AN: Some of you may be wondering why I make our heroes walk everywhere. It sure seems like horses would be faster, doesn't it? Well, apart from Shadow of the Colossus, I've never played a game that used horses... and Agro was sometimes more trouble than he was worth. Usually, you have some sort of portal or gate scroll system to help you get around, but in this version of middle-earth the Union controls all the portals, so no efficient travel for our heroes. Think of it as taking the scenic route... all the time.

Well, after two weeks of being back home and catching up with the family Shinwoo was just about climbing up the walls from boredom. And, while the others didn't share his restlessness to quite so extreme a degree (Seira and Regis had actually found the Human village very interesting), the rest of the party was rested and ready to go off on their first real quest.

Unfortunately, finding something they could all do was proving to be rather troublesome. Regis and Seira had gotten a few offers of work, but those offers did not extend to the rest of them and so they'd declined. So far, all they'd gotten was the offer to act as bodyguards during a journey for a man with a wagon-load of what they strongly suspected was contraband. They quite enjoyed not having a criminal record, and so were looking for something else.

They only had to wait four days before something interesting came up.

It started when a gray-haired man came into town.

Shinwoo, who had first seen him from the back, assumed he was elderly, and had greeted him with an enthusiastic, 'hey, gramps!'. When the man turned around, however, the group of them saw that he didn't look to be any older than twenty-five. Shinwoo, of course, had thought his mistake hilarious and refused to call him anything else.

The man was clearly annoyed by the nickname, and insisted that his real name was 'M-21', but the other three humans of Shinwoo's team had decided they liked 'gramps' better. The guy tended to flinch slightly when they used their nickname for him, so, all things considered, it was surprising when he was the one who eventually offered them a job.

The seven of them stood on in front of the local inn, where the man was staying.

"What's the job?" asked Shinwoo, looking curious.

The man regarded the six of them. "My team and I have misplaced a rather important artifact of our benefactor's."

"Something got lost?"

"Yes. A large, silver earring in the shape of a cross."

"Any clues on where it is now?"

"Well, we know exactly where it is... it's getting it out that's the problem. It fell into a lake, if you can call it that." He shrugged. "With all the alligators, it's really more like a gigantic bog."

"Alligators?" asked Suyi. She looked excited. She and Shinwoo hadn't been able to fight anything recently.

"We know that the object is definitely in the lake, then?" asked Ikhan.

The man nodded. "Yes. It's beneath our dignity to dig around in there ourselves, so I thought I'd hire some kids to do it."

"What's the pay for this job?" Shinwoo wanted to know.

"Five hundred gold pieces," said the man.

The six of them huddled together a little ways away. "This seems like an interesting challenge to me," Ikhan said. "Want to vote on it?"

"All in favor?" asked Suyi, raising her own hand.

Five other hands went up.

"None opposed, then," she said. "Right," she announced, "turning back to the man. "Looks like we'll take the job."

Three days of drowning Balrogs later, they were just coming into sight of a rather nice-looking house.

"Is that the place, gramps?" asked Shinwoo.

"Yes," said M-21. "That's it. You six can stay with us, in the house, until you're finished."

"Can we see the lake first?" asked Ikhan.

"Certainly," said M-21. He led them around the back of the house. Sure enough, there was a large lake that looked like it was perhaps twelve fathoms deep in places. The part-members soon lost interest in what M-21 was doing as they discussed how to tackle the challenge before them. Yuna pulled out a piece of cloth, and a bit of charcoal and began taking notes. "There was a town about a mile back where we can buy supplies," she noted. "What will we need for this one, do you think?"

"Do we need anything?" asked Regis. "Couldn't we just drain the water and search the dry lake bed?."

His companions looked at him in surprise. "Well, no," said Ikhan, "we couldn't. Why, can you?"

Regis nodded. "Of course."

"How much energy would it take?" Yuna wanted to know.

Regis thought about it. "Quite a lot, but it's not like I'm going to have to run messages afterward."

"But we don't know what's in that lake," pointed out Shinwoo. "For all we know, there could be a sea serpent down there. If we took away all its water, we'd have to run pretty fast, Regis."

"A sea serpent?"

"Maybe a lake serpent? How should I know what's living in there?"

Regis was smiling. "A lake serpent..."

Ikhan was grinning ear to ear. "Silly Shinwoo, everyone knows lake serpents don't exist."

"Fine," Shinwoo was annoyed, "probably not a lake serpent, but alligators, certainly. They'd be angry with us for messing with their home."

"We could handle the alligators," said Suyi. "It's not like we're helpless."

"But taking all the water would kill the fish," said Yuna. "And I don't want to hurt the fish. We should try to change the lake as little as possible. It's not like we have a time limit, right?"

They turned to M-21, who shook his head. "Just try to get it done in the next month," he said.

"Can we still get rid of the alligators?" Suyi wanted to know. "that would help the fish, wouldn't it?" she asked, looking to Yuna for support.

Yuna, however, didn't agree. "No, that would hurt the fish."

"How would taking away the alligators hurt the fish? They eat the fish, don't they? Seems like it would help them."

