Several days of getting up at the crack of dawn during travel meant that, by five in the morning, all six of the party-members were up and restless. None of the other residents of the house were around, though, and they wanted very much to go outside and escape the confines of the house.
Well, they'd gathered together their belongings (all of them, since they still didn't trust the house-owner) and they were chatting quietly by the door.
"We need to unlock the door to get outside," said Yuna, "but we don't have an easy way to lock it after us."
"Couldn't we just leave it open? There're two Balrogs living here, I doubt anything could surprise them," offered Regis.
"It's a matter of manners, though. We don't want to go messing with the way they've got things set up," said Yuna
"Wait a moment, I think I've got something." Ikhan took out two bands of cloth, held them side-by-side, and recited a charm of intermediate length. His comrades waited until he was done to speak.
"What's that do, Ikhan?"
He held up one of the bands, and let go of the other. It had been charmed to maintain the exact same shape and height as the first one. It looked as though he now had only one band, that was twice as thick. He moved the one he held back and forth, and the counterpart moved back and forth, as well. The doppelganger even swayed like the one in Ikhan's hand. "We should be able to use these," he said.
With some effort, he pulled the bands apart from each other and slid them so that the door was now between them. He slowly brought the two of them together, so that the one on the inside was looped around the dead-bolt and molded to its shape.
Then, let got of the inside-band to pull the door shut. The one band which they could see remained stuck to the outside of the door, in the exact shape of its counterpart on the inside, looking as though it were wrapped around an invisible dead-bolt.
Ikhan then grasped the outside-band and slid it across the door frame. They could hear the sound that the dead-bolt made as it slid into place and locked the door.
"Almost done," he said. The next thing he did was release the spell. The band on the outside sprang away from the door and landed on the steps. As, presumably, had its twin on the inside.
"We won't be able to get back in by ourselves," said Ikhan. "Since the bands have to be touching when I say the spell, but that shouldn't be a problem. There are five people here, after all. We'll just knock when we want back in." He pocketed the cloth band, and grinned.
"Right" he said. "Now, I'm hungry. Want to go find some food?"
An hour later, they had eaten and were getting ready to do a dive in the lake. The six of them were looking curiously at the five people who had come outside to watch them.
"So, what are you doing here?" asked Ikhan. "If you have time to watch us, I'm curious about why you wouldn't do this job yourselves."
"Fire and lightning don't mix well with water," explained Tao. "We're just here to make sure the kiddies don't drown in the alligator pond."
Frankenstein sighed. "We're a rather refined group," he admitted. "We don't have much expertise when it comes to tasks such as this."
The Human magic-user seemed to accept this, and he nodded before turning back to his comrades.
"Right. Seira, Regis, you've never used this kind of spell before, right?"
"No," answered Regis. Seira shook her head.
"There's a few things to keep in mind, then: the amulets will drain your energy, so we'll want to rest every hour or so, to avoid exhaustion. When you get down to the bottom, walking along it will sometimes stir up silt and make the water cloudy. If that happens, we rise above it and rendezvous with the others."
"Also," said Yuna. "You don't want to go from too deep to the surface too quickly. You feel really great for a few minutes, and then things start to hurt like heck, and Ikhan winds up having to use a bunch of magic to un-paralyse you."
Frankenstein spoke up. "The phenomenon you refer to is called 'the bends,'" he said. "I was not aware it could be treated with magic." He looked curiously at the Human mage, who shrugged.
"It's caused by a sudden change in pressure," he said. "Knowing the cause means we can treat it and heal it," he looked at Yuna. "That only seems to be a problem in the ocean. At least, it's never happened to us in a lake before," he shrugged again.
Shinwoo was impatient. "We know, we know, we're not supposed to do stupid things in the water. Can we go now?"
Ikhan huffed. "Fine, Shinwoo. You'll be searching with Yuna."
Shinwoo grinned. "Let's go."
The pair of them waded out into the deeper water and ducked their heads under.
"Seira, I assume you're searching with Regis?"
She nodded.
"Right. Suyi, want to search with me?"
"Sure!"
The remaining four of them disappeared from sight soon after.
For the first few minutes, moving about under the water was a fascinating sensation.
It got old very fast, though.
Once they got over the fact that they were using magic, had to watch out for alligators, and were looking for a mysterious silver treasure, it was very much like cleaning a house.
It took them three hours to clear their section, and there was no sign of silver in any of the things they'd dragged to the surface. Yuna and Shinwoo had decided that, since they were down there anyway, they might as well get anything that might be of value or interest off the bottom of the lake.
By the water's edge, there was a small pile of flotsam: a few bottles of wine that had been in a sunken boat; a half-way rusted sword; a few fishing hooks.
The six party-members now sat in a circle, submerged below their mouths in the water. They were breathing the water back out of their lungs and taking in air before emerging fully: a process that took a few minutes.
After they were standing by the side of lake, and had removed their amulets for the day, Ikhan insisted on performing a low-level healing spell on each of them.
"Human lungs were meant to breathe air, not water," he explained, as he placed a hand on Regis' forehead and cast Healing. "Plus, water carries sickness more easily than air."
"Well, I'm not Human," Regis pointed out. He was curious about the spell, though."How did the incantation for that one go again?" he asked.
Ikhan recited it for him, slowly. Soon, Regis was able to repeat it. He was still fairly inept at it, as Ikhan managed to heal Yuna, Seira, and Shinwoo in the time it had taken Regis to heal Suyi.
"I think you're getting the hang of it," congratulated Ikhan.
Regis nodded. "Want me to heal you?"
Ikhan smiled. "Yeah, thanks. It's a pain trying to perform spells on yourself."
Regis was faster this time, and soon the party was stretching and talking.
"I can't believe we'll be doing this seven more times," complained Suyi.
"We probably won't," Yuna said. "Each time we do this, it's more likely that we'll find it. It's unlikely that it'll be in the last one we search"
One of the five people watching spoke up. It was the adolescent: Cadis Etrama Di Raizel. Up until this point, they'd never heard him say a word.
"Your party is a strange one," he observed. "How did people so different come to meet each other?" he wondered.
Yuna smiled. "Well," she said, "Ikhan and Shinwoo have been best friends since they met each other."
"That was when they were six months old," offered Suyi.
"They're some of the strongest fighters among our peers," continued Yuna. "But they're not the most traditional of warriors."
"Ikhan takes forever to decide whether or not to kill someone, so he has a hard time being in positions of authority."
"And Shinwoo can't keep a schedule to save his life, so that killed guard duty as a career option."
Shinwoo was shaking his head. "What about you guys, then? Suyi, you're only with us because you're dead-set on being a paladin rather than a bard."
"Both of her parents are bards," explained Ikhan.
Seira hadn't heard this story before. "What about you, Yuna?"
The Human archer shrugged. "I actually don't have an interesting back-story. I followed family tradition; we just happen specialize in outsider work."
M-21 spoke next: "I think Raizel was referring to the contrast between the other two members of your party and yourselves."
"Really? But they're not as different from the four of us as the four of us are from each other..." Suyi said.
Regis regarded the quartet of listeners coldly. "I am out here as part of my coming-of-age ceremony," he said. "As part of the requirements, I'm only allowed to use my powers in limited circumstances. These do not include defending ourselves from a group of humans doing nothing more than insulting us."
Tao grinned. "So you started out by insulting each other?"
Regis shook his head. "No. The humans with nothing better to do than torment us were part of a seasoned party." He turned to gesture sweepingly at the four humans. "These idiots became interested when one of the humans misused the word 'retarded', and the four of them tried to explain to their fellow humans why the use of the word was ill-conceived. They even suggested some alternate insults."
He smiled sardonically. "Their older humans did not appreciate the advice, and wound up picking a fight. The the aggressors left the battleground with moderate injuries."
"We were only trying to help," said Ikhan. "People don't realize how important word-choice is; not our fault they took it the wrong way."
"You emerged victorious against more experienced opponents?"
"Well, Shinwoo did. The rest of us more or less stood there and laughed."
Tao was eying Shinwoo doubtfully.
"Trust me," said Regis. "He's very strong, for a Human."
Shinwoo snorted. "And you're very nice, Regis," he said, "for an Elf."