Gamma Kindergarten was a nice change of pace, it was warm and the sun was shining. The warp pad was located on a rock pillar that was surrounded by water, with a rock bridge connecting it to the kindergarten. There was a small waterfall over to the side that supplied the river below with water. There were still some injectors here and there, among the rocky cliff faces of the open kindergarten.
"This is great they even have some injectors that look to be in good shape." Verdelite said as the two walked over the bridge, Verdelite used the limb enhancer's fingers to make a screen and began typing with the leftover finger.
"What are doing?" Bloodstone asked, trying to get a better look at the screen.
"Pulling up a map of the kindergarten, among other useful things." Verdelite responded. "Hmm, seems what we're after is there." Verdelite pointed down to a hole down at the river bank. The two walked down stairs cut out of the rock and hopped down to the river bank walking river to the columns of holes.
"Which one of these is it?" Bloodstone inquired.
"It's that one, we're going to have to go further in though, that's where the readings the strongest." Verdelite answered, deforming the screen and reconfiguring the fingers. There was one finger in the middle with the others angled towards it. "Stand back, I don't really know how to use this properly." Verdelite warned.
"Stand back for what?" Bloodstone wondered. Then an orb of energy began to form in front of Verdelite's limb enhancer, growing larger, then it flew forward into the hole. It exploded when it came in contact with the back wall, dust billowing out of the hole.
"You okay." Verdelite asked.
"I'm good." Bloodstone responded.
"I'll go get some of the material." Verdelite volunteered, reconfiguring her fingers into a screen. The dust had died down considerable by the time she entered, she walked to the back and scanned the rubble, determining what pieces had the highest concentration of radioactivity. She picked a few up and walked back out, handing them to Bloodstone.
"What now?" Bloodstone inquired.
"I'm going to take a few parts from those injectors to help improve the energy efficiency." Verdelite responded.
"You know a lot about this stuff, I thought you were an artist and historian." Bloodstone mused.
"I've been around for a few thousand years, so I've seen all kinds of things. I also spent some time using the console to look into some more modern technology I could outfit the power room with" Verdelite explained.
-Meanwhile-
A dusty, cloaked gem stands near the top of the waterfall, walking closer to the edge as she watches the newcomers. She watches as the newcomers make their way to her hole, talking about something. She hopped over a gap between the waterfall and the top of the other cliff face, then again onto the bridge to better listen to their conversation. Then the green one with the thing on her arm fires something off, destroying the original shape of her hole. She felt a twinge of joy as she looked at the deformed hole, but it was quickly replaced by the notion that these newcomers were hostile, they had destroyed part of her territory after all. She felt the need to assert her dominance over these newcomers like she did the wildlife near here.
The cloaked gem jumped off the bridge, materializing her scythe and landing in between the others. Before Verdelite could react, Bloodstone had already summoned her glaive and shield, blocking the cloaked gem's over the right diagonal slash. Verdelite swiftly slipped the limb enhancer off her arm and materialized her long sword, taking a defensive stance. The cloaked gem tried to take Bloodstone's feet out from underneath her with a sweeping low kick. Blood jumped the kick and moved to block the cloaked gem's follow up spin, the scythe blade glancing off the shield. The cloaked gem darted over towards the hole and side slid, scooping up some loose debris, and jumping back up she bounded over to Bloodstone. She slid around the shield and threw the debris right into her eyes, Bloodstone staggered back, trying to wipe the debris out of her eyes. The cloaked gem takes the opportunity to take a low swipe at Verdelite's legs, in response Verdelite jumped the swing. Verdelite had played into the cloaked gem's hand and for the few seconds she was airborne she was left open to the cloaked gem's diagonal up slash. Verdelite's reaction was fast enough to partially deflect the slash with her blade, but it was deflected into her left arm, which almost got severed. The cloaked gem was about to perform a follow up move when Bloodstone blindsided her with a shield bash fueled with enough brute force to knock the cloaked gem down the embankment.
"Are you okay?" Bloodstone fretted, looking at Verdelite's arm.
"Yeah. If she comes back, hold her off for a moment I'm going to try something." Verdelite requested. A few of the closer injectors started shuddering as she tried to pull the crystals out of them.
"On it." Bloodstone replied.
The cloaked gem made sure she was out of the newcomers' sight before she got up, she was right next to the water's edge. The newcomers were much stronger than the wildlife around here, she would have to try something. She made her way back towards the water fall and once she made it under the stone bridge she turned and got on the level above the newcomers. The cloaked gem imbedded her scythe in the ground near the edge and drug it and she moved in an attempt to trap the newcomers under a rockslide. As the rocks began to fall Bloodstone held her shield above her and Verdelite's heads and warped it large enough to cover them both properly. The rocks began to pound the shield, some beginning to build up on the top of the shield, Verdelite finally managed to rip the crystals from the injectors. The cloaked gem hopped down from above and landed in front of the two, she took a sweep at their legs but the blade was halted abruptly by a long thick crystal that had caught the scythe through the hole in the blade. Unfortunately it was stopped after it sliced through the front of Bloodstone's legs, unable to take the strain from the weight of the rocks atop her shield she dropped to her knees. her shield leaned over to the side, taking the cloaked gem by surprise and pinning her under some of the rocks, taking the opportunity Verdelite warped all the crystals into restraints around the cloaked gem, who dematerialized her scythe in defeat. Verdelite turned her attention to Bloodstone when she saw her shield and glaive dematerialize.
"B-Bloodstone you're bleeding!" Verdelite gasped.
"W-what?!" Bloodstone picked up the hand she had on the ground, it was dripping with dark purple blood. Panicking she looked down to see more blood pooling from under her legs
"Gems don't bleed, so why are you?" Verdelite questioned, holding up her left arm and pointing to the gash almost severing her arm, not a drop of blood to be seen, just a chunk missing from her manifested form.
"I d-don't know." Bloodstone replied.
"Let's worry about this later, let's get you back to the temple." Verdelite stated, stooping down with her back facing Bloodstone. She grabbed Bloodstone's hands and heaved her onto her back, Bloodstone wrapping her arms around her. She repositioned her arms under Bloodstone's legs to better hold her. Verdelite heard a grunt and turned around, facing the cloaked gem.
"Take me with you, I'd rather be your prisoner than stay in this place." Tears started to well up and roll down her cheeks," If you won't take me prisoner than shatter me like the defect I am."
The restraints around her were warped into several smaller shards, that were then warped around the rubble pinning her down. The crystal wrapped rubble was telekinetically lifted off her and moved to the side.
" If you really want to leave this place, then you can follow us back ,you can even stay at the temple. I'll leave you to your own devices, but if you do anything even remotely harmful to Bloodstone or I, I will make you wish you were shattered here. " Verdelite warned. She began the climb back up to the warp pad. The cloaked gem got up and followed them back to the warp pad, they stepped onto it and were warped to the temple.
-A Few Moments Later-
The light shot up from the plaza warp pad as the trio was warped to the temple. Verdelite stepped off first and walked a little ways towards one of the doors before stopping.
"What's your name?" She asked without turning around.
"Zircon, but I call myself Zi." The cloaked gem replied.
"The temple gate is through this door, you can go make yourself a room." Verdelite stated, starting to walk towards the door again.
"I've never seen so much snow." Zircon observed, glancing around at the snow covered landscape.
"Welcome to Wasure Temple." Verdelite responded coldly before disappearing into the South Hall. She walked up to the temple gate and placed her hand on it, a bright, glowing green line split the door in half and the sides slid back, revealing the power room. Verdelite sat Bloodstone in one of the chairs and went rummaging through the supply room, emerging with a roll of something.
"What's that for?" Bloodstone asked.
"It's to stop your bleeding there's a trail of blood leading all the way here." Verdelite answered as she started to wrap the gashes on Bloodstone's legs, in the process some of the blood got smeared on Verdelite's gem. Her gem glowed brightly and the gash on her arm began to close up.
"What just happened, my wound, it's... healed!" Verdelite gasped.
"What?!" Bloodstone responded, equally as shocked.
"Your blood got on my gem and it healed me, you must have some sort of healing power that stems from your blood coming in contact with a gem's gemstone." Verdelite theorized, thoroughly inspecting her arm.
"Maybe I can heal cracked and even shattered gems with it." Bloodstone wondered.
"It would be amazing if you could heal shattered gems, but I doubt if anything can heal them." Verdelite replied. "I'm going to go start setting up my room, I want you to take it easy until you wounds close so we don't have blood all over the floor okay."
"Okay." Bloodstone replied.