a stone cage on the far side of the base. There's no way of opening it without earth magic, so you'll have to figure out how to get her out on your own. There's two of us guarding her at all times. The other two are getting the ritual ready. I'm supposed to be scouting." Dwarf laughs. You're pretty sure you get the joke.

"All five of us are well versed in combat and magic. You'll get slaughtered if you make your fool presence known, and you're a moron if you think otherwise. There's tons of earth and stone down here, and that's our element in case you've forgotten.

"Since I'm scouting, they're not actively looking for any threats, so you might be able to sneak in. But if you're careless, they'll still detect you through the ground. That's how I found you. Lucky for you, I found you before you blundered in like a moron, alerting everyone to your presence and getting your fool self ground into pace by a boulder."

You wait for Dwarf to continue with her surprisingly out of character description of the situation, but she seems to be done. Guess that's all you're going to get for now. You try and piece together everything she's told you so far.

"So all I need to do is invade the camp without touching the ground, make my way to a cage I can't open, sneak past two to four angry dwarves who will kill me on sight, and then somehow get out with a little girl who no doubt will do nothing but slow me down," you recap. "Sounds simple enough."

"And you've got until midnight to do it," Dwarf adds. "That's when the girl's being sacrificed." Nothing like a time limit to keep you on your toes!

"This has officially become suicidal." Oh that Lucy, always looking on the bright side of things.

She's got a point, though. You and Lucy have never come across a job you couldn't accomplish before, but this is a teensy bit on the difficult side. It would probably be prudent to carefully consider your next move.

[(Anonymous)]

Take inventory of you and lucy's magical capabilities

[ebugle]

>Take inventory of you and lucy's magical capabilities

What, again? What could possibly have happened in the last 30 minutes that would have caused you to forget your capabilities? Again?

Well, no matter. As you previously reminded yourself, you're attuned to water, and your abilities reflect that. You can conjure small quantities of water and ice, though conjured matter doesn't last long and will vanish in time. You can also manipulate already existing water and ice, imbue your weapon with water or ice, and lower the temperature of things. Lucy's pretty much the exact same, but with fire. Well, she doesn't decrease temperatures, she increases them, but other than that, no noticeable differences.

As for other magical like capabilities, you can detect black magic, and transform into Lucy in about 90 minutes or so. You've also got most of your mana. You figure if you had to put a number on it you've got about 267/269ths of your mana. Then again, you're probably just making numbers up again. Incidentally, when either you or Lucy transforms into the other one, the relevant goblin completely replenishes their mana, so that's notable if that situation would come up.

While you're at it, you may as well mentally list off your other assets at the moment. You've still got your goblin armour and your human dirk, obviously. Your carpenter's pouch has a rope, a toolbox containing a pipe wrench and a hammer, Lucy's mask, a small jar of Drake's Touch, a peace of paper with a bad drawing of a wagon wheel or something and a warning not to go to the center of the wheel, and a sack of 28 silver masks.

As for allies, you've got a lantern named after yourself, a kobold cleric not named after yourself, and a dwarf named after her race.

Oh, and about three and a half hours before midnight. Can't forget that time limit. That means that if you transform into Lucy, she won't be able to transform back into you before the deadline.

>If we can't touch the ground, how about going in through the water? Maxwell's affinity is Water, after all, and Dwarf here just told us all this water is running directly toward their base of operations. Ask Dwarf what the chasm situation is at their base, how far is the drop until you hit the surface of the water, how long can we hold our breath (either naturally or via magic), if the chasm is very deep how much mana would we expend creating either a geyser or an ice staircase to get up, and how silently could we manage it?

You're pretty sure some of those questions you know the answer to yourself. Not to mention, Dwarf probably doesn't know the answer. Like how long you can hold your breath. You could ask, but you doubt she'd answer correctly.

Still, going through the water is certainly an interesting idea. Probably a smelly idea, but whatever, everything smells down here a little. You've not really noticed it until now, but then goblins don't really care about smells as much as other races do.

You may as well answer the questions you can answer yourself first. Regarding holding your breath, you can probably hold your breath for a solid three minutes. Maybe a bit longer if you have to. And assuming the ground down here is level, it's just over ten meters to the surface of the water, which you learned when you lowered Maxwell to check out that cave. You could probably climb down with the rope if you needed to.

As for how much mana you'd need to get back up? That's trickier. Maybe about half if you're lucky, more if you're not? It's hard to estimate when you're not actually there. Luckily magic is by and large a silent art, so it won't alert anyone by sound. Sight's a different matter entirely, of course.

You have no idea what the chasm situation is like, though, so that seems like a question you can safely ask her without sounding completely stupid. She'll probably assume you are anyway, but at least you won't sound it.

"So if I can't touch the ground, clearly I should head into the base by water, shouldn't I?" you muse out loud, letting Dwarf in on your deductions. She gives no reaction. "So I'm thinking I swan dive into the water running through the chasm down there, swim like a fish as close to the base as I can, and them climb like a monkey back up top using magic. Well, a magical monkey."

"You're an idiot." Guess Dwarf isn't fond of magical monkeys. Either that, or she desperately needs to increase her vocabulary.

"Thing is, I'd like to conserve as much mana as I can, for obvious reasons. Can't spend all of it imitating a monkey, of course. So is there anything you can tell me about the chasm near your base? How far to the water it is from the top and all that?"

"It's all the same height." Guess she can still give useful information. "But if you're fool enough to actually travel through the water, you should know it opens up to a large whirlpool in the center of the place."

Well that's probably relevant information. You make sure to do your absolute best not to forget whatever it was she just told you.

"Any more questions before you drown yourself?" Looks like Dwarf is about ready to end this conversation.

[(Anonymous)]

no questions, swan dive away! give a dramatic one-liner as you go over the edge.

[ebugle]

>Just how strong a swimmer is Maxwell? I don't think we should be pushing him off a cliff into a whirlpool if he can't get himself out of it.

You're pretty sure lanterns can't swim.

>no questions, swan dive away!

You, meanwhile, are a fantastic swimmer, what with water being your speciality and all. You're at home in water and have no problem navigating it. That being said, you're still pretty sure armour and water don't mix very well. Not to mention a dive from 10 meters into water of in-determinant depth is likely to go poorly.

>It's probably also a good idea to wait at least 90 minutes before we head into battle--and let's face it Maxwell is not going to be able to avoid one--because that mid-battle MP restore would probably come in handy, not to mention the effect of using nothing but Water magic for the first half then switching to Fire for the second would have on the dwarves.

Transforming is not only not instantaneous, it's also incredibly painful for both of you. And last time you checked, sending yourself into a fit of incredible pain was not a winning strategy in a fight to the death.

Transforming to Lucy may be worth it at some point during this rescue mission, but not in the middle of combat.

>For someone who wants her companions to fail, Dwarf is being exceedingly unhelpful. She must have some other concern, and my best guess is that she's worried that if she gives us too much information and we get caught, it'll be clear she's the one who told us.

That's right. You've been nothing but accommodating with Dwarf, yet she's been hiding information from you this whole time. And she seems to only be giving you the barest of details. That's not very nice of her. "You know, Lucy, I don't think Dwarf here trusts us!"

"Really? Do tell?" Something tells you Lucy doesn't trust Dwarf either.

>Also, she somehow thinks we're an idiot, which is just crazy.

"Not only does she not trust us, she thinks we're stupid!", you continue, unperturbed by Lucy's comments.

"Well, she thinks you're stupid, anyway."

>Since she's so bad at judging intelligence, let's make her think we're exactly the worst kind of idiot, one who has no intention of backing out of this, and is going to fail in such a way that she's blatantly involved.

"We should show her just how stupid we are!"

"...Where is this going?"

>Start planning out loud

"Follow my lead." you instruct Lucy, then put your hand to your chin and start pacing back and forth. Out loud you say, "So I know how to get into the base, so the next impossible task is to get past the guards. But how would I do that?"

"What are you doing?" Lucy asks.

You stop pacing, tilt your head up to address the air, and make an exasperated hand gesture "I'm thinking aloud to solve the problem," you tell her. "Obviously."

You feel Lucy put her nonexistent mask in her nonexistent palms. "You're really going to do this?" She asks.

"Yes I am! Now come on, you're not being helpful!"

"Who the hell are you talking to?" Dwarf asks.

"Lucy!" you tell her excitedly, then tap your forehead. "She lives in my head."

Dwarf gives no response. You're pretty sure that means your brilliant plan is working.

Course, now you've got to figure out where to take this conversation so that you'll get the most information or support out of Dwarf.

[(Anonymous)]

oh, mention how deadly and dangerous your ice can be! maybe dwarf will consider giving you a less lethal alternative!