"No," said Yuna. "It would only hurt them if they ate all the fish. If there weren't any alligators at all, there would be too many fish, the fish would eat all the food, and then the fish would all die."

Suyi blinked at Yuna."That doesn't make sense," she said.

Yuna shrugged. "That's the way things are." Then, she remembered why she'd brought up the topic and turned back to her list. "If we're not doing this all at once, we'll need some way to break up this task, so that means supplies. Any ideas?"

"Definitely rope," said Suyi. "Ikhan, think you can do that spell that isolates off sections of an area from each other?"

"Don't know if that's a good idea," he said. "We'll end up trapping fish in the same region as the alligators with no place to run. Might also separate mother alligators from their young."

"Well, we can't hurt the baby alligators," said Shinwoo, who had decided that Yuna was oversensitive on the subject of lake-dwelling reptiles. "Since we need them to grow up and eat fish. What about a grid on the surface of the lake to mark off sections for us to search?"

"Hmm, I like the sound of that," said Ikhan. "We could probably get through this one in eight sections and search one section a day. It likely won't take all eight, but you never know."

"What will we be we using for the actual search itself?" asked Yuna. "Ikhan, you and Regis will be doing most of the spell-work for that one, right?"

"Right," said Regis. "Though my skills are more combat-oriented than search and identify."

"Well, we can always use another person to help maintain the spells we use," said Ikhan. "Since we'll be underwater for this one, I'll set it up so that everyone uses their own mana to power the spells they need, and all I'll have to do is focus and channel the power." He turned to the swordsman.

"Shinwoo, you've still got that water-amulets we made when we had to clean out Mr. Kilkargee's fishing-lake, right? We can use those again, though we'll need to make some for Regis and Seira to wear."

"I've got them," confirmed Shinwoo, digging around in his bag. "Yuna, we'll need to buy some blank amulets and a few gemstones, as well."

"Got it," Yuna added those to her list. Then, she noticed Regis and Seira were looking out of the loop. "Oh," she said. "Ikhan knows a spell that lets him breathe underwater. He can put it onto blank amulets as well. They tend to drain your mana, though, so we try not to use them too much."

"We can't just use the mana-network to power them?" Regis wanted to know.

"Well, we could," said Ikhan, "but then we'd level-up slower. Why not take the opportunity to exercise our powers? It only makes them stronger, in the long run."

"We'll also need light while we search," said Suyi. "We'll need to see where we're going, and we'll want to know if anything's coming to attack us."

Regis conjured up a floating lantern spell. "I can cover that part," he offered. "This one doesn't take much energy."

"Ok," said Yuna. Regis let his spell dissipate; Yuna was looking over her writing. "Playing field: check; crucial spells: check. Hmm. We should probably get some hair-ties for us girls. Don't want to be looking at a cloud of hair the whole time. Oh, hey," she turned to Ikhan and Regis, "do either of you have a way to detect silver?"

"I think so," said Ikhan. "We should be able to use it within a radius of a few yards."

"Need any materials for it?"

"No. I should be able to add that one on our bling."

"Right, then. That covers the technical side of things. Suyi, Shinwoo, do you need any special weapons or supplies?"

Shinwoo hefted his sword and thought about it. "No, I think I'm good," he said. Suyi nodded her agreement.

Shinwoo then thought of something. "Hey, I know we're not doing the isolation spell... but what happens if it turns out the earring was eaten by a fish or an alligator?"

This, of course, sparked off a whole new round of conversation.

A few minutes later, M-21 headed back to the house. Behind him, the kids were splitting into two groups: one to survey the area, and one to to into town to get supplies. Shinwoo, Yuna, and Seira were going to get a feel for the lake and the animals living there, and Suyi, Regis and Ikhan were headed to the marketplace.

M-21 let himself into the house, and made his way to the living room, only to find that the inhabitants were watching the lake where he'd just come from though the glass window that was almost as large as a wall.

In the room were two Balrogs: his teammates. One was lightning, and one was fire. The blue one was looking chipper, and the red one offered a nice counterbalance, as he was perpetually placid, despite his fiery appearance. Unlike most Balrogs, the fire elemental wielded a bow, which he carried with him at all times. The two of them were up against the glass, looking curiously at the newcomers. When he entered, however, they turned their attention to him.

"Hi, '21," said fire.

"Welcome back!" said lightning.

M-21 nodded at his friends. "Takeo, Tao," he greeted them. Then, he turned to the other two occupants of the room. They both looked to be Elfin, though in truth, one was actually Human. The Human was blond with blue eyes, and looked to be about thirty. The Elf was black-haired and red-eyed. This one didn't look any older than an adolescent.

"I take it you've found some creatures of light to fish Master's property out of the lake?" asked the blond.

M-21 nodded. "They seem to be taking their task seriously, so that's a good thing. Half of them have just gone into town to buy a few things. They're planning to start tomorrow."

The man clasped his hands in satisfaction. "This seems to be a solid group. Tao, I do believe you may have been right this time."

The lightning-man grinned. "Aren't I always?"