Chapter Seven: And Isn't It Iron-ic
"So, what's the solution to this one, mighty commander?" asked Wheeze, staring at the incredible Psynergy-blocking fire with the other Djinn.
"I'm starting to think we should just have you vent hot air until it goes out. How does Luff stand you?" demanded Torch.
"I have an idea," said Chill.
"I mean, you can't burn it, you can't poison it, you can't pull it apart, you can't corrode it, and I'd be amazed to see anyone actually freeze a fire," Torch went on.
"Maybe we could… uh… I don't know, actually," said Core.
"I said I have an idea," Chill repeated.
"It would be nice to have some more tools to work with," Vine commented.
"Like what?" asked Core.
"An Elemental Spirit, maybe. I don't suppose Mercury is hanging around here anywhere?"
"Do I look like I'm near retching?"
"Not possible. We don't eat. We're not built to retch."
"That's quite an inspiring slogan, actually."
"Although I'm beginning to think I should leave you for the Lunpans, I have an idea!" Chill shouted. The other Djinn spun, genuinely startled. "Have you really not been listening to me?"
"Uh…" said Salt, looking at the other Djinn, "…was she talking?" There was a general attempt to shrug, though none of the Djinn had shoulders, and so were forced to improvise.
"Right. I don't know about the rest of you, but as long as this fire's going, we're in trouble, and as long as we're in trouble, our Adepts are in trouble, which is bad enough, except that as long as they're in trouble, the entire world is in trouble, so I've had it," Chill declared.
"Meaning what?" asked Sour.
"I'm taking control of this before it's too late to do any good. Now listen up, I think there's still a way to salvage this whole ordeal," the Mercury Djinn declared, marching into the room, toward the incredible heat of the blaze in its brazier. It made her cringe, so much heat and dryness, but Picard would never falter against a simple fire- or a complicated one.
"What?" said Torch, bewildered. "Are you actually trying to mutiny?" Chill spun on Torch and a familiar look was in the Djinni's eye, though not one she could ever remember from Chill before. Slowly, very deliberately, Chill answered.
"Arr."
"I'm not interested in excuses," said Bane. "You give me solutions or you bring me the heads of our enemies. Anything less is less than I expect from Djinn of your skills."
"I am getting so sick of hearing that," said Petra.
"We aren't out to kill these people anyway," Kindle protested.
"What if we find that Jenna's been killed?" asked Bane.
"Then I'll make sure to remove the bodies' feet so their ghosts can't walk."
"Now you're getting into the spirit of it."
The Djinn were deep inside the fortress now, but they hadn't made any progress in finding the Adepts, and it was grating on all of them. Bane was either so happy that it wrapped around and started coming toward happy from the other direction, or he was just being an ancient grumpy pain, because the truth was that they didn't know what condition the Adepts were in.
The Djinn had been splitting up, making circuits through the tunnels, and returning to Bane's core group, but so far they hadn't seen a single hint that the Adepts were on the planet, let alone in this fortress and in these dank, rough-walled dungeon levels.
"This isn't fair!" Gel growled. "We're wandering around pointlessly without finding even a hint to lead us to the Adepts after slipping down here unnoticed-"
"Unlike Fever and Gale and the rest aboveground, we haven't blown anything up," Balm noted.
"I know, that's bothering me too!"
"If you want to stay unnoticed, then be quiet!" Crystal ordered the Mercury Djinni.
"No, I don't really want to go unnoticed! I want to be noticed, find the people holding the Adepts hostage, beat the location out of them, and then get back to Vale!" Gel shot back.
Crystal and Bane looked at her. "She's entirely out of line," Bane said.
"She also has a point," Crystal added.
"We all want to be back in Vale."
"No, I mean maybe we should try finding a guard or two to lead us to our Adepts."
"You mean beat the location out of him? Find a hapless soldier who probably doesn't want to be here and smack him about until he give in and does something that'll probably get him killed by his superiors when he gets found out?" said Bane.
"Well, I'm sure we could find some way of ensuring his saf-"
"I like this plan. Zephyr!" The Jupiter Djinni turned, but the elemental opposition kept him from replying with anything like 'yes, sir'. "Find me a… what was it, Crys? Oh, right. Find me a hapless soldier."
"How's it going?" called Torch into the hole at the back of the fire-chamber.
"Not bad," Echo reported. "I'm through all the foundations now, but I don't know how well I'm going to be able to dig through earth. Stone's easy, but have you ever heard of a dirt-breaker attack?"
Torch sat back on her highly-flexible legs and tried to puzzle this one out. Chill insisted on digging, but the ground was going to be trouble. "Whorl, I don't suppose there's any chance you could just suck up all the-"
"Don't finish that sentence and I won't be forced to declare myself your archenemy."
Having got the response she expected, Torch sank back into contemplation. Core and Coal weren't likely to do much down there, nor Wheeze or Breeze… Wheeze and Breeze… Wheeze can't help or try to freeze and what can one expect from Breeze to put this fire out with ease…
"Hey! Torch! Weyard to Mars, we have an idea!" said Vine, waving her tail in front of Torch's eyes.
Torch jerked out of her near-trance. "What? Nachos?"
"Nachos?" Vine repeated, raising in eyebrow in bewilderment.
"Never mind. Something to do with cheese, I think. What's up?"
"I was saying I think I can use vines to break apart the ground and drag it back up here."
"Sounds good, I guess. I just hope we don't have a ton of earth to work with before we get as deep as Chill wants. …I guess we could always just dig another hole to hold the dirt, though."
"Whatever. I'll get to work, you just figure out what to do if I hit a patch of clay or something."
The northern end of Lunpa was currently filled with the sounds of combat as the soldiers tried to comprehend what wicked force of nature had decided that they were on its part of the world-sofa. Fever, with a rather feline attitude towards such things, had decided that everywhere was his part, and had been hounding them relentlessly, with Sleet and Sap providing backup.
"I think he's lost it," said Sleet, watching Fever begin burning his way through a wall.
"What did he have to lose?" Sap countered.
"Beats me, but it's gone now."
"I really hope they don't have archers hidden away somewhere," the Venus Djinni went on. Apparently at the sight of Fever approaching, most of the soldiers on this part of the wall had fled, giving them a moment's rest. "Arrows would be worse than being hugged by Thor."
"We haven't seen them yet. You'd think the Lunpans'd have used them by now if they could."
Two important things happened at that moment. First, Ian finally managed to get the last of the villagers to agree to follow along with everyone else, meaning that all of Lunpa was preparing to lay siege to the fortress.
Second, the elite Lunpan sniper squad leader said "All right, do we think we can get moving without blowing anything else to bits? Then go!"
"This is rather more than I expected," said Dew, sitting on Ian's shoulder. She was looking out at the assembled villagers of Lunpa, a sea full of expressions saying 'It's about time we showed those people up in the fortress that we won't stand for oppression! …Can I stand at the back somewhere, please?'
"Yeah. I thought that they were supposed to be jaded and we would have to fan the flames of revolution and prove our worth and things like that," said Char.
"There are times when one must dispense with the usual difficulties of rabble-rousing, trying to instil rebellion in the populace, and just do it right first round. This is one of them," said Ian.
"I like it. Can we get moving, then?" asked Fury.
"Unless one of you wants to make an inspiring speech," said Ian. "Judging by the impatience I'm seeing, I'm not sure that would be a good idea, though."
"I've got one," said Flint. "It's not long, don't worry."
"I'm not so sure-" Dew began, but Flint had already hopped up a logpile and onto the roof of a house.
"People of Lunpa!" he shouted. The crowd, which had started to wonder if they were going to actually be laying siege to anything today, woke up. "We now march forth against those who would see you kept quiet and cowed for the rest of your lives! There is only one solution! Well, two, but no evil villains go for winner-takes-all handball these days. The only remaining solution is to stand fast, never give up, and break down their forces like stone splitting under the force of your mighty-"
"Flint!" Breath hissed.
"What?"
"They can't do that."
"Oh. Right." Flint cleared his throat, and checked the crowd. They were looking confused again, muttering to each other. He finished his speech as loudly as possible. "There are evil people in there," he called, jabbing his tail toward the castle, "and they have my friends and all our heroes held prisoner. They have you held prisoner within this city, and all the generations of your family to come unless they are stopped. Let's break some heads!"
"YES!" shouted Ian, raising a fist, and the Lunpan villagers followed suit, raising weapons (some slightly improvised) with a general cheer of determination. The Djinn, except for Dew, who stayed with Ian, led the march toward the damaged walls, with a small army in their wake.
"What, precisely, does 'break some heads' mean?" asked Ian, quietly.
"It's just one of Flint's phrases," Dew replied.
"If it's literal, I rather like it."
"Is that as bad as it looks?" asked Steam, watching the oncoming march with concern.
"Actually, it's much worse," Gale reported, having much better eyesight. "But not for us. There are Djinn at the front of that. Dew actually did it. The villagers have rallied together."
"What?! That fast?!" Tinder demanded, incredulous. "Even Dew's not that convincing."
"Dew's not there, actually… there she is. Riding the shoulder of some old guy. Actually, he looks a lot like Donpa, but not exactly the same."
"Do you think we should call Fever and the others back?" asked Ground.
"No, we'll be more useful if the Lunpans- the soldiers, I mean, I guess we're going to have to stop calling the bad guys 'Lunpans' -don't know where they're going to hit next."
Ryan moved very carefully. It wasn't that he, a soldier of the mighty fortress of Lunpa, was scared by simple dark dungeons. But the rumours already rushing through the ranks of strange creatures that had slipped through the defences and were now wreaking havoc on the upper floors. Also, he was starting to wonder if this army really was meant to protect Lunpa from the evil Adepts who were claiming to be heroes of all the world. Things seemed pretty rigid for an army of guardians.
And so he was walking carefully, because he didn't want to alert any of these tiny demons to his presence -just his luck to be the odd patrol-man out- and to give himself more time to think. For example, if they had nothing to hide, why had he been forbidden from entering a certain area of the dungeons? Why wasn't anyone allowed to leave the village except Adavir's 'pathfinder' parties, who tended to return with an incredible number of supplies?
Why did his commanding officer whack him with a truncheon whenever he asked these sorts of questions?
"What do you think, hapless-wise?"
"Eight, maybe nine out of ten."
"Doesn't look like an idiot."
"Exactly. Looks more like a naïve kid. Practically brimming with hapless."
"Easily… distracted, though."
"It's not like we're going to run into a lot of giggling girls down here."
"Oh, all right. Bag him."
Ryan heard the voices, but chose to believe that they were just a couple of other soldiers making their rounds on patrol. He decided to keep believing this until he reached a long straight corridor, at which point he would run like a gazelle fleeing a cheetah in mechanical assault armor.
The nearest straightaway wasn't near enough. A purple shape rocketed out of the shadows and orbited his head a few dozen times in a couple of seconds, startling Ryan long enough that by the time he tried to ran, his feet were stuck to the floor. He found this out at about the same time that the rest of him hit the floor, but managed not to get badly hurt.
"Don't expect much, kid, that's strong gel," said a bizarre blue creature as it walked up beside his head. "Now, what's your name?"
"You're going with pleasantries?!" demanded the purple thing, hovering over him.
"I don't see why not. There's no reason to terrify him. I'm Gel, by the way, and that's Zephyr."
"Ryan…" said Ryan, wishing vaguely that he had thought up a fake name.
"Good name. Strong name. Okay, Ryan, how would you like to perform an invaluable service to the side of good and justice and not have to get smacked with a big rock so that you don't alert the rest of the soldiers down here?"
"Uh… if I can trust you on the first part, I guess it sounds good…"
"Zephyr, we've snared ourselves an idealist. This day just gets better. Come on, Ryan. You'll probably want to leave your boots behind."
Garet was beginning to look much better, in Isaac's opinion, but he still wondered if he could be missing something, since Mia wasn't awake to see signs he didn't know. Jenna was in a sort of fragile cheerful state, leaning over Garet and waiting for him to come back to reality.
"I think it's the peacefulness on his face," said Sheba. "Content, but not the dead kind."
"I think it's the fact that he can't screw things up with a stupid remark," said Ivan.
"Do you have to take shots at him all the time?" she demanded.
"No. Call it a hobby."
"Ivan!" Sheba hissed.
"Look, if Garet were in serious trouble, he could count on me to do whatever I could. Considering that, I think I'm granted a few hundred shots when the opportunity presents itself," Ivan replied.
"Can we get back to the topic of Djinn, then?"
"What's left to say? They aren't here. Something happened to them because we've lost our Psynergy. They should be immortal, so they probably aren't dead, but they're more likely to be trapped somewhere outside Lunpa. If we're right that there's just some strange force in here that keeps us from using Psynergy," Ivan summarized.
"That sounds like it," Sheba admitted. "What now, then?"
"There isn't much we can do inside this cell, so I think that's what we've got to fix first."
"Shh!" Ivan looked around, wondering where it the sound could have come from, but he stayed quiet as well. Eventually, a sound made itself known in the silence of the deep dungeon, a rhythmic tapping of boots on stone. It got steadily louder, until Ivan could hear it directly through the narrow barred window in the door.
At the loudest point, the shadows beside the door seemed to swirl. Felix leapt up from his crouch and launched his arm through the gap, pulling the soldier over. There was a moment's sound of painful double-impact as the soldier hit the door and his other fist at the same time, but Felix kept a hold of the man's uniform and began reaching through further with both arms.
"Felix? What are you doing?" asked Isaac.
"Getting keys. We all want out, and this seems like a good way to do it," he replied.
"And if you're found before you actually get those keys?" asked Jenna.
"The next patrol won't come by for twenty-three minutes. What did you think I was doing over in the corner, writing a speech? I've been listening to these Lunpans making their rounds. There's a pattern, and we've got some free time" -Felix paused and grunted with the effort of reaching too far, then sharply exhaled, pulling back in- "and the keys to the cell."
There was silence in their cell, except for the thump of the unsupported and unconscious soldier hitting the opposite wall, and the faint jingling of the key ring Felix now held.
"He's getting better," Ivan remarked, remembering the old, gloomy Felix.
"He's getting inventive," Sheba added.
"Garet and Picard are still down," Isaac pointed out.
"'M awake, stop bothering me, 'm not g'nna be late for Krad'n's class," Garet mumbled, slowly trying to sit up, his eyes still mostly closed. Jenna yelped just slightly, hugged him so hard Isaac expected his friend to go back under again for lack of air, and the old tempered-steel-with-a-temper look returned to Jenna's face.
"That just leaves our blue-haired friends to wake up," said Felix, who was now reaching through the window for the lock and finding that even though there was enough space to reach through, the lock at least had been intelligently positioned. He fumbled a few times, discovered that he was trying to unlock a tiny fracture in the wood, and hissed a minor litany of profanity as a few splinters jabbed his hand.
"Mia?" called Isaac, softly. He placed his hand on her side and shook just a little. "Mia, we've got to move-"
"Oh, don't do that, she gets catlike," said Jenna, just as Mia lashed out and attempted to savage Isaac's hand. Only her total lack of claws saved him. Isaac frowned as she rolled away from him and curled her legs up.
"What do you suppose a bucket of water would make her do?" asked Ivan.
"Relax, maybe purr," Sheba answered. "Ivan, she's a Mercury Adept. Think before asking."
Isaac sighed theatrically. "Well, I guess I'll have to make the incisions myself. Where's that dagger-" Mia's hand snapped out and grabbed him by the wrist.
"You're not trained to cut anyone open," said Mia, firmly if a little indistinctly.
There was another salvo of swearing from the door. "I dropped the keys!" Felix snarled. He suddenly realised that a few voices were getting louder down the corridors, as if someone was approaching. "What? There shouldn't be any guards yet… blasted… dang it… oh, why did I already use all the good ones…" Just as Felix discovered that, having reached as far through the space as he could, getting his arm back inside wasn't happening anytime soon, the voices resolved into words.
"This had better be the right way," said one.
"Of course it is," said another. "Well, probably. This is the way they told us never to go."
"Smart kid. I think I like him," said a third.
"Crys, you like everyone who isn't actively trying to kill you."
"Maybe your standards are unrealistic. Hey, what's that?"
"It's an arm."
"Looks familiar. Still attached, too, that's good. Oh, it's you, Felix."
Everyone in the cell who couldn't see outside the door but could now hear the voices turned toward the exit, suddenly recognizing the voice. They had all known it for a long time, but most of them (especially Ivan and Garet) had never thought they would be happy to hear it.
"Bane?"
"I can't believe this is the best idea you had for dealing with stone, Chill," said Torch, down a very deep hole. "Honestly, melting the rock? I know, I know, flames that pierce all defence, but wouldn't a Venus Djinni be more useful?"
"Well, Torch, to be, honest, there's two reasons," said Chill, back up at the top, almost wishing Djinn could sweat as the heat of the anti-Psynergy fire raged. "Firstly, I think you're faster than anyone else for this particular task."
Torch focused her power again, turning the stone ahead of her from cold grey to orange, then red, and to her surprise, give way. It shouldn't have been able to do that unless there was something other than solid rock on the other side, but what would be down underground so far…
"And the other?" asked Wheeze, curiously.
"The other is that all fortresses need water, which is most easily found underground, and I've always wanted to get Torch back for some of those smart remarks at Mars Lighthouse," said Chill.
"…Water?" Torch repeated. The last of the rock fell into the current of the underground river, and what felt like a flood with a grudge came rushing up the tunnel